Marines looking to deploy on foreign ships because the U.S. doesn’t have enough

Anyone who thinks Barack Obama never saw a dollar he didn’t want to spend . . . OK, that’s probably true, but there are some reasons for spending a dollar for which he doesn’t have much use. And as we all know, the military is at the top of that list. Every dollar spent on the Armed Forces is a dollar Obama can’t spend regulating industry, having the IRS harass his political opponents or illegally subsidizing health care premiums.

.So why build enough ships for the Marines to fulfill their responsibilities. President Leading From Behind doesn’t want the U.S. to be a global leader anyway, and hey, there’s always foreign ships! Maybe they can hitch a ride on them. Now this is the point where you probably think I’m slipping into the absurd to get your attention.

Nope:

Faced with a shortage of U.S. Navy ships, the Marine Corps is exploring a plan to deploy its forces aboard foreign vessels to ensure they can respond quickly to global crises around Europe and western Africa.

  The initiative is a stopgap way to deploy Marines aboard ships overseas until more American vessels are available, said Brig. Gen. Norman Cooling, deputy commander, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa.

  The Marines will be able to respond quickly to evacuate embassies or protect U.S. property and citizens, a need highlighted by the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.

“There’s no substitute for U.S. amphibious” vessels, Cooling said. “We’re looking at other options” in the meantime, he added.

  The Marines have been working with Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and other close allies to determine the suitability of the foreign ships for U.S. personnel and aircraft.

  The units would be designed for limited operations and not major amphibious assaults. A ground force of about 100 to 120 Marines would be deployed along with three or four Ospreys, which fly like airplanes but can take off and land like helicopters.

  The U.S. Navy has 30 amphibious ships but says it needs 38 to fulfill war fighting requirements. It won’t reach that level until 2028 because of budget constraints, according to the Navy.

You know, this is funny, this talk of “budget constraints.” The U.S spends upwards of $3.7 trillion every year, and it’s been that way ever since 2009 when the Democrats passed an $862 billion spending blowout they claimed was a one-time “stimulus package,” but was actually added to the budgeting baseline for subsequent years. You probably didn’t notice that because the Democrat-controlled Senate under the leadership of Harry Reid simply stopped passing budgets. But they didn’t stop spending the money.

So if there are “budget constraints” for the Pentagon, it’s only because Congress and the administration went so completely hog-wild in every other aspect of the federal budget - running deficits north of $1 trillion five years in a row, and having an absolute conniption fit when Republicans tried to demand spending reductions in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

So now we don’t have enough ships for the Marines to do their jobs, and they’re seriously having to seek space on foreign ships.

Nice job, the 52 percent of you idiots who re-elected this guy. 

Via: Canada Free Press

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Top 10 Broken Obamacare Promises

Since the passage of Obamacare in 2010, many of the President’s famous promises have been routinely broken. As he so ironically threatened in 2009, “If you misrepresent what’s in this plan, we will call you out.” To that end, here are 10 promises of Obamacare that have already been broken.

1. “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period.”

Reality:

• Millions of Americans have lost and will lose their current coverage due to Obamacare.
• 4.7 million reported health insurance cancellations or changes of existing policies in 32 states.

2. “[T]hat means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period.”

Reality:

• Many Americans might not be able to keep their current doctor without paying extra.
• Many plans offered on Obamacare’s exchanges have very limited provider networks.

3. “In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year.”

Reality:

• Premiums for people purchasing coverage in the individual market have significantly increased in a majority of states.
• Family premiums for those with employer-based coverage have increased by an average of $2,976 from 2009 to 2013.

Via: The Foundry

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Houston voters skip nostalgia, reject measure to save Astrodome

Election results Tuesday might have doomed Houston's iconic Astrodome.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske

3:33 p.m. CST, November 6, 2013

HOUSTON -- The Astrodome, once lauded as the "Eighth Wonder of the World," may soon be a landmark of the past.

About 53% of voters Tuesday rejected a ballot measure that would have paid to renovate the country’s first air-conditioned domed stadium. 

