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

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Fraudulent Unemployment Numbers and 5 Other Huge Lies the Obama White House Is Telling You

Guest post by Michael Snyder


According to a whistleblower that has recently come forward, Census employees have been faking and manipulating U.S. employment numbers for years. In fact, it is being alleged that this manipulation was a significant reason for why the official unemployment rate dipped sharply just before the last presidential election.

What you are about to read is incredibly disturbing. The numbers that the American people depend upon to make important decisions are being faked. But should we be surprised by this? After all, Barack Obama has been caught telling dozens of major lies over the past five years. At this point it is incredible that there are any Americans that still trust anything that comes out of his mouth. And of course it is not just Obama that has been lying to us. Corruption and deception are rampant throughout the entire federal government, and this has been the case for years. Now that some light is being shed on this, hopefully the American people will respond with overwhelming outrage and disgust.

The whistleblower that I mentioned above has been speaking to John Crudele of the New York Post. In his new article entitled "Census ‘faked’ 2012 election jobs report", he says that the huge decline in the unemployment rate in September 2012 was "manipulated"...

In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.
The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.
Two years earlier, the Census had actually caught an employee "fabricating data", but according to this whistleblower the corruption at the Census Bureau goes much deeper than that...

WILE E. COYOTE: Super-Sleuth Darrell Issa Opens Yet Another Huge Probe While Other Scandals Lie Unresolved

Now that we have evidence that the Obama administration lied about unemployment numbers to help turn the 2012 election, the House Oversight Committee has announced yet another investigation.

An anonymous whistleblower in a New York Post column by John Crudele is alleging that unemployment jobs data in the current population survey conducted by the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics was manipulated in 2012 to help Barack Obama get re-elected... According to the source, specifically the Oct. 5, 2012 jobs report was faked — just in time for the election. Worse, the practice reportedly continues to date.

...Nathan Mehrens, president of Americans for Limited Government, said the allegations were "extremely serious," noting "financial markets and economic policymakers all over the world depend on the integrity of jobs data to make informed decisions."
Mehrens warned, "This is a case where distorted data will result in distorted policies that harm the well-being of the global economy." Particularly, the Federal Reserve has said it is waiting until unemployment drops below 6.5% before it begins raising interest rates.

...To that end, Mehrens called for Rep. John Kline, chairman of the House Health, Education & Workforce Committee, and Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, to investigate any potential wrongdoing.

Unfortunately, Issa has plenty of experience in opening -- not closing -- investigations. To date, the following major Obama administration scandals lie largely dormant, yet in a normal era each would result in cries for impeachment.

Issa, Treasury Wrangle Over Subpoena to IRS for Tea Party Documents: "“As of today, almost five months since the committee’s initial request, the department has produced almost no internal communications about the substance of the investigation and has only produced material in response to a few of the committee’s multiple document requests,” Issa said."

Issa calls denial of dismissal in Fast and Furious lawsuit ‘repudiation’ of DOJ: "This ruling is a repudiation of the Obama Justice Department and Congressional Democrats who argued the courts should have no role in the dispute over President Obama's improper assertion of executive privilege to protect an attempted Justice Department cover-up of Operation Fast and Furious,” Issa claimed."

12 Oversight Committe Democrats Flee Benghazi Hearing Before Family Members Testify: "When the second panel began, however, Issa tweeted a picture showing a Democratic desertion. Only Representatives Jackie Speier (Calif.) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (Md.) stayed for the second panel to hear testimony from Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith, an information management officer, and Charles Woods, father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods."

Issa, House Oversight Panel Probe Healthcare.gov: "Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is exploring a long list of issues: insufficient testing, possible security flaws, design shortcomings — even allegations of political meddling."

DOJ’s Phone Sweep of AP Reporters Draws Dual House Inquiries: "“From a constitutional standpoint, the First Amendment, it’s very clear that Judiciary will have the lead on this,” said Issa, who is also a member of Judiciary. He added that he has “a fairly full plate” with investigations into the Benghazi attacks and alleged Internal Revenue Service misconduct, among other things... However, in a follow-up statement later in the day, Issa signaled he might be more closely involved than he had previously suggested."

