@NatureGuy101 @directorblue
Federal gov has shrunk under obama. You are thinking of Bush.
— Paula (@Paula68154) October 9, 2014L.D. Jackson, writing at Political Realities, speaks truth to idiocy.
@NatureGuy101 @directorblue
Federal gov has shrunk under obama. You are thinking of Bush.
— Paula (@Paula68154) October 9, 2014Taxpayers are apparently buying welfare recipients booze and cigarettes for the road — at times a very exotic road.
A Watchdog.org analysis of a Colorado Department of Human Services welfare ATM withdrawals database shows that $3.8 million was withdrawn by Colorado welfare recipients outside the state in the past two years. There were withdrawals at out-of-state liquor stores and tobacco outlets, as well as vacation destinations like Hawaii, Las Vegas and even the Virgin Islands, data shows.State Rep. Tim Dore, R-Elizabeth, who has urged limitations on where welfare recipients can use their electronic benefit transfer cards in Colorado, was shocked taxpayers are apparently funding some exotic travel.
“I wasn’t even aware of that,” said Dore, who promised to try to address the misuse of cards at liquor stores, casinos and marijuana shops in the next legislative session after Watchdog asked him about those items for previous stories. “That’s an additional issue we need to look into it.”
Last week, Watchdog.org published stories about Colorado welfare withdrawals at liquor stores and casinos despite federal and state law banning such actions and welfare recipients taking out money at the state’s legal marijuana shops. Federal law prevents EBT withdrawals from ATMs at liquor stores, casinos and other adult establishments, and Colorado law since 1996 prevented ATM use in liquor stores and casinos in Colorado.
Just how big do Democrats/left-liberals/progressives want to grow government? And how high are they willing to raise taxes? If only there were a left-wing version of Paul Ryan’s famous long-term budget blueprint that would outline a multi-decade path for taxing and spending (including how to deal with the coming entitlement tidal wave).
Instead, pretty much all you can find are 10-year budgets showing taxes a bit higher here, spending a bit high there. After that, however, it gets pretty fuzzy. It’s almost as if the pols and wonks on the left are avoiding the subject of what’s beyond the near horizon.
The book’s title, according to Amazon, comes from the first words infamous Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors.
The book is essentially the deathbed biography of one-time Delaware Teamster boss and mob hit-man Frank Sheeran and truly is a fascinating read.
[Spoiler alert: Before he died, Sheeran claimed to be the one who killed his friend and mentor, Jimmy Hoffa--whose body was apparently later cremated.]
Despite the book purportedly being made into a movie called The Irishman, starring Robert De Niro , Al Pacino , Joe Pesci, as well as directed by Martin Scorcese, it has not been released yet.
While the book has been out for some time, it wasn’t until last night, during Joe Biden’s prime time speech, that I was reminded of some of the books contents, most notably this piece that appeared in the Orange County Register a few weeks ago:
Sen. Kay Hagan’s husband and son created a solar energy contracting company in August 2010, and then, using $250,644 in federal stimulus grant funds, her husband hired that same company to install solar panels at a building he owns.
Public records show that Green State Power was formed seven weeks before JDC Manufacturing — a company owned in part by Greensboro attorney Charles “Chip” Hagan III, Sen. Hagan’s husband — received the stimulus grant for the solar project at a 300,000-square-foot facility in Reidsville, N.C.
A story in late September on the Washington, D.C.-based website Politico revealed that JDC Manufacturing received “nearly $390,000 in federal grants for energy projects and tax credits created by the 2009 stimulus law, according to public records and information provided by the company.”
I live only a two hour drive from New York City, but it is a world apart from my daily existence. I’ve visited the Big Apple probably a dozen times in my life, but never for longer than two or three days. I have a soft spot in my heart for NYC because it is where I proposed to my wife on a bitterly cold December evening in a horse drawn carriage ride in Central Park, twenty five years ago. But, I can honestly say that I never feel comfortable in the city.
