12 Victims Killed, 8 Wounded in Shooting at D.C. Navy Yard, Suspected Gunman Killed

A gunman killed 12 people and injured eight inside a heavily secured building at the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard Monday, in one of the worst mass shootings ever at a U.S. military facility, and one of the deadliest single events ever in the nation's capital.

The suspected gunman, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis of Fort Worth, Texas, was also killed. Alexis had served as a Petty Officer in the Navy between 2007 and 2011, and had beenpreviously arrested in gun-related incidents. 

Those killed ranged in age from 46 to 73, according to D.C. Police. Officials released the following victims' names Monday night:

• Michael Arnold, 59
• Sylvia Frasier, 53
• Kathy Gaarde, 62
• John Roger Johnson, 73
• Frank Kohler, 50
• Kenneth Bernard Proctor, 46
• Vishnu Pandit, 61

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray reported late Monday eight individuals were injured, including a D.C. police officer, identified as Scott Williams, who was shot in the leg while responding to the shooting. After being in surgery for hours, doctors say they hope he will be able to walk again.

None of the fatalities is reported to be military personnel. The rest of the injured individuals suffered non-life threatening injuries and are expected to recover.

Via: NBC Washington

Continue Reading....

Better pay for home care workers under U.S. labor rule, CA bill

Don't be fooled.  It's all about more union membership!!

The U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday that federal minimum wage and overtime requirements will be extended to home health aides, certified nursing assistants and other workers who provide home care to the elderly, injured and disabled.

California currently requires employers, including individuals and families who privately pay for the services, to pay minimum wage, but not overtime. The federal rule change would require overtime at time and a half for those workers who log more than 40 hours a week beginning in 2015.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said Tuesday's announcement will ensure home care workers are paid a fair wage and "no longer treated like teenage baby-sitters."

Of the nearly 2 million people employed as home health care workers, approximately 90 percent are women and 40 percent rely on some type of public assistance.

"It's really a simple matter of fairness," said Henry Claypool, executive vice president of the American Association of People with Disabilities.

The federal mandate comes on the heels of a California bill calling for some domestic workers - in-home nannies and caregivers - to receive overtime pay for working more than nine hours a day or 45 hours in a week.

Assembly Bill 241 by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, passed the Legislature last week and is awaiting consideration by Gov. Jerry Brown. While there is overlap between the two, Ammiano's office said they are still urging Brown to sign their bill because there are some differences in who and when a person is eligible for overtime.

If signed, Ammiano's bill would be on the books in January and provide overtime protections beyond nine hours a day, instead of the weekly threshold under the federal rule. Ammiano's bill includes in home child care workers, whereas the federal law does not.

Via: Sacramento Bee

Continue Reading....

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/#storylink=cpy

WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE HOW A HIGH SCHOOL TEXTBOOK SUMMARIZES THE RIGHTS GUARANTEED IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT

Controversy is brewing around a school district in Denton, Texas, that is said to be using a United States history book that seems to summarize the Second Amendment inaccurately. However, the Denton Independent School District maintains it only uses the book as “supplemental” material and is “disseminating the correct information on the Second Amendment” from other texts.

But there are several other schools that appear to be using the book, too.

“The people have the right to keep and bear arms in a state militia,” the definition in the book, “United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination,” which acts as a study guide for the Advanced Placement U.S. history test, reads.

Source: “United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination”

The amendment as ratified by the U.S. reads [emphasis added]: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Via: The Blaze

Continue Reading....

ObamaCare = Ripoff

If you’re between the ages of 18 and 34, the Obama administration is gearing up to hit you with a hard sell like you’ve never seen before. Lady Gaga, Jennifer Hudson, Amy Poehler and other celebrities are pressing you to sign up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is handing out hundreds of millions in grants to get people to buy, and pressing companies to spend their own money too.

It has to be a hard sell, because it’s a bad deal for you: The system needs you to pay through the nose to make the ObamaCare math work.

This campaign is aimed at young people in general, but at Hispanic youth in particular, since Hispanics make up almost a third of the nation’s nonelderly uninsured population. That makes it of particular concern for the Libre Initiative, the group I lead, which focuses on advancing economic freedom among Hispanics.