This is insanity.

The Obama administration is the Roadrunner and Issa is Wile E. Coyote.

The proper way for Congress to investigate these impeachable offenses is to name Select Investigative Committees. These dedicated committees would not be burdened by multiple investigations or extraneous activities.

Whether it is hubris or fear of exposure of their own secrets, the House Republican leadership is operating irresponsibly and without regard for the best interests of the American people.

We must demand that Republicans name select committees, before it's too late to make a difference. Call the House Oversight Committee at (202) 225-5074 and make your voice heard.


Thursday, November 21, 2013

THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS: Deceitful, Mendacious Harry Reid Obliterates the Filibuster

Guest post by Jeff Reynolds

Last Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) demonstrated blatant hypocrisy when he stated that he is ready to invoke the "nuclear option" to ram through President Obama's nominees. This option, also known as the Byrd Option, would use some parliamentary stunts to change fundamental Senate rules, effectively allowing a simple majority to end a filibuster instead of the current 67 vote supermajority requirement. Republicans were quick to point out that this would completely remove the rights of the minority party and stray from the intent of the Founders to operate as a republic, as opposed to a democracy. What is striking, however, is just how quickly Harry Reid has changed his tune on this procedure. Less than a decade ago, when his party was in the minority, he decried the majority party for doing exactly the same thing he wishes to do now.

Reid made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows this weekend, making the case for fundamentally altering the rules of the Senate:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Sunday signaled that the Senate remains headed toward a historic remake of its rules this week to ease the confirmation of some of President Barack Obama’s nominations.

Reid said Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press” that he’s faced historic delay and obstruction during his time as majority leader, fighting hundreds of filibusters, including 16 of the president’s executive branch nominees. The Nevada Democrat said it’s time for that to end.

“The changes we’re making are very, very minimal. What we’re doing is saying: ‘Look American people, shouldn’t President Obama have somebody working for him that he wants?’” Reid said. “If you want to look at nominations, you know what the Founding Fathers said: ‘Simple majority.’ That’s what we need to do.”

However, Reid seems to have forgotten his basic principles of fairness that he so adamantly defended in the past:

In 2005, then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., threatened to invoke the “nuclear option” against Democrats filibustering President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees.

“If there were ever an example of an abuse of power, this is it… The filibuster is the last check we have against the abuse of power in Washington.” – Harry Reid 2005

“Republicans are in power today, Democrats tomorrow. A simple majority can change anything. Mr. President, this is the way it should be. You should not be able to come in here and change willy-nilly a rule of the Senate.” – Harry Reid on Senate floor, May 23, 2005

“I just couldn’t believe that Bill Frist was going to do this. The storm had been gathering all year, and word from conservative columnists and in conservative circles was that Senator Frist of Tennessee, who was the Majority Leader, had decided to pursue a rules change that would kill the filibuster for judicial nominations. And once you opened that Pandora’s box, it was just a matter of time before a Senate leader who couldn’t get his way on something moved to eliminate the filibuster for regular business as well. And that, simply put, would be the end of the United States Senate.” – Harry Reid in his 2008 book “The Good Fight”

“As long as I am the leader, the answer’s no. I think we should just forget that. That is a black chapter in the history of the Senate. I hope we never ever get to that again because I really do believe it will ruin our country.” – Harry Reid on nuclear option, C-SPAN interview, Sept. 12, 2008

So it's a very dark chapter in the history of the Senate, unless it's your party in the majority that's being asked to work with the minority party. Harry Reid has done a lot of hypocritical, hyperpartisan, unprincipled things in his time in the Senate (see e.g. Obamacare, passage), but even by his standards, invoking the nuclear option would be a breathtakingly political move.


Read more at FreedomWorks

WE'RE IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Enrollment Data Entered Into Healthcare.gov Available in Google Search Results

Some rascal online called it IdentityTheft.gov and that assessment appears to have been validated by a top security research team. The Ohio firm TrustedSec has released a security assessment of Healthcare.gov and the results, even though they were cursory by modern standards, were very grim indeed.

