White House bribing health insurance companies to keep rates down ahead of midterms
Written by Allen West on July 16, 2014
It was the line from The Godfather that will never be forgotten: “I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.” The Chicago thugocracy of Barack Hussein Obama took that tactic with health insurance companies to make them swallow Obamacare in the first place, and is now quietly bribing them to “postpone” rate hikes scheduled to come out right before the midterms.
According to Forbes.com, ” Hidden in the midst of a 436-page regulatory update, and written in pure bureaucratese, the Department of Health and Human Services asked that insurance companies limit the looming premium increases for 2015 health plans. But don’t worry, HHS hinted: we’ll bail you out on the taxpayer’s dime if you lose money. No wonder there wasn’t a press release. The White House is playing politics with Americans’ health care—and they’re bribing health insurance companies to play along.”
Ok, let me clarify: the Obama administration has sneaked in a regulatory rule update asking health insurance companies not to do their job accurately if it means higher insurance premiums. After all Obama — aka Vito Corleone — stated Obamacare would bring about an average reduction of $2500 to healthcare premiums. Now, here is the offer the insurance companies can’t refuse: “even if you’re losing money, we’ll square it away for you” — with taxpayer dollars of course.
So in the long run, the hard-working American middle-income family gets screwed either way! Either they’ll have to pay higher premiums or pay the government through higher taxes — such as Obama’s desired higher gas taxes — in order to compensate the insurance companies. And here we thought Obama REALLY didn’t like those insurance companies.
Now, silly me, I thought bribery was a felony offense. Oops, there I go again using logic and common sense when assessing the Obama administration — heck, they’re having problems with computer hard drives, bribery is just par for the course.
And to think the Washington Post just gave President Obama three more “pinocchios” for lying. Nah, none of this matters – it’s certainly not “impeachable.” It’s just liberal progressive socialist politics as usual — fear, intimidation, coercion, lies and deception. Can you imagine what would be happening if this were a revelation occurring under a Republican president?
But be careful, you don’t want to be accused of racial animus because you’re questioning the president’s bribery policy. And I don’t think the U.S. Department of Justice will be investigating this, do you?
Why is all of this happening now? Why it’s simple. There’s an election coming in November 2014 and the last thing Obama, his personal consigliere Valerie Jarrett and the Democrats want is for 2015 healthcare insurance premium increases to be announced in September. And Obama accuses everyone else of playing politics.
As Forbes reports, “typically, insurance companies release their premium rates between summer and early fall—i.e., right before voters cast their ballots in November. If premiums skyrocket—which looks increasingly likely—then voters won’t look too kindly on Senators and Representatives who voted for Obamacare and created this problem. Hence the White House’s desperate damage control. It almost worked: No one noticed when the regulations were first released. In fact, it took days for any news outlet to find the language and then translate it into readable English. TownHall.com figured it out first. The Los Angeles Times then reported that “hold[ing] down premium increases for next year” is a “top priority” for President Obama since “rates will be announced ahead of this fall’s congressional elections.” Wow, give the LA Times a Scooby Snack for getting that one right!
Forbes says “even if the healthcare insurance industry doesn’t want to play along, it’s still in these companies’ best interests to assent to the administration’s “request.” Under Obamacare, insurers are so heavily regulated that they have to play nice with the bureaucrats who call the shots. The president isn’t the only government official who carries a big stick. If insurance companies don’t give in, regulators have powerful ways to make life hard for them. A shrewd CEO doesn’t need to look far to see what might happen if his company opts out. This administration already has a reputation for strong-arming dissenting businesses in other industries.”
Don’t believe how bad it could be? Just ask the coal industry and the small community banks. Of course, this will once again be dismissed and the White House may still get away with its attempted sleight of hand. Technically, the regulations don’t force health insurance companies to hold down their premium increases. But the White House isn’t asking nicely. Does it ever?
If the GOP can awake from its stupor and acknowledge the other side doesn’t play nice, perhaps they’ll start winning elections. This is the politics of Moose and Rocco, and exactly what Americans consented to when they voted to have Chicago come to Washington D.C.
P.S. Hillary is from Chicago too.
Tags: Obamacare
Read more at http://allenbwest.com/2014/07/white-house-bribing-health-insurance-companies-keep-rates-ahead-midterms/#cVGlSKSsQPyfvk7c.99
via White House bribing health insurance companies to keep rates down ahead of midterms | Allen B. West – AllenBWest.com.
