Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

OH, MY: Washington Post Approvingly Describes the Possible Impeachment of the President

Same crimes, different era:

Judiciary Committee Approves Article to Impeach President Nixon


By Richard Lyons and William Chapman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 28, 1974; Page A01

The House Judiciary Committee took the momentous step last night of recommending that the president of the United States be impeached and removed from office... The first such impeachment recommendation in more than a century, it charges President Nixon with unlawful activities that formed a "course of conduct or plan" to obstruct the investigation of the Watergate break-in and to cover up other unlawful activities...

...[Some] are most concerned about allegations that Mr. Nixon misused such sensitive agencies as the Internal Revenue Service and the Central Intelligence Agency for political purposes.

Others are most concerned about Mr. Nixon's defiance of committee subpoenas, which is now included in Article II as a contempt of Congress count, but may be broken out into a separate article...

Substitute Benghazi for Watergate break-in and NSA for CIA and the story could have been written yesterday.

As for abuse of the Internal Revenue Service for political ends, it is now exceedingly clear that the White House had its hand in targeting Tea Party and conservative groups:

Newly uncovered IRS documents show the agency flagged political groups based on the content of their literature, raising concerns specifically about ”anti-Obama rhetoric,” inflammatory language and “emotional” statements made by non-profits seeking tax-exempt status.

The 2011 date has one interesting parallel. Two years ago (almost to the day), the White House rolled out its own version of a lèse-majesté intimidation mechanism — “Attack Watch.” That didn’t last long in the sunlight, after widespread criticism and derision forced the White House to shelve it, although the Obama campaign tried to bring it back in February 2012 as the “Truth Team.”

So, did the IRS just feel inspired by Attack Watch, or did the White House just transfer the effort? The date on the IRS document is November 16, 2011, well after Attack Watch became more or less moribund in the public eye.


As Ed Morrissey concludes his analysis:

When the IRS starts targeting political dissent for scrutiny, they have stopped being a revenue collector and have become instead a political enforcer. That’s dangerous for all Americans, and Congress needs to demand and enforce immediate reform in the IRS. They also need to find out who ordered the targeting, regardless of how high up it goes.

This is yet another reason to defund Obamacare. We need answers. We need reform. And need an accountable IRS that can be trusted to handle Americans' health care data without using it for political purposes.

Furthermore, it is now painfully clear that IRS officials -- including Lois Lerner and Steven Miller -- lied to Congress, blatantly and repeatedly, when questioned about these partisan activities.

So what are you going to do about it, Chairman Issa? Are you going to bray and delay? Or are you going to act?


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

A single county in the U.S. spends more than $2 billion a year on benefits for illegal aliens

But I'm sure the taxpayers of Los Angeles County don't mind. After all, they most certainly don't need the money themselves.

A projected $650 million in welfare benefits will be distributed to illegal alien parents in 2013, county officials said Monday.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich announced the latest figures from the Department of Public Social Services, which showed more than $376 million in CalWORKs benefits and food stamps combined have been distributed through July to illegal alien parents for their native-born children.

Approximately $54 million in welfare payments are issued each month, consisting of nearly $20 million in CalWORKs and $34 million in food stamp issuances, according to the data.

An estimated 100,000 children of 60,000 undocumented parents receive aid in Los Angeles County, according to Antonovich, who said this year’s projections — up about $1 million from the nearly $53 million in total benefits issued in July 2012 — underscore the economic impact of the nation’s immigration debate.

“When you add the $550 million for public safety and nearly $500 million for healthcare, the total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers exceeds $1.6 billion dollars a year,” Antonovich said in a statement. “These costs do not even include the hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually for education.”

With education added in, it's safe to say that the county is spending upwards of $2 billion a year supporting illegal aliens.

So each taxpaying household in the county is spending $1,200 a year -- $100 each and every month -- supporting illegal aliens. But I'm sure there's nothing else they'd rather spend that money on.


Hat tip: Lee.

OH, GOODY! Obamacare forces doctors to ask patients about their sexual behavior and share that data with the feds

Guest post by Eric Boehm

Thanks to new regulations that are part of the federal Affordable Care Act, patients will be asked to disclose more personal information to their doctors — including how often they have sex and how with how many sexual partners.

And once they do, it won’t really be personal information any more.

One provision of the new Obamacare law will have doctors asking their patients about their sex lives and history of drug use, even if such information is completely unrelated to why the patient is seeking medical treatment, according to a report in Monday’s New York Post.

Christina Sandefur, a lawyer for the Goldwater Institute, an Arizona-based conservative think tank challenging the Affordable Care Act in federal court, said the arrangement is a violation of patients’ privacy rights.

“Once you’ve shared your information with a private third party, the Supreme Court has ruled that is fair game for the government,” she told Watchdog.org, noting the recent disclosures of data sharing between the National Security Agency and Google, Facebook and other online services.

Doctors and hospitals who refuse to participate could be cut-off from some federal funds, and individuals who decline to share sensitive information may have to pay the fines — taxes, according to the Supreme Court — outlined in the federal health care law.

Monday, September 16, 2013

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Obama waives ban on arming known terrorist groups

It just keeps getting better and better, don't it?

