Conservative Happenings

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Bernie Sanders' Foul Socialist Odor By Michelle Malkin

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced his candidacy for president on Tuesday, May 26, 2015: "We begin a political revolution to transform our country economically, politically, socially and environmentally," he told a crowd in Burllington, Vt. (AP File Photo)

Socialist genius Bernie Sanders has figured out what's really ailing America.

Our store shelves have too many different brands of deodorant and sneakers. Just look at all those horrible, fully stocked aisles at Target and Walgreens and Wal-Mart and Payless and DSW and Dick's Sporting Goods. It's a national nightmare! If only consumers had fewer choices in the free market, fewer entrepreneurs offering a wide variety of products and fewer workers manufacturing goods people wanted, Sanders believes, we could end childhood hunger.

Nobody parodies the far left better than far-leftists themselves.

In an interview with financial journalist John Harwood on Tuesday, Sanders detailed his grievances with an overabundance of antiperspirants and footwear. "You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country. I don't think the media appreciates the kind of stress that ordinary Americans are working on."

Try to suppress a snicker: Sanders, Decider of Your Sanitary and Footwear Needs, is casting himself as the Everyman in touch with "ordinary Americans" to contrast his campaign with Hillary "my Beltway lobbyist and foreign agent operator Sid Blumenthal is just a friend I talk to for advice" Clinton.

Via: CNS News

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[VIDEO] Did MSNBC President Phil Griffin Commit Perjury?

Ed Schultz is a classic school yard bully.

So it makes perverse sense that the deposition of MSNBC President Phil Griffin turned into a show and tell exhibit, with the MSNBC president forced to read back all the emails Schultz sent his ex-business partner Michael Queen promising him a piece of the pie.

And that was even before Griffin volunteered that he was just so impressed with Schultz when he thought he saw him ask a question at Barack Obama’s first presidential news conference.

The Mirror has exclusively obtained the video of Griffin’s deposition on September 4, 2014 at NBC headquarters in New York. Lawyers presented Griffin with email after email that Schultz wrote to Queen making clear they had partnered to get Schultz a TV show.

Abbott had Griffin read the emails aloud and then asked if Schultz ever discussed them with him.

The point was that Schultz deliberately cut Queen out of the loop when he inked a deal with Griffin. About 15 minutes into the deposition, Catfish Abbott, the trial lawyer for Queen, gave Griffin a June 7, 2008 email from Schultz to Queen about the show pilot.

Like a chastened schoolboy, Griffin [at 14:30 on the video] dutifully read it aloud.

Via: Daily Caller

OBAMA’S OFFICE OF DIGITAL STRATEGY BIGGER THAN GEORGE W. BUSH’S ENTIRE PRESS STAFF

President Obama, long heralded as the ‘First Digital President,’ has built up his Office of Digital Strategy to includes 14 employees.

The Washington Post’s Julia Eilperin examines Obama’s rapid shift to digital media, creating their own content to engage users not only in the United States but around the world. The team creates specialized content to engage with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Medium, Instagram, YouTube, and even Google+.

According to the article, Obama’s 14-member staff of the White House Office of Digital Strategy is larger than the entire press secretary’s office of George W. Bush in 2005 — a crew of 12.

In June 2009, Obama himself only had a 13 person press staff.

Via: Breitbart

Loretta Lynch's Justice Department Just Launched a Full-Blown Offensive Against FIFA

May 27, 2015 Loretta Lynch's Justice Department unsealed a 47-count indictment Wednesday morning laden with racketeering, corruption and conspiracy charges against 14 people associated with FIFA, the world soccer association, and international soccer organizations.

It's the latest in a series of high-profile moves from the Justice Department since Lynch became attorney general last month, including its investigations into police misconduct in Baltimore. The indictment was born out of the Eastern District of New York, where Lynch served as U.S. attorney until her confirmation.

