Friday, October 11, 2013

Why is the government shut down? Here's why.

I don't know much about this Steve Stockman fellow, but I like the cut of his jib.



Last night, Mark Levin counseled our feckless, disappearing act of a Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: "Try to get your Republicans under control and try to get yourself under control. Because you're panicking."

Please call your representative and tell them to stand firm. The House is in the position of power. The longer the non-essential bureaucrats in Washington (don't you love that term?) remain furloughed, the more their shrill cries will pressure Obama for relief.

Remember, the administrative state is the Democrat Party and the Democrat Party is the administrative state. The furlough hurts Democrats where it counts.

Stand strong, Republicans.


Screw the Debt Ceiling: How About the Debt Collapse?

Free Enterprise offers an infographic depicting the dire situation in which we find ourselves.

5 Alarming Facts about Entitlement Spending
by

Screw the damn debt ceiling. A collapse is coming. We need some sane leaders in Washington, which excludes all Democrats and RINOs.

Good intentions, Marxism, and other collectivist Utopian fantasies always succumb to mathematics. That's not my opinion, that's an immutable fact.


GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT: IRS Gave White House Confidential Taxpayer Info; Punishable by Five Years in Prison

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Scandal: The IRS official in charge of tax-exempt organizations when the unit targeted Tea Party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for enforcing ObamaCare and may have illegally shared confidential tax data.

It's bad enough that no one at the Internal Revenue Service has been meaningfully punished for the targeting of conservative groups before the 2012 election. Now we learn that, for some, the unconstitutional and illegal action was a good career move.
Sarah Hall Ingram, who served as commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division from 2009 to 2012, was so good at her job of suppressing the political speech of administration opponents by using the tax code as a bludgeon that she was rewarded during her tenure with four bonuses totaling $103,390.

Her salary went from $172,500 to $177,000 during that period, and she would also be rewarded with the post of director of the IRS' Affordable Care Act division.

That the person who rode roughshod over Tea Party groups was put in charge of riding roughshod over our health care was entirely fitting. The Tea Party was a grass-roots response to the power grab and assault on the Constitution that ObamaCare represents. It had to be punished for its electoral success in 2010 and Obama-Care had to be saved at all costs.

As the IRS scandal was unfolding, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., prophetically warned that "the IRS part of administering ObamaCare, particularly in the wake of this IRS scandal with regard to suppressing the views of Americans who were critical of the IRS, raises further suspicions about their involvement in the administration of ObamaCare."

Larwyn's Linx: Now It’s Time for Full Throttle Defund of Obamacare

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Now It’s Time for Full Throttle Defund of Obamacare: Daniel Horowitz
10/13 Showdown: Veterans March on DC, Truckers Roll: James Simpson
About that NBC/WSJ Poll Slamming GOP on Shutdown...: Bryan Preston

For Obama, negotiating with Republicans is tough, almost as tough as math: LI
Obama's War on America Is Heating Up: Cold Fury
Pelosi confronted at illegals’ rally: ‘Just wait . . . Americans are coming: CFP

Eastbound and Down: Truckers Roll Into DC: CDN
Come to DC This Sunday: Western
Tea Party Nation Withdraws Its Endorsement Of Mitch McConnell: RWN

Obama-controlled news operation is the true assault on the press: LI
Hard Truths: Presidential Report Card 1,725 Days In: Andrew Malcolm
Sez It All: Grouchy Old Cripple

Economy

Moody’s Nukes Obama’s Debt Ceiling Fearmongering: Bryan Preston
Moody's on Debt Limit: Calling Obama's Bluff on Default: Foundry
Yikes! Initial Jobless Claims Jump To 374,000: LoneCon

Obamacare Forces Over 800,000 in N.J. to Change Insurance Plan: WFB
Awesome: Hawaii Signs Up Zero People for ObamaCare: JWF
Report: Only 5 Iowans Have Signed Up for Obamacare: WZ

Janet Yellen: What You Should Know about the Next Fed Head: Richard M. Salsman
Health Care Spending Expected to Increase by $621 Billion: Sean Hackbarth
Ten Questions for Janet Yellen: CEI

Scandal Central

Republicans say Obamacare official leaked IRS data: Stephen Dinan, Times
How Many New Voters Would S.744 Create?: Steven A. Camarota
Obamacare will share personal health info with federal, state agencies: Paul Bedard

Media

Sad: The Hill Finds ‘Welcome News’ For Obama in Poll Showing 7% ObamaCare Approval: JWF
NBC Poll: Majority Say Obama Putting Politics Over Country: WZ
Obamacare - More Than a Glitch - Hilarious Ad Destroys Obamacare: Heritage

Jay Leno Savages Obama & The Democrats Over The Government Shutdown: RWN
Time to Alinsky Obama, the Democrats, and the federal bureaucracy: Bookworm Room
Shutdown Blowback: Obama’s Approval Rating PLUNGES INTO THE THIRTIES!: RWN

I made it through the healthcare.gov signup process: Joe Fremeau
Obama DOT Plans use of National Guard to close I-495 Capital Beltway tomorrow?: RS
Glee’s Cory Monteith Tribute: Cathartic and Could Not Have Been Sadder: Kevin Fallon

Political Fraud Jennifer Rubin Uses Federalist 10 To Demonize Tea Party: Jen Kuznicki
Dr. Ben Carson: Why Obamacare is part of a plan to socialize America: Scoop
You want to know why Obamacare will collapse?: Public Secrets

World

Memo: Muslims practicing terror “dry-runs” on U.S. airplanes: Creeping
So, Is Default A Paper Tiger?: Tatler
Foreign Nationals Get Free Rein at U.S. Nuclear Lab: JW