Obama waives ban on arming terrorists to allow aid to Syrian opposition


President Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to "vetted" opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.


Some elements of the Syrian opposition are associated with radical Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, which was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., in 2001. Assad's regime is backed by Iran and Hezbollah.

The president, citing his authority under the Arms Export Control Act, announced today that he would "waive the prohibitions in sections 40 and 40A of the AECA related to such a transaction."

Really? This is the same fella who thinks Americans aren't responsible enough to own firearms?

This is going a ways back, but y'all remember the incessant shrieks of the anti-Reagan kooks regarding Iran-Contra?

Yeah, good times.

Cue the explosion of the Hypocrisy-meter in the background.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

A Boston Cabbie's Rant

Captured to the best of my ability, verbatim, as I was driven to the airport


You see this? [Taps device on windshield]

This is a Fast-Pass. People can get one for free here, and they still don't. Instead they fumble with cash, tie up traffic.

You know even if I have a one-way fare, drop you off at the airport and come back empty, I still pay five backs. There's an airport fee, a tunnel fee, whatever.

It's like $8.50 if I have a fare. They always get you coming and going in this state.

You shoulda seen a few years ago, the scandal they uncovered with the toll collectors. A lot of the tolls were still paid in cash then.

So they arrested maybe 20 toll collectors. Check this out: they were pocketing hundreds of dollars every hour.

Do the math: everyone of 'em was pocketing hundreds of dollars an hour, $10 thousand or more a day, upwards of $300 thousand a month... $3 million a year. $3 million a year! Each one of 'em.

Guess what, the fix musta been in, 'cause they got charged with misdeameanors. They said, oh, he only stole $30 or 40 bucks. No one ever heard what happened to most of 'em. Probably retired now with a full pension.

Speaking of pensions: you should see what the state troopers are doing here. Let's say you're a state trooper, you pull down $88 grand a year. Your pension is based on your top three earning years, so they'll make sure to get plenty of overtime.

Cops got an easy way to make overtime here. We're the only state in the union that requires every road construction site, no matter how small, got a cop present. Now I see lotsa sites have two cops. Guess what, with two cops, union rules say you gotta have a "site manager", so there's three cops. All that for a piece of road that just got dug up last year and they dig it up again.

I see it over and over again in downtown Boston. They dig up a road, fix something, pave it all up nice and pretty... and six months later they got the same piece of road all dug up again. They say something else broke or they forgot something. Guaranteed there's some kinda scam going on with these guys, there always is here.

Anyhow, back to the state trooper pensions. These guys cram as much OT as they can in before they retire. And they can retire at 52 years old! 52! Can you believe it?

So we have state troopers retiring at age 52 with $180,000-a-year lifetime pensions!

And then they get government jobs and continue working. They got a word for that in the papers here, double-dipping, but no one ever does anything about it. So they're getting $180 grand pensions, maybe an $80 grand salary from another government job, and they get another pension! The things I seen here, you wouldn't believe.

Everything is so corrupt. Something's gotta give.

Right over there [points to overpass]... not too long ago, some lady was drunk driving, drove right off that overpass, stops up traffic for a whole day. Well, they search her purse since she's driving drunk.

She's got, I don't know, four-five EBT cards? You know, the welfare cards.

She's got one card that says "Teresa Gomez", another says "Teresa L. Gomez", another with "T.L. Gomez", and so on. That's not her name, I forgot the real name.

Well, it turns out the state admits there's 24,000 EBT cards with people they can't locate. 24,000! It's costing taxpayers millions in dollars for these welfare scams that people are abusing.

They have stories in the paper about people bringing plastic containers into grocery stores, using 10 or 11 EBT cards, filling up as many containers as they can, shipping the containers of food to their home countries. Maybe Dominican Republic, where they can't get these kinds of cereal or what-not.

Well, the people in the foreign countries sell the stuff and split the money with the person who shipped it here.

All paid for with EBT fraud, WIC fraud, you name it.

I don't see things changing for a while. 9 out of 10 people ain't payin' attention.

Take Mitt Romney, he was a heckuva governor. Every good idea he had to get government working better, the Democrats blocked. Every single one, and he still had a great record. For four years, he never even drew a salary. Not a single dollar.

If a Democrat had served as governor and never taken a salary, the media woulda been blaring that day in and day out.

But with Romney, he's a Mormon. He's this or that. Greedy. Whatever. Mormon or not, I got news for you about the guy in the White House.

He's a Moslem. Look it up, he puts these Moslem Brotherhood guys in all these key positions. Moslem Brotherhood! These are the worst of the worst terrorist types.

I don't believe there's anything like a moderate Moslem. I was here for the Boston Marathon bombing, was right nearby.

There was blood everywhere. Everywhere. Blood on the street with arms and legs blowed off.

I'm a cab driver, believe me, I know Moslems. Most cab drivers around here are Moslems. We gotta wait to use the bathroom so they can wash their feet. They bend backwards to make sure the Moslems got everything they need and the rest of us get treated like dirt.

Never seen a moderate Moslem.

Tell you what, during the Iraq War, if an American chopper got shot down, I'd see these guys high-fiving. They'd be laughing it up, celebrating if Americans got killed. They work here but they hate America, they really do.