The nostalgic value of the now rusty Dome, shuttered in 2009, may have been lost on new voters in Houston and surrounding Harris County, which adds about 10,000 residents a month and is now home to about 4.4 million, officials said. Many local sports fans are drawn to the nearby gleaming Reliant Stadium, which opened in 2002 and hosts the Houston Texans football team.

Via: Chicago Tribune

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'Real' Unemployment: 13.8%

(CNSNews.com) – The “real” unemployment rate rose from 13.6% in September to 13.8% in October, according to figures released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Though the national unemployment rate is 7.3%, the “real” unemployment rate is a broader measure of the number of people in the United States, 16 and older, currently looking for jobs.

Known as the U-6 unemployment rate, this “real” unemployment figure, seasonally adjusted, includes the unemployed “plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons ….”

The U-6 rate captures the fuller picture of people who are willing and able to work, but cannot find a job.

Since President Barack Obama has been president, the  U-6 unemployment rate rose from 14.25% in January 2009 to a high of 17.1% in October, November and December 2009 and the same rate in February, March, and April 2010.  The U-6 rate did not fall below 14% under Obama until March 2013, when it hit 13.8%, the same rate for October 2013.

Via: CNS News

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Obama Changes “You Can Keep It” Vow: “What We Said Was You Can Keep It If It Hasn’t Changed Since The Law Passed”…

Obama speaking to OFA:

Actually, that’s not what he said at all. Obama’s vow was as clear as day, people could keep their plans if they liked them. End of story.

Via: Weasel Zippers

Collateral Damage

Collateral damage is defined by Wikipedia as "damage to things that are incidental to the intended target."

This week, several million Americans who had individual health insurance policies were notified that effective January 1, their policy would not be renewed as it did not meet the specifications outlined in the Obamacare mandate. 

Next year, at about this same time, millions more will find that their employer will no longer be providing insurance coverage for them, as it will be cheaper to pay the fines than to provide the mandated coverage.  To those currently losing their insurance and the millions more that will find their employer covered healthcare dropping a year from now, there is a term for your suffrage:  "Collateral damage."

The left has been pushing for universal health care as a step toward the single payer system for decades.  This golden goose could not be had if two things didn't happen:  1) The dems had to control both houses and the White house and 2) The majority of Americans who were happy with their health care plan had to be forced out of those plans and pushed onto the government exchange.  This system can not work unless everyone is eventually mandated to participate in it.  Two-for-two...as Obama put it "we won."

We witnessed the lengths the left would go to when it came time to tally the votes on Christmas eve 2009 for this legislation.  Now, we witness - after the fact - the all out assault of lies have been told in the effort to "sell" this travesty to the public.  If the truth had been offered by the president and this administration, back in 2009, there's no way on earth they would have had the votes to pass the Act.  Can you imagine the calls to Democrat senators if their constituents were told that they can't keep their current plans, doctors and premiums?  The 2010 loss of the house to Republicans would have been accompanied by a Democrat loss of the Senate as well.

Via: American Thinker

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IRS paid out $132 billion in bogus tax credits over last decade

The IRS paid as much as $13.6 billion in bogus claims for the Earned Income Tax Credit last year, according to a report the agency’s internal auditor released Tuesday morning.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said it warned the IRS in 2011 that it was making the erroneous payments, but two years later the agency hasn’t fixed the problem.

Over the last decade, the IRS could have paid out as much as $132.6 billion in improper payments.

“The IRS has made little improvement in reducing improper EITC payments as a whole since it has been required to report estimates of these payments to Congress,” the inspector general said. “The IRS acknowledges that further reductions in the EITC improper payment rate will be difficult to achieve.”

Investigators said the IRS is still violating an executive order President Obama signed in 2009 telling agencies to come up with ways to reduce improper payments.

The EITC is designed to transfer money to the working poor through the tax system. But analysts said it is a complex program that is difficult to check for eligibility.

Bogus payments can include those that never should have been paid, or were paid out in the wrong amount. According to the audit, the improper payments accounted for between 21 percent and 25 percent of all EITC claims in 2012. That means between $11.6 billion and $13.6 billion was misspent.

Those figures do show a little progress. In 2010, as much as 29 percent of EITC payments were erroneous, accounting for up to $18.4 billion.