Category Archives: US Constitution
Immoral hypocrisy of Democrat’s late-term abortion bill
Immoral hypocrisy of Democrat’s late-term abortion bill
Read more at http://allenbwest.com/2014/07/immoral-hypocrisy-democrats-late-term-abortion-bill/#V4IyT5o7ofDvpjmp.99
If there is any indicator that the Democrats are concerned about the impending midterm elections, look no further than their recent legislative endeavor. When in doubt, they go for a divisive issue, especially one aligned with the faux War on Women.
Funny how Democrats are using the compassion argument when it comes to the flood of illegal immigrant children into America. Yet they have no compassion for the thriving, healthy, but unborn American child who they support being butchered. What immoral hypocrisy — but all for political gain. It’s despicable.
As Chris Stirewalt writes for Foxnews.com, ” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is leading a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, a vote probably to be taken this week, on his bill that would override the laws banning late-term abortions and imposing regulations on abortion clinics in an increasing number of states.”
Stirewalt says “of course what Blumenthal doesn’t to address is that many of these “restrictions” were put in place after the horrific Dr. Kermit Gosnell case in Philadelphia, which the mainstream media didn’t seem to want to cover.” And these “restrictions” do offer support for women and protection.
We reported here about the drive for late-term abortions by a state representative in New York and what it entails. It basically amounts to brutal infanticide — that means killing babies.
According to Stirewalt, “Blumenthal’s bill, which already has the support of nearly two-thirds of Senate Democrats, would eradicate the restrictions in at least a dozen states where abortions have been banned after the start of the sixth month of pregnancy and rules in many more states that regulate the conditions at abortion clinics.”
Leave it to these liberal progressive socialists to do anything to save their own political skin – including murder ala Gosnell.
Stirewalt says “even the New York Times editorial board is enthused as are others on the Left who have seen access to elective abortions restricted in the aftermath of the discovery of a house of horrors at the Philadelphia abortion clinic operated by Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Blumenthal’s anti-anti-Gosnell bill takes Democrats into some very dangerous political territory.”
But with the support of a complicit media who will aid in the promulgation of their true intent and lies, the Democrats feel emboldened to take such an action.
Stirewalt posits that “Blumenthal’s hearing and legislation certainly is part of Democratic efforts to shift the election narrative and to frighten suburban women about Todd Akin-ite boogeymen lurking in every doctor’s office, it’s also evidence of the power of the left wing in the Democratic Party. One would have to imagine this hearing is designed to placate the vocal, well-funded pro-choice crusaders in the Democratic base and not designed to proceed even to a show vote.” We’ve already seen fundraising emails distorting the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby case decision.
But ponder this: Democrats and liberal progressives are so very staunch in their support of women’s choice in killing babies — but why are they so against women’s choice in educating their children? Oops, that’s right, they’re “owned” by the far left radical abortionists and the teachers unions.
So in the end, it’s not about the future of our children, it is all about politics, and placating their devoted leftist base. It’s about degrading women into nothing more than hapless victims whose basic need is to kill babies — not about greater opportunities for their future — just killing the future of life.
And the progressive socialists are masters of the lexicon as they have reframed this debate as fighting for women’s reproductive health — which should mean defeating cervical, uterine, ovarian cancers and fibroid tumor threats. Instead they’ve successfully changed language to mask their true intent — killing babies — as a means to achieve political power.
We all know where Barack Hussein Obama stands on this issue — after all when he was a state Senator he advocated for and supported legislation that a child surviving an abortion still deserved death. What type of demonic mind thinks that? Even worse, what does it say about our moral compass to have such a person as our president?
Look into the eyes of the people advocating this legislation — Richard Blumenthal, Tammy Baldwin, and others — and ask, what do you see within their souls?
Read more at http://allenbwest.com/2014/07/immoral-hypocrisy-democrats-late-term-abortion-bill/#V4IyT5o7ofDvpjmp.99
Benghazi panel ramps up – Lauren French – POLITICO.com
Benghazi panel ramps up – Lauren French – POLITICO.com.
There are no Benghazi hearings on the House calendar, but the silence doesn’t mean the investigation is fading away.
