Coburn: Year could go down as one of America's 'worst'

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on Monday night argued this year could be remembered as one of the “worst for the republic," and he urged voters to clean house in the midterm elections.  

Coburn lamented the rollout of President Obama’s healthcare law, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) decision to use the “nuclear option” to change Senate rules and the unwillingness of both parties to address the main drivers of the debt. 

“In 2014, here's a message worth considering: If you don't like the rulers you have, you don't have to keep them,” Coburn said in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, echoing President Obama's failed promise on health insurance.

The lawmaker also took the administration to task for delaying the mandate on large businesses to provide insurance to their workers while not offering individuals the same relief. 

“The president apologized in part for his statements, but his actions reveal the extent to which he has conformed to, rather than challenged, the political culture that as a presidential candidate he vowed to reform,” Coburn said. 

Coburn also blasted Reid for using “raw political power” to change Senate rules to allow most executive branch nominees to advance with a simple majority vote. He argued Reid was trampling minority rights. 

“In a republic, if majorities can change laws or rules however they please, you're on the road to life with no rules and no laws,” he said. 

Coburn said neither party should be celebrating the modest budget agreement reached earlier this month, which set spending levels for the next two years and avoided a government shutdown. 

Via: The Hill

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[CARTOON] Never Enough

Via: California Political Review

Passengers, crew stuck on ship trapped in Antarctic ice ring in 2014

Passengers and crew who set off on an expedition to prove climate change are ringing in the new year in the same place where they have been for the past week: stuck in ice at the bottom of the world.

The 74 scientists, tourists and crew on the Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy, which has been trapped near Antarctica since last Tuesday, are expecting to be airlifted from the ship by a helicopter.

Andrew Peacock, a doctor on board, said the passengers are frustrated but are trying to keep their spirits high with a New Year’s party they planned in the ship’s bar.

"We are preparing for evacuation to a dry ship so a few drinks seems reasonable, but we also have to be ready at a moment's notice for the helicopter arrival so staying sober is important," hetold AFP.

The ship has two weeks’ worth of fresh food, but Peacock said drinks are becoming sparse, with "just enough alcohol left” to ring in 2014.

Via: Fox News

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Jobless Aid Ends For 1.3M People

Roughly 1.3 million people lost their extended unemployment benefits on Saturday as Congress allowed the program to expire.
Democrats — angry that an extension wasn't included in the recently-enacted budget agreement — have vowed to make the benefits the first item on their 2014 agenda.
Republicans contend that lawmakers would better serve their constituents by directing their efforts to other job-boosting areas, especially given that a year-long unemployment extension comes with a $26 billion price tag. They also are waiting on Democrats to put forward a specific plan.

Via: The Hill

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The 7 most absurd things Harry Reid said in 2013

As one looks back on the political news of 2013, it would be impossible to ignore all the absurd things Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in the last year.

So sit back, relax and enjoy Reid’s greatest hits.

1. “Why would we want to do that?”

CNN reporter Dana Bash asked Reid why he wouldn’t put his support behind a Republican spending bill that provided funding for National Institutes of Health, which helps children with cancer. Bash inquired of the Senate Majority Leader: If you can help one child who has cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?

“Why would we want to do that?” Reid responded.

2. “Why don’t they get a life and talk about something else?”

During a press conference in September, Reid bashed Republicans for trying to defund Obamacare, accusing them of “playing silly games” and attempting to score “cheap political points.”

“Here’s a President who less than a year ago won an election by five million votes, five million votes,” he told reporters. “Obamacare has been the law for four years. Why don’t they [Republicans] get a life and talk about something else? People deserve better.”

Via: Red Alert Politics

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The End of Obama?

This looming scandal could ruin 

the 44th President and 

disrupt the entire...

A few big moves stand out in Barack Obama’s Presidency.