Via: Washington Times

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THE BIG FAIL: Third Quarter GDP Report Indicates The New Obama Normal: Stagnation

THE THIRD QUARTER GDP REPORT CONFIRMS AN ANEMIC RECOVERY UNDER OBAMA

The First Of Three Estimates Of Growth For The July-September Quarter Sketched A Picture That’s Been Familiar All Year: The Economy Is Growing At A Tepid Rate…” “The first of three estimates of growth for the July-September quarter sketched a picture that’s been familiar all year: The economy is growing at a tepid rate, slowed by high unemployment and corporate anxiety over an unresolved budget crisis and a slowing global economy.” (“US Economic Growth Improves To 2 Percent Rate In Q3 On Higher Defense, Consumer Spending,” The Associated Press , 10/26/12)

National GDP Grew By 2 Percent In The Third Quarter. “Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 2.0 percent in the third quarter of 2012 (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.” (Press Release, “National Income And Product Accounts – Gross Domestic Product: Third Quarter 2012 (Advance Estimate),” Bureau Of Economic Analysis, 10/26/12)

The Average GDP Growth For 2012 Thus Far In The Year Trails That Of 2011. “And the 1.74 percent rate for 2012 trails last year’s 1.8 percent growth, a point GOP nominee Mitt Romney will emphasize.” (Christopher S. Rugaber, “US Economic Growth Improves To 2 Pct. Rate In Q3,” The Associated Press , 10/26/12)

• “Growth Was Held Back By The First Drop In Exports In More Than Three Years And Flat Business Investment In Equipment And Software.” (Christopher S. Rugaber, “US Economic Growth Improves To 2 Pct. Rate In Q3,” The Associated Press , 10/26/12)

• “Growth Was Held Back By The First Drop In Exports In More Than Three Years And Flat Business Investment In Equipment And Software.” (“US Economic Growth Improves to 2 Percent Rate In Q3 On Higher Defense, Consumer Spending,” The Associated Press , 10/26/12)

• Sectors That Previously Drove Growth In The Economy “Are Now Fading.” “While growth remains modest, the factors supporting the economy have changed. Exports and business investment drove growth for most of the recovery, but are now fading. Meanwhile, consumer spending has ticked up. And housing is adding to growth after a six-year slump.” (“U.S. Economic Growth Improves To 2 Percent Rate In Q3 On Higher Defense, Consumer Spending,” The Associated Press , 10/26/12)

• “Weaker Business Investment Held Back Growth…” “Weaker business investment held back growth in the third quarter, a sign that companies are hesitant to spend amid broad uncertainty over policies in Washington and slowing demand from abroad. Nonresidential fixed investment, a category that includes business spending on structures and equipment, fell 1.3% during the third quarter, compared with a 3.6% gain the prior period.” (Jeffrey Sparshott and Eric Morath, “GDP Rises 2%, Helped By Consumers,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/26/12)

• “Since The Recovery From The Great Recession Began In June 2009, The U.S. Economy Has Grown At The Slowest Rate Of Any Recovery In The Post-World War II Period.” (“US Economic Growth Improves To 2 Percent Rate In Q3 On Higher Defense, Consumer Spending,” The Associated Press , 10/26/12)

Via: GOP.com

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IPT: Scores of Radical Islamists Made Hundreds of Visits to the Obama White House

A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials.

Court documents and other records have identified many of these visitors as belonging to groups serving as fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other Islamic militant organizations.

The IPT made the discovery combing through millions of White House visitor log entries. IPT compared the visitors' names with lists of known radical Islamists. Among the visitors were officials representing groups which have:

• Been designated by the Department of Justice as unindicted co-conspirators in terrorist trials; Extolled Islamic terrorist groups including Hamas and Hizballah;
• Obstructed terrorist investigations by instructing their followers not to cooperate with law enforcement;
• Promoted the incendiary conspiratorial allegation that the United States is engaged in a "war against Islam"— a leading tool in recruiting Muslims to carry out acts of terror;
• Repeatedly claimed that many of the Islamic terrorists convicted since 9-11 were framed by the U.S government as part of an anti-Muslim profiling campaign.