Sci-Tech

Adobe's source code was parked on hackers' unprotected server: Jeremy Kirk, IDG
These Images Show the Brutal Scars on Mars's Surface: Jamie Condiffe, Gizmodo
Dropcam's new $199 Pro model aims to be the smart home hub: Josh Lowensohn, CNet

Cornucopia

James Madison Anticipates Possibility of Government Shutdown; Says House Can Win: Nick Rosenkranz
Shutdown Day 10: A Cinderella Story Emerges: MOTUS
America’s Night of the Long Knives May Hit the Tea Party/Patriot Movement Any Day Now: Shenandoah

Image: These Images Show the Brutal Scars on Mars's Surface
Sponsored by: Call Your Representative and Tell Them to Stand Strong: DEFUND OBAMACARE

QOTD:

Find Your Representative, call them, and tell them to HOLD THEIR GROUND

"The Berlin Blockade woke up Americans to what the Soviet Union really was. The Obama Blockade is waking up Americans affected by it to what Obama really is.

Behind the big ideas and the big speeches is a meanness and smallness of spirit that desires power above all else, that lacks any sense of decency and honor, and that when denied, lashes out viciously against anyone in the grip of its power. r.

The Berlin Blockade showed millions of people why they never wanted to find themselves under Communist control. It ended what might have become a recurrence of isolationism and firmed the conviction of Americans that the only way to deal with the Soviet Union was to push it back.

The Obama Blockade, the meanness and pettiness in its needless power plays, is a warning of what life will be like if the left gains even more control over America." --Daniel Greenfield

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Denninger Going Galt; First of Many?

Starting at midnight, Karl Denninger's Market Ticker site will go dark for the next three days. His is a peaceful protest of Washington's insane spending and borrowing policies that will result in certain collapse. Not possible collapse. Certain.

I've got about 8 hours here before this site goes dark for the next 72 hours.

Why is it going dark?

Because I'm done paying for the outrageous scam known as "Washington DC."

That's why.

I'm a producer. I'm a net payer of taxes. I have written many very large checks to the IRS. I have done so willingly.

I am no longer willing.

I am not willing because our Congress, in concert with our Administration, has together put this nation on a path to ruin and continues to ignore basic arithmetic which states quite-clearly that this entire game is going to come to a catastrophic end of it is not stopped, and it has already ruined far too many ordinary Americans.

These scams and frauds are on display daily from the banksters, including HFT abuse (as Nanex has documented tirelessly), foreclosure fraud (robosigning, destruction of land title systems, seizing the wrong house and more), SSDI fraud, food stamp fraud and the entire medical industry including the latest outrage in Maine with Pharma suing to enforce laws that were passed legalizing direct violations of The Sherman Act. And that's just a short list; talk to the Truckers headed to DC for the next three days and you'll find they've got a whole host of complaints as well.

In addition our monetary policies over the last five years caused the doubling of basic commodities -- like food -- in places such as Egypt, which were directly responsible for the political turmoil and deaths of innocent people over there.

Today Ryan stepped forward to claim that Ronald Reagan "worked with" Tip O'Neill (Speaker of the House at the time) to get a "deal" that cut our long-term deficits and debt. Oh really? Reagan, if you remember, cut a "deal" for $3 in spending cuts for every dollar in tax increases in 1982. What he actually got was all the tax increases immediately and none of the spending cuts -- and the punishment leveled on Congress for lying through their teeth was zero. Further, deferring Social Security's problems for 25 years did not fix them, and those changes were only made when the system was literally under the gun and facing immediate (within 12 months!) insolvency.

That was the problem then -- Congress.

That's still the problem.

Ryan and Boehner have no intention of actually balancing the budget -- ever. The so-called "Ryan Budget" calls out a fantasy world in which 5% GDP growth continues forever, with no recessions, which has never happened in the history of the United States. It also presumes that at the same time of such "economic prosperity" debt service costs will not explode higher, but they will if that growth was to happen because interest rates will go up and as such the cost of debt service ramping will decimate the "declining deficit" projections...

...The only solution is to accept what we have done. To stand before the American people and confess, ask forgiveness and promise to sin no more. To accept the economic hardship that will come including the fact that the very wealthy will take proportionately more of the hit than the working man and poor, but everyone is going to get hit because we have all been living beyond our means.

If we must provide three hots and a cot to people who are truly destitute then do that directly -- no more SNAP cards, no more Section 8, a literal soup line and a cot in a building with a place to take a dump and a shower we can provide to all who actually need it.

It's time to quit screwing around, not because we want to, but because our time with this game has expired, and we are headed straight for a fiscal and economic cliff from which we will not recover if we do not stop now.

Don't believe him? How about David Malpass, a former deputy assistant Treasury secretary?

At its core, the shutdown is part of a much bigger battle to restrain the federal government. It is spending $3.6 trillion per year without a budget, and its expenditures are expected to increase rapidly in the years ahead.

Meanwhile, the government has piled up $17 trillion in debt and $60 trillion more in unfunded spending promises. The Federal Reserve will borrow $1.1 trillion in 2013 alone to buy bonds—and it reserves the right to borrow unlimited amounts for future bond purchases without congressional or presidential permission.

These are crisis-level problems. Whether the government is open or closed, they are surely grounds for immediate talks between the president and Congress on ways to pare ineffective federal programs, restrain spending and reduce borrowing.

Ducking governance decisions year after year will leave the U.S. too weak to face global challenges. Big government has meant slow growth, painfully high youth and minority unemployment and falling median incomes—except in the Washington, D.C., area, which recent census data show is growing ever richer.