• The $800 billion stimulus plan passed in 2009
• The $5 trillion in debt accumulation—the most of any President in history
• The passage of Obamacare… the assassination of Osama Bin Laden… and huge tax increases

As bad as The Affordable Care Act will be, what's coming next is going to be much worse for the american middle class. And you will hear this shocking revelation from the most unlikely person of all. Meet Jud Anglin (a wealthy healthcare business owner) who stands to gain a lot of money from the Obamacare program. Jud also happens to be uninsured himself due to a pre-existing health condition which prevents him from getting insurance coverage. So you might think he'd be happy with the “universal coverage” offered by the president’s plan. But you’d be wrong...

Jud says "The Affordable Care Act … or Obamacare… is not the godsend it's promoted to be. In fact, it’s been designed to distract us from something radically worse that’s on the horizon. While what’s coming will be a great thing for my business, it’s going to cause you and millions like you sleepless nights."

President Obama's Big Lie: A Special Presentation

According to Forbes.com, “Obamacare will increase individual-market premiums in California by as much as 146 percent.” And ABC News reports that “the overwhelming majority will see double-digit increases in their individual health insurance markets.” Many journalists in America also say these events are nothing compared to the next big surprise that could devastate Obama’s legacy.

Imagine you or a loved one needing critical even life-saving surgery. But your application to the Health Board has been rejected. What will you do then? This happens every day in countries around the world. And soon… it will happen right here in America, too.

Now Jud says there’s a much worse and much more shocking surprise working its way through the Obama administration. In the free video, he reveals how this one event could single-handedly ruin Barack Obama’s Presidency… and perhaps even his entire career.

Even if Jud is only half right, this situation will have a dramatic impact not only on Barack Obama, but also everyone else in this country.

Via: Lifestyle Journal

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UK towns blow millions on wind turbines with 190-year payback periods

Towns all over Britain are blowing millions of dollars on wind turbines that are generating almost no revenue and will take hundreds of years to pay for themselves, reports the UK Telegraph.

The Telegraph reports that UK localities are spending hundreds of pounds installing wind turbines in an effort to boost renewable energy generation and fight global warming.

“Some turbines generate so little energy they would take hundreds of years to repay their original value,” reports the Telegraph. “Experts argue that the failure of some wind turbines to recoup their value shows how small wind turbines are a poor way to generate renewable energy.”

In fact, only three out of a handful of localities that responded to the Telegraph’s inquiries had wind turbines with payback periods of less than ten years.

The locality of Eastleigh, Hampshire spent nearly $50,000 installing a wind turbine in 2005, but the inefficient turbine only generates about $21 worth of power every month — meaning the payback period on this turbine is 190 years.

In Leeds, officials spent about $102,000 on a wind turbine in 2009 at an inner city sports facility, but the turbine did not generate any power last year. In Derbyshire, a $147,000 turbine was built in 2004 but has not produced power since September 2011.

“Wind energy is an experiment, and sometimes the lessons learnt are hard and dearly bought,” Dr. John Constable, director at the Renewable Energy Foundation, told the Telegraph. “The truth is that foolishly ambitious targets and silly levels of subsidy have overheated the wind industry, resulting in defective technologies and poor installations.”

Constable added that smaller wind turbines were only expected to last up to 15 years, meaning that virtually none of the ones the Telegraph investigated would pay for themselves.

Via: Daily Caller
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TOP TEN TRENDS OF 2023: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

As we look back at the year 2023, we can see ten important trends that will continue to shape our lives in 2024—and beyond.    

First, America has not fully recovered from its military defeat in 2021 at the hands of China. 

The US has had to reconcile itself to an inferior status in the Pacific—and perhaps the world.  To be sure, the actual military losses suffered by the US were minimal; the American surveillance satellites, blinded by Chinese lasers, have now all been replaced—albeit they are limited to new orbits that do not violate China’s Sovereignty Zone.   The three US aircraft carriers that were sunk in the first ten minutes of the conflict represented a great loss of life, of course, but as  the Sharpton-Paul Commission concluded in 2022, the US had no legal authority, in the first place, to patrol that close to Chinese waters.   Moreover, now that Taiwan has accepted reunification with Beijing, and now that Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea have agreed to accept People’s Liberation Army “Friendship Bases” on their territories, experts can cite no reason for the US Navy to venture east of Hawaii.  