David Kennedy, CEO of the firm, revealed that he withheld many of the vulnerabilities because they were so severe that publishing them could have meant the complete destruction of the site. His executive summary read simply, "based on what I can see … I would say the website is either hacked already or will be soon."

I perused the entire report (PDF) this evening. In short, the site is not only a complete catastrophe from an operational perspective, it's also a hacker's dream.

...The website cost an estimated $624 million and consists of over 500 million lines of code. With the number of lines of code, this is one of the most complex applications ever written in the history of applications. To put this in comparison, the Microsoft Windows 8 operating system, which is the latest, has an estimated 50 to 80 million lines of code and has over 25 years of development and maturity. It should be noted that with 80 million lines of code, the Windows operating system has had a significant amount of “exploits” that have hit their product line since it’s early existence...

Microsoft has one of the largest and most sophisticated security development, protection, and remediation processes today. This process has taken years to mature and places security at the forefront. With a website that is over 6 times more complex than the Microsoft operating system and developed in an extremely short period of time, there is and was no foreseeable way to build security into the website...

...there are clear indicators that even basic security was not built into the healthcare.gov website. TrustedSec is confident based on the exposures identified that the website has critical risks associated with it and security concerns should be remediated immediately...

...TrustedSec identified multiple severely critical exposures that it is not publishing publicly until they have been addressed.

...One of the more alarming trends is that the actual security testing of the website was deferred due to project delays. The website was launched without formal testing and with known risks around the security of the applications. Even further, there was little to no security built into the website or through the development. With the complexity of the website, this would indicate
that the website will suffer from significant security concerns for a long period of time unless significant action is taken to address the issues and flaws within it.

...It appears that individual user accounts and names are indexed via Google and can expose profile information of individuals that sign up on data.healthcare.gov.

Based on what I've seen, Healthcare.gov may be the single biggest magnet for identity thieves in world history.

And, come to think of it, that's another historic Obama first!


Wednesday, November 20, 2013

BIG F***IN' DEAL, INDEED: Only 100 million more Americans to lose their health insurance next year

I wasn't a math major in college, but canceling the insurance plans of 140 million Americans to make sure 9 million other Americans are covered seems rather, eh, counter-intuitive.

A new and independent analysis of ObamaCare warns of a ticking time bomb, predicting a second wave of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy cancellations next fall -- right before the mid-term elections.

The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shakeup in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader.

...half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year.

...Under the health care law, businesses with fewer than 50 workers do not have to provide health coverage. But if they do, the policies will still have to meet the benefit standards set by ObamaCare.

...For workers, their experience could mirror that of the 5 million or so on the individual market who already received cancellation notices because their plans did not meet new standards under the Affordable Care Act.

President Obama announced last week that insurance companies could offer out-of-compliance plans for another year. But that only means the cancellation notices will resume late next year.

...The business community has already been hit with another side effect from ObamaCare. Because the law will require businesses with more than 50 full-time workers to offer health coverage, there are reports that companies are shifting employees to part-time status to avoid hitting the threshold... A survey showed 31 percent of franchise businesses, and 12 percent of non-franchise businesses, have already reduced worker hours. It also showed 27 percent of franchise businesses, and 12 percent of non-franchise businesses, have replaced full-time workers with part-time employees.

I wonder what the Leni Riefenstahl of the Obama administration -- Taegan Goddard -- has to say about this?


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

The Biggest Money-Printing Exercise in World History

Guest post by Martin D. Weiss

The U.S. economy is now so addicted to the Fed’s monthly $85 billion injection of monetary stimulus … that just the thought of withdrawal is enough to cause violent market convulsions.

Consider, for example, the absurdity of this recent chain of events:

* The U.S. Labor Department announces a far better-than-expected report on new jobs …

* Investors fear that the good economic news may nudge the Fed a tad closer to cutting back its stimulus …

* They dump their investments by the truckload, and …

* Bond prices plunge the most in four months, driving interest rates skyward.

All in response to supposedly good news about the economy!

All because investors would rather see the economy sink than see the Fed cut back on its monthly megadose of money shot up their veins.