We need to be shouting this from the rooftops day in and day out. The system is headed for collapse. Not in 50 years, 20 years or even 10.

Find Your Representative, call them, and tell them to HOLD THEIR GROUND

The system is headed for collapse and every warning light on our nation's dashboard is blinking red.

Use the box at right.

Use it tonight, tomorrow and the next day.

Use it like the country depends on it. Because it does.

CONGRATS TO RAHM EMANUEL AND THE ENTIRE DEMOCRAT PARTY: Chicago Now More Violent Than During Capone Era

If Democrats weren't in power, they'd be useful only as comic relief. But the tragic fact is, when they are in power, their cities end up like Detroit and Chiraq (which is what the beleaguered taxpayers of Chicago call the Democrat haven for criminals):

Since Rahm Emanuel entered the political scene years ago, he’s been a master at manipulating the press to his benefit. A pliant media has largely gone along with whatever talking point Emanuel desired. Lately, some of the media has begun to put the spotlight on violent Chicago with its rather high murder rate. Banning or restricting handguns has not been very successful in combatting violence in Chicago. The website Big Government reports the bloody details:

After Chicago recorded a terrible homicide total of 53 in August, September wasn't much better for Rahm's "world class" city. The city suffered 41 homicides, 30 of which resulted from 184 total shootings

September brings more bad news for Chicago residents. While Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, and the Chicago media have continued to hammer the point that the "crime rate is down," and "murder is down," as of September 22, the homicide total for 2013 now exceeds the rate up to the same date in 2011 by two percent at 350, according to the Chicago Police Crime Data Portal.

How does today’s Chicago hold up at the violent memory of Al Capone’s Chicago of the 1920s? Not very well. WLS-TV investigated the data and the evidence is rather stunning report in February:

Let's compare two months: January 1929, leading up to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and last month, January 2013. Forty-two people were killed in Chicago last month, the most in January since 2002, and far worse than the city's most notorious crime era at the end of the Roaring Twenties...

Even though the image of Chicago, perpetuated by Hollywood over the years, was that mobsters routinely mowed down people on the streets, the crime stats tell a different story. The figures from January 2013 are significantly higher than the January of Al Capone's most famous year.

It’s not just the Capone era violence that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Constantly we hear from the media and advocates of gun control that we don’t want things to become “the Wild West”. In the last several years, historians have begun to look at this long time legend that was promoted by Hollywood movies...

The old West with its minimal government and armed populace has never been too popular with progressives. But, the reality is it was never really violent according to Terry Anderson and Peter Hill. So, the murder rate of the Capone era and Dodge city of 1878 would be a major improvement for Mayor Rahm Emanuel.


Perhaps the Tribune or some of the other media dinosaurs in the Second City can use the phrase GRIM MILESTONE as a prefix to their headline. That is, if they decide to even cover this story.


Hat tip: BadBlue Gun News.

WOW - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS OPENS UP A CAN: Calls Out the Obama Administration for Acting Like Fascists

It's not often I quote bits of an AP article without highlighting the fabrications, omissions and spin, but in this case, I'll make an exception:

REPORT: OBAMA BRINGS CHILLING EFFECT ON JOURNALISM


The U.S. government's aggressive prosecution of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a report released Thursday on U.S. press freedoms under the Obama administration.

The Committee to Protect Journalists conducted its first examination of U.S. press freedoms amid the Obama administration's unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources and seizures of journalists' records. Usually the group focuses on advocating for press freedoms abroad. [Ed: Banana Republic, anyone?]

Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, wrote the 30-page analysis entitled "The Obama Administration and the Press" ... Downie interviewed numerous reporters and editors, including a top editor at The Associated Press, following revelations this year that the government secretly seized records for telephone lines and switchboards used by more than 100 AP journalists. Downie also interviewed journalists whose sources have been prosecuted on felony charges...

...To bypass journalists, the White House developed its own network of websites, social media and even created an online newscast to dispense favorable information and images...

...Kathleen Carroll, AP's executive editor, said the report highlights the growing threats to independent journalism in a country that has upheld press freedom as a measure of democratic society for two centuries.

It would appear even the AP has had enough of this administration's behavior, which resembles something in which a tinpot dictator would engage.

I commend Brett Zongker, Julie Pace, and the entire AP for their work.

And, guys, it's more than past time this administration's unprecedented series of scandals are revealed to America's pajama people, who are sleepwalking through the destruction of this country.


Hat tip: @Slone.

NEVER LET A CRISIS GO TO WASTE: I Can Assure You That Obama Wants the U.S. to Default [Updated]

Updated 10/10/2013 20:19: Obama is intransigent. He will not negotiate on spending, on the debt ceiling, on Obamacare, on anything.


"You never want a serious crisis go to waste." --White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, February 9, 2009
I've heard no commentator ask the following question: What if President Obama wants a default?

This is, after all, a man whose starting negotiating position is that he "will not negotiate" with Congress on spending to raise the debt ceiling. This is a position unprecedented in American history since only Congress is granted the "power of the purse".

This is a man willing to use the instrumentalities of government to punish innocent Americans.

This is a man willing to torture World War II veterans, many of whom are terminally ill and trying to see their memorial for the first and last time.

This is a man spreading panic and fear about the debt ceiling, an utterly irresponsible, reprehensible and unprecedented step by a president.

Here are the facts:

There is virtually no chance of a default, unless Obama orders a default

In fact, Dean Clancy has done an exceptional job dissecting Obama's fear-mongering over the debt ceiling.

There is virtually no chance of a default, unless Obama orders a default.

