Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Epic mock-alanche in progress as labor unions who pushed for $15 minimum wage in Los Angeles now want an exemption

For the can’t-make-this-up-if-we-tried-file, the $15-per-hour minimum wage mandate that was just passed by the Los Angeles City Council has a new opponent now that it’s time to draft the specifics of the law — labor unions!

These same labor unions, of course, who pushed for this law in the first place. From the Los Angeles Times:

Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces.

The push to include an exception to the mandated wage increase for companies that let their employees collectively bargain was the latest unexpected detour as the city nears approval of its landmark legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase.

But Rusty Hicks, who heads the county Federation of Labor and helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition, said Tuesday night that companies with workers represented by unions should have leeway to negotiate a wage below that mandated by the law.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!

And let the well-deserved mocking begin:

Did Obama Administration Really Accidentally Disobey Judge’s Order on Immigration?

The Justice Department’s latest filings in the immigration lawsuit brought by 26 states in the Southern District of Texas are a little hard to believe—and somewhat comical, in a way.

Back in February, Judge Andrew Hanen issued a preliminary injunction against the implementation of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration. Now, in an attempt to explain why the injunction was violated, Leon Rodriguez, director of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, has outlined in an affidavit a long list of instructions and orders he gave to implement Hanen’s order.

The main excuse given for USCIS’s issuing three-year deferrals and Employment Authorization Documents to 2,000 illegal immigrants after the injunction was in place is that its computer system failed. But fear not. Rodriguez is “taking steps, including the modification of USCIS computer systems, to further minimize the potential for human error that could lead to unintended” violations of the injunction “in future DACA cases, regardless of the circumstances.” (There is no indication whether the autonomous computer system that made these errors is named “HAL.”)

Rodriguez does admit that USCIS “should have exercised greater management oversight of the efforts to halt the production and issuance of three-year notices and EADs.” But that’s not really much of an admission—there is no question thaat USCIS violated Judge Hanen’s injunction despite Rodriguez’s self-proclaimed “clear intent to stop the approval or issuance” of these documents. Rodriguez assures the judge that USCIS will get to the bottom of this, his own failure, noting that DHS has asked its inspector general to “investigate the circumstances” of what happened.

Via: CNS News

Tens Of Millions More In Undisclosed $$ For The Clintons

Last Night, The Clinton Foundation Revealed That It Had "Received As Much As $26.4 Million In Previously Undisclosed Payments From Major Corporations, Universities, Foreign Sources And Other Groups." "The Clinton Foundation reported Thursday that it has received as much as $26.4 million in previously undisclosed payments from major corporations, universities, foreign sources and other groups. The disclosure came as the foundation faced questions over whether it fully complied with a 2008 ethics agreement to reveal its donors and whether any of its funding sources present conflicts of interest for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she begins her presidential campaign." (Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger, "Clinton Foundation Reveals Up To $26 Million In Additional Payments," The Washington Post , 5/21/15)

The Money Was From Speaking Fees, And "Foundation Officials Said The Funds Were Tallied Internally As 'Revenue' Rather Than Donations, Which Is Why They Had Not Been Included In The Public Listings Of Its Contributors Published As Part Of The 2008 Agreement." "The money was paid as fees for speeches by Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. Foundation officials said the funds were tallied internally as 'revenue' rather than donations, which is why they had not been included in the public listings of its contributors published as part of the 2008 agreement." (Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger, "Clinton Foundation Reveals Up To $26 Million In Additional Payments," The Washington Post , 5/21/15)

The Foundation Said It Had Not Previously Disclosed "Organizations That Paid For Clinton Speeches… Because They Were Paying For A Service And Not Making A Tax-Deductible Donation." "While the Clinton Foundation has annually disclosed its donors since 2008, the foundation said Thursday that organizations that paid for Clinton speeches have not before been included in those lists because they were paying for a service and not making a tax-deductible donation." (Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger, "Clinton Foundation Reveals Up To $26 Million In Additional Payments," The Washington Post , 5/21/15)