Or consider the long sequence of excuses Fed Chairman Bernanke has offered for smashing the 100-year Fed prohibition against running the money printing presses 24/7 …

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

EXPLOSIVE CHART: There Have Been 40 Insurance Cancellations for Every Obamacare Sign-up

I describe this chart as explosive because I recommend wearing ear, eye and head protection if you show it to a liberal drone. Be wary of flying brain shrapnel. Send them the link, then tuck and roll.


And here are two more shots.


And a chaser.



Hat tip: Twitchy.

IT'S THE NEW MATH: Healthcare.gov Website Only 30% Done But Will Work for 80% of Users in 11 Days

Please pay close attention to the percentages.

NRO reports that as much as 70 percent of the entire Obamacare website will have to be rewritten.

A chief official responsible for building the federal health-insurance exchange revealed that as much as 70 percent of the system still needs to be built.

Henry Chao, the deputy chief information officer for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told a House subcommittee that the administration still needs to construct the payment systems and other “back office” functions, which constitute 60 to 70 percent of the system.

The White House has said that HealthCare.gov will be functioning for a “vast majority of people” by its self-imposed November 30 deadline... [they] will consider the website a “success” if 80 percent of users are able to enroll by the end of the month.

In other words, the Obama administration has spent the last three years building a website that is only 30 percent complete, but by November 30th it will work correctly for 80 percent of the users.

Those percentages add up... if your last name is Pelosi or Jarrett.

But don't worry, it's a bargain at any price: the site has only cost the American taxpayer around $630 million. So far.

I swear to you that the first person to write an Office Space-style screenplay focusing on the Obamacare website debacle is going to make a hundred million dollars.


Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.

Monday, November 18, 2013

GUEST POST: The Illegal Actions of our Autocratic President

Guest post by Richard Larsen

Our country was founded as a constitutional republic; a federation of autonomous states tied together by a Constitution that stated explicitly what the powers of the federal government were. We have now been unofficially, yet fundamentally transformed into an autocratic “ineptocracy.” And we needn’t look any further for evidence than this week’s presidential attempts to “fix” the increasingly unaffordable Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Having been caught in his perpetual lie, “if you like your insurance you can keep it,” the president this week promised to “fix” it, by allowing people to keep their insurance plans for another year, if they wanted. Not only is that genie out of the bottle and operationally impossible to put back in, but more significantly, it represented another evidence that this president feels his power is not constrained or limited by the Constitution, or by the rule of law.

Article II, Sec. 3 of the Constitution commands the president to faithfully execute the law. The president, and even more broadly, the executive branch, does not make law. That’s the role of the legislative branch, or Congress. Once laws are on the books, the president cannot change them; they are to be executed, enacted, and implemented by the president and the executive branch.

Yet, just as he did in July when he delayed the ACA employer mandate by a year, this week he, without authority, said he would “allow” people to keep their policies for another year if they liked them. The president has no such authority! Those are laws passed legally – although regrettably – by Congress and signed into law. The president has no authority to arbitrarily choose what laws to enforce, which to not, or change laws arbitrarily and illegally by his own discretion. His oath is to faithfully execute them!

President Obama Really, Really Excited That More People Than Ever Will Die in Car Crashes

Guest post by Drew Johnson

On the White House’s official Twitter page, President Obama bragged that under his administration, “We set new fuel standards that will double the distance our cars and trucks go on a gallon of gas.”

Ignore for a moment that the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency slapped the burdensome regulations on car makers 15 months ago, so the Tweet is obviously a pathetic diversionary tactic to shift the public’s attention away from the recent Obamacare debacle that has further tarnished Obama’s presidency.

Let’s focus instead on the reality that stricter fuel standards kill thousands of people a year.

Since the simplest way to improve a vehicle’s mileage is to reduce its weight, fuel efficiency standards turn cars into “small, underpowered death traps,” according to the National Center for Policy Analysis.

While Obama’s ridiculous miles per gallon regulations won’t fully take effect for another dozen years, previous fuel standard policies are responsible for many of the deaths we see today.

In 1999, USA Today calculated that the reduction in the size and weight of passenger vehicles necessitated by fuel efficiency standards had resulted in more than 46,000 deaths. There have been thousands more Americans killed unnecessarily in the years since that report.

