Budget deal wins final Senate approval, heads to Obama's desk

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan budget plan won final approval in Congress on Wednesday, with the Senate passing the hard-fought compromise.

President Obama was expected to swiftly sign the measure, which cleared the Senate 64 to 36. Nine Republicans joined all Democrats in approving the measure. Three Republicans who voted to advance the bill earlier in the week voted against it Wednesday. The House overwhelmingly passed it last week.

The $85-billion package is modest in scope but represents a rare bipartisan achievement for a divided Congress that has spent the past two years engaged in high-stakes standoffs over government budgets.

Under the accord reached by Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), the former vice presidential nominee, and Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.), spending for 2014 and 2015 will rise by $63 billion, reversing some across-the-board cuts to defense accounts and social programs that only the most conservative lawmakers wanted to keep.

PHOTOS: 2013's memorable political moments

The increased spending was opposed vehemently by conservative groups, who split the GOP as they tried to stop the deal. It will be paid for with new fees on airline travel to pay for transportation security, as well as reductions in the pensions of new federal employees and younger, uninjured military personnel. There will be no new taxes.

Via: LA Times
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Whole Foods CEO: Obamacare Forcing Us to Hire More Part-timers

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey says Obamacare is forcing his company to hire more part-timers.

The company has historically had a 75-percent full-time workforce, Mackey said Wednesday on Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto," but next year that will drop to 70 percent. 

If expenses continue to rise, he said, the percentage may drop even lower.

Mackey said his employees are likely to see depressed wage increases or higher out-of-pocket expenses as the company seeks to make up for the extra money it's being charged for coverage mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Whole Foods self-insures.

Guest host Stuart Varney told Mackey he sounded like a libertarian.

"I'm a conscious capitalist, I believe in capitalism," Mackey said. "I believe free markets are the best way to organize society, and any system that supports capitalism I'm in favor of." 

Mackey in January warned that Obamacare wasn't socialist as he had said previously, but fascist, because the government doesn't own the means of production, though it controls them.

As Obamacare was being debated in 2009, Mackey wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal with his own suggestions for healthcare reform.

"Unfortunately, none of those suggestions have been implemented." Mackey said Wednesday.

Via: Newsmax
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[VIDEO] Krauthammer: It Took Barbara Walters 5 Years to Realize Obama’s Not the Messiah? It Took Us 1 1/2 Hours

Barbara Walter’s admission Tuesday evening that she used to believe President Obama was the next messiah is predictably the target of derision and satire in conservative circles.

Making a guest appearance on Fox News’s The Five Wednesday, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said, “Five years to realize the man isn't a messiah? I think it took some of us…an hour and a half” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I mean, it's remarkable that it would take half a decade for the veil to be lifted from her eyes. Five years to realize the man isn't a messiah? I think it took some of us – [Looking at co-host Bob Beckel] well, almost all of us – about, you know, an hour and a half to realize that he gives a good speech, but he's shown no aptitude at governing. So I'm glad that she's aboard, but she's a little late.

Via: Newsbusters

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NBC Anchor Who Blurted Out ‘Let’s Get the F*ck Outta Here’ Has Been Fired

No one likes working on Saturday nights, but one local news anchor’s public complaining about this very thing may have cost him his job. KSNW anchor Justin Kraemer audibly told his colleagues, as they ended the broadcast, “let’s get the f*ck out of here,” and it got him fired.

Mediaite and a few other sites took note of the incident over the weekend, and Kraemer told The Wichita Eagle Monday that he was let go after his on-air swearing, saying, “I did something extraordinarily unprofessional. It’s something that’s drilled into you from the minute you start in this business to always consider the microphones hot.”

He says he has his next move all lined up, so now that he’s gotten the f*ck outta there, one can only hope he’ll get the f*ck into somewhere else soon enough.

Here’s the original video in question, via KSNW:

Via: Mediaite.com

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[VIDEO] ABC Reporter: Is Anybody Going to Buy Health Care Because Barack O’Breezy Tells Them To?