...Mr. Obama is misleading the public by suggesting the question is whether to pay our bills. Of course we will pay our bills. No one is saying we shouldn't. The question is whether to raise the debt ceiling without also putting in place reforms to make future borrowing less necessary. Mr. Obama's resistance to such reforms makes him, not fiscal conservatives, the one holding the absurd position...
...As the chart above shows, if we hit the debt ceiling, we will still have more than enough tax revenue coming in to pay the most economically and politically sensitive obligations...

...In talking about "not paying our bills," Mr. Obama is hinting -- without openly saying -- that the US Government might fail to pay its creditors. This is highly irresponsible. He knows very well that, in the event we hit the debt ceiling, the US will continue to be able to pay all holders of US bonds (principal as well as interest). Even so deep-dyed a left-winger as Mr. Obama would never dare to miss a payment to bondholders. If he did, Uncle Sam's credit rating would almost certainly take an immediate hit, driving up interest rates and rattling world markets. In failing to make all this clear, the President allows those who are less knowledgeable to mistakenly assume that a debt default is a realistic possibility. It's not.

True, Dean, under normal circumstances, a default is not a realistic possibility.

But these are not, by any stretch, normal circumstances.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

Author James Simpson has probably done the most comprehensive work in documenting "The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Manufactured Crisis". His seminal article, written before Obama's 2008 election, predicted what the community organizer had in mind for America. The strategy, first articulated by two Columbia professors -- who taught there during Obama's years as a student -- describes crushing capitalism by overwhelming it through massive expansion of the welfare state.

The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse...

...Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky...

...Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation's wealth...

Are Obama's refusal to negotiate, his threats of economic collapse, and his incessant agitating all intended to set the stage for a default?

As a lever to achieve his oft-stated goal of "fundamental transformation"?

I leave that answer as an exercise for the reader.


"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." --Senator Barack Obama, July 2, 2008


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Larwyn's Linx: House GOP Preparing to Surrender

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Find Your Representative, call them, and tell them to HOLD THEIR GROUND

House GOP Preparing to Surrender: Erick Erickson
Obama Approval Down to 37% and GOP Still Thinks It's Losing?: EIB
Obamacare’s Biggest Problem Emerges: Walter Russell Mead

Oklahoma Suit May Knock Out Obamacare: RWN
The Myth of Voluntary Participation in Obamacare Inspections.: VictoryGirls
Per Leftist Rules, ObamaCare Is Racist: Right Sphere

Ozymandias Returns: The Arrogance of Obama: DiploMad
Why Was Obamacare Site Outsourced To Overseas Company?: Strata
College students blame Obama and Democrats for shutdown: Scoop

Economy

The priority problem: John Hayward
Obamacare's Financial Unraveling: Predictable, and Predicted: Charles Blahous
Web designers on Reddit mercilessly mock Obamacare site code: Poor Richard

Braley is mad that the Congressional gym is sans towel service: NakedDC
Broken Promise Underlying Obamacare’s Exchange Debacle: Chris Jacobs
Occupy America! Park Visitors Storm the Barrycades: Michelle Malkin

Scandal Central

SF's Cliff House defies administration, reopens — and is forced to close again.: Zombie
California's Brown Signs Bill Permitting Non-Physician Abortions: Breitbart
Guess How Much We Paid For Obama’s Trainwreck Healthcare Website?: JWF

Issa Grills Top IRS Obamacare Official About Illegal White House Collusion: Nice Deb
Smoking Gun Exposed- D.C. Police Covers Up Giving Feinstein Illegal ‘Assault Weapons’: Emily Miller, TPNN
Court records: McAuliffe invested with RI estate planner indicted in death benefits scheme: Bob Lewis, AP

Media

President Shutdown’s Approval Plummets to 37%: JWF
The Top 8 Nastiest Liberal Media Quotes Blaming the GOP for the Shutdown: MRC
WOW! Wolf Blitzer says Obama should take GOP advice and delay Obamacare: IM41

CNN: Admin Was Warned About Glitches Before ObamaCare Website Launch: Breitbart
Obamacare Website Fails CNN Again: WFB
CBS News: Obamacare Implementation “Nothing Short Of Disastrous”: WZ

Ted Cruz poll: GOP gained in fight over Obamacare despite shutdown: Exam
Shutown Day 9: Stamps, Tramps, Vamps and Scamps. In no particular order.: MOTUS
Paul Ryan thinks that you are stupid: IM41

Socialist Leader: Obamacare Will Fail – “Single Payer” Comes Next: Trevor Loudon
Jay Carney ‘Unsure’ If Obama Has Tried His $634 Million Trainwreck Website: JWF
Michelle Malkin ruins Melinda Gates’ Common Core cheerleading with pesky facts: Twitchy

World

The Shame of Chuck Hagel: RS
Marine Le Pen's Eurosceptic "National Front" Party Takes Lead in France National Poll: Mish
France: Journalist faces criminal trial for questioning Islam during radio debate: JihadWatch

Sci-Tech

The NSA's Massive New Data Center Is Melting: Abby Ohlheiser
How DirecTV overhauled its 800-person IT group with a game: Matt Rosoff, CiteWorld
Are You Ready for New Generic Top-Level Domains?: Mark Partridge, Baseline

Cornucopia

Debt To America!: Hopenchange
SpiteHouse: National Park goons remove handles from trail water fountains: Marathon
Just Right Carbine, .45 ACP Edition: All Outdoor

Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: MILLION VET MARCH, October 13, 2013 9:00 am

QOTD: "I want you to circle the date of Sunday, October 13, 2013.

Find Your Representative, call them, and tell them to HOLD THEIR GROUND

And then I want you to help “circle the wagons” on that day to help protect and defend our brave veterans who risked their lives for our freedom – and now are being barred from visiting the memorials erected to honor their deeds.