Last week we had an opportunity to get away for a long weekend. My wife had gotten tickets to the Jimmy Fallon Show for Thursday afternoon and we decided to get a hotel room for one night and then drive directly down to Wildwood for the remainder of the weekend. My mother-in-law agreed to watch the kids, so we had ourselves a mini-vacation. I anticipated a more laid back trip than our visit to Occupy Wall Street a few years ago, that led to one of my most read articles.A couple years ago I was shocked to receive an email from David Stockman, complimenting me on a particular article I had written. When a former Reagan budget director, founding partner of the Blackstone Group, and world renowned financial mind takes notice of something you’ve written it really boosts your morale. We have had a periodic email dialogue ever since. When he created his own website earlier this year, he asked me to be a contributor. He also told me that if I ever make it to NYC, let him know and we would meet for a drink.
I was reluctant to bother such a busy man, but during a recent email exchange I mentioned I’d be in New York. He suggested we meet after the Jimmy Fallon Show for a drink. I told him to pick a place convenient for him. He emailed back, the morning we were leaving, to meet him and his wife at the Carlyle Hotel bar at 5:00 pm. I immediately googled the hotel and realized I should pack some nicer clothes. This was no Shamrock bar in Wildwood. It was on Seventy Sixth & Park Avenue. My uneasiness had begun.
From the famous "latte salute" to the Marine holding the presidential umbrella, President Obama's respect for our men in uniform has been open to question. Unless, of course, they desert their post in Afghanistan to try to join the Taliban, like Bowe Bergdahl. Then you have the parents to the White House and trade the Taliban general staff to obtain their release. After all, we leave no one behind.
Except, maybe, for Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi.
Jill Tahmooressi, Andrew's mother, has never been invited to stand by the president on the White House lawn. Nor has she ever received a phone call from President Obama, as she testified Wednesday before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee. Presidential calls of support are reserved for basketball players like Jason Collins, whom Obama called to say "he was impressed by his courage," according to a White House spokesperson, for announcing that he was gay.
For our part, we are impressed by the courage of Sgt. Tahmooressi, who served two tours of duty fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, and his mother. Her son fought the enemy instead of trying to join them. And for making a wrong turn into Mexico while carrying legal American firearms in his trunk as he journeyed to San Diego for treatment of his PTSD, he now sits in a Mexican jail ignored by the country he risked his life for.
Robin Bartlett Frazier's story personifies the threats we face nationwide by the corrupting influence of public employee unions. For the last four years Robin has been District 1 Commissioner in Carroll County, MD. You may have seen her on the Megyn Kelly show when she was interviewed after saying in a public meeting that she would be arrested if necessary but would not stop praying before meetings and invoking the name of Jesus Christ. The video is posted here.
She and fellow Commissioner Richard Rothschild were pretty much the only voices on the five member board for spending restraint, cutting taxes, reducing government, protecting property rights and protecting freedom. The power of their arguments often won the day despite the fact that two of the other three commissioners were hardcore RINOs and the third went whichever way the wind was blowing.She and Commissioner Rothschild spearheaded the effort that turned Carroll County into the first “Second Amendment Sanctuary County” following the state legislature passing Governor O’Malley’s unconstitutional gun control bill last year. There is a stunning video on her website where a full house cheers wildly when she talks about it. Really inspiring talk. The three hapless RINOs on the Board saw the writing on the wall and fell in behind, so it was a unanimous decision in favor of the 2nd Amendment. Her leadership has also prevented the County planning board from adopting many regulations that threaten private property.
One small Virginia town is the target of a racial discrimination complaint from a fair housing group and a shuttered college, the potential beneficiary of a plan to house minors who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
Word broke this summer the federal government — at the original suggestion of Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel and Secretary of Education Anne Holton — was pursuing a contract with the closed St. Paul’s College in Lawrenceville to house what could be hundreds of immigrants.Locals made it clear they had serious concerns, and about 1,000 people showed up at a June 19 town hall meeting in the Southern Virginia town of 1,300 to protest.
The federal government consequently backed down and looked elsewhere to house the teens and younger children.