Rep. Trey Gowdy is launching a special committee to wrangle a probe that’s sprawled across the jurisdictions of multiple headline-hungry committee chairmen.
And while the South Carolina Republican isn’t committing to specifics, such as whether there will be public hearings with high-profile witnesses like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his methodical approach could help the GOP savor a scandal that has at times looked more like a political sideshow.
(Also on POLITICO: No bail for Benghazi suspect)
“No one [has] defended the five-minute questioning [process] as the most calculated way of eliciting the most amount of information,” Gowdy said in an interview. “There is most assuredly a place for hearings but not if your primary focus is to gather facts.”
While there isn’t much happening publicly, the House select committee investigating the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, is busy behind the scenes.
The panel is examining subpoenas from committees that previously investigated the Benghazi attacks to develop a list of unanswered questions from the Obama administration. There is also outreach to agencies that received requests for information.
Meanwhile, Gowdy is planning a series of closed-door meetings this month that could include a screening of a classified video from the Benghazi compound. He’s also checking with the 11 other lawmakers on the panel about working through the August recess.
(Also on POLITICO: Searching for Hillary Clinton’s big idea)
And committee leaders from both parties are busy staffing up.
The response to the 2012 attack on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi deeply divided Congress. The attack left four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, dead. Republicans accuse the Obama administration of covering up evidence that the attack was linked to terrorism while Democrats argue the GOP is simply drumming up a scandal.
As the committee’s investigation unfolds, perhaps the biggest challenge for Gowdy is to prove that his work isn’t simply a partisan exercise.
“I don’t want to appear naive but I do hold out some hope that a few things left remaining in politics, or in our society, can be above politics,” Gowdy said. “People who have worked with me in the past and the people on the other side of the aisle who I work with now, I don’t think they are at all surprised this is the approach that I am taking. My goal is to find out what happened.”
(Also on POLITICO: Filing vague on Benghazi suspect’s role)
So far, Gowdy seems to be forging productive relationships with Democrats. He meets regularly with Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the panel, and the two often chat privately in the speaker’s lobby during House votes.
“I have a great working relationship with Chairman Gowdy, and I am hopeful that this will be the serious, bipartisan fact-finding investigation that he has promised,” Cummings told POLITICO.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) gave Gowdy a loose set of guidelines to pursue his investigation: Determine how the attacks occurred and issue recommendations on ways the U.S. could avoid future assaults on diplomatic outposts. Gowdy isn’t setting a timeline for the committee, but the investigation is expected to extend into 2015.
The committee has been allocated an expansive budget from the House. The panel has $3.3 million to spend this year on operations, according to documents from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office.
That amounts to about $2.2 million for the Republicans and just above $1 million for the Democrats.
The budget was first reported by USA Today.
Panel members are already examining the notes, documents and interview transcripts provided by the other congressional committees that investigated the terrorist attacks, including the House Oversight and Government Reform, Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Judiciary committees.
(Also on POLITICO: McCaul: Khatallah should be sent to Guantánamo)
That amounts to nearly 25,000 pages of documents, Gowdy said, which all need to be reorganized and categorized for the new committee.
“They have to be assimilated,” he said. “I was on OGR, but I would have no way of knowing what Intel or HASC had or how it was cataloged.”
Beyond sifting through documents, Gowdy said most of the focus right now is on hiring employees for the committee. He plans to personally interview job candidates, but finding qualified staffers with the appropriate security clearance is a slow-going task. The committee will dive into classified material, which limits much of the staffing pool to those with established clearances.
“Obviously, going from not existing to fully functioning takes some time,” Gowdy said. “Hiring staff is widely important but not always terribly exciting from a reader’s or viewer’s standpoint. …. You have to do that before you can fully constitute a committee and start work.”
Republicans tapped former Smith-Free Group Vice Chairman Phil Kiko as the panel’s staff director in May. The party hopes to fill roughly half of the staff positions by the end of July.