Look at that car what got booted.

They torture the working people in this city, they really do.

8am I'm driving around, the working people are all up and going to work.

9am, 9:30am - the freeloaders are sitting on their stoops, drinking and smoking cigarettes, yucking it up, living off the working people.

If you have a car in this city, oh boy, do they torture you. They'll ticket you for no reason, even if you have a parking pass.

They got a meter maid on every corner, it's even worse now with the police contract coming up for negotiation. The last mayor [Menino] left that timebomb waiting. They didn't ever get a contract with the police done over the last three years or so. There's a mayor election in a few weeks and whoever wins has one hell of a problem with that police contract.

Any way, now that the contract is around the corner, they have meter maids everywhere. Everywhere. You park anywhere, it seems like, even legally, and "bam" you got a ticket. The worst thing is, someone else with a car will take the ticket off your windshield, put in on their windshield to protect themselves from getting a ticket!

So now you don't know you got a ticket! Guess what: that happens three times and "bam", you got a boot on your car. Now you're really screwed.

You know what getting a boot off costs? $600 bucks. There's a boot installation fee and a boot removal fee.

And if you got a piece o' crap car: don't even think about abandoning your vehicle. After it's there a while, you get his with a $500 "Abandonment Fee".

There's no way to win around here.

The whole city's corrupt, it's infested with corruption, it's everywhere.

Someday the working people of the city are gonna wake up, because 90 percent of them are asleep right now. But someday they're gonna wake up, they'll have had enough, and then there might be some change.

But right now, this city's headed into the crapper. They say it's a bustling busy city. Well, I've been here for 60 years, and the fraud and corruption keeps getting worse. And at some point, it's gotta end, because there just ain't enough money to keep paying for all of these scams they're running.


Thanks to Cabbie X for the conversation.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

IRS HITMAN LOIS LERNER LIED: Emails Prove She Targeted "Dangerous" Tea Party Groups

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily


Politics: New emails show that the woman at the center of the IRS scandal over special scrutiny of conservative groups' applications for tax-exempt status targeted tea party applications specifically and directed they be held up.

While a possible "wag the dog" attack on Syria and other "phony" scandals like Benghazi have grabbed the headlines, Congress has continued its investigation into the Obama administration's targeting of tea party groups that sprang up in opposition to ObamaCare by the agency charged with enforcing it, the Internal Revenue Service.

In case anyone forgot, Lois Lerner, former head of the Exempt Organizations office of the IRS, who invoked her Fifth Amendment rights rather than tell what she did and knew about the targeting of tea party and other conservative groups, is still being paid with your tax dollars while on "administrative leave."

Yet another reason for her silence has been unearthed by a 2011 email released by the House Ways and Means Committee in which the woman who claimed she had done nothing wrong admitted that the tea party was not only targeted, but targeted at her direction, in response to the Citizens United case that so outraged President Obama because it reaffirmed the free-speech rights of those who oppose him.

In the February 2011 email, Lerner advised her staff — including then-Exempt Organizations Technical Manager Michael Seto and then-Rulings and Agreements director Holly Paz — that a tea party matter is "very dangerous" and something "Counsel and (Lerner adviser) Judy Kindell need to be in on." Lerner added: "Cincy should probably NOT have these cases."

Friday, September 13, 2013

EVERY SINGLE PENNY: The Obamacare Speech a Real Speaker of the House Would Give

Line in the Sand, a speech by Speaker of the House ___________________

The ill-named Affordable Care Act -- also known as Obamacare -- has been a "trainwreck" according to its very architects since day one. From the CLASS Act, to the delay of the Employer Mandate, to exempting Congress from the law, the sheer size and complexity of this partisan bill makes it virtually impossible to implement.

I and my peers, all of us, we took an oath to uphold the Constitution. And today we are going to stand by that oath and defend the Constitution of the United States.

This bill was passed in an unconstitutional fashion -- with bribes and payoffs and other skulduggery -- by a single party that temporarily held power during the 110th Congress. The bill consisted of thousands of pages and not one person was permitted to read the bill before it was voted upon.

This bill fundamentally changes the relationship of the citizen to the government.

This is an unconscionable violation of representative government. Nancy Pelosi famously told us we had to pass the bill to find out what's in it. Now we know, and it's an unconstitutional disaster.

Because a single judge bows to some unknown pressure, and changes his vote at the last minute to rewrite a bill that is clearly unconstitutional... because, unlike every other entitlement program, Democrats had no Republican support for this bill...

Because Democrats used every underhanded tactic -- bribes, payoffs and corporate reacharounds -- possible to pass a bill that not one of them read before voting upon...

Because the IRS, already caught punishing groups based upon their political and religious affiliations, will be the enforcers of Obamacare... because radical, left wing groups like La Raza and ACORN will be hired as "Obamacare Navigators" with access to their political opponents' most sensitive health care data...

Because jobs are being destroyed. Because good jobs are disappearing before our very eyes as small businesses are driven not to hire by the law. Because full-time jobs are turning to part-time jobs. Because employers are slashing benefits for spouses and other family members to adapt to a law no one read.