In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation’s war memorials. And he has declared open war on our honored veterans!

The World War II memorial … the Vietnam Veterans Memorial … the Korean War Veterans Memorial – Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose Obamacare and his other naked power grabs.

Let’s put it plainly: Barack Obama is behaving like a vicious tyrant. And if he succeeds in this assault on the democratic system, the Republic we love is at mortal risk. It’s just that simple.

That’s why I am asking you now to take two decisive moves to show Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi – and all of their oppressive ilk in Washington – that “We the People” are still in charge." --Million Vet March

Wednesday, October 09, 2013

IRS-GATE EXPLODES: White House and IRS Illegally Traded Confidential Taxpayer Info to Attack Political Enemies

Patrick Howley reports at The Daily Caller:

Top Internal Revenue Service Obamacare official Sarah Hall Ingram discussed confidential taxpayer information with senior Obama White House officials, according to 2012 emails... Lois Lerner, then head of the IRS Tax Exempt Organizations division, also received an email alongside White House officials that contained confidential information.

Ingram attempted to counsel the White House on a lawsuit from religious organizations opposing Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Email exchanges involving Ingram and White House officials — including White House health policy advisor Ellen Montz and deputy assistant to the president for health policy Jeanne Lambrew — contained confidential taxpayer information, according to Oversight.

The emails ... had numerous redactions with the signifier “6103.” ... Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code forbids a federal employee from “disclos[ing] any return or return information obtained by him in any manner in connection with his service as such an officer or an employee.”

Federal employees who illegally disclose confidential taxpayer information could face five years in prison.

“Thanks, David. Thanks for the information on [6103],” White House official Lambrew wrote to IRS official David Fish in a July 20, 2012 exchange. “I am still hoping to understand whether the 50 percent rule is moot if the organization does not offer goods and services for sale to the general public. Do we assume that organizations like [6103] do offer goods and services for sale?”

Another email from Montz to Ingram and others refers to the “[6103] memo” and the “[6103] letter” while discussing organizations that are not required to file 990′s.

Ingram appeared before Rep. Darrell Issa’s House Oversight Committee Wednesday and claimed she could not recall a document that contained confidential taxpayer information... Issa has requested unredacted copies of the emails, citing a prohibition from misusing Section 6103 “for the purpose of concealing information from a congressional inquiry.”

Ingram headed the scandal-ridden IRS office responsible for overseeing tax-exempt nonprofit groups before leaving to head the agency’s office in charge of Obamacare implementation.

Misuse of the IRS was one of the articles of impeachment to be used against Richard Nixon had he not resigned.

Heads need to roll at the White House and the IRS.


Hat tip: BadBlue News and BB.

The Impassionate, Indifferent, Apolitical, Stone-hearted Black Swan

Guest post by Lee Cary


The Black Swan is Arithmetic. She is coming and she is already here. In Detroit, you see her in the debris of a once great American city.

The Perfect Storm is the confluence of events that will wreak economic havoc on America. It need not have anything to do with the current debt ceiling controversy. Most don't see it coming. For them, it will bring shock and awe.

Nassim Nicholas Teleb is credited with developing the metaphor -- based on the sudden discovery that all swans are not white -- of the black swan, to refer to widely unexpected events that come as a surprise to most, and change everything.

Below are several of the Perfect Storm fronts, samples of how an increasingly desperate regime is likely to respond as the storm builds, and a brief glimpse into the coming storm damage to America.

The Converging Fronts of the Perfect Storm

Quantitative Easing (QE) will continue. This artificial economic stimulation may go on through the 2014 elections, particularly if Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, succeeds Ben Bernanke. In a November 2011 speech, Yellen described the difficulties of disconnecting QE from an economy experiencing a recovery "that has been less vigorous than desired or expected." Her solution: "I believe it is crucial for emerging market economies, particularly in Asia, to take further steps to boost domestic demand, providing support for their own growth and that of the global economy." Translation: The solution to America's economic problem is a change in the Asians' consumption habits.

As interest rates rise from near zero and USD (U.S. dollar) devaluation continues, inflation will increase, as will the cost of servicing the federal debt. Imagine all your credit cards are maxed out, and you struggle to just make the minimum interest payments. Then, you get a notice from the banks stating that their interest rates are going up three percent. Or, five. Maybe seven.  You look at your household budget for what can be cut. Seeing all the cuts are painful, you photocopy money. You go to jail - unless you're the Fed.

Obama's fundraising websites flawlessly processed millions in questionable donations; his Obamacare sites, not so much

Of President Obama's many historic firsts, his 2008 and 2012 campaign fundraising websites achieved an unprecedented level of ignominy.

In the run-up to the elections, his websites are believed to have processed tens of millions in illegal campaign contributions, including:

• "Structured" contributions to evade donation limits

• Foreign contributions

• Stolen credit cards

• Untraceable prepaid cash cards

In addition, the 2008 Obama site explicitly supported the forgery of computer (IP) addresses for said donors.

But none of that was interesting to antique media.

A Tale of Two Websites

While Obama's fundraising websites processed tens of millions of page-views a month and handled a monstrous number of electronic financial transfer (EFT) transactions, his Obamacare site didn't fare nearly so well.

Obamacare's well-publicized technical failures continue to this day, more than a week later, prompting regular Americans to ask the following questions:

1. Why was the Obamacare site outsourced to an overseas company? Why did Obama ship jobs overseas?

2. Why did it outsource the work to a company infamous for suffering major data breaches?

3. And why did it use a company that had virtually no experience in implementing exchanges?

Those answers are left as exercises for the (*cough* campaign contributions *cough*) reader.

