Obama to Netanyahu: Shut Up

The Obama administration can’t take the heat. Stung by Israeli Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu’s reaction to the so-called “deal” made with Iran, President Obama has asked the Israeli leader to “take a breather from his clamorous criticism,” according to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius.

Netanyahu’s anger is justified. Despite the ostensible reality that Israel is America’s staunchest Middle East ally, the Obama administration was engaged in six months of secret, high-level talks with Israel’s foremost enemy. Obama informed Netanyahu of this reality on September 30. And while he seemingly took Obama’s announcement in stride, a day later the Israeli Prime Minister delivered a blistering speech to the UN General Assembly, calling Iranian President Hasan Rouhani a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” looking to exploit this latest diplomatic effort to advance his nation’s nuclear weapons agenda. He also made it clear where his nation stood on the issue. “I want there to be no confusion on this point. Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons,” he insisted. “If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”

In the following weeks, there was no let up by Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, and on November 24 Obama phoned the Prime Minister in an effort assuage his concerns. The two leaders agreed to have an Israeli delegation, headed by National SecurityAdviser Yossi Cohen, ensconced in Washington, D.C. to iron out a deal that keeps Israel in the loop going forward. Obama also assured Netanyahu the both nations were on the same page with regard Iranian policy goals. It was during that phone call that Obama reportedly asked Netanyahu to tone down his rhetoric.

Via: Canada Free Press

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[VIDEO] Rep. McDermott (D-Wash): Jesus 'Didn't Charge Food Stamps'

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) said on MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation” Wednesday that when Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish, “he didn’t charge food stamps.”

“When Jesus had those five loaves and two fishes, he didn't charge food stamps. He didn't ask anybody how much money they had. He fed them because they were hungry, and that's really where we ought to be,” McDermott said in response to Republican critics of the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

In September, the House approved a plan by Republicans to cut $39 billion in food stamps over the next 10 years. In 2009, there were 33,489,975 people on food stamps. As of Nov. 8, 2013, a total of 47,666,124 people participated in the SNAP program (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

“Congressman, what do your Republican congressman say to you when you tell them how much their policies are really hurting real people, real poor people?” Rev. Al Sharpton, host of “PoliticsNation,” asked McDermott.

Via: CNS News

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Ills of HealthCare.gov: Insurers say ObamaCare site producing flawed forms

So you think you've succeeded in making it through the ObamaCare website maze, and now you have health insurance? You might want to think again. 

Despite the Obama administration's claim that HealthCare.gov is "vastly improved," insurance companies are still grappling with error-riddled files fed to them from the flawed website. The lingering glitch could cause major problems weeks down the road, resulting in people thinking they've signed up when insurance companies have no record of them doing so. 

These so-called "back-end" problems were largely glossed over when federal health officials confidently claimed over the weekend they had met their own goals for improving the website by Dec. 1. 

Administration officials said early Sunday that they have fixed roughly 400 computer "bugs" and increased capacity so the site can now handle more than 800,000 users daily with an error rate of less than 1 percent. Jeff Zients, the official appointed to fix the ObamaCare site since its disastrous Oct. 1 rollout, said it is "night and day from what it was." 

But insurers continue to deal with the same set of problems that have shaken their confidence for weeks in the system they have to rely on to enroll new customers. 

Via: Fox News

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Wage Strikes Planned at Fast-Food Outlets

Seeking to increase pressure on McDonald’s, Wendy’s and other fast-food restaurants, organizers of a movement demanding a $15-an-hour wage for fast-food workers say they will sponsor one-day strikes in 100 cities on Thursday and protest activities in 100 additional cities.

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Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Protesters outside a Taco Bell in Michigan in July.

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• Life on $7.25 an Hour (December 1, 2013)

As the movement struggles to find pressure points in its quest for substantially higher wages for workers, organizers said strikes were planned for the first time in cities like Charleston, S.C.; Providence, R.I.; and Pittsburgh.

The protests have expanded greatly since November 2012, when 200 fast-food workers engaged in a one-day strike at more than 20 restaurants in New York City, the first such walkout in the history of the nation’s fast-food industry.

“There’s been pretty huge growth in one year,” said Kendall Fells, one of the movement’s main organizers. “People understand that a one-day strike is not going to get them there. They understand that this needs to continue to grow.”