Because the lies that were told to sell this bill were as awful as they were brazen... Because you can't keep your policy, you can't keep your doctor, you can't keep your plan, you can't keep your insurer, and you will pay far more, not far less...

Because Democrat lobbyists and staffers are raking in million advising companies how to comply with the tens of thousands of pages of regulations that this law has spawned... Because they have built a law so complex that no one can possibly understand its effects without paying off the very people who created it!

Most of all, because the people who want Obamacare most are the very same people who have exempted themselves from the law! Obamacare waivers have been issued for Congress, staffers, unions, special interest groups...

I have a question for President Obama and the Democrats? Aren't the American people the most important special interest group Congress serves? The vast majority of Americans want a waiver from Obamacare, just like the lobbyists and the other Beltway elites.

True to my word, Republicans will not shut down the government. We have passed a continuing resolution that funds every single aspect of the federal government except for Obamacare. Every single penny.

But we are drawing a line in the sand when it comes to the trainwreck of Obamacare. We want at least a year delay in its implementation, just like Congress, just like the unions, just like the employers subject to the mandate, and just like other Democrat special interests got.

So if Democrats want to shut down the government, so be it. The House Continuing Resolution funds the entirety of the government -- every single penny -- just not the trainwreck called Obamacare, which President Obama has already defunded for his pals. The vast majority of the American people have told us over and over again: we want a waiver from Obamacare too, just like Congress got.

Call up your Representative and Senators now and tell them: we want a waiver too. Pass the House Continuing Resolution and delay Obamacare now.


STAR DRECK: EPA plans to shut down coal plants by requiring they use technology from the future that has yet to be invented

Mr. Peabody, does the Wayback Machine have a setting for the year 2030?

This past spring, EPA pulled its first attempt at a greenhouse gas emission standard for new power plants, fearing it was so draconian that it wouldn't stand up in a federal court...

The Washington Post reports that the agency is about to take a second stab at stacking the deck against new coal-fired power plants:

According to those familiar with the new EPA proposal, the agency will keep the carbon limit for large natural gas plants at 1,000 pounds but relax it slightly for smaller gas plants. The standard for coal plants will be as high as 1,300 or 1,400 pounds per megawatt hour.

However, the average coal plant emits 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour, meaning new plants will need carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology--something that is a long way from being viable. Jeffrey Holmstead, who represents coal-fired power plant owners and is a former EPA official in the President George W. Bush administration, told the Post, “As a practical matter, this means that the new proposal will still stop any new coal-fired power plants for the foreseeable future.”

The International Energy Agency doesn't expect CCS technology to be routinely used by power generators until 2030. That’s years away. In the meantime, we need to continue improving the efficiency of current coal-fired technology and continue investing in CCS research instead of writing off an abundant and economical energy source.


The only campaign promise that President Obama appears to have kept with was his 2008 pledge to make "electricity prices necessarily skyrocket".

"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, the price of electricity would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was... [t]hey will pass that money on to consumers." --Barack Obama, 1 November 2008


He can run, he can hide, he can evade, he can blame Bush and James Buchanan. But this is one campaign promise Barack Obama actually followed through with. And you. Ain't. Seen. Nothing. Yet.


Thursday, September 12, 2013

IRS-GATE REIGNITES: Left-Wing Hit-Man Lois Lerner Indicted By Her Own Spiteful Words

That's not a typo. Yes, I said "hit-man". I mean, have you seen a picture of Lerner? That's a man, man.

Sorry, that's cruel, I know. But when these despicable hacks use their power and the instrumentalities of government to target political opposition, well, it's clear they are not real Americans. In fact, they despise the American form of government. They loathe free speech. And, most of all, they will use any scheme, no matter how unlawful, to retain their white-knuckled grip on power.

Congress's investigation into the IRS targeting of conservatives has been continuing out of the Syria headlines... [and the latest revelations] raise doubts about IRS claims that the targeting wasn't politically motivated and that low-level employees in Cincinnati masterminded the operation.

In a February 2011 email, Ms. Lerner advised her staff—including then Exempt Organizations Technical Manager Michael Seto and then Rulings and Agreements director Holly Paz—that a Tea Party matter is "very dangerous," and is something "Counsel and [Lerner adviser] Judy Kindell need to be in on." Ms. Lerner adds, "Cincy should probably NOT have these cases."

...Earlier this summer, IRS lawyer Carter Hull, who oversaw the review of many Tea Party cases and questionnaires, testified that his oversight began in April 2010. Tea party cases under review are "being supervised by Chip Hull at each step," Ms. Paz wrote to Ms. Lerner in a February 2011 email. "He reviews info from TPs, correspondence to TPs etc. No decisions are going out of Cincy until we go all the way through the process with the c3 and c4 cases here." TP stands for Tea Party, and she means 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups.

The emails also put the targeting in the context of the media and Congressional drumbeat over the impact of conservative campaign spending on the 2012 elections. On July 10, 2012 then Lerner-adviser Sharon Light emailed Ms. Lerner a National Public Radio story on how outside money was making it hard for Democrats to hold their Senate majority.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had complained to the Federal Election Commission that conservative groups like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity should be treated as political committees, rather than 501(c)(4)s, which are tax-exempt social welfare groups that do not have to disclose their donors.