The federal government's red-faced CTO Todd Park says the exchange websites work fine as long as no one is using them. Yes, he really said that.

"These bugs were functions of volume,'' Park said. "Take away the volume and it works.''

Over at Reddit, technologists ripped the site's ridiculously poor design and architecture.

But don't worry, folks: between these geniuses and the IRS, what do you have to worry about?


Hat tips: BadBlue News and Brad.

Larwyn's Linx: White House Official: President Obama Prefers a Default to Negotiation

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

White House Official: Obama Prefers Default to Negotiation: Nice Deb
This is the Strategy. Now Do It.: Erick Erickson
Cruz calls on Reid and Obama to Fund the VA Now: FreeLight

Obamacare Site Resets All Passwords to Try to Fix Issues: Ace
Obama’s Dangerous Claim to Executive Power: Betsy McCaughey
Obama desperately reaches out to Beltway RINO journalists: Moe Lane

DC Rolling Protest: Truckers Demand to be Heard: Amelia Hamilton
Your Personal Data Can Be Used For ‘Law Enforcement, Audit Activities’: Jeryl Bier
Shopping the ObamaCare exchanges - a testimony to perseverance: MoneyRunner

Economy

The Little Eichmanns of the Government Shutdown: RS
Obamacare Will Impact 800,000 New Jersey Residents: RWN
Cali: only 1.7% of exchange visitors signed up: ZH

Trucker's shutdown deemed 'unstoppable': WatchdogWire
Big Bird, NPR receive $445 million; Military death gratuity slashed: Twitchy
Government Actuaries: Obamacare to Increase Spending By $621B: WZ

Scandal Central

Rumsfeld: White House Denying Death Benefits to Families of Fallen : WFB
Rep. Duncan Hunter: Obama admin giving middle finger to military families: Scoop
Lawmakers: Military Pay Bill Should Cover KIA Payments Frozen by Hagel: Tatler

Darrel Issa: IRS Officials Sent Private Data Over Personal Email Accounts: WFB
Obamacare’s Unconstitutional Origins: Andrew C. McCarthy
HHS Secretary Sebelius: 'I don't know' how many have signed up for ObamaCare: Fox

Climate & Energy

New EPA proposal for cutting emissions draws immediate reactions: Jeff Postelwait, ELP

Media

Kathleen Sebelius’s Daily Show Disaster: Jon Stewart Slams Obamacare Rules: Lloyd Grove
My “CHAT” With An Obamacare Navigator…: Lady Liberty
Glenn Beck Claims Mitch McConnell Called Tea Party Senators ‘Traitors’: Josh Feldman, Mediaite

GOP Congressman Decimates Andrea Mitchell and Slams 'Pathetic News Reporting': Kyle Drennen
Barack Obama Compliments Softball Questions He Gets: 'That's a Great Example': MRC
Senior White House Advisor Tweets Out N-Word; Conservatives Pounce: Andrew Kirell

Shame on Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. He Lied to Bill O’Reilly.: RS
The Most Dishonest President Ever?: Rush Limbaugh
The 10 Most Ridiculous Entries on HuffPo’s ‘Shutdown Trickle-Down’ List: Steve Maley, RS

World

Al Jazeera Ratings Disaster—Some Shows Hit Zero In Key Demo: Don Irvine, AIM
Immigration Update: Arizona requires Citizenship Proof to vote in State Elections: AIM
Will arrest of Libyan affect Benghazi Investigation?: Shoebat

Sci-Tech

US releases $100 banknote with new security features: BBC
Samsung announces the Galaxy Round, a smartphone with a curved OLED display: Sam Byford
Hacking The Adobe Breach: Kelly Jackson Higgins, Dark Reading

Cornucopia

Holding Hostage: iOTW
Kelly File: Immigration rally allowed on the National mall while vets can’t get into WWII memorial: Scoop
Occupy America! Park Visitors Storm the Barrycades: Michelle Malkin

Image: MOTUS
Sponsored by: Call your Representative Now, Thank Them and Tell Them We are With Them!

QOTD: "I'm asking myself if we have ever had, as I listen to it, and I'm not exaggerating, I'm asking, in my lifetime, have we ever had a more dishonest president? I mean, with all due respect, what he just said about the debt limit is... Well, I don't know how to characterize it. It was dead wrong. This is a man who voted twice against raising the debt ceiling when he was a senator. He did it once in March of 2006 and again in September of 2007. So it obviously can't be a crime against humanity. Now, what he said was that -- and he reiterated it. He said (paraphrasing), "Just because we raise the debt limit doesn't mean we're gonna go into more debt. The Republicans want you to believe that that's what we're gonna do." And he said, "If we don't raise the debt limit, we will not be able to pay our bills." And Warren Buffett has called that a nuclear bomb, and he quoted a couple of other people.

I'm telling you, don't take my word for it. He's lying. Or let me say it a different way. He's wrong. That is so incorrect. We will not default with the debt limit where it is. It's not even possible, folks. Every month the federal government collects income and other tax revenue, and the amount of revenue that the government collects every month is much more than is needed to pay our bills, and paying our bills is essentially paying the interest on the debt. That's it. And we have the money to do that, whether the debt limit changes or not, and he is just making it up when he tells people otherwise.

This was really bad. It was really, really bad. And here's a guy who voted twice against raising the debt limit when he was a senator, 2006 and 2007. And he did it to try to shut down the war in Iraq, in one instance. I forget what the other reason was. In both instances he called Bush all kinds of names. He called him irresponsible and any other number of things for wanting to raise the debt limit. This is not how you run a government, he said. This is irresponsible." --Rush Limbaugh, "The Most Dishonest President Ever?">

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Brian Terry's family deserves to know why Eric Holder is blocking a key ATF whistleblower's book on Fast and Furious

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Transparency: The Justice Department blocks a tell-all book by an ATF special agent on how Brian Terry, Jaime Zapata and hundreds of Mexican nationals were killed with weapons supplied by this administration.