"A Foundation Official Indicated The Speech Dollars Have Been Disclosed As Revenue In Annual Tax Filings To The IRS." (Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger, "Clinton Foundation Reveals Up To $26 Million In Additional Payments," The Washington Post , 5/21/15)

Clinton's Personal Financial Disclosure Forms Raised Ethical Questions About "The Completeness Of Her Financial Disclosures"

Clinton Had Delivered 15 Previously Undisclosed Speeches Since January 2014."Hillary Clinton has delivered 15 such speeches, including one address to Goldman Sachs and another to JPMorgan Chase." (Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger, "Clinton Foundation Reveals Up To $26 Million In Additional Payments,"The Washington Post , 5/21/15)

Clinton's Decision To Release "Details On Millions Of Dollars In Speaking Fees Sent To The Clinton Foundation Rather Than Her Own Pocket Is An Effort To Quiet An Ethical Debate About The Completeness Of Her Financial Disclosures…" "Hillary Clinton's decision to release this week details on millions of dollars in speaking fees sent to the Clinton Foundation rather than her own pocket is an effort to quiet an ethical debate about the completeness of her financial disclosures at a time when the foundation's finances and fundraising practices are under intense scrutiny." (Josh Gerstein, "Hillary's speech disclosures come under fire," Politico, 5/20/15)

Via: GOP.COM

[VIDEO] Jonathan Gruber Glaringly Absent From NYT Article on Obamacare Wording 'Mistake'

Say my name. ---Walter White aka Heisenberg in Breaking Bad. New York Times writer Robert Pear knows his name but he didn't say it in his article about how four words in the Obamacare law was simply a mistake. Pear quotes a number of people involved in the law's writing process but fails to mention the one who was acknowledged as the architect of Obamacare...until it became politically inconvenient to do so---Jonathan Gruber. And the reason why Gruber's name went unmentioned in the article is because of his claim, recorded for all eternity on video, that only state established health exchanges would be eligible for subsidies. -

.Let us now watch Pear make his case in his Gruber-free zone that it was all just a mistake:

WASHINGTON — They are only four words in a 900-page law: “established by the state.”

But it is in the ambiguity of those four words in the Affordable Care Act that opponents found a path to challenge the law, all the way to the Supreme Court.

How those words became the most contentious part of President Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment has been a mystery. Who wrote them, and why? Were they really intended, as the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell claim, to make the tax subsidies in the law available only in states that established their own health insurance marketplaces, and not in the three dozen states with federal exchanges?

Who wrote them, Pear? You know the name of the most prominent of the writers. Say his name. Saaaaay it!!! Okay, since you won't say his name, let us watch Obamacare Jonathan Gruber himself explain how the subsidies work and who gets them:

What’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges. But, you know, once again the politics can get ugly around this.

Via: Newsbusters

Bill Clinton's Secret Shell Company Exposed

WASHINGTON (AP) — The newly released financial files on Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's growing fortune omit a company with no apparent employees or assets that the former president has legally used to provide consulting and other services, but which demonstrates the complexity of the family's finances.

Because the company, WJC, LLC, has no financial assets, Hillary Clinton's campaign was not obligated to report its existence in her recent financial disclosure report, officials with Bill Clinton's private office and the Clinton campaign said. They were responding to questions by The Associated Press, which reviewed corporate documents.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide private details of the former president's finances on the record, said the entity was a "pass-through" company designed to channel payments to the former president.

Under federal ethics disclosure rules, declared candidates do not have to report assets worth less than $1,000. But the company's existence demonstrates the complexity of tracking the Clintons' finances as Hillary Clinton ramps up her presidential bid.

While Bill Clinton's lucrative speeches have provided the bulk of the couple's income, earning as much as $50 million during his wife's four-year term as secretary of state in the Obama administration, the former president has also sought to branch out into other business activities in recent years. Little is known about the exact nature and financial worth of Bill Clinton's non-speech business interests.