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
December 18, 2013 5:02 pm

ABC’s Jon Karl pinned White House Press Secretary Jay Carney Tuesday, asking whether Obamacare’s latest advertising campaigns urging young people to sign up will have any real effect:

JON KARL: What do you make of some of these efforts by Obamacare supporters to reach out? I mean, some of them – the upside-down keg stands and whatnot. I mean, is anybody going to buy health care because “Barack O’Breezy” tells them to buy it because it’s hot?”

Carney could only respond that he was “not an expert,” in advertising campaigns, but said the current Obamacare ads were an effort to “reach potential consumers…where they live”.

Via: WFB

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[VIDEO] America Under Obamacare: The Reality Revealed

Its the worst possible scenerio

Join us tomorrow for a very special Google+ Hangout. The Heritage Foundation and The Washington Free Beacon have collaborated to bring you “America Under Obamacare: The Reality Revealed” at 10 a.m. ET.

Our all-star panel will discuss the hardship that Obamacare has caused for so many this holiday season. From the loss of health insurance plans to the struggles that small businesses face with rising costs, Obamacare is increasingly disliked by the American public

Via: The Foundry

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ObamaCare May Devastate the Real Estate and Travel Industries

Americans are among the most mobile people on earth, but ObamaCare may soon start freezing them in place. Millions are losing their health insurance policies and being forced onto the ObamaCare exchanges, where most plans only provide local medical coverage. As Americans realize they must pay for all non-emergency medical care when they leave their home county, their decisions may have a profound impact on the real-estate market, particularly the second home sector, and on the travel business.

I recently interviewed a woman I'll call Sue, whose story may become increasingly common. Sue, a 60-year-old retiree, and her husband bought a second home in South Carolina to escape the Connecticut winters. "I had a Blue Cross Blue Shield policy in Connecticut, and I used it with no problem in South Carolina. I found an internist and ophthalmologist and dermatologist down here, and kept the rest of my doctors up north."

"The price was reasonable. It cost me $450 a month, with a $2,500 deductible. It was slightly more for out of network; there was no co-pay, and I got my prescriptions filled in both states with no problem."

"Then I got the letter telling me that my policy would no longer exist, because it didn't comply with the new health care law. They wanted to transfer us into a new plan that doubled my premium to $900 a month. The deductible went up to $3,500, and it covered zero out of network."

Via: American Thinker

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Christmas Miracle Delivered by Courageous, Loyal dog

People of the day want to believe in Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, free stuff and whatever lies President Barack Obama is spouting, but few believe in miracles.

The Miracle on 34th Street was just a Hollywood movie, the miracle of the blind man and his loyal dog surviving the New York subway is the real thing.

Out of bustling New York City comes a miracle from subway tracks just one week before Christmas.

In possibly the best Christmas message ever delivered by the New York Post, 60-year-old blind man Cecil Williams and his going-on-11 black labrador guide dog, Orlando survived after being struck at the NYC subway.

“A brave seeing-eye dog loyally leaped to the subway tracks when his owner tumbled off a Harlem platform Wednesday—and they both survived getting run over by a train, according to witnesses.” (New York Post, Dec. 17, 2013)

Via: Canada Free Press

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Istook: ObamaCare Has Become A Never-Ending 'Opposite Day' By: Former Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.)

Obamacare has become a never-ending Opposite Day — the opposite of what was promised:

By 14-to-1, more people have lost health insurance than gained it due to Obamacare. Millions more will lose coverage next year.

Health insurance is not more affordable; it’s more expensive despite Obama’s promised savings of $2,500 per family per year.

Even if you like your plan, you cannot choose whether to keep it.

Even if you like your doctors, you cannot choose whether to keep them.

Even if you enrolled in Obamacare, there’s a good chance the website lost your data, and you aren’t really enrolled.

This is the most open, transparent and honest White House in history, except when you have an important question.

Opposite Day is fun for young children, but it’s no joke to the estimated 7 million who so far have lost their health insurance due to Obamacare. For most, replacement coverage will cost thousands of dollars extra next year. There goes the family vacation. Or the kids’ braces. Or violin lessons. Or savings for college. Or all of the above.

Many have decided to go without insurance, so look for an onslaught of personal disasters next year when newly-uninsured families suffer emergency needs. Even worse, their ranks will grow from millions more whose group policies will be wiped out next year by the harsh requirements of Obamacare.