Highway deaths have been spiking recently. There was a 5.3% increase in deaths on America’s roads last year alone. That’s not surprising since, in 2011, another significant increase in minimum miles per gallon for passenger cars was put in place. As drivers upgrade to newer car models, they are unwittingly putting themselves in lighter, more dangerous cars.

Judging by the White House’s tweet, it’s apparent that the President is proud to force Americans into even smaller, lighter cars. He seems disturbingly at ease with the thousands of American deaths his decision will cause.



Read more at Center For Individual Freedom

FIRE IN THE HOLE! Feds Investigate Third Exploding Tesla Sedan in the Last Six Weeks

Yeah, that Elon Musk is a genius! Who else could have invented exploding, coal-powered cars and gotten you and I to help subsidize him?

The third battery fire involving a Tesla Model S in six weeks has drawn the attention of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

According to multiple reports, the federal agency investigated the charred body of a Model S in Smyrna, Tenn., just outside Nashville, last week. The vehicle caught fire after a collision with a trailer hitch on Interstate 24. The driver was unharmed.

Similar incidents occurred in Kent, Wash., on Oct. 1 and Merida, Mexico, on Oct. 18... The $69,000 to $100,000 all-electric sedan earned top crash-test ratings from NHTSA and top reviews from Trend and Consumer Reports magazines.

... "Three fires is a big number out of 19,000 [sold]," said Clarence Ditlow, head of the Center for Auto Safety, according to reports. "They have to open an investigation."

Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, speaking at a recent conference, said all three blazes were caused by crashes, not battery problems. "There's no reason for a recall," he said. "If you read the headlines, it sounds like Teslas have a greater propensity to catch fires than other cars. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth."

And who is Tesla founder Elon Musk? He appears to be a very clever fellow who's built much of his fortune on the backs of the American taxpayer.

The First Street Journal summarizes the nefarious Musk-Obama alliance in stark and troubling terms.

...The federal government is, in effect, taking the tax dollars of low-and-middle-income taxpayers to subsidize luxury automobiles for wealthier people. How is that right?

Of course, Mr Musk knew that all along: his business model has been to make his profits on the margins provided by government subsidies, and has a net worth of between $6.7 billion and $7.7 billion, probably what you’d expect from a large Obama donor...

...If the government were not giving tax incentives to Mr Musk’s customers and direct subsidies to his companies, if his companies were forced to compete in the marketplace on the same basis as other automobile and energy companies, Mr Musk would (probably) not be giving such large sums — and “bundling” more donors — to candidates, and his companies would (probably) have failed.

I'll say it again: when the complete history of the Obama administration is written, the corruption, cronyism and outright theft will make the Teapot Dome Scandal look like a stolen box of Girl Scout Cookies.


Hat tip: BadBlue Car News.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY): Yeah, "We All Knew" Obama Was Lying About Keeping Your Health Insurance

Guest post by TruthRevolt

New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand admitted Sunday to knowing the promises President Obama made about his signature health care plan were false. On ABC’s This Week, fill-in host Martha Raditz asked Gillibrand, considering the now nearly universally acceptance of the fact that the President said things about the law that weren’t true, whether she felt misled by the President:

He should’ve just been more specific. Because the point is, if you’re being offered a terrible health care plan, that the minute you get sick you’re going to have to go into bankruptcy, those plans should never be offered.

Following up on an obvious non-answer, Raditz asked again about being misled. This time, Gillibrand offered a startling revelation:

He should’ve just been specific. No we all knew. The whole point of the plan is to cover things people need, like preventive care, birth control, pregnancy. How many women, the minute they get pregnant, might risk their coverage. How many women paid more because of their gender, because they might get pregnant. Those are the reforms.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

OH, MY: It would appear administration officials Henry Chao and Marilyn Tavenner lied under oath to Congress

Mr. Peabody, set the Wayback Machine to July 17, 2013, please. Let's review testimony before the House Oversight Committee by Obama administration officials regarding the October 1st launch of Healthcare.gov.