Democrats on the committee recently hired Susanne Sachsman Grooms as their staff director. She is a former Department of Justice prosecutor, who was the lead attorney for Oversight Committee Democrats on three highly controversial investigations: the Fast and Furious gun-walking operation, the IRS targeting of tea party groups, and Benghazi.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/benghazi-trey-gowdy-108625.html#ixzz36tqYrwfH
The First Iraq War Was Also Sold to the Public Based on a Pack of Lies | Common Dreams
We haven’t Had a Decent POTUS Since JFK and The Man In The Picture Below Was Front And Center November 23, 1963 in Texas, to Help Assassinate Him – WAKE UP AMERICA
The First Iraq War Was Also Sold to the Public Based on a Pack of Lies | Common Dreams.
Published on Friday, June 27, 2014 by Moyers & Company
The First Iraq War Was Also Sold to the Public Based on a Pack of Lies
Then Vice President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, arrive in New Orleans for the 1988 Republican National Convention (Credit: Esther/cc/flickr)Polls suggest that Americans tend to differentiate between our “good war” in Iraq — “Operation Desert Storm,” launched by George HW Bush in 1990 — and the “mistake” his son made in 2003.
Across the ideological spectrum, there’s broad agreement that the first Gulf War was “worth fighting.” The opposite is true of the 2003 invasion, and a big reason for those divergent views was captured in a 2013 CNN poll that found that “a majority of Americans (54%) say that prior to the start of the war the administration of George W. Bush deliberately misled the U.S. public about whether Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction.”
But as the usual suspects come out of the woodwork to urge the US to once again commit troops to Iraq, it’s important to recall that the first Gulf War was sold to the public on a pack of lies that were just as egregious as those told by the second Bush administration 12 years later.
The Lie of an Expansionist Iraq
Most countries condemned Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But the truth — that it was the culmination of a series of tangled economic and historical conflicts between two Arab oil states — wasn’t likely to sell the US public on the idea of sending our troops halfway around the world to do something about it.
So we were given a variation of the “domino theory.” Saddam Hussein, we were told, had designs on the entire Middle East. If he wasn’t halted in Kuwait, his troops would just keep going into other countries.
As Scott Peterson reported for The Christian Science Monitor in 2002, a key part of the first Bush administration’s case “was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia. Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid-September [of 1990] that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.”
A quarter of a million troops with heavy armor amassed on the Saudi border certainly seemed like a clear sign of hostile intent. In announcing that he had deployed troops to the Gulf in August 1990, George HW Bush said, “I took this action to assist the Saudi Arabian Government in the defense of its homeland.” He asked the American people for their “support in a decision I’ve made to stand up for what’s right and condemn what’s wrong, all in the cause of peace.”
But one reporter — Jean Heller of the St. Petersburg Times — wasn’t satisfied taking the administration’s claims at face value. She obtained two commercial satellite images of the area taken at the exact same time that American intelligence supposedly had found Saddam’s huge and menacing army and found nothing there but empty desert.
She contacted the office of then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney “for evidence refuting theTimes photos or analysis offering to hold the story if proven wrong.” But “the official response” was: “Trust us.”
Heller later told the Monitor’s Scott Peterson that the Iraqi buildup on the border between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia “was the whole justification for Bush sending troops in there, and it just didn’t exist.”
Dead Babies, Courtesy of a New York PR Firm
Military occupations are always brutal, and Iraq’s six-month occupation of Kuwait was no exception. But because Americans didn’t have an abundance of affection for Kuwait, a case had to be built that the Iraqi army was guilty of nothing less than Nazi-level atrocities.
That’s where a hearing held by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in October 1990 played a major role in making the case for war.
A young woman who gave only her first name, Nayira, testified that she had been a volunteer at Kuwait’s al-Adan hospital, where she had seen Iraqi troops rip scores of babies out of incubators, leaving them “to die on the cold floor.” Between tears, she described the incident as “horrifying.”
Her account was a bombshell. Portions of her testimony were aired that evening on ABC’s “Nightline” and NBC’s “Nightly News.” Seven US senators cited her testimony in speeches urging Americans to support the war, and George HW Bush repeated the story on 10 separate occasions in the weeks that followed.
In 2002, Tom Regan wrote about his own family’s response to the story for The Christian Science Monitor:
I can still recall my brother Sean’s face. It was bright red. Furious. Not one given to fits of temper, Sean was in an uproar. He was a father, and he had just heard that Iraqi soldiers had taken scores of babies out of incubators in Kuwait City and left them to die. The Iraqis had shipped the incubators back to Baghdad. A pacifist by nature, my brother was not in a peaceful mood that day. “We’ve got to go and get Saddam Hussein. Now,” he said passionately.