President Obama even traveled to California on a visit aimed at building support in the Hispanic community and in Spanish-language media. The White House hopes 2.7 million young people will sign up, and that Latinos lead the way. The Libre Initiative is promoting a real debate in this community about how we can do better.
The White House is avoiding a pitch that convinces young people they’re getting a good deal — because they aren’t. According to recent research by the National Center for Public Policy Analysis, about 3.7 million of those ages 18-34 will save at least $500 if they choose not to buy health insurance and instead pay what the Obama administration calls the “shared responsibility” penalty. Another 3 million will save $1,000.

Via: The Libre Initiative

Continue Reading....

TEA PARTY PATRIOTS LEADER: BEWARE OF BACKROOM LAST-MINUTE OBAMACARE FUNDING DEAL

Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin warned conservatives on Sunday evening that they should be wary of a potential move from House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to fund Obamacare in a Continuing Resolution (CR) at the last minute as the fiscal year is ending.

“I think that when we are dealing with people who have continually and repeatedly made backroom deals and voted under the cover of darkness over and over and over and over, that we have to expect that that’s what they’re going to do again,” Martin said in an appearance on Breitbart News Sunday with Stephen K. Bannon on Sunday night. “We must watch and keep the pressure on and do everything that we can to make sure that does not happen.”

Technically, unless Cantor abruptly ends a long-planned scheduled recess week as he has publicly suggested he might, there are only five working days for the House left in September before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. At that time, Congress needs to pass a new CR and the president needs to sign it or the government will shut down. 

“On Tuesday when the House of Representatives gets back in [from the weekend], they’re going to have to make a decision very quickly,” Martin said. “There are only five legislative days left. They have this week from Tuesday to Friday. They’re out next week. And then they have one more day before we hit October 1, and October 1 is when our new fiscal year starts for government.”

Last week, Cantor tried to allow a House vote defunding ObamaCare but written in a manner that would allow the Senate to quickly restore the funding for the president’s healthcare law, according to a document obtained by Breitbart News. However, within 24 hours of a Tea Party Patriots Exempt America rally on Capitol Hill, Cantor withdrew the proposal.

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading....

GRAVES PLAN DELAYS AND DEFUNDS OBAMACARE

Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA) made his bid to stop the ObamaCare train wreck by introducing the Stability, Security, and Fairness Resolution, which essentially funds every part of the government except ObamaCare for the coming year.  The gigantic federal government is now funded by an endless string of emergency spending resolutions, a stack of fiscal Band-Aids high enough to reach the Moon.  Rep. Graves is simply proposing to leave ObamaCare out of this year’s check-writing frenzy, which seems only fair, since President Obama already broke the law to delay the crucial employer mandate past the 2014 elections.  Why not put the whole thing on ice until the employer mandate goes into effect?

“This plan is straightforward,” said Graves.  ”We will achieve long-term stability by funding the government for the next fiscal year. Additionally, the resolution includes the three House-passed appropriations bills that affect our national security and our veterans.  Our troops, their families and our veterans should not have their priorities put on hold.  Finally, our plan will achieve fairness for every American by fully delaying and defunding Obamacare until 2015.  This approach builds upon the Obama Administration’s policy of delaying portions of Obamacare and relieves taxpayers of the burden of funding a program that is not being implemented.”

Via: Human Events

Continue Reading....

Aaron Alexis, 34, is dead gunman in Navy Yard shooting, authorities say

By Carol D. Leonnig, Marjorie Censer and David A. Fahrenthold,

The dead gunman in Monday’s shooting at the Washington Navy Yard is Aaron Alexis, 34, a Navy veteran who was discharged after he was arrested in a shooting incident—but was later hired by a government subcontractor.

Police said it was unclear if Alexis acted alone, or how he accessed the tightly guarded Navy Yard. As of Monday evening, authorities also are still searching for another person: a black man in his 40s with gray sideburns, wearing an olive-drab military-style uniform.

Alexis, a native of New York City, worked for a company called The Experts, a subcontractor to Hewlett Packard on a federal contract to work on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet network, according to a statement from Hewlett Packard. It was unclear if Alexis was still employed by that subcontractor, or if his work took him to the Navy Yard.

Alexis died at the scene of Monday’s shooting, in which at least 12 other people died. D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray said no motive is known.