"Perhaps the FEC will save the day," Ms. Lerner wrote back later that morning.

That response suggests Ms. Lerner's political leanings, and it also raises questions about Ms. Lerner's intentions in a separate email exchange she had when an FEC investigator inquired about the status of the conservative group the American Future Fund. The FEC and IRS don't have the authority to share that information under section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code...

Ms. Lerner famously invoked her right against self-incrimination rather than testify under oath to Congress. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reported this summer that its investigation had found Ms. Lerner had sent official IRS documents to her personal email account, and many questions remain unanswered. Democrats want to pretend the IRS scandal is over, but Ms. Lerner's role deserves much more exposure.

Lerner is a disgrace. If we had effective leaders in the House, she'd be serving time in Leavenworth, knitting sweaters for "Big Wanda".


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

AWESOME: Colorado Voters Abort Democrat State Legislators Who Sided With Rapists Over Victims

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Rights: Colorado voters on Tuesday ousted two leading supporters of stricter gun control laws, saying "ready, aim, fired" to those who would deny movie patrons and college women the right to armed self-defense.

One would think that Colorado, the site of the tragedies at Columbine and the Aurora movie theater, the purple state where President Obama accepted his first nomination amidst faux Greek columns, would be the least receptive of states for the arguments of Second Amendment defenders.

Colorado state Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron found out differently on Tuesday as they were ousted by gun rights advocates in a recall election.

Colorado voters were persuaded that the perils of an unarmed citizenry and the spread of gun-free zones place the public in greater peril at the hands of the unhinged and criminal predators in their midst, and perhaps perceived the common thread in such tragedies — the absence of people willing and able to shoot back.

The National Rifle Association, which donated about $360,000 to support the recalls, in particular hailed Morse's loss, telling the Denver Post it "is proud to have stood with the men and women in Colorado who sent a clear message that their Second Amendment rights are not for sale."

Some would suggest this just demonstrates the power of the gun lobby, but Sen. Lois Tochtrop, an Adams County Democrat and longtime Second Amendment activist, thinks it's just a natural reaction to an overreach by Democrats in messing with gun rights.

Tochtrop feels the recall election was a reaction to seven gun-control measures introduced in the session, including a proposal by Morse. His law would have assigned liability for assault-style weapon damages to manufacturers and sellers.

Morse killed it at the 11th hour because he didn't have the votes to pass it through the Democratic-controlled Senate.

"I feel like all these gun bills have done — to quote the last words in the movie 'Tora! Tora! Tora!' — is to awaken a sleeping giant," Tochtrop said during the debate.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

AFL-CIO Looks to Turn All of America Into Detroit

Guest post by Eric Boehm

One of the major themes to emerge from this week’s national conference of the AFL-CIO in Los Angeles is a push to expand union organizing beyond the traditional collective bargaining agreement and into every workplace.

And after some brief flirting, the AFL-CIO is ready to go steady with “workers centers,” which are popping up around the nation to help organize workers in the service sector. Members of the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group for dozens of labor unions, approved a resolution this week to establish a more formal connection between the union and the workers centers that it has, in many cases, helped to start.

The labor movement cannot be confined within bargaining units defined by government agencies or limited to workplaces where a majority of employees votes “Yes” in the face of a ruthless campaign by their employer to deny them representation,” the resolution reads.

The union said it would seek to organize workers who are not in traditional collective bargaining agreements and would “mobilize these new members in electoral and other political efforts and in support of organizing drives and collective bargaining campaigns.”

To achieve that end, the AFL-CIO pledged to work more closely with “workers centers” and with foundations providing seed money to those centers.

In many cases, these workers centers have morphed into front groups for unions by using Occupy-style tactics and threats of lawsuits to make employers comply with their demands, despite the lack of a collective bargaining agreement.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? One Year Later, the Families of the Benghazi Dead and Wounded Want Answers

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Scandal: As cruise missiles are readied to aid Syria's al-Qaida-linked rebels, the president has yet to keep a promise to avenge the Benghazi dead and bring the killers to justice.

A year has passed since Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Ty Woods were murdered in a Sept. 11 terrorist attack on our diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

A month later, Obama said of the attack that "my biggest priority now is bringing those folks to justice, and I think the American people have seen that's a commitment I'll always keep."

That depends on what he means by "bringing them to justice." It's not like we don't know who they are or we have failed to finger the suspects. As an Associated Press report detailed in May:

"The U.S. has identified five men who might be responsible for the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year, and has enough evidence to justify seizing them by military force as suspected terrorists, officials say. But there isn't enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court as the Obama administration prefers."

So we essentially do nothing while the FBI "continues to investigate." The status of that investigation came up over the weekend as "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace invoked the approaching first anniversary of the attack and asked White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough why the perpetrators hadn't been brought to justice.

Wallace was especially interested in why the U.S. had not brought in Ahmed abu Khattala, who has been charged with the crime but not arrested, despite having given interviews to several news outlets.

"Why is it that reporters seem to be able to find this guy, who the government is charging with involvement in Benghazi, but law enforcement can't find him?" Wallace asked. "It's been a year, sir."