The identities of several U.S and foreign-based companies and foundations that Bill Clinton worked for have been disclosed in Hillary Clinton's recent financial report as well as in earlier reports during her stint as secretary of state.

Under federal disclosure rules for spouses' earned income, Hillary Clinton was only obligated to identify the source of her spouse's income and confirm that he received more than $1,000. As a result, the precise amounts of Bill Clinton's earned income from consulting have not been disclosed, and it's not known how much was routed through WJC, LLC.

Via: Yahoo! News

Differences Between Left and Right: Part I

Most Americans hold either liberal or conservative positions on most matters. In many instances, however, they would be hard pressed to explain their position or the position they oppose.

But if you can't explain both sides, how do you know you're right?

At the very least, you need to understand both the liberal and conservative positions in order to effectively understand your own.

I grew up in a liberal world -- New York, Jewish and Ivy League graduate school. I was an 8-year-old when President Dwight Eisenhower ran for re-election against the Democratic nominee, Adlai Stevenson. I knew nothing about politics and had little interest in the subject. But I well recall knowing -- knowing, not merely believing -- that Democrats were "for the little guy" and Republicans were "for the rich guys."

I voted Democrat through Jimmy Carter's election in 1976. He was the last Democrat for which I voted.

Obviously, I underwent an intellectual change. And it wasn't easy. Becoming a Republican was emotionally and psychologically like converting to another religion.

In fact, when I first voted Republican I felt as if I had abandoned the Jewish people. To be a Jew meant being a Democrat. It was that simple. It was -- and remains -- that fundamental to many American Jews' identity.

Therefore, it took a lot of thought to undergo this conversion. I had to understand both liberalism and conservatism. Indeed, I have spent a lifetime in a quest to do so.

The fruit of that quest will appear in a series of columns explaining the differences between left and right.

I hope it will benefit conservatives in better understanding why they are conservative, and enable liberals to understand why someone who deeply cares about the "little guy" holds conservative -- or what today are labeled as conservative -- views.

Difference No. 1: Is Man Basically Good?

Via: Real Clear Politics

Like Don Draper, Barack Obama Can Never Go Home

In watching the seventh season of AMC's inspired hit series Mad Men unfold, I found myself thinking of the Obama presidency, also in its seventh season. (No spoilers until article's end).

For those who may not have seen the series, the principal character of Mad Men is a sophisticated and self-possessed creative director for a New York ad agency named Don Draper. In many ways, Draper fits the mold of the American Adam, a highly competent individualist with no fixed past and no set future. This archetype has been a staple of American expression, from Cooper's Natty Bumpo to Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby to just about every character Clint Eastwood has ever played, some of whom don't even have a name, let alone a history.

Like Gatsby – and, more to the point, like Barack Obama – Draper has invented himself. Viewers learn early in the first season that he is not really who he says he is. He went to Korea as a no-account private from a brutally dysfunctional home and assumed the identity of his lieutenant after a fatal accident that he himself caused. Although usually confident and self-contained, ad exec Draper lives in terror that he will be exposed.

At this stage in his presidency, Barack Obama no longer lives in terror. The fact that he reportedly spent $2 million or so on attorney fees to keep his birth certificate sealed suggests that he once did. I am still not certain what it was that he needed to conceal. As to Obama's grades and test scores, Jimmy Hoffa's body will be unearthed before those are.

Via: American Thinker

Biker Shootout: Libs Going Wacko over Race in Waco

Leftists are upset about what they view as a double standard with respect to the Baltimore/Ferguson affair and the recent Waco gang shootout. They’re right, too—there sure is a double standard.

And, as usual, it’s their own.