According to a Justice Department release, the defendants include high-ranking FIFA officials—including two of the organization's vice presidents—officials from soccer associations "that operate under the FIFA umbrella," and South American and U.S. marketing executives. The indictment comes as FIFA is slated to hold an election Friday for president; it had beenexpected that the current leader, Sepp Blatter, will get a fifth term in office.

(RELATED: John McCain Wants FIFA to Take the World Cup Away From Russia)

In a statement, Lynch said the Justice Department plans to work with other nations to "end corrupt practices" within FIFA and "root out misconduct."

"The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted both abroad and here in the United States," Lynch said in a statement. "It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks. And it has profoundly harmed a multitude of victims, from the youth leagues and developing countries that should benefit from the revenue generated by the commercial rights these organizations hold, to the fans at home and throughout the world whose support for the game makes those rights valuable."

The Justice Department's actions against FIFA officials and associates have spanned continents in just the last few hours. In the early morning in Zurich, Swiss law enforcementarrested seven of the defendants "at the request of the United States." And department officials reported that the Miami headquarters of CONCACAF, the organization governing soccer in the Americas, was served with a search warrant Wednesday morning. The president of CONCACAF, Jeffrey Webb, was one of the defendants named in the indictment who was arrested in Zurich Wednesday. His predecessor, Jack Warner, was also named in the indictment. Two corporations and four individual defendants named in the indictment have already pled guilty.

Via: National Journal

[VIDEO] Minimum Wage Increase Trickle Down Effect: Michigan's Big Show

Via: You Tube

[VIDEO] Harf highlight reel: State Dept. spokeswoman leaving post

From suggesting combating ISIS with jobs to dismissing questions about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's conduct as "rumor," spokeswoman Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has woven a rich tapestry as the voice of the State Department.

But she's moving on.

The department announced late Tuesday that starting June 1, Harf will be moving out of the briefing room and beginning a "new role" as senior adviser for strategic communications to Secretary of State John Kerry. (Ex-Pentagon spokesman John Kirby has already assumed the role of spokesman, while former deputy spokesman Mark Toner is moving into his old job.)

Here's a look back at some of Harf's more memorable moments:

June 3, 2014: In response to questioning by Fox News at the briefing, Harf downplayed criticism of the recently announced trade of five Taliban fighters for Bergdahl.

She downplayed "conflicting reports" and "rumor" when asked about accounts from Bergdahl's platoon-mates that he walked off base.

"There's a lot of rumor and telephone game that's being played here," she said.

After continued questioning, she said: "It happened five years ago."

Bergdahl would later be charged with desertion. Former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal also told Fox News this week it was his initial understanding as well that Bergdahl walked off his base before he disappeared.

Via: Fox News

The Un-Scary Truth About NSA 'Spying'

If the National Security Agency’s bulk data program expires, the coroner should conclude that it was “Death by Bumper Sticker.”

Rarely has a controversial government program been so fiercely debated and so poorly understood. Authorized by soon-to-expire Section 215 of the Patriot Act, it has been brought to the edge of extinction by a couple of simple but inaccurate phrases, including “listening to your phone calls” and “domestic spying.”

You can listen to orations on the NSA program for hours and be outraged by its violation of our liberties, inspired by the glories of the Fourth Amendment and prepared to mount the barricades to stop the NSA in its tracks — and still have no idea what the program actually does.

That’s what the opponents leave out or distort, since their case against the program becomes so much less compelling upon fleeting contact with reality.

The program involves so-called metadata, information about phone calls, but not the content of the calls — things like the numbers called, the time of the call, the duration of the call. The phone companies have all this information, which the NSA acquires from them.

What happens next probably won’t shock you, and it shouldn’t. As Rachel Brand of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board writes, “It is stored in a database that may be searched only by a handful of trained employees, and even they may search it only after a judge has determined that there is evidence connecting a specific phone number to terrorism.”

Via: New York Post

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

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

President Obama, long heralded as the ‘First Digital President,’ has built up his Office of Digital Strategy to includes 14 employees.

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

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