Warning - Obamacare May Be Hazardous to Your Health: Heritage Unveils Massive Times Square Billboard

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is the single most important legislative research and educational institution in the world. And it is doing yeoman's work educating Americans on the unfolding catastrophe called "Obamacare".

We’ve talked a lot about Obamacare’s costs—how it will hurt the economy, kill jobs, and cost you and your family more when you pay for health care.

But there’s an even more important cost: your health.

Obamacare will affect the quality of care in this country. It will limit the choices we have in doctors, hospitals, and treatments. People are already learning that their trusted doctors aren’t going to be available to them in the new insurance plans Obamacare is forcing them into.

And disrupting your relationship with your doctor is not how health care reform should be.

...Our new billboard in the heart of New York City will be installed this week to get people thinking and to raise awareness about the need to stop Obamacare.

Why? Because we don’t want to see people lose their health coverage—and the doctors they trust.

We don’t want to see access to treatments and procedures determined by government boards, putting bureaucrats between doctors and patients.

We don’t want to see seniors’ care suffer because of Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare.

We don’t want to see millions of Americans dumped into Medicaid—because it is not quality health care... We can’t stand by and watch these threats to our health and our families’ health go unchallenged. We must stop Obamacare.

We need to defund Obamacare so that we can start over on health care reform, with a blank slate, with solutions that leave health care decisions firmly in the hands of individuals and their doctors.


Contract your House Representative now and demand they de-fund Obamacare. The Framers gave the House the power of the purse for a reason: to check and balance an out-of-control Executive Branch.

And that's precisely what we have today. Call your representative now. The clock is ticking on our health care system and lives hang -- quite literally -- in the balance.


Related: HEALTH CARE INSIDER: Obamacare Has Two Fatal Flaws Designed to Kill Health Insurers, Bring About Single-Payer.

Monday, September 09, 2013

"TASTES LIKE VOMIT": Michelle Obama Says Her Anti-Obesity Program is Wildly Successful, But Schools Nationwide Have Kicked It to the Curb

Yea! Three cheers for FLOTUS! Her 'healthy eating' program has saved the country from obesity!

Michelle Obama credited her anti-obesity program with bringing about a “cultural shift” in the way Americans eat.

“Make no mistake about it. We are changing the conversation in this country. We are creating a cultural shift on how we live and eat. And our efforts are having an impact on our children’s lives.”

The first lady touted the success of her Let’s Move anti-obesity program during a visit on Friday to Orr Elementary School in Washington, D.C.

Yet even CBS News reports that school districts throughout the country -- including California -- have abandoned Michelle's "healthy eating" program.

The Laguna Beach Unified School District, in Southern California, is the latest district to rebel against the federal healthy lunch program -- a cornerstone of first lady Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity. The school district announced Tuesday night that it will revise its lunch menus.

The USDA (which administers the program) says growing pains are to be expected, but the complaints from school officials are getting louder; they say kids aren't eating the vegetables and low-fat choices and end up too hungry to learn. And they're saying they're losing money from throwing out all the uneaten food.

The new lunch rules, some districts say, are just unpalatable. Grumblings came from school boards in California to Illinois, Indiana and New York.

In Kentucky, one official said students thought the healthy fare "tastes like vomit."

In fact, things are going so great for Michelle's health eating program that schools in 19 states are measuring kids' BMI for obesity:

...schools in 19 states have started to conduct annual weigh-ins of students that test for their body mass index, the primary measurement used to determine if someone is overweight or obese, and then sending students home with reports – or “fat letters” – of the results.

“We look at growth charts and percentiles. And when a child is at 95 percent of their…we can look at weight for age or weight for height…that child would be considered obese,” Lauren Schmitt, a registered dietitian in California who measures the weight of hundreds of preschoolers in the San Fernando Valley, told CBS Los Angeles.

She added that out of the 900 pre-schoolers she looks at annually, roughly 200 are considered obese.

Success! Only one in four kids are obese!

Oh, and I forgot: the economy is so great a whopping one-sixth of the nation is on food stamps, and we know those are all used for the healthiest food choices imaginable.

Were they not in power, these Leftists would be employable only as comic relief.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

HEALTH CARE INSIDER: Obamacare Has Two Fatal Flaws Designed to Kill Health Insurers, Bring About Single-Payer

Guest post by Tyrion


I was fortunate enough to have a conversation today with one of the country's foremost insurance product experts. She is responsible for the actuarial analysis and design of life and health care products.

She was commiserating about the difficulty of working with state exchanges: in her opinion, it is virtually impossible to find out which companies are going to offer products in the state exchanges.

Remember, enrollment starts on October 1st, so this is a crucial problem for the exchanges. The vast majority of states won't disclose which carriers will participate or, crucially, whether any carriers have even elected to join.

And which consumers are supposed to participate in the state-run exchanges? The intent is to provide affordable coverage for those who are uninsured or for employees who don't receive health insurance through their employer.

Fatal Flaw 1 - When Underwriters are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Underwriting


The first fatal problem with the exchanges, according to this expert, is that the population entering the exchanges is likely to have increased morbidity (higher risk for disease). Her contention is that due to the economic strata of those who use the state exchanges, many health insurers will avoid entering those risk pools.