Now, the private St. Paul’s College — which would have received a much-needed $160,000 a month to house the youth — and the fair-housing group Home Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia, are filing a housing discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development against the town of Lawrenceville, surrounding Brunswick County and Brunswick County’s elected Sheriff Brian Roberts.
HOME and St. Paul’s College allege the county, town and sheriff “orchestrated and implemented a plan to block the deal,” the complaint obtained by Watchdog.org reads. “Purported concerns by these individuals are grounded in false stereotypes about Latinos and reflect discrimination based on race, color, and/or national origin.”
The complaint argues that anyone in the country — not just legal residents — is protected by law.
NASHVILLE — The federal government is giving an Obamacare insurance navigator Seedco, which has a reported history of fraud, $1.4 million to operate in Tennessee this fiscal year
Last year, Seedco received $1.2 million for the same services in Tennessee.Seedco, according to National Review, had to settle that lawsuit.
Meanwhile, state Comptroller Justin Wilson reported last year certain Memphis residents participating in the Temporary Assistance For Needy Families program falsified paperwork and wrongly received almost $30,000 in taxpayer money through a Seedco subcontractor.
Alicia Hartinger, spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the navigator program, said Friday the $1.4 million is for a 12-month cycle.
Seedco, Hartinger added, had to compete for the money against other potential navigators, although she didn’t say how many.
Hartinger downplayed concerns about Seedco’s past problems.
It's a word you don't hear too often around Arizona: plague. But some fleas in northern Arizona have tested positive for plague and that has people on high alert.
Plague can be deadly to people and animals, but if found early on, it's very treatable with antibiotics. That being said, residents of Coconino County should be looking out for fleas... Fleas with plague were discovered in prairie dog burrows northeast of Flagstaff in the Doney Park area.
Five babies have tested positive for tuberculosis infection in El Paso after being at a hospital where hundreds of newborns may have been exposed to TB by a diseased worker at the facility, health officials said on Saturday.
The El Paso Department of Public Health also increased the number of people who may have been exposed to 858. It had said earlier this month that 706 babies and 43 employees were possibly exposed to the infected worker between September 2013 and August 2014.
Government debt continues to amass at a dizzying pace. The federal government has displayed no discipline in reining it in and reestablishing a more sound fiscal footing for the future of the country. Our founding fathers, however, had the prescience to include in our Constitution the means whereby the states, and the people, could force the government to do what they have no appetite to do, to require a balanced budget.
Just since 2006, federal government debt has shot from $6.7 trillion, to nearly $18 trillion. The largest segment of that spending occurred over the past six years with five years of deficits exceeding $1 trillion. Our government has been spending 60% more than it’s been collecting in tax receipts.Those figures do not even begin to address our long-term debt due to non-discretionary entitlement programs. According to the General Accounting Office’s (GAO) 2013 annual report, unfunded debt including Social Security and Medicare is over $76 trillion, an increase of 8% over 2012 levels. Our national debt increases by an estimated $8.2 million per minute, and about $350 billion per month.
Scandal: The attorney general who oversaw the administration's Fast and Furious gun-walking operation into Mexico resigns right after a federal court denies a DOJ request to delay releasing Fast And Furious documents.
Eric Holder's resignation as attorney general, like anything that occurs in the Obama administration, raises questions of timing.Pundits ask why now, with some suggesting President Obama is getting a two-fer — ginning up his base with tributes to the first African-American AG before the midterms while starting the nomination and confirmation process before a possible Republican takeover of the Senate in November.
Rush Limbaugh has even suggested that Obama, who in an effort to hold the Senate has reminded Democratic voters that he still gets to appoint Supreme Court justices, might be making Holder available for such an appointment should a vacancy occur.
Both may be true, but Kelly Terry-Willis, the sister of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, thinks a recent court defeat for the Department of Justice may be the real reason.
Her brother was murdered on Dec. 14, 2010, with weapons "walked" into Mexico under Fast and Furious. ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata was also a Fast and Furious casualty.