Consider, for example, an Associated Presspiece by one Jesse J. Holland titled “Differing perceptions of Waco, Baltimore bothering some.” Holland starts out writing that the “prevailing images of protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, over police killings of black men were of police in riot gear, handcuffed protesters, tear gas and mass arrests. The main images of a fatal gun battle between armed bikers and police in Waco, Texas, also showed mass arrests—carried out by nonchalant-looking officers sitting around calm bikers on cellphones.” The idea is that while the black thugs in Baltimore and Ferguson received harsh treatment and coverage, the primarily white thugs in Waco were, relatively speaking, handled with kid gloves.

But pardon my tongue, this brings us to another complaint. Holland cites people who say that while Barack Obama and other politicians called the Baltimore miscreants “thugs,” no such descriptive is applied to the white Waco punks. He mentions in particular radio and TV commentator Roland Martin, who tweeted, “So the mainstream media refuses to talk (hashtag)WacoThugs, huh?” And Martin has a point: While the black Baltimore rioters and looters were called thugs, no white Waco rioters and looters were thus characterized. I wonder, why might that be?

Oh, yeah, that’s right: there are no white rioters and looters in Waco.

Minor details such as this seem to escape the notice of two-brain-cell journalists in search of a story, but a prerequisite for having “police in riot gear” is actually having, you know, a riot. The incident in Waco was an unforeseen event, meaning, the cops had no time to don any kind of special gear.

Perhaps they don’t teach proper analogizing in journalism school, but the Waco biker thugs aren’t analogous to the Baltimore rioter thugs; rather, they’re analogous to the person the latter were rioting over: drug dealer Freddie Gray. And no one went out of his way to call Gray a thug.

Via: Canada Free Press

After Secret Service Seized $115,000, North Carolina Man Continues Fight for ‘Justice’

On the morning of Sept. 25, 2014, Tom Bednar was sitting in the bedroom of the Raleigh, N.C., home he shared with his wife, Marla, and two sons when Marla entered the room crying.

She had just looked at the bank account for their three-decade old business, Marla Enterprises, to find it empty. Now, Capital Bank was requesting close to $18,000 to cover the outstanding checks the couple had written.

After transferring money to straighten out their finances with the bank, the Bednars learned just what had happened with the $115,018.01 they had in their bank account: The United States Secret Service seized the money.

“We got no warning,” Tom Bednar said in an interview with The Daily Signal. “Nothing.”

After months of litigation against the United States government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen West moved to dismiss the case earlier this month, meaning the Bednars will get their money back.

However, the government refused to cover the Bednar’s $25,000 in legal fees, which the couple is entitled to under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act. Though the fight to get their $115,000 back is now over, the family is continuing to push to have their expenses covered.

Via: The Daily Signal

Scott Walker: If I ran, I think we’d play anywhere — ‘other than maybe Florida’

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker suggested Tuesday that if he were to run for president, he could envision simply

letting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio compete amongst themselves in the key state of Florida.

“If we get in as a candidate

, we’re going to make a strong play in Iowa,” Mr. Walker said on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s show. “The neat thing about being around the country is if we chose to get in, I don’t think there’s a state out there we wouldn’t play in. I mean, other than maybe Florida where Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are — listen, some of the polls [are] essentially tied, and they’re going to eat up a good amount of that financial advantage that Governor Bush is going to have.”

Mr. Walker was responding to a recorded comment from Mr. Bush that the former Florida governor “just [doesn’t] do straw polls.” Mr. Bush and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee

have indicated that they plan to skip August’s Iowa straw poll, which has traditionally served as an unofficial kick-off to the Republican presidential nominating contest.

Mr. Walker said he hasn’t made any such commitments that would be required of a candidate. Mr. Bush, though he is laying the groundwork for a White House

bid, likewise has not officially declared his candidacy. Mr. Huckabee announced earlier this month that he was running for president and Mr. Rubio announced last month he was running.

Mr. Walker also pointed out that Florida Gov. Rick Scott spent around $100 million in his 2014 re-election campaign.