In other words, since the insurers are forbidden from underwriting (i.e., the backbone of insurance), they will avoid the state exchanges to decrease their risks.

It is therefore likely that the exchanges in many states will be stillborn, with very few insurers participating.

Fatal Flaw 2 - Health Insurance Is Not the Same as Getting Treated


The other problem with the state exchanges, she said, is that people will assume that health insurance is the same as getting treated for health problems.

What if, she asked, you buy a Bronze policy from a small insurer in your state, and find out their network of providers is exceptionally small? You want to see a specialist for a bad knee and you're told you'll need to wait six months?

This is precisely what happens in Canada and the U.K. The expert says that those health care systems do a fine job with the easy, basic tasks of medical care, but specialties must be rationed because central planning can never work as efficiently as a market-based system.

She believes a significant percentage of the population will be outraged when they see firsthand how little treatment they are able to get from the exchanges.

Executive Summary: Obamacare is an Untenable Ruse Designed to Lead to Single-Payer


By removing competition, by designing products for insurers, by prohibiting underwriting, by instituting price controls (e.g., mandated medical loss ratios), she believes that the health care industry as it stands today is doomed.

Obamacare isn't going to collapse, in her opinion, it's going to destroy the health insurance industry and transfer even more control to the federal leviathan. Obamacare is a ruse designed to collapse private insurance.

Scared yet? You should be.

Contract your House Representative now and demand they de-fund Obamacare. The Framers gave the House the power of the purse for a reason: to check and balance an out-of-control Executive Branch.

And that's precisely what we have today. Call your representative now. The clock is ticking on our health care system and lives hang -- literally -- in the balance.


Cartoon: A.F. Branco at CDN.

No Wonder the EPA is Illegally Hiding Its Temperature Data

If the radical Leftists controlling the Democrat Party had even an iota of evidence suggesting the validity of global warming, they would be clamoring to make public its data. Instead, they are unlawfully concealing the data, violating Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other demands.

It would seem to be common sense for the data used in a study that guides public policy and the writing of federal regulations to be publicly available. That’s not the case when it comes to EPA and air pollution data.

As J.R. Reed explained on Free Enterprise in July:

During their pursuit of regulations that would cost businesses billions of dollars, EPA officials have refused to reveal the data used to support these proposals – not to White House officials, not to Congress, not to leading environmental experts, and not to the American people. The data sets have not been analyzed by independent scientists or gone through a peer-review process, and, yet, these findings are being used to justify onerous regulations.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Committee, sent six letters to EPA asking for the data. In 2011, current EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy promised to do so, but never delivered it. Rep. Smith subpoenaed the agency on August 1.

ScienceInsider reports that EPA continues refusing to turn over the requested data so, Rep. Smith found EPA in default:

“You did not provide the Committee with anything new,” Smith wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. Instead, Smith wrote, the agency responded to his 1 August subpoena by providing “a file of already public information along with a letter outlining excuses for why EPA did not comply.”

In a statement, Rep. Smith explained,

EPA is using the subpoenaed data to support regulations that could cost the American people trillions of dollars. Yet the agency has refused to make the data available to Congress or the American people. Regulations based on secret data have no place in a democracy.

Ah, there's your mistake, Rep. Smith. We no longer live in a Constitutional republic, the kind in which a virtuous government does its best to hew to the letter of the law. Instead we have an out-of-control administration, with officials laced throughout the bureaucracy defying the courts and Congress.

As for "global warming"? Even the United Nations has been forced to confess the Earth is cooling.

Well, this is awkward. A leaked report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the world is not warming but actually cooling, and will continue to get colder until the middle of the century.

You remember the IPCC, right? It’s the group whose 2007 report on global warming said that snow would disappear from everywhere but the highest mountains, icebergs would melt, sea levels would rise, deserts would spread, people would die in heat waves and pretty much the earth was going to end if we didn’t immediately destroy our carbon-fueled economy with job-killing government regulations.

Well, that’s not happening. In fact, the Arctic ice cap has grown by 60 percent since 2012.

Thanks to the IPCC’s original predictions, billions of dollars were spent on supposed green measures to curb global warming ... Now, either those measures really, really paid off, or the skeptics were right all along.

There are only three reasonable ways to explain a "belief" in global warming. In order of increasing malevolence, they are hubris, greed, and Marxism. And they are not mutually exclusive; see exhibit A: Al Gore.


Related: Global Warming Comics -- The Fraudulent And The Immoral. Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.

Sunday, September 08, 2013

'This Week' Transcript: Benghazi Whistleblower Gregory Hicks

On ABC's This Week earlier today, former Clinton apparatchik-turned-journalist George Stephanopoulos interviewed Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks -- the Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya -- as the anniversary of the deadly attack nears.

And we still can't find out what the President what was doing for nine hours as Americans fought, bled and died.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We're talking about people being killed by gas and you want to go talk about Benghazi.

REPRESENTATIVE JEFF DAVIS: Absolutely want to talk about Benghazi. Four Americans lost their lives.