On the other hand, the stock market continues to hit record highs, although skeptics attribute this rise to the inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve, as opposed to the basic strength of the US economy. 

Second, we have seen the final elimination of US influence in the Middle East.   It’s been eight years now since President Obama pulled the last American troops out of Afghanistan.  The US had high hopes for the 2015 peace agreement between the late Hamid Karzai and the Taliban, but those hopes were dashed the following day.   

Via: Breitbart

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UPS and FedEx Ruin Christmas and Prove Republicans Wrong About Killing the Post Office

People across the country got a look at what package delivery will look like if the Postal Service is privatized after both UPS and FedEx ruined Christmas by being unable to delivery holiday packages on time.

UPS admitted that some children would not receive their Christmas gifts on time because their system could not keep up with demand, “We understand the importance of your holiday shipments. However, the volume of air packages in our system exceeded the capacity of our network.” A spokesperson for Fed Ex said, “We’re sorry that there could be delays and we’re contacting affected customers who have shipments available for pickup.” Fed Ex’s solution was to make customers who paid for Christmas delivery go to their local Fed Ex store and pick up their packages on Christmas Day. If you didn’t have a local Fed Ex store, you were out of luck.

Things were so bad at Fed Ex that local depots were overwhelmed with packages to the point where they didn’t attempt to make deliveries. The AP confirmed that the delivery issues impacted Alabama, California, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

Via: Politicus USA

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Bloomberg Says Administration ‘Literally’ Saved 9,200 Lives

With just four days left before his 12-year tenure in City Hall comes to an end, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is celebrating what he views as one of his crowning achievements: the record-low homicide rate across the five boroughs.

Speaking at an NYPD graduation ceremony today, Mr. Bloomberg wasn’t bashful in making sure both his administration and police department get full credit for the drop in crime over the past decade.

“The crime reductions the NYPD has driven over the past 12 years have defied the odds and far outpaced the rest of the nation. Twelve years ago, no one thought New York City’s crime rate could go any lower. But then it did,” said Mr. Bloomberg, rattling off statistics to support his claim, including “the most important measure of public safety”: less than 340 murders logged so far this year.

“If you compare this decade to the previous eras’ murder rates, we can literally say that we have saved more than 9,200 lives in the last 12 years,” the mayor added.

Mr. Bloomberg’s policing policies have come under intense scrutiny throughout the year. A federal judge ruled against the controversial stop-and-frisk tactic’s current implementation and Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio–who will replace Mr. Bloomberg come January–emerged as one of the foremost stop-and-frisk critics during his winning campaign.

But it is not just Mr. Bloomberg who is in legacy mode in the face of potential skeptics. Outgoing Police Commissioner Ray Kelly also spoke today and touted both his record and Mr. Bloomberg’s accomplishments.

Via: Politicker

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MSNBC's Taylor: Republicans 'Almost Single-Handedly Blew Up This Economy'

On Thursday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, during a discussion of Republican resistance to extending unemployment benefits, MSNBC political analyst Goldie Taylor charged that the  GOP "almost single-handedly blew up this economy," and that it was "as if" they "blew up" the "bridge" and then "dared people to cross to the other side of the canyon on their own."

After host Al Sharpton played several soundbites of Republican elected officials and complained that they "act as though" the unemployed are "dependents, that they're some kind of beggars," he turned to Taylor who responded:

You know, this is a party who almost single-handedly blew up this economy. You know, it's as if they stuck dynamite on the bridge, blew it up and then dared people to cross to the other side of the canyon on their own. And so, at the end of the day, this is going to hurt them in 2014. It's going to hurt them in 2016 because you don't know who your next door neighbor happens to be who might be receiving benefits from the Department of Labor.