With the NSA’s phone call monitoring and Edward Snowden on many minds, it’s not exactly a comfortable time for the government to roll out a massive computer project dealing with personal data like income, Social Security numbers and ethnicity.

But Henry Chao, a lead technology information officer from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said officials have completed about 80 percent of the safeguards to protect privacy when the agency rolls out what it calls “The Hub.” ... “It is important to understand that the hub is not a database; it does not retain or store information,” said Marilyn Tavenner, the CMS administrator, during a heated congressional hearing Wednesday.

She and Chao said the agency will complete the required tests and meet privacy regulations by Oct. 1, when health exchanges are scheduled to open. Their comments came in testimony to the House subcommittee on energy policy, health care and entitlements, which is part of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee...

Tuck the date of 17 July 2013 away. Now let's review some email traffic flying around Chao's office less than two weeks prior to that pair's testimony.

In emails from July, released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Obama administration officials write of unskilled developers and a series of missed deadlines. One email said the "entire build is in jeopardy." But when the administration's top people in charge of the implementation testified before the committee in the months leading up to the site launch, they said just the opposite — that they were ready...

• The only developer who was working on the payment pages for enrollment quit CGI without programming the 10 key user interface pieces of the transaction part. "Needless to say it is in jeopardy," wrote CMS' Jeffrey Grant.


• The part of the system that does monthly payment calculation of insurance plans did not get priority by the contractor, who called it "not an October 1 item." (The health care insurance website launched Oct. 1.)

• "Seriously substandard staffing," is how Grant described its contractor's people power. The key contractor, CGI, missed deadlines due to "insufficient" programmer resources. A month from testing certain parts of the system, no development work had even started.

When informed by Grant of the complete unraveling of the project, Chao was in denial.


There's government-quality management for you: instead of trying to get to the bottom of Grant's dire status report, Chao instead sought to "refute" it.

In other words, Chao and Tavenner were well aware that all of the site's testing -- not just the penetration and other security tests -- all of the site's tests were in dire jeopardy.

Contempt of Congress, anyone?

As I asked about Benghazi, and Fast and Furious, and IRS-gate: where the hell is the Select Investigative Committee? That's the only way we'll get to the bottom of these unprecedented assaults on the Constitution by the most lawless administration in modern American history.


Hat tip: BadBlue Real-Time News Service.

Friday, November 15, 2013

HEADLINE O' THE DAY: ClusterCare

The implosion is real, and it's spectacular:


Mark Steyn has the details.


POTUS was right about one thing: Obamacare really did bend the health care cost-curve...

...just the wrong way.


Note this graph doesn't yet include the big changes that will take place on January 1st.  But what we are already seeing I think qualifies as another promise broken by President Obama.  During his press conference yesterday, President Obama again attacked insurance companies, blaming them for any future problems with Obamacare.
And -- and so what we want to do is to be able to say to these folks, you know what, the Affordable Care Act is not going to be the reason why insurers have to cancel your plan. Now, what folks may find is the insurance companies may still come back and say, we want to charge you 20 percent more than we did last year, or we're not going to cover prescription drugs now. But that will -- that's in the nature of the market that existed earlier. . . .
The data is available from the "CPI-U News Release Companion File" at the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.

Oh, and then there's this: Revealed: Obamacare plans will cost MORE 'in many cases' even with government subsidies, officials admit for the first time.


Hat tip: BadBlue Guns.

Won't you please help us find FLOTUS?

We're growing concerned and the helpful uber-progressives at The People's Cube have created their own poster.

One would think that after using her substantial influence in selecting Obamacare's website developer, she should be alongside her husband, sharing in the well deserved praise from an admiring public.

Perhaps her characteristic modesty explains why we don't see much of her these days.

Other possible explanations by the kollective would be greatly appreciated.


Krasnodar
Vagabond of the Outer Parts
& Concierge Lobotomist

If you have any information that can help, please let the kind folks at The Cube know.


Hat tip: Jenette.