By Monday afternoon, a portrait of Alexis had begun to emerge. He lived until recently in Fort Worth, where he was seen frequently at a Buddhist temple, meditating and helping out. He was pursuing a bachelor’s of science degree in aeronautics as an online student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

But Alexis also had been accused in at least two prior shooting incidents, one in Fort Worth and one in Seattle, according to police reports.

Via: Washington Post

Continue Reading....

Following Navy Yard Shooting, Dianne Feinstein Calls for Stricter Gun-Control Laws

The California Democrat tried and failed to pass new measures after the Newtown tragedy. The First .357 times did not work.  Try, Try again.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, one of the Senate's leading voices on gun control, called for stricter gun laws in the aftermath of Monday's killings at Washington's Navy Yard.

The California Democrat said the deaths of the 12 people Monday were at the hands of a man armed with an AR-15, a shotgun, and a semiautomatic handgun, although details of his weapons have not been confirmed.

Her statement reads in part:

This is one more event to add to the litany of massacres that occur when a deranged person or grievance killer is able to obtain multiple weapons—including a military-style assault rifle—and kill many people in a short amount of time. When will enough be enough? Congress must stop shirking its responsibility and resume a thoughtful debate on gun violence in this country. We must do more to stop this endless loss of life.

She is one of the first prominent lawmakers to make the case for stricter gun laws in the aftermath of Monday's shooting, although several pundits reacted while the incident was still under way.

Feinstein failed several months ago in her effort to ban military-style assault rifles, among other measures. Republicans, worried about the impact these laws would have on the Second Amendment and law-abiding gun owners, helped defeat new gun-control measures.

Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, connected the several mass shootings in recent years to Monday's shooting in Washington.

While it is too early to know what policies might have prevented this latest tragedy, we do know that policies that present a real opportunity to save lives sit stalled in Congress, policies that could prevent many of the dozens of deaths that result every day from gun violence.  As long as our leaders in Congress ignore the will of the people and do not listen to those voices, we will hold them accountable. We hope Congress will listen to the voice of the people and take up legislation that will create a safer America.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., delayed a hearing on "Stand Your Ground" laws that was scheduled for Tuesday morning in light of the shooting at the Navy Yard. Sybrina Fulton, the mother of deceased Florida teen Trayvon Martin, was among the witnesses set to testify.

Via: National Journal

Continue Reading....

EMPLOYMENT GAP BETWEEN RICH, POOR WIDEST ON RECORD

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The gap in employment rates between America's highest- and lowest-income families has stretched to its widest levels since officials began tracking the data a decade ago, according to an analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press.

Rates of unemployment for the lowest-income families - those earning less than $20,000 - have topped 21 percent, nearly matching the rate for all workers during the 1930s Great Depression.

U.S. households with income of more than $150,000 a year have an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent, a level traditionally defined as full employment. At the same time, middle-income workers are increasingly pushed into lower-wage jobs. Many of them in turn are displacing lower-skilled, low-income workers, who become unemployed or are forced to work fewer hours, the analysis shows.

"This was no `equal opportunity' recession or an `equal opportunity' recovery," said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. "One part of America is in depression, while another part is in full employment."

The findings follow the government's tepid jobs report this month that showed a steep decline in the share of Americans working or looking for work. On Monday, President Barack Obama stressed the need to address widening inequality after decades of a "winner-take-all economy, where a few do better and better and better, while everybody else just treads water or loses ground."

Via: AP

Continue Reading...

Washington Builds a Bugaboo

How does Senator Ted Cruz tick off liberals? Let us count the ways.

Several times a day, especially if he’s out travelin’ and talkin’ to folks, as he always is when the U.S. Senate isn’t in session, Ted Cruz will stand before an audience and reflect, seemingly for the first time, about the generational shift taking place in the Republican party. 

Among that tiny fraction of Americans who are paying attention to such things, Cruz seems to be the only person who is forgetting Ted Cruz’s name. “I call them the Children of Reagan,” he says. He means the rising group of Republican officeholders who came to political consciousness during President Reagan’s two terms. He rattles off their names: “young leaders” like Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Nikki Haley, Mike Lee, Scott Walker .  .  . and then sometimes he’ll pause, letting you wonder if he’s leaving out any of the Children’s names. Sometimes a helpful fan in the audience will volunteer it, to general appreciation from the crowd.