A bit earlier, Taylor served as a reminder that when conservatives discuss the disproportionate poverty or unemployment rate of the black population in the context of trying to help, that they are attacked as having a racist motivation just for noticing, but when liberals do the same, it is considered a perfectly reasonable topic of conversation. As she tried to make Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul seem insensitive to the needs of the black population, Taylor recalled that "African-Americans have a higher disproportionate unemployment rate than the rest of the country."

Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Thursday, December 26, PoliticsNation on MSNBC:

AL SHARPTON: Goldie, you know, Senator Rand Paul is standing behind his comments that extending jobless benefits does a disservice to the workers. Listen to this.

SENATOR RAND PAUL (R-KY): And so really, when I said it's a disservice, I mean this. I am worried about the workers. Not that I think they become bad people by being unemployed longer, but that the longer they're unemployed, the less likely they are ever to get a job again.

SHARPTON: Now, Goldie, keep in mind in Senator Paul's home state of Kentucky, about 53,000 people will lose benefits if Congress fails to act. But this is his position.

TAYLOR: Yeah, I've got to agree with Governor Rendell here. You know, you've got to force them to vote because if they do have to vote, then they're going to turn around to the people in their district, the people who are receiving SNAP benefits that they wanted to cut, the people receiving unemployment benefits that they refuse to extend. Now, the people who want to sign up for the Affordable Care Act when they refuse to create these exchanges.

You know, we need to force them to vote on not extending this unemployment benefits package so that the 53,000 people of Kentucky who are going to lose those benefits can see exactly where Rand Paul stands and all of the rest of them. That's what this is really about.

I heard Rand Paul say that he was using this as a part of this mission to attract more African-American voters. Well, African-Americans have a higher disproportionate unemployment rate than the rest of the country. And so, certainly, this is not the constituency you want to talk to about cutting unemployment benefits that people earn who have lost their jobs through no fault, clearly, of their own.

Via: Newsbusters

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New Jersey Cops Suspended for Serving Their Country?

Two New Jersey cops say they were suspended over their military service. Michael McCracken and Hector Cartagena are Iraq war veterans and airmen in the Air Force Reserves.

They’re being suspended without pay and could lose their jobs for allegedly misusing military leave time. An attorney for both men says they’re upstanding cops and did everything by the book. The police union claims the cops are being targeted by their department to discourage other cops from joining the reserves.

“It’s devastating,” McCracken said. “I’ve got a wife and three small children. […] I’m without a paycheck now.”

Cartagena said, “It’s hard for the family. There’s no Christmas presents for them right now. We’ll get through this, I have no doubt, but it’s just everything I worked for up to this point.”

Lawmakers are calling for the state’s attorney general to investigate.

UPDATE: Sunday morning on Fox and Friends Weekend, McCracken and Cartagena told their side of the story. Their attorney said that audiotape from investigation revealed other Bloomfield police officers were complaining that they couldn’t take vacations due to the soldiers’ military leave.

Via: Fox Insider

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Obama’s contracting chief uses revolving door for job at reverse-auction company

The White House’s contracting policy chief is leaving to take a job at a company that conducts billions of dollars in reverse auctions for federal agencies, raising more concerns about the “revolving door” that President Obama pledged to end between government and special interests.

Joseph Jordan, the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, is leaving to take a job at FedBid, a private Virginia-based company that has come under congressional scrutiny in recent weeks over whether its reverse auction model saves the government much money.

Mr. Jordan’s career move is the latest to alarm watchdogs who say the jumps from government to the private sector seem to do more to enrich individuals than they do to help taxpayers.

“Unfortunately, we think the OFPP has become a launching pad for future contractor lobbyists,” said Joe Newman, spokesman for the Project On Government Oversight, which monitors government contracting.

Weeks before news of Mr. Jordan’s move to the company, questions about reverse-auction rules arose in Congress. Congressional auditors asked the White House Office of Management and Budget, where Mr. Jordan works, to amend federal acquisition rules on reverse auctions to mitigate confusion among agencies about the contracting technique.

Via: Washington Times

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