ATF Special Agent John Dodson is a national hero who in 2011 blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious, the Obama administration's gun-running operation to Mexico.

Testifying before Congress, he disclosed that his supervisors had authorized the flow of semiautomatic weapons into Mexico instead of interdicting them, weapons that found their way into the hands of Mexican drug cartels with deadly results.

Dodson has put his intimate Fast and Furious knowledge into a book titled "The Unarmed Truth." It provides the first inside account of how the Obama administration permitted and helped sell some 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels, guns used in the murder of two federal agents and hundreds of Mexican citizens.

Just as Attorney General Eric "I didn't read the memo" Holder has stonewalled on providing information and documents to Congress and the American people, hiding under President Obama's invocation of executive privilege, the Department of Justice has denied Dodson permission to publish the book.

Dodson submitted his manuscript for ATF review, as is required, and was told in a letter from ATF ethics official Greg Serres, a representative of the most transparent administration in history: "This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix Field Division and would have a detremental (sic) effect on our relationships with DEA and FBI."

The family of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry stands behind Dodson and supports his attempts to publish his manuscript, according to Ralph Terry, president of the Brian Terry Foundation and Brian's uncle.

The operation was exposed when Brian was killed in December 2010 by an illegal immigrant working for the Sinaloa Cartel near Nogales, Ariz., just 10 miles from Mexico. Two Fast and Furious weapons were found at the murder scene.

Two such weapons also were used to murder Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico on Feb. 15, 2011, came from suspects who were under ATF watch but not arrested at the time.

"Do we really need to remind ATF leadership that the men that killed Brian Terry were carrying weapons supplied to them by ATF during Operation Fast and Furious," Terry wrote, not buying the ATF's morale excuse.

Virtue and Morality Turned Upside Down

Sad Hill News asks, "When Does America's 'Tolerance' Become Stupidity?"


George Washington once asked, "Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue?"

John Adams observed that "Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence than the body can live and move without a soul."

Benjamin Franklin noted that only "a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

And Frederick Douglass presciently warned that "The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful and virtuous."

How brilliant these men were! And how unmoored have we become from the precepts of morality and virtue that underpin our precious society? Are we willing to simply let this nation slip from liberty into the dark pool of despotism which has ruled man from time immemorial?


Comment o' the Day: The Centrist

A commenter at J.T. Young's latest at Real Clear Market -- "Is Obama Going For Broke In Washington's Fiscal Fight?" -- summarizes the perverse falsity of the Left and its leaders.

President Obama ran as a Centrist. He governs Hard Left.

The division between the two parties has never been greater.

The Tea Party was gestated in the dissatisfaction with Obamacare.

There wouldn't be a Tea Party without the reckless spending of this President.

Skin color has nothing to do with it, except as a convenient method of attempting to silence his detractors by liberals who really have no other argument.

Don't like his policies? You are a racist!

Even if those same policies were likewise loathed when Clinton and Carter were in office? Doesn't matter. You are a racist.

Typical Democrat argument points:

1) Racist.
2) Koch Brothers
3) Faux News
4) Rush Limbaugh
5) You hate the poor.

And those are their best arguments, mind you.


Image hat tip: William Warren, Americans for Limited Government.

OBAMACARE DISASTER: North Carolina Seniors Will See Health Care Premium Hikes Up to... 530 percent

What else would you call it if you found out your health care premium just got jacked from $228 a month to $1,208 except a "disaster"?

Across North Carolina, thousands of people have been shocked in recent weeks to find out their health insurance plans will be canceled at the end of the year – and premiums for comparable coverage could increase sharply.

One of them is George Schwab of Charlotte, who pays $228 a month for his family’s $10,000 deductible plan from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina... In a Sept. 23 letter, Blue Cross notified him that his current plan doesn’t meet benefit requirements outlined in the Affordable Care Act and suggested a comparable plan for $1,208 a month – $980 more than he now pays.

...“The President told the American people numerous times that… ‘If you like your coverage, you can keep it,’” Schwab said. “How can we keep it if it has been eliminated? How can we keep it if the premium has been increased 430 percent in one year?”

...[Chris] Blount[, a Blue Cross agent,] agreed with Schwab that the president shouldn’t have made promises he couldn’t keep... “That’s one thing that really bothers me about all of this,” Blount said. “He didn’t just say it once. He said it a lot.”

...Blue Cross spokesman Lew Borman said Friday that large premium increases will affect about one-third of the approximately 400,000 North Carolina customers who buy Blue Cross insurance in the individual market. Some of their policies were canceled because they didn’t meet the new federal standards, he said.

...Michael Hood, 46, who lives near Winston-Salem, is another of the Blue Cross customers who is suffering sticker shock after receiving a recent renewal letter... He and his wife, who is expecting their third child, now pay $324 per month for a plan with a $10,000 family deductible. The comparable plan suggested by Blue Cross for next year would cost $895.27 per month with an $11,000 family deductible. Their annual payment would rise from $14,000 to $24,000.

...“The president told us Obamacare would make health insurance affordable and reduce costs. It is now impossible for our family to afford private health insurance.”

Charles C. W. Cooke summarizes the litany of lies the President and his sycophants told Americans to jam Obamacare through Congress.

• “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”

Lies. All lies.

• “For people with insurance, the only impact of the health-care law is that their insurance is stronger, better, and more secure than it was before. Full stop. That’s it. They don’t have to worry about anything else.”