“Americans who worry about democracy need to keep on this guy,” warned a reporter for the New Republic back in February. And no wonder! Skim the tweets or scan the blogs or, if you’re older than one of Reagan’s Children, read the actual newspapers, and you’ll soon discover that Ted Cruz is far more than the freshman senator from Texas, only eight months in office. He is also the “scary” “McCarthyite” “Taliban” “bully” and “bomb-thrower” known for his “extremism” and his “arrogant” and “nihilistic” “disregard of facts.” 

When you follow him around, however—for he is in constant motion, from Iowa to New Hampshire to every corner of Texas—this nasty fellow you’ve been reading about, the caricature Cruz, never appears. If “Ted Cruz” didn’t exist, professional Democrats and the mainstreamers in the Washington press corps would have to invent him. 

Via: Weekly Standard

Continue Reading....

Layoffs Hit Taxpayer-backed ECOtality

40 employees laid off as green energy company eyes bankruptcy

A taxpayer-backed green energy company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy laid off dozens of employees on Friday, including all remaining employees in its industrial division.

ECOtality received about $115 million in taxpayer funds through the 2009 stimulus bill and an additional grant from the Department of Energy to build electric vehicle charging stations.

ECOtality laid off 40 employees on Friday. The San Francisco-based company still has 51 people on staff, but its industrial division is empty, and it has stopped filling orders for chargers.

“It’s been a bloodbath,” one employee, who still has her job, said in documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

“We heard that last Friday’s pay was the last paycheck,” the employee said.

ECOtality announced in August that it might file for bankruptcy. The Energy Department, which selected ECOtality as its primary contractor for the EV Project, suspended payments to the company in light of its financial troubles.

ECOtality faces a class action lawsuit from investors who say company executives misled them regarding its financial health.

“Neither the company’s direct sales force nor the independent dealers have generated sales volumes of its commercial EVSE products sufficient, in combination with other sources of revenue, to support the company’s operations in the second half of 2013,” ECOtality said in an August filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It disclosed in the same filing that some of its chargers have experienced significant manufacturing defects, in some cases even causing charge ports to melt.

“The government kept throwing good money after bad even though the inevitability of this was clear for over a year,” one company executive told the Free Beacon in an email

Via: WFB

Continue Reading...

Pew Finds People Dislike Obamacare So Much, They Might Even Trust Republicans Now

There are a lot of interesting findings in the new Pew poll about the Affordable Care Act, released Sunday, but the most reliable and stark one: Americans really don’t like the law. They disapprove of it by an eleven-point margin — the biggest since Pew started asking about it.

More Americans already say the law has affected them negatively than positively — 20 percent to 17 — and even more believe the law has already hurt the country, 38 percent thinking it’s had a “mostly negative” effect to 24 percent thinking it’s “mostly positive.” Plenty of people say there hasn’t been too much of an effect so far, but asked to predict the long-term effects of the law, even more people are pessimistic, with a full 47 percent thinking it will have a mostly negative effect on the country as a whole.

And surely in part thanks to the consistent, growing unpopularity of the law itself, for the first time in years (the question has varied slightly), Pew found that people trust the Republican party over the Democratic party on health care, 40 percent to 39 (this could be a bit of an outlier, but the trend is slowly in the GOP’s direction). It’s important not to make to much of one poll but if this holds up, it’s a big deal, though both delay-reform-replace and defund-Obamacare Republicans will surely argue that their strategy is what’s engendered this improvement.

Via: National Review Online

Continue Reading...

NBC's Todd: House Republicans 'Have Not Dropped' Benghazi

Talking to NBC's chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd on Sunday's Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory noted "Benghazi back as a political focus this week" following the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack, prompting Todd to observe: "It is. The House Republicans have not dropped this as an issue." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Todd continued: "They didn't talk about it last week during the one-year anniversary of the Benghazi attack. But this week, on Thursday alone, three different hearings are going to be taking place on the same day on Capitol Hill. House Republicans, they don't want to drop this."

As a recent Media Research Center study detailed, NBC – along with the rest of the media – has been happy to "drop" the Benghazi story.

Despite all the unanswered questions that remain about the attack and the fact that no suspects have been apprehended, on Wednesday's September 11 anniversary, NBC only devoted 21 seconds of airtime to the story. Between Today and Nightly News, a total of three sentences were given to mark 12 months since the attack.