The movement, which includes the groups Fast Food Forward and Fight for 15, is part of a growing union-backed effort by low-paid workers — including many Walmart workers and workers for federal contractors — that seeks to focus attention on what the groups say are inadequate wages.

The fast-food effort is backed by the Service Employees International Union and is also demanding that restaurants allow workers to unionize without the threat of retaliation.

Is There An Obama Doctrine?

Six days before completing his negotiations with Iran, Secretary of State John Kerry told a somewhat confused assembly of Latin American diplomats that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” Greeted with (as the transcript has it) “tentative applause,” Kerry left his script to assure the audience “that’s worth applauding–that’s not a bad thing”–and accidentally to provide, as we’ll see, the best summary yet of the President’s foreign policy.

The uncertainty of Mr. Kerry’s audience should be excused, since the Monroe Doctrine as represented in his speech is wildly different from the historical original–and in all the ways we’ve come to expect from the Obama Administration. Monroe’s speech was a bold pronouncement by a still-young republic that European nations seeking to expand their empires should look elsewhere than the Americas. It was anti-colonial and explicitly reciprocal:

Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none.

The actual Monroe Doctrine protected American independence and, by extension, the self-determination of the newly-independent South American republics. It was, in other words, the opposite of the imperialistic policy Mr. Kerry (perhaps ignorantly) repudiated and implicitly apologized for. One can never expect accuracy to get in the way when this Administration has an opportunity to score cheap political points (“that’s worth applauding”) at the expense of its always benighted predecessors.

Via: The Federalist

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Obamacare’s effective minimum wage hike will cost jobs in 2015

Will President Barack Obama be discouraged if his plan to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour doesn’t pass the House? Probably not — Obamacare is already effectively raising the minimum wage to $10.30.

Obamacare’s employer mandate, which requires businesses to provide health coverage to full-time workers, raises the cost of employing a single person by $2.24 per hour. Job cuts and small business-downsizing can be expected, according to a significant new report by the Heritage Foundation’s James Sherk and Patrick Tyrrell.

This effective minimum wage hike is strictly enforced under Obamacare. Small businesses of at least 50 employees will have to pay hefty fines for each worker not insured — fines that essentially add up to the cost of providing all workers insurance.

Via: Daily Caller

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In states' latest battle with organized labor, Illinois public unions target Democratic lawmakers

The latest battle between organized labor and states trying to fix huge budget problems by cutting pension costs has surfaced in Illinois, where public union leaders are waging an all-out effort to stop the Democrat-led campaign.

Details of a plan reached last week appear to show state legislative leaders are attempting to solve Illinois' $100 billion pension crisis in part by changing workers' retirement age, reducing automatic pension increases and limiting their collective-bargaining privileges.

Union leaders argue the plan to help the under-funded pension plan, which appears to have bipartisan support, seems no different than the one the General Assembly rejected earlier this year.

“It’s an unfair, unconstitutional scheme that undermines retirement security,” the We Are One Illinois labor coalition said last week as details of the plan emerged. "It’s no compromise at all with those who earned and paid for their retirement benefits. In fact, reports suggest the leaders have repackaged Senate Bill 1 and barely bothered to disguise it.”

Rank-and-file state lawmakers were briefed on the plan Friday, and a vote could come as early as this week.

Via: Fox News

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Eye on 2016, Clintons Rebuild Bond With Blacks

Inside Bright Hope Baptist Church, the luminaries of Philadelphia’s black political world gathered for the funeral of former Representative William H. Gray III in July. Dozens of politicians — city, state and federal — packed the pews as former President Bill Clinton offered a stirring eulogy, quoting Scripture and proudly telling the crowd that he was once described as “the only white man in America who knew all the verses to ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing.’ ”

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• As Fund-Raisers in Congress, Women Break the Cash Ceiling(November 30, 2013)

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Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Hillary Rodham Clinton at a Sunday church service in Columbia, S.C., during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

But it was the presence and behavior of Hillary Rodham Clinton that most intrigued former Gov. Edward G. Rendell: During a quiet moment, Mrs. Clinton leaned over to the governor and pressed him for details about the backgrounds, and the influence, of the assembled black leaders.