ACTION NEEDED: Articles of Impeachment Filed in House of Representatives Against Eric Holder

Guest post by ConservativeHQ

Representative Pete Olson (TX-22) has now made the impeachment of Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder official by filing H.Res 411, a Resolution impeaching Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

In a statement announcing that he had officially introduced the Articles of Impeachment, Representative Olson said, “For nearly five years, Attorney General Holder has systematically deceived Congress and destroyed the credibility of the Justice Department in the eyes of the American people. During his tenure, Mr. Holder refused to cooperate with a congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious and the resulting death of a Border Patrol agent, refused to prosecute IRS officials who unlawfully disclosed private tax records to third party groups, and misled Congress about his involvement in the investigation of a journalist.”

Congressman Olson further noted that, “Last year, the House voted to hold Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress, making him the first sitting cabinet member to ever hold this dubious distinction. Still, he continued mislead and thwart congressional efforts to bring the truth to the American people. Mr. Holder has failed to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed and continues to act in a manner unbefitting of a cabinet official. I urge my colleagues to join me in beginning this process by cosponsoring this measure now. The American people deserve answers and accountability.”

Nineteen Members of the House joined Representative Olson as original co-sponsor the resolution; they are Representatives Larry Bucshon (IN-8), Blake Farenthold (TX-27), Phil Roe (TN-1), Lynn Westmoreland (GA-3), Roger Williams (TX-25), Randy Weber (TX-14),Ted Yoho (FL-3), Louie Gohmert (TX-1), Michele Bachmann (MN-6), Bill Flores (TX-17), Mark Amodei (NV-2), Jim Bridenstine (OK-1), Scott DesJarlais (TN-4), Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Duncan Hunter (SC-3), Sam Johnson (TX-3), Steve Stockman (TX-36), Mike Conaway (TX-11), and Thomas Massie (KY-4) as original cosponsors. 

The articles of impeachment lay out four charges against Mr. Holder: 

1. Refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on October 12, 2011, seeking information and documents regarding Operation Fast and Furious. This is a violation of 2 U.S.C. 192.

2. Failure to enforce multiple laws, including the Defense of Marriage Act, the Controlled Substances Act, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. This is a violation of the oath Mr. Holder swore to "well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office" of Attorney General.

3. Refusal to prosecute the IRS officials involved in the targeting and disclosure of tax records belonging to political donors. This is a violation of the oath Mr. Holder swore to "well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office" of Attorney General.

4. False testimony under oath before Congress on May 15, 2013, about the Justice Department investigation of journalist James Rosen. This is a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1621.

We agree with Pete Olson and his nineteen co-sponsors: Holder's behavior clearly falls under "high crimes and misdemeanors," offenses that the US Constitution explicitly defines as grounds for removal of a Senate-confirmed cabinet official through impeachment. The time is now for the House of Representatives to act with the authority vested in it by the Constitution to remove Attorney General Holder from office.

The Capitol Switchboard is 1-866-220-0044, we urge you to contact your Congressman today and tell him or her to support Pete Olson and to sign onto the impeachment resolution he is circulating.

Please SIGN AND SHARE OUR PETITION to IMPEACH ERIC HOLDER.


Thursday, November 14, 2013

BLOODSPORT: The Health Insurance Industry Is Now Locked In A Death Struggle With The Democrat Party...

Guest post by The Hayride

...and only one of the two will survive.

Understand this: the health insurance industry is very much to blame for Obamacare. The health insurance industry happily got naked and jumped into the sack with Obama on his health insurance scheme. They did so thinking that he would leave them a fat, sweaty wad of cash on the night table in the form of forcing everybody in the country to buy their products, and in the process he would make them something akin to a public utility with a pre-ordained profit margin.

Except something happened on the way to conjugal bliss; namely, the president and his minions proved to be a bit flaccid when it came to providing the means by which they would release a torrent of customers to the insurers. The Healthcare.gov website is notoriously impotent, and the health insurance industry finds itself unsated.

Further, Obama is in no position to leave any money by the bedside. In fact, he’s sneaking out of the house before sunrise. And what’s more, he and his friends are about to blame the whole failed escapade on the health insurance business, after warning them to keep their trap shut about his wilting lily.