Individuals from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) visited the White House at least 20 times starting in 2009. In 2008, CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist money laundering case in U.S. history – the trial of the Holy Land Foundation in which five HLF officials were convicted of funneling money to Hamas.

U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis later ruled that, "The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the association" of CAIR to Hamas, upholding their designations as unindicted co-conspirators. In 2008, the FBI formally ended all contact with CAIR because of its ties to Hamas.

Via: IPT

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GOP STUDY: For Every Person Added to Labor Force, 10 Added to Those Not in Labor Force

For Every Person Added to Labor Force, 10 Added to Those Not in Labor Force

A new chart from the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee details the fact that, since January 2009, for every person added to the labor force, 10 have been added to those not in the labor force. Here's a chart showing the dwindling labor force:

That is, in nearly the four years, since President Obama took office in January 2009, only 827,000 people have been added to the labor force, while during that same time period, 8,208,000 have been added to those not in the labor force.

Via: Weekly Standard

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OPINION: Why Obama's Falling Apart

A presidential reelection campaign needs three key elements: a defense of the incumbent’s record, a successful effort to define the opposition and a compelling vision of a second term.

President Obama may well celebrate a second term in Chicago next month, but the conventional wisdom underestimates the difficulty he faces, as his campaign has distinct problems with all three elements

.

His defense of his record is exceptionally weak, his effort to define Mitt Romney is nearly exhausted, and his vision for the next four years — perhaps the most important — has been largely missing from his effort this year.

Defense of the incumbent’s record

Four years ago, Obama expressed great confidence that he would be running amid renewed prosperity; he famously told Matt Lauer, “One nice thing about the situation I find myself in is that I will be held accountable. You know, I’ve got four years...If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

In February 2009, even most Republicans would probably have predicted that by 2012, the country would be feeling much more prosperous, with much lower unemployment.

Friday’s jobs report brought much-needed good news, with the 114,000 new jobs in the payroll survey meeting economists’ expectations and bringing unemployment down to 7.8% — but that was fueled by 582,000 part-time jobs. GDP growth is at a meager 1.3%, gasoline is averaging $3.78 per gallon nationally and the foreclosure rate is only slightly below 2011’s 17-year peak.

Any fan of Obama who tells you he expected the country to be in this condition at this moment is either lying to you or lying to themselves.

Still, Obama’s poll numbers have overcome the economic gloom for much of the year, because many Americans concluded he was doing the best he could after stepping into a bad situation. Probably the single most effective line of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was Bill Clinton’s declaration, “no President — not me, not any of my predecessors — no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.”

Via: Daily News

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Obama's Quasi-Tax Increases

When most people think about taxes, the first thing that comes to mind are federal and state taxes.  Some will remember sales taxes, Social Security taxes, and Medicare taxes. 

What unites all of these taxes are that they are burdens placed by government on the citizens of America.  When we talk about the full tax burden Americans endure, it behooves us to count all of the ways in which the government forces us to spend our money.

To understand the full tax burden of Americans, we need to look at all the government does that directly financially impacts each American.  For example, since 9/11, every time you fly, you have to allocate an extra hour or more to deal with security.  That hour you lose is a burden imposed by the government that does not show up on your regular tax bill, but since time is money, that hour does impact your life.

Any sort of government imposed non-tax financial burden can be called a quasi-tax in that it takes money out of the pockets of Americans, but it is not levied in the manner normal taxes are, and the money does not necessarily go directly to the government.

These quasi-taxes can have a huge impact on both the economy and the financial well-being of every American.  Additionally they can be extremely regressive and disproportionately target those Americans with the least money.

Obama has imposed a number of highly regressive quasi-taxes on Americans since he assumed office in 2009.

The price of gas has doubled under Obama.  While that entire price change is not Obama's fault, his support for dramatic reductions in new drilling permits on federal lands and his inept foreign policy in the Middle East have contributed to reducing the oil supply and hence increasing the price of gasoline.

Via: American Thinker

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Gasparino: GM’s Devil’s Bargain

GM’s devil’s bargain - Still stuck with Uncle Sam

The Obama campaign raves about how it “saved the auto industry” — that is, the government’s bailout mainly of General Motors — and so preserved millions of jobs.