“There won’t be that much, but a good chunk of that’ll be going after the Florida primary, but short of that, I think our message — common sense conservative reform, if we were to get in this election — could play just about anywhere out there,” Mr. Walker said in the interview, which was first noted by Time. “And I think if we ultimately ended up being a candidate, we’d be focused on the caucus in Iowa and the primaries in places like New Hampshire and South Carolina on down the line.”

Via: Washington TImes

Bernie Sanders Condemns Existence of 23 Different Deodorant Brands While Children Go Hungry

Self-proclaimed socialist and progressive favorite Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) laments the idea that Americans can choose between “23 underarm spray deodorants” as children go hungry under President Obama’s economy.

“You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants when children are hungry in this country,” Sanders told John Harwood in an interview posted Tuesday.

Sanders will make his official campaign Democratic presidential announcement alongside the Ben and Jerry’s cofounders in Burlington on Tuesday.

Sanders said he would not condemn Hillary Clinton for bringing in millions of dollars in speaking fees but said it would be hard for her to separate fighting for the middle class and fighting against corporate interests. Sanders also said the Clintons have grown accustomed to a worldview that has led to them losing touch with the world around them.

Sanders has advocated for returning the personal income tax rate to 90 percent for top earners, as it was in the 1950s. He brushed off the comments from businesses that have called his “revolution” for the transfer of wealth from the top earners to the middle class, similar to Nazi Germany.

“These people are so greedy, they’re so out of touch with reality,” Sanders said. “You know what? Sorry, you’re all going to have to pay your fair share of taxes.”

The New York Times reported that Sanders is fine with reducing economic growth if it reduces income inequality.

Via: WFB

IRS hit by cyberattack, thousands of taxpayers’ information stolen

In a speech this week, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen insisted his agency has turned the corner on problems with employee behavior in recent years. (Associated Press)

Thieves managed to steal information on more than 100,000 taxpayers from the IRS, Commissioner John Koskinen said Tuesday — though he insisted the breach didn’t affect most average taxpayers and the information they file in their annual returns.

Thousands of fraudulent returns were filed under the attack, and final details about the amount the criminals stole is not available, though Mr. Koskinen predicted it will be less than $50 million.

“This is not a security breach. Our basic information is secure,” Mr. Koskinen insisted in a call with reporters to discuss the theft, which he said came from online access by fraudsters, who he described as part of an organized crime syndicate.

The IRS is sending out notices to those they have determined were affected by the breach, and has opened a criminal investigation into the operation.

Mr. Koskinen said the fraudsters were exploiting a specific application, the Get Transcript program, to be able to dig up more information on taxpayers, including their full tax returns dating back five or more years.

The commissioner said they discovered the breach after noticing odd Internet activity from the tax filing season. They didn’t find the activity until the middle of this month, however, and have scrambled to get a handle on what happened.

Via: Washington TImes
Continue Reading....

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Chinese State Media Warns Of ‘Inevitable’ War With US Photo

Despite stringent warnings from the United States not to proceed with an aggressive naval strategy, on Tuesday, China unveiled plans to build two lighthouses in the South China Sea.

At the same time, an oped published in the state-run Global Times stated that unless Washington backs down, conflict may be ‘inevitable.’

China’s State Council also issued a whitepaper saying that it will expand military capabilities in the region to include offensive measures, in addition to already existing defensive measures, Reuters reports. China’s Second Artillery Corps intends to bolster its ability for nuclear counterattacks and long-range precision strikes.

Yet the paper also promised that “China will never seek hegemony or expansion.

Via: The Daily Caller

WARREN BUFFETT EXPLAINS HOW A $15 MINIMUM WAGE WOULD HURT WORKERS

As Fortune observes, Warren Buffett is one of the Left’s favorite billionaires, but he occasionally says things they don’t want to hear. At such times, liberals politely ignore him and wait for him to say something useful to their cause, at which point the fulsome praise resumes.

They prefer not to dwell on such hypocrisies as the energy Buffett devotes to lawfully avoiding the high taxes he philosophically supports, which is no surprise, because hypocrisy is the grease that keeps the gears of socialism turning. Aristocratic privilege is the enticement leftists have always offered to useful industrialists.