SECRETARY KERRY: We don't deserve to drag this into yet another Benghazi discussion when the real issue here is whether or not the Congress is going to stand up for international norms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: One year later as you can see, the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is still a political football. But for the Americans there on the ground it was a story of heartbreak and the struggle to survive. Greg Hicks was the Diplomat in Charge that night. The only officer who has spoken out about that harrowing night. This dramatic account is an ABC News exclusive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY HICKS, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION IN LIBYA: I've been perplexed and frustrated with the way this has all played out. Because to me this is a simple story. Ambassador Stevens went to Benghazi to do his job. To what he knew Secretary Clinton wanted him to do. And he was attacked while he was there.

And the American staff in Benghazi and in Tripoli responded as we've been trained to do, in an amazing way, to save the lives of our people who were in Benghazi. Unfortunately we lost four people in the line of duty.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's take a look back at the events of that night. You're home in Tripoli--

HICKS: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That evening at around what, 9:45?

HICKS: It's at 9:45 Tripoli time, right, 3:45 Washington time. Our regional security officer comes running into the house where I was and yells, Greg! Greg! The consulate's under attack! And I immediately look at my telephone and I see a missed call. I call back on that number, I get the Ambassador.

And the Ambassador says Greg we're under attack.

WAPO: Obama Lied to American People, Had Bush-Era Restrictions on NSA Surveillance of Americans Lifted in 2011

Only a few short weeks ago, President Barack Obama spoke to the American people and said, essentially, that the government's surveillance of Americans' phone records and emails were targeted and had been "ongoing for years".

On the heels of a series of reports detailing the U.S. government's practice of tracking private citizens' phone and internet use, President Obama on Friday sought to downplay the invasiveness of the procedure, assuring a California audience that "nobody is listening to your phone calls," and that any data tracking is governed by comprehensive oversight spanning all three branches of U.S. government...

...But he reminded Americans that these programs have been ongoing for years, and that Congress regularly reauthorizes the programs and receives updates on how they are conducted.

The Washington Post reports today, however, that both assertions appear to be bald-faced lies.

The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases...

...the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the [Bush administration]’s request — on ... searches [of U.S. communications], that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used.

Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress...

...Officials would not say how many searches have been conducted.

...The court’s expansion of authority went largely unnoticed when the opinion was released, but it formed the basis for cryptic warnings last year by a pair of Democratic senators, Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Mark Udall (Colo.), that the administration had a “back-door search loophole” that enabled the NSA to scour intercepted communications for those of Americans.

The Constitution's Bill of Rights has a Fourth Amendment for a reason.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Americans of all party affiliations should reject this administration's lawless behavior, its unconstitutional maneuvers and all of its many, attendant lies.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

Saturday, September 07, 2013

When it comes to obscenity, Eric Holder trumps Miley Cyrus

Guest post by Larry Sand


When it comes to obscenity, cheating kids out of a good education is far worse than a salacious dance act.

While it is a sad spectacle to watch a gawky 20 year-old stick out her tongue and sex it up in front of millions on national television, the 62 year-old U.S. Attorney General’s act is far worse, as his will do much more lasting harm. He waves his magic wand and poof – thousands of poor children are chained to the confines of failing schools in Louisiana.

Miley Cyrus would appear to be a lost puppy whose father claimed in 2011 that she was influenced by Satan. On the other hand, Eric Holder would seem to be under the spell of the teachers unions and the overrated god of diversity.

The Holder story has its roots in May when the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that:

the current method of funding the statewide school voucher program is unconstitutional. Act 2, part of Gov. Bobby Jindal‘s 2012 package of education reforms, diverts money from each student’s per-pupil allocation to cover the cost of private or parochial school tuition. The act authorizes both the Louisiana Scholarship Program and the new Course Choice program.

In other words, the voucher program is sound, but the court thought its funding mechanism wasn’t constitutional. So on June 6th, the Louisiana House and Senate compromised on a budget that allowed the program to use funds not allocated through the state’s funding formula.

Problem solved, right?

Not quite.

Later in June, the teachers unions School Choice Enemy No. 1 promptly swung into action.

A Letter from a Republican to Hispanics

Guest post by Dennis Prager


I am writing to you as a concerned and sympathetic American who is a Republican. My sentiments do not represent every American -- that would be impossible. But I believe the following represent most Americans.

First, a message to those of you here illegally:

You may be very surprised to hear this, but in your position, millions of Americans, including me, would have done what you did.

If I lived in a poor country with a largely corrupt government, a country in which I had little or no prospect of hope for an improved life for me or my children, and I could not legally get into the world's freest, most affluent country, the country with the most opportunities for people of any and every background, I would do whatever I could do to get into that country illegally.
Mexico and many other Central and South American countries are largely hopeless places for most of their people. America offers hope to everyone willing to work hard. Who could not understand why any individual, let alone a father or mother of a family, would try to get into the United States -- legally preferably, illegally if necessary?

Now that I have made it clear that millions of us understand what motivates you and do not morally condemn you for entering America illegally, I have to ask you to try to understand what motivates us.

No country in the world can allow unlimited immigration. If America opened its borders to all those who wish to live here, hundreds of millions of people would come here. That would, of course, mean the end of the United States economically and culturally.