But if it was such a success, why is the bailout losing so much money — and why do current GM managers want nothing to do with Washington as they try to save the company?

The answer: They know that with the lefties in the Obama administration breathing down their necks, their chances of ever restoring GM to its past glory are anywhere from slim to none.

Of course, it’s hard to feel sorry for GM’s management, which news reports and my own sources say has been prodding the administration to sell off its remaining 26.5 percent stake in the company. GM’s bosses invited Uncle Sam in — tough luck for them that he doesn’t want to leave.

For way too long, the Big Three — GM, Ford and Chrysler — kept on cutting generous wage and benefit deals with their unionized workforce as if it was still the 1950s and ’60s, when foreign competition didn’t exist. By 2009, that heyday was long, long past — and the Great Recession brought their highly flawed business model crashing down.

The $17 billion in loans from the Bush administration in its waning days wasn’t enough. GM and Chrysler came hat in hand to the President Obama for a little more hope and change.

An easy solution would have been to let the companies reorganize under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. They’d have had a good chance to survive; plenty of other companies have restructured under bankruptcy protection and emerged later as viable businesses. American Airlines is doing it right now, and without major disruptions in service, or mass layoffs.

As it turned out, Chrysler and then GM did declare banktuptcy — but the resolution wasn’t the normal court-overseen reorganization. Under Obama, the feds dumped in tens of billions more into the companies and took controlling stakes in an industry that was once a bedrock of free-market capitalism.

In the administration-overseen restructuring, bondholders got hit hard in what many legal experts say was a violation of bankruptcy laws, and dealerships around the nation got slammed

.

But the president’s buddies in the United Auto Workers largely feasted. Sure, the absurd “jobs bank” — Detroit’s version of a “no show job,” where the auto companies basically handed fired workers free money — got shut down. And new hires lost out on the old guaranteed pensions for the market-driven 401-k plan that most of the rest of us rely on for retirement.

Via: New York Post

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U.S. Poverty Rate At Record 15 Percent

U.S. Poverty Rate 15 Percent; Record Numbers Persist

WASHINGTON — The ranks of America’s poor remain stuck at a record 15 percent, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday.

Roughly 46.2 million people remained below the poverty line in 2011, unchanged from 2010. The figure is the highest in more than a half-century.

And while joblessness is 

persistently high, the gap between rich and poor increased in the last year. The top 1 percent of wage earners had a 6 percent increase in income, while income at the bottom 40 percent of earners was basically unchanged, said David Johnson, the chief of the Census Bureau’s household economics division.

“A lot of the increase is driven by changes at the very top of the distribution,” Mr. Johnson said.

The report comes less than two months before the November presidential election, and the still-weak U.S. economy is the top issue for voters deciding between the leading candidates, President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney.

Experts earlier predicted a fourth straight annual rise in the poverty rate, but dwindling unemployment benefits and modest job gains helped to keep that from happening.

“This is good news and a surprise,” said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan economist who closely tracks poverty. He pointed to a continuing boost from new unemployment benefits passed in 2009 that gave workers up to 99 weeks of payments after layoffs and didn’t run out for many people until late 2011. Also, job gains in the private sector helped offset cuts in state and local government workers.

Via: The Washington Times

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Unemployment would be 11.2 percent if labor force same as when Obama took office

Last Friday’s jobs report does not tell the whole unemployment story, according to American Enterprise Institute blogger and CNBC contributor James Pethokoukis.

He writes, “If the labor force participation rate was the same as when Obama took office in January 2009, the unemployment rate would be 11.2%.”

Had the participation rate remained the same as the previous month, Pethokoukis points out, “the unemployment rate would be 8.4 percent” — higher than the 8.1 percent in the August report.

Those who have returned to work amidst the meager recovery are often only finding jobs that are part-time and pay less than what they formerly earned.

“The broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes part-time workers who want full-time work, is at 14.7 percent.”

Today, one in two are considered low income or below the poverty line, according to the Census Bureau, sparking fears of a shrinking middle class.

Record numbers of Americans receive food stamps and Social Security disability insurance, instead of seeking jobs that seem to be non-existent.

Via: The Daily Caller

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