Obama – and the rest of the Democrat Party – is now embracing the idea of resurrecting the insurance policies his law killed, since so far the effect of Obamacare has been to turn 5 million Americans into uninsured while signing up 100,000 for his new exchanges. But those policies can’t be resurrected; it’s a logistical and economic nightmare to do so. Three years ago it would have been possible to provide for current insurance plans to survive, but on October 1 they died. The bodies, in most cases, have already been buried.

And Obama and the Democrats know this. The Landrieu plan? Obama’s “administrative fix” he announced today? Pure window dressing. They’re not quite as stupid as they sound in thinking that resuscitating a business model they killed can happen within a matter of weeks. Landrieu’s plan is even more ridiculous – not only does she think she can resuscitate that business model, she wants to command that it happen. Maybe she’s that stupid, maybe she’s not – but all of her fellow Democrats now signing on to that idea aren’t that moronic.

CONFIRMED: Democrat Utopia of Chicago On Road To Detroit-Style Financial Collapse

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Fiscal Disaster: A major credit rating agency has just given Chicago, with more general obligation debt per capita than Detroit, its second triple-notch downgrade in six months. Its bonds are perilously close to junk status.

Citing skyrocketing pension costs and a lack of meaningful solutions, Fitch Ratings lowered Chicago's debt to A- from AA- last week, making it the second serious downgrade since July.

The move by Fitch follows a triple downgrade of Chicago's bond rating by Moody's Investors in mid-July.

Moody's cited the city's "very large and growing" pension liabilities and "significant" debt service payments, among other factors.

The steady financial decline of the nation's third-largest city prompted us in early August to say Chicago was well on its way to becoming the next Detroit, a bankrupt monument to the perils of Democratic governance, a one-party Democratic town in arguably the bluest of blue states. And Chicago's mayor, former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, learned financial discipline at the feet of the master — President Obama.

Like the president, Emanuel could claim he inherited the city's financial mess from his predecessor, but that would require blaming another Democratic mayor, Richard J. Daley.

Interestingly, Democratic governance is a common thread running through America's urban problems.

As the Chicago Tribune noted in its recent report on the problem, "Broken Bonds," Chicago's outstanding debt on general obligation bonds has quadrupled during the past 18 years, reaching $7.2 billion last year.

With interest, that amount nearly doubles. The city has more general obligation debt per capita than any of the 10 largest U.S. cities except New York.

The Tribune noted that Chicago leaders have routinely used bond proceeds to make interest payments on the bonds themselves, borrowing more than $450 million since 2000 just to pay interest. Some 63% of all property taxes went to debt payments last year.

A large part of Chicago's problem — the game of maintaining standing armies of campaign workers by overpromising and underfunding pensions — is now over.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Climate Crooks Exploit Deadly Typhoon to Push Global Warming Grift (Or Is It "Climate Change" Now?)

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Climate Fraud: The United Nations climate chief blames the Philippines devastation on climate change, ignoring the historical record that 33 of the 35 most devastating storms occurred with CO2 below current levels.

One can appreciate the genuine grief felt by an emotional Naderev "Yeb" Sano as the delegate from a Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan spoke at the start of two-week talks in Warsaw where more than 190 countries will try to lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming.

"We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now, right here," Sano told delegates in Warsaw as he pleaded for action on climate change.

He echoed words from Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"The recent very painful events of cyclone Haiyan ... have reminded the countries gathered here ... of the urgency of coming to a resolution of how all countries are going to collaborate with each other to address climate change in a timely manner," she told the conference.

Both, however, are wrong to claim that Typhoon Haiyan was caused by climate change. And their attempts to "do something" about devastating storms that have occurred throughout human history and predate the Industrial Revolution will only produce a recipe for global poverty and be as successful as King Canute who, so the legend goes, stood on the seashore and commanded the tides to recede.

Canute at least knew he had no such power and was trying to demonstrate to his courtiers the limits of a king's control over the elements. Warm-mongers like Al Gore and the U.N. climate-change scammers recognize no such limits and misdiagnose the cause of such storms and overestimate man's power to affect them.

Marc Morano at Climate Depot has reported on an analysis by climate blogger Steve Goddard of the historical record, which found that the worst cyclones or typhoons occurred before any significant addition to CO2 levels by industrialization.