Subsequent investigations by Amnesty International, a division of Human Rights Watch and independent journalists would show that the story was entirely bogus — a crucial piece of war propaganda the American media swallowed hook, line and sinker. Iraqi troops had looted Kuwaiti hospitals, but the gruesome image of babies dying on the floor was a fabrication.
In 1992, John MacArthur revealed in The New York Times that Nayirah was in fact the daughter of Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait’s ambassador to the US. Her testimony had been organized by a group called Citizens for a Free Kuwait, which was a front for the Kuwaiti government.
Tom Regan reported that Citizens for a Free Kuwait hired Hill & Knowlton, a New York-based PR firm that had previously spun for the tobacco industry and a number of governments with ugly human rights records. The company was paid “$10.7 million to devise a campaign to win American support for the war.” It was a natural fit, wrote Regan. “Craig Fuller, the firm’s president and COO, had been then-President George Bush’s chief of staff when the senior Bush had served as vice president under Ronald Reagan.”
According to Robin Andersen’s A Century of Media, a Century of War, Hill & Knowlton had spent $1 million on focus groups to determine how to get the American public behind the war, and found that focusing on “atrocities” was the most effective way to rally support for rescuing Kuwait.
Arthur Rowse reported for the Columbia Journalism Review that Hill & Knowlton sent out a video news release featuring Nayirah’s gripping testimony to 700 American television stations.
As Tom Regan noted, without the atrocities, the idea of committing American blood and treasure to save Kuwait just “wasn’t an easy sell.”
Only a few weeks before the invasion, Amnesty International accused the Kuwaiti government of jailing dozens of dissidents and torturing them without trial. In an effort to spruce up the Kuwait image, the company organized Kuwait Information Day on 20 college campuses, a national day of prayer for Kuwait, distributed thousands of “Free Kuwait” bumper stickers, and other similar traditional PR ventures. But none of it was working very well. American public support remained lukewarm the first two months.
That would change as stories about Saddam’s baby-killing troops were splashed across front pages across the country.
Saddam Was Irrational
Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait was just as illegal as the US invasion that would ultimately oust him 13 years later — it was neither an act of self-defense, nor did the UN Security Council authorize it.
But it can be argued that Iraq had significantly more justification for its attack.
Kuwait had been a close ally of Iraq, and a top financier of the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980, which, as The New York Times reported, occurred after “Iran’s revolutionary government tried to assassinate Iraqi officials, conducted repeated border raids and tried to topple Mr. Hussein by fomenting unrest within Iraq.”
Saddam Hussein felt that Kuwait should forgive part of his regime’s war debt because he had halted the “expansionist plans of Iranian interests” not only on behalf of his own country, but in defense of the other Gulf Arab states as well.
After an oil glut knocked out about two-thirds of the value of a barrel of crude oil between 1980 and 1986, Iraq appealed to OPEC to limit crude oil production in order to raise prices — with oil as low as $10 per barrel, the government was struggling to pay its debts. But Kuwait not only resisted those efforts — and asked OPEC to increase its quotas by 50 percent instead — for much of the 1980s it also had maintained its own production well above OPEC’s mandatory quota. According to a study by energy economist Mamdouh Salameh, “between 1985 and 1989, Iraq lost US$14 billion a year due to Kuwait’s oil price strategy,” and “Kuwait’s refusal to decrease its oil production was viewed by Iraq as an act of aggression against it.”
There were additional disputes between the two countries centering on Kuwait’s exploitation of the Rumaila oil fields, which straddled the border between the two countries. Kuwait was accused of using a technique known as “slant-drilling” to siphon off oil from the Iraqi side.
None of this justifies Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. But a longstanding and complex dispute between two undemocratic petrostates wasn’t likely to inspire Americans to accept the loss of their sons and daughters in a distant fight.
So instead, George HW Bush told the public that Iraq’s invasion was “without provocation or warning,” and that “there is no justification whatsoever for this outrageous and brutal act of aggression.” He added: “Given the Iraqi government’s history of aggression against its own citizens as well as its neighbors, to assume Iraq will not attack again would be unwise and unrealistic.”
Ultimately, these longstanding disputes between Iraq and Kuwait got considerably less attention in the American media than did tales of Kuwaiti babies being ripped out of incubators by Saddam’s stormtroopers.