The Left isn’t going to like what Buffett had to say about the minimum wage in the Wall Street Journal last week. After reviewing the numbers for income inequality (growing, especially during the Obama years, although Buffett tactfully avoids pointing that out) and poverty (static, despite trillions of dollars spent in the War on Poverty), he blows a hole through liberal class-war boilerplate about the rich somehow getting richer off the backs of the poor:

No conspiracy lies behind this depressing fact: The poor are most definitely not poor because the rich are rich. Nor are the rich undeserving. Most of them have contributed brilliant innovations or managerial expertise to America’s well-being. We all live far better because of Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Sam Walton and the like.

Buffett explains at length that specialization is both the source of our incredible national wealth, and the difficulty some people – and, more disturbingly, some families - encounter when trying to access it. In a pre-industrial age when most of the population could perform most of the available jobs, and failure to perform generally resulted in starvation, there wasn’t much “income inequality” until the wealthiest aristocrats and hereditary royalty were considered. Sociologists regard the evolution of an independent middle class as an important achievement, but it inevitably creates a larger, more distinct underclass as well. “Poverty” was not as compelling a subject when just about everyone was equally poor… and commoners had few opportunities to significantly improve their station.

Via: Breitbart

AMERICA ASKS: What would you ask Ann Coulter?

AMERICA ASKS:

What would you ask

Ann Coulter?

by AMERICA with Jorge Ramos | May 19, 2015 10:00 PM

The conservative commentator is back with a new book and she’s calling out Democrats, Republicans, the media, and well, Jorge Ramos.

In her first interview about “Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole,” Coulter will sit down with Fusion’s Jorge Ramos to talk about what is, and isn’t working when it comes to immigration.

But we want to hear from you. Comment below or tweet us YOUR question for Coulter @ThisIsAMERICA with the hashtag #AnnsAmerica.

Here’s a look-back at some of her more…memorable quotes:

“It would be a much better country if women did not vote” May 2003, The Guardian

“I’m more of a man than any liberal” July 2007, to Bill O’Reilly on John Edwards

“Young people are idiots” March 2014, AnnCoulter.com

“Foreigners shouldn’t be allowed on American television” June 2014, discussing the World Cup

“Today’s immigrants aren’t coming here to breathe free, they’re coming to live for free” May 2015, ‘Adios, America‘

The full interview airs Tuesday, May 26 at 10 pm EST on Fusion.

Via: Fusion

Continue Reading.....

Conservative Happenings

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Epic mock-alanche in progress as labor unions who pushed for $15 minimum wage in Los Angeles now want an exemption

Did Obama Administration Really Accidentally Disobey Judge’s Order on Immigration?

Tens Of Millions More In Undisclosed $$ For The Clintons

Clinton's Personal Financial Disclosure Forms Raised Ethical Questions About "The Completeness Of Her Financial Disclosures"

[VIDEO] Jonathan Gruber Glaringly Absent From NYT Article on Obamacare Wording 'Mistake'

Bill Clinton's Secret Shell Company Exposed

Differences Between Left and Right: Part I

Like Don Draper, Barack Obama Can Never Go Home

Biker Shootout: Libs Going Wacko over Race in Waco

After Secret Service Seized $115,000, North Carolina Man Continues Fight for ‘Justice’

Scott Walker: If I ran, I think we’d play anywhere — ‘other than maybe Florida’

Bernie Sanders Condemns Existence of 23 Different Deodorant Brands While Children Go Hungry

IRS hit by cyberattack, thousands of taxpayers’ information stolen

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Chinese State Media Warns Of ‘Inevitable’ War With US Photo

WARREN BUFFETT EXPLAINS HOW A $15 MINIMUM WAGE WOULD HURT WORKERS

AMERICA ASKS: What would you ask Ann Coulter?

AMERICA ASKS:

What would you ask

Ann Coulter?

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