Since Mrs. Clinton left the secretary of state post in February, she and her husband have sought to soothe and strengthen their relationship with African-Americans, the constituency that was most scarred during her first bid for the presidency. Five years after remarks by Mr. Clinton about Barack Obama deeply strained the Clintons’ bond with African-Americans, the former first family is setting out to ensure that there is no replay of such trouble in 2016.

Mrs. Clinton used two of her most high-profile speeches, including one before a black sorority convention, to address minority voting rights — an explosive issue among African-Americans since the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act in June. A month after Mr. Gray’s funeral, Mrs. Clinton and her husband both asked to speak at the service for Bill Lynch, a black political strategist who is credited with the election of David N. Dinkins as mayor of New York, and stayed for well over two hours in a crowd full of well-connected mourners. And there have been constant personal gestures, especially by the former president.

Via: NYT

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FORMER WH ADVISER PLOUFFE: PEOPLE 'TRUST THIS PRESIDENT'

Appearing on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, former senior White House adviser David Plouffe made the awkward comment that Americans “trust this president.” He admitted that it had been a “tough patch” for President Obama in the wake of the exposing of his lies about Obamacare and his disastrous Iran deal.

“It’s not just healthcare, you know, the shutdown affected everybody, confidence in government.” But, Plouffe said, Obama would soon see an upswing: “let’s fast forward to the State of the Union and the months after that: Health care working better, a lot of people signing up, economy continuing to strengthen, hopefully no Washington shutdowns.”

This is wishful thinking on Plouffe’s part, given the fact that the Obamacare fines have not yet kicked in, and neither has the full employer mandate. Polls show that for the first time, President Obama is seeing a steady decline not only in his job approval numbers, but in his personal favorability ratings – and that decline is prolonged. By late October, Obama was in negative territory, with only 41 percent of Americans favoring him personally, against 45 percent who viewed him negatively.

Via: Breitbart

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Hill leaders: Terror threat growing in US; intel community not the 'bad guys'

The worldwide terror threat is growing and changing, making Americans less safe than they were in years past, the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees said Sunday.

“Terror is up worldwide,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “The statistics indicate that. The fatalities are way up.”

Feinstein made her comments on CNN’s “State of the Union” during a joint interview with Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who argued the terror group Al Qaeda continues to grow and consolidate.

“What's happening in places like Syria [is] that you have a pooling of Al Qaeda and affiliates. …  Groups have changed the way they communicate, which means it's less likely that we're going to be able to detect something prior to an event.”

Rogers also suggested that public scrutiny over U.S. intelligence work, brought on by recent disclosures about the efforts of the National Security Agency and others, has hurt anti-terror efforts.

“We’re fighting amongst ourselves here in this country about the role of our intelligence community,” he said. “That is having an impact on our ability to stop what is a growing number of threats. Our intelligence community isn’t the bad guys.”

Via: Fox News

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GOP Launches Major Push to Capture Blue State Senate Seats

Republicans are targeting blue states with competitive races in an effort to win back a majority in the Senate, Politico reports. 

The GOP currently holds 45 seats in the Senate to the Democrats' 55, so it needs to win only six of those elections. Seven states currently represented by Democrats were carried by Mitt Romney in 2012, but Republicans want to increase their chances, so they are also targeting other close elections in purple states, and even some blue ones.

Republicans hope to capitalize on anti-Obamacare sentiment as the program has suffered glitches in its website and in trust in a White House that promised people they could keep their insurance and that premiums would not rise.

Even if a GOP hoped-for backlash against Obamacare doesn't pan out, Politico notes that Democrats could be forced to pull money from bigger races to spend money on less-consequential contests.

Republicans already hold a majority in the House of Representatives.

New York Times statistician Nate Silver has been predicting a possible GOP turnover of the Senate since early this year. Silver's predictions were made months before the disastrous rollout of Obamacare. 

Among the states Politico sees as most likely GOP prospects are Michigan, Iowa, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon and Hawaii.

With Sen. Carl Levin retiring in Michigan, Republicans there have rallied behind state Sen. Terri Lynn Land. In Iowa, Sen. Tom Harkin also announced his retirement. No clear leader has emerged there.

In New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen won in 2008 with only 52 percent. Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has now moved his primary residence to the Granite State and has been toying with challenging Shaheen.

Via: Newsmax
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