Saddam Was “Unstoppable”
A crucial diplomatic error on the part of the first Bush administration left Saddam Hussein with the impression that the US government had little interest in Iraq’s conflict with Kuwait. But that didn’t fit into the narrative that the Iraqi dictator was an irrational maniac bent on regional domination. So there was a concerted effort to deny that the US government had ever had a chance to deter his aggression through diplomatic means — and even to paint those who said otherwise as conspiracy theorists.
As John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago and Harvard’s Stephen Walt wrote in 2003, “Saddam reportedly decided on war sometime in July 1990, but before sending his army into Kuwait, he approached the United States to find out how it would react.”
In a now famous interview with the Iraqi leader, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam, “[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had “no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.” The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did.
Exactly what was said during the meeting has been a source of some controversy. Accounts differ. According to a transcript released by the Iraqi government, Glaspie told Hussein, ” I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country.”
I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.
I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60′s. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction.
Leslie Gelb of The New York Times reported that Glaspie told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the transcript was inaccurate “and insisted she had been tough.” But that account was contradicted when diplomatic cables between Baghdad and Washington were released. As Gelb described it, “The State Department instructed Ms. Glaspie to give the Iraqis a conciliatory message punctuated with a few indirect but significant warnings,” but “Ms. Glaspie apparently omitted the warnings and simply slobbered all over Saddam in their meeting on July 25, while the Iraqi dictator threatened Kuwait anew.”
There is no dispute about one crucially important point: Saddam Hussein consulted with the US before invading, and our ambassador chose not to draw a line in the sand, or even hint that the invasion might be grounds for the US to go to war.
The most generous interpretation is that each side badly misjudged the other. Hussein ordered the attack on Kuwait confident that the US would only issue verbal condemnations. As for Glaspie, she later told The New York Times, ”Obviously, I didn’t think — and nobody else did — that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait.”
Fool Me Once…
The first Gulf War was sold on a mountain of war propaganda. It took a campaign worthy of George Orwell to convince Americans that our erstwhile ally Saddam Hussein — whom the US had aided in his war with Iran as late as 1988 — had become an irrational monster by 1990.
Twelve years later, the second invasion of Iraq was premised on Hussein’s supposed cooperation with al Qaeda, vials of anthrax, Nigerian yellowcake and claims that Iraq hadmissiles poised to strike British territory in little as 45 minutes.
Now, eleven years later, as Bill Moyers put it last week, “the very same armchair warriors in Washington who from the safety of their Beltway bunkers called for invading Baghdad, are demanding once again that America plunge into the sectarian wars of the Middle East.” It’s vital that we keep our history in Iraq in mind, and apply some healthy skepticism to the claims they offer us this time around.
© 2014 Moyers & Company
IRS Official Whose Emails Were "Lost" Visited White House More Than 30 Times – Katie Pavlich
IRS Official Whose Emails Were “Lost” Visited White House More Than 30 Times
Katie Pavlich | Jun 20, 2014
Last night on The Kelly File Chief Counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice Jay Sekulo revealed that the former chief of staff to former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, Nikole Flax, visited the White House 35 times after talking with former head of tax exempt groups Lois Lerner about working to criminally prosecute conservative tea party groups for “lying” about political activity. At the White House, Flax met with a top Obama aid during some of those visits. This entire exchange is worth your time.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHyWUvjf23I&w=560&h=315]
The email discussed in the segment above is detailed in this previously reported story, along with Lerner’s contact with Democrat Elijah Cummings and suggestions from former FEC Attorney Larry Noble and Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse that conservative groups should be targeted for criminal prosecution in order to “make an impact and they [conservative groups] wouldn’t feel so comfortable doing the stuff.”
“I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ … He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who “lied” on their 1024s –saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs. I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS,” Lerner wrote in a May 8, 2013 email to former Nikole C. Flax, who was former-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller’s chief of staff.
“I think we should do it – also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?” Flax responded on May 9, 2013.
“As I mentioned yesterday — there are several groups of folks from the FEC world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are). One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn’t feel so comfortable doing the stuff,” she wrote. “So, don’t be fooled about how this is being articulated – it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity.”