Lies. All lies.

• "If you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan is the amount of money you will spend on premiums. That will be less.”

Lies. All lies.

• "I want to be very clear: I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade."

Lies. All lies.

• "Health care reform will cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year."

Lies. All lies.

As Scott Johnson astutely observes, "If only we had a free press, Obamacare would be a bloody, unrelenting scandal, like Abu Ghraib, or Watergate. As it is, it is only business as usual for liberals and liberalism.."


Larwyn's Linx: Obamacare -- a Hill to Die On

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Nation

Obamacare: a Hill to Die On: David Limbaugh
Yes, I Think This Means the GOP is Winning: Erick Erickson
Wallace Reminds Lew: Obama’s Refusal to Negotiate is Unprecedented: Tatler

Despite Obama Shutdown, Park Service to Allow Illegal Alien Rally: JWF
Police Arrest Vietnam Veterans at NYC War Memorial: Brian Feldman
Million Vet March on Memorials October 13: Ride for the Constitution: MagNote

Inarticulate Republicans: Thomas Sowell
Confirmed: ClusterCare signup numbers really, really bad: Moe Lane
Houston, We Have a Problem: Elephant

Economy

"We all need to take care of each other": Ace
Quitting Government Unions Made Easy: Watch-Dog
Is Obama Going For Broke In Washington's Fiscal Fight?: J.T. Young

Obama and media continue to lie about the debt ceiling: John R. Lott
Obama's Debt Claims Debunked, Line by Line: Dean Clancy
Coburn says IF debt ceiling not raised, US won't default: Justin Sink, The Hill

Scandal Central

DOJ to Universities: ignore SCOTUS ruling on using race in admissions: Scoop
Mainstream Media Finally Catches on to Disability Fraud: Mish
Obama Evicts Senior Citizens, Barrycades Their Home Of 40 Years: Strata-Sphere

Reality Sinks In. An Open Letter to the Whiner Known as ATF Director B. Todd Jones.: SSI
ATF Blocking Book by 'Fast and Furious' Whistleblower: AWR Hawkins, Breitbart
Family of Four Will Pay $10,000 More for Insurance Because of Obamacare: John McCormack

Media

FASCISM: Reporters Living in Fear of Obama Administration: JWF
Nancy Pelosi Flounders When Asked Actual Questions By Press: IJ Review
Hilarious: Dingy Harry Says Media is Unfair to Democrats: JWF

Jim Geraghty is getting it: Protein Wisdom
Progressive insurance co-founder seeks to destroy conservatives: BPR
Reality of Obamacare is Doing More for Conservatism than the Consultant Class Ever Has: Ben Howe

Justice Scalia to reporter on religion: ‘Are you so out of touch with most of America?’: RedAlert
Justice Scalia Canceled Subscription to Slanted, `Shrilly Liberal Washington Post: AIM
Montana: "Less than a half-dozen" attend ObamaCare forum: Marathon

World

Great News: DHS Muslim Advisor Admits Islamo-Nazi Ties: JW
Now The Chinese Are Wagging Their Fingers At Obama: ZH
Russia to Grab Pension Money, Temporarily: Andrey Ostroukh, WSJ

Sci-Tech

New York now data-mining for criminal activity: Don Reisinger, CNet
Nielsen’s Twitter rating goes live this week: Cory Bergman, Lost Remote
How Good Management Stifles Breakthrough Innovation: Markus Lorenz, HBR

Cornucopia

Matt Bracken: Enemies Trilogy Free on Amazon Kindle: Co-Ironwill
Obama Inc. Sends 5 Rangers to Mount 24 Hour Blockade of Restaurant: Daniel Greenfield
Shutdown Day 7: It’s Starting To Heat Up!: MOTUS

Image: Police Arrest Vietnam Veterans at NYC War Memorial
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Million Vet March on Memorials October 13: Ride for the Constitution

QOTD: "The federal government has shut down some 17 times previously, and at no time were these memorials closed. Is our Sovereign so besotted with power, has his impudent leftism so robbed him of reason that he fails to understand what is so obvious: That in barricading Americans from memorials and icons that stand as testimony to an exceptional culture founded precisely on liberty from oppressive government, he perfectly validates the arguments of the right?" --Dave Carter

Monday, October 07, 2013

World War II Vets From Ohio Will Ignore Threats of Arrest by National Park Service to Visit Their Memorial on Wednesday

Guest post by Maggie Thurber


World War II veterans from Ohio are the next wave of war-worn warriors vowing to defy orders and storm barricades at a memorial built in their honor in Washington, D.C.

An outpouring of support from across the country — and the willingness of guests and volunteers to risk arrest — helped Honor Flight of Northwest Ohio proceed with its scheduled trip Wednesday to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

“We’d been watching the issue for several weeks,” said Lee Armstrong, the group’s president. “We planned the flight back in May, but knowing they were talking about a government shutdown on Oct. 1, we kept watching and told our volunteers to be ready.”

Honor Flight is a national nonprofit that gives veterans free transportation so they can see war memorials. More than 3,500 veterans from across the country are scheduled to visit the memorials this month.

Watching and waiting gave them time to see what happened when Honor Flight groups from Mississippi and Iowa refused to let barricades at the monument stop them from visiting and paying tribute Tuesday.

On Wednesday, more veterans moved the barricades to gain access and the National Park Service issued an announcement that, despite the government shutdown, the memorial would remain open to veterans under the First Amendment.

Armstrong was told Tuesday by a woman at the National Park Service who refused to give her name that if his Honor Flight group crossed the barricades that had been set up, they were going to be arrested.