In a 24-hour period on Tuesday and Wednesday, NBC spent more time – a total of 36 seconds – on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton being awarded the National Constitution Center's Liberty Medal.

Via; Newsbusters

Continue Reading...

Jay Carney on Navy Yard, other shootings: 'This is why we should take action' on gun control

White House press secretary Jay Carney reiterated President Obama's desire to pass gun control legislation, though he sounded cautious about appearing to use the Navy Yard shooting to political advantage.

"[I]t is far too early to say anything about who did this and the broader meaning of it," Carney told reporters, per a live transcription. "When it comes to common sense legislation to reduce gun violence, the president has been very clear," Carney added, recalling Obama's frustration with congressional leaders who voted down a gun proposal in March.

The comments came under repeated questioning from American Urban Radio's April Ryan.

"That was a shame and we will continue to work to take action to improve gun safety, to reduce gun violence in this country through executive action and, hopefully, Congress will work to reduce gun violence as well," he said.

Ryan pressed him about gun control in a follow-up. "Jay, you say it's far too early, and I understand that, but we do know for a fact that these were shooting deaths, and going down that seven: Fort Hood, Binghamton, Tuscon, Aurora, Oak Creek, Newtown, and the Navy Yard now."

Sign Up for the Politics Today newsletter!

"And countless other deaths, as you know April, countless other deaths, and this is why we should take action to reduce gun violence, we should take common sense action supported by Americans from every part of the country," Carney replied.

Via: Washington Examiner

Continue Reading....

How Teachers Can Dodge The Union

Teachers can receive a $300 – $400 ‘rebate’ for CTA’s political spending

Teachers must submit written notice by November 15

Although California is not a right-to-work state, public school teachers have the ability to receive a yearly rebate of $300 – $400 from the California Teachers Association.

Teachers have these options because the United States Supreme Court has held that a union can’t force a non-union member to pay for the union’s political and other activities unrelated to bargaining and representing workers.

A teacher’s ability to exercise these options is limited, however, and the necessary paperwork must be sent to CTA by November 15. (All teachers in LA Unified and those represented by the California Federation of Teachers have different rules and information is available on CaliforniaTeacherFreedom.com.)

First, if teachers are CTA members, they must leave the union. A generic resignation letter is available here. Teachers only have to opt out of CTA one time.

Next — and this must be done yearly — those who have opted out must submit written notice to CTA between September 1 and November 15 requesting a “rebate” for the portion of their dues that goes to political and other non-chargeable activities. This rebate is usually between $300 – $400, depending on a teacher’s local school district. A generic rebate-request letter is available here.

Alternatively, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ensures that workers with a strong moral objection to the union or its activities, like union support of abortion or gay marriage, can become a religious objector and redirect their union dues to a charitable organization. If a teacher wants to become a religious or conscientious objector, a how-to guide is available from National Right to Work and free legal assistance is available by contacting NRTW’s Bruce Cameron at bnc@nrtw.org. Teachers wishing to become religious objectors should not request to become agency fee payers.

Because teachers are busy teaching from Sept. 1 to Nov. 15 and most don’t even know these options are available, it’s important to remind teachers of some of the reasons other teachers are exercising these options.

Via: California Political Review

Continue Reading....

Obamacare will question your sex life

‘Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?”

Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether it’s the dermatologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why you’re seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law.

“This is nasty business,” says New York cardiologist Dr. Adam Budzikowski. He called the sex questions “insensitive, stupid and very intrusive.” He couldn’t think of an occasion when a cardiologist would need such information — but he knows he’ll be pushed to ask for it.

The president’s “reforms” aim to turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they consider inappropriate and unnecessary, and to violate their Hippocratic Oath to keep patients’ records confidential.

Embarrassing though it may be, you confide things to a doctor you wouldn’t tell anyone else. But this is entirely different.

Doctors and hospitals who don’t comply with the federal government’s electronic-health-records requirements forgo incentive payments now; starting in 2015, they’ll face financial penalties from Medicare and Medicaid. The Department of Health and Human Services has already paid out over $12.7 billion for these incentives.

Dr. Richard Amerling, a nephrologist and associate professor at Albert Einstein Medical College, explains that your medical record should be “a story created by you and your doctor solely for your treatment and benefit.” But the new requirements are turning it “into an interrogation, and the data will not be confidential.”

Via: New York Post

Continue Reading....