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Via: Fox News

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Follow the Money — Down the Drain

What if you were told there is a corrupt dictatorship on the other side of the world where government officials are using US foreign aid to build palatial mansions for themselves, diverting money intended to feed poor children and spending billions with no oversight or accountability?

Unfortunately, these examples are not from a remote foreign land, but from right here in California. And you, California taxpayers, are footing the bill.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation has just released “Follow the Money 2013,” a report chronicling some of the highest profile government waste, fraud and abuse uncovered this year. Added together, the examples in this document amount to tens of billions of dollars.

There seems to be no limit on the irresponsible behavior of some politicians and bureaucrats when it comes to spending OPM (Other People’s Money). “Follow the Money 2013” shows they are paying millions to drug rehab clinics with histories of questionable billing practices, giving elected officials bonuses just for being reelected, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on outside consultants, and much, much more.

While the report profiles numerous high profile scandals discovered in 2013, it also raises an even more compelling question: if these examples were all exposed in the course of the last year, how much additional waste is still hiding in the shadows? Could the billions that we know were squandered, just be the tip of an even larger iceberg of titanic waste?

Taxpayers can expect 2014 to bring new efforts by the Sacramento politicians to saddle our high-unemployment economy with billions in tax increases, including proposals to repeal portions of Prop. 13 to satisfy their insatiable hunger for more revenue.

They will say regular citizens need to sacrifice so that the state can afford to provide quality services we all care about, such as education and public safety. That’s why now is the right time to ask whether they’ve spent the money we’ve already given them responsibly.

Via: California Political Review

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Obama's Current Approval Rating Is The Ugliest Since Nixon

President Barack Obama is ending his fifth year in office with the lowest approval ratings at this point in the presidency since President Richard Nixon, according to a new Washington Post/ABC poll released Tuesday.

Obama's approval rating in the poll stands at 43%. By comparison, President George W. Bush had a 47% approval rating at the end of the fifth year of his presidency. And all other Post-World War II presidents had approval ratings above 50% — with the exception of Nixon, who, amid the Watergate scandal, had a dreadful 29% approval rating.

The brutal numbers underscore what has been something of a lost year for the President. His approval ratings have been plunging recently as a result of the botched implementation of the Affordable Care Act. In the Washington Post/ABC poll, only 34% approve of how Obama is handling his signature health law's implementation. 

Obama has also been hit by the damage of Washington's recent fiscal battles, including the 16-day federal government shutdown. His administration also experienced a number of setbacks throughout the year — the controversy over some of the National Security Agency's surveillance practices, the debate over military intervention in Syria, the controversy over the IRS' targeting of certain organizations for more scrutiny, and more.

Earlier this month, Obama's average approval rating, according to Real Clear Politics, slipped below 40% for the first time in his presidency.

Via: Business Insider

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Obama adviser sorry for comparing GOP to Jonestown cult

John Podesta was just named as a new senior-level adviser to President Obama last week, but he's already ruffling Republican feathers.

In a profile published late Tuesday by Politico Magazine, Podesta is quoted comparing Republicans to the infamous cult led by Jim Jones, who was responsible for the 1978 cyanide poisoning of more than 900 of his followers in Guyana.

"They need to focus on executive action given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress," said Podesta of what Obama's White House team faces. Jonestown was the informal name of the settlement founded by Jones and his American followers.

On Wednesday, Podesta apologized for his impolitic comment.

"In an old interview, my snark got in front of my judgment. I apologize to Speaker Boehner, whom I have always respected," Podesta posted on his Twitter account.

The Jonestown incident marked one of the most horrific mass killings in American history.

Rep. Leo Ryan, D-Calif., who had traveled to the settlement after receiving alarming reports of conditions there from constituents, was shot dead by cult members as the congressman's delegation readied to fly out of Guyana with some members of the cult who wanted to leave. Current Rep. Jackie Speier, who was then an aide to Ryan, was wounded in the incident.

The author of the profile, Glenn Thrush, writes Podesta made the comment in an interview in the fall before Obama recruited the former Clinton administration chief of staff to join his team.

Via: USA Today

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[CARTOON] Obamacare Had A Great Fall

Via: California Political Review