The White House denied any involvement in the IRS targeting scandal and responded to revelations of “lost” emails as a normal computer crash.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen will testify today in front of the House Ways and Means Committee about the “lost” emails.
via IRS Official Whose Emails Were “Lost” Visited White House More Than 30 Times – Katie Pavlich.
Just in time for the 2014 elections Obama claims victory for catching ONE Benghazi attacker two years later! Don't be fooled, the guy was probably sitting in a clandestine prison as a trade for something worse.
David Brat’s Success Due to 19,000 new primary voters
David Brat’s Success Due to 19,000 new primary voters
By: Joshua Cook Jun 15, 2014
According to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s pollster, Cantor’s defeat was due to thousands of Democrats in Virginia who voted in Tuesday’s primary.
But according to David Brat’s campaign that wasn’t the case.
“We were polling a universe of people who voted in one of the last three Republican primaries and said that they were likely to vote in this Republican primary,” said John McLaughlin, a New York-based pollster quoted in Campaigns & Elections magazine.
Winner David Brat’s campaign didn’t spend any time targeting Democrats.
Steve Adler, founder of Voter Activation Network (VAN) and rVotes said Brat’s campaign used rVotes to expand its universe beyond the traditional Virginia GOP primary voters being targeted by Cantor’s campaign. Adler also said several Tea Party campaigns had donated their data to Brat to allow him to expand his targeting universe.
“Now, suddenly he had access to hundreds if not thousands of different codes,” said Adler. “Funky stuff like anything from ‘voter owns only American cars’ to ‘known patriot group member’ to ‘voter flies a flag’ or ‘voter has an NRA sticker on their car.’ They were aggressively using the system to microtarget.”
Brat paid only $1,500, or 1 percent of his campaign budget, to use rVotes, the targeting software. Cantor, on the other hand, spent more than $5 million on TV ads, consultants, lawyers and fundraising.
McLaughlin pointed out that turn out two years ago was 46,000. Tuesday’s turnout was more than 65,000. “Untold story is who were the 19,000 new primary voters? They were probably not Republicans,” said McLaughlin.
A story in the Washington Post cited that high voter turnout was another thing that did not work in Cantor’s favor.
Brat’s successful strategy is definitely a model for Tea Party and Libertarian activists to use going forward.
David Brat’s Success Due to 19,000 new primary voters
Joshua Cook
Sun, 15 Jun 2014 19:35:57 GMT
Obama’s Master Plan – Bruce Bialosky
http://m.townhall.com/columnists/brucebialosky/2014/06/08/obamas-master-plan-n1848501?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
Our Fearless Leader
OUR FEARLESS LEADER
People are indeed connecting the dots but the picture that’s coming into their focus is that of Alfred E Newman
by BRIAN WILSON | LEWROCKWELL.COM | JUNE 6, 2014
From the Internet to the blog-o-sphere to E-zines to TV and radio chat shows, there is no shortage of opinions criticizing, ridiculing, psychoanalyzing our Fearless Leader. While taking different routes of reason, within acceptable boundaries one could conclude all of them accurate inasmuch as they share synonymous conclusions: Obama is a stumbling, bumbling fool, in over his head but with such a colossal ego or other psychologically dysfunctional handicaps is unable or unwilling to see the folly of his ways, much less accept the disastrous reality that he has created. To virtually all the pundits, the Embarrassed on the Left and Giddy on the right, the upcoming midterm elections will be the left cross to the right uppercut in 2016 that does away with every socialist program and its stench that has engulfed and threatened the very existence of America.
In a recent article, some learned friends of mine tracked the significant events of the Obama administration – from the so-called “stimulus “in 2009 to the most recent scandal cum embarrassment, the instantly infamous “Saving Private Bergdahl” (MAD Magazine) and the 5-for-1 “Wow! What-A-Deal!” deal. With each individual event, my friends concluded “Every act, every initiative, every landmark development is the same. They all have enormous production value. They all carry massive price tags. And they all fall flat, to say the very least. Everything is for show. Nothing of substance is accomplished. Yet everything comes at a steep, steep cost.” Who could successfully argue the point? For that matter, who could successfully argue against any of the boat load of opinion pieces that condemn the president for acting like a king -only in this case, the King of Hubris?
Well…I can.
What if they’re all wrong? What if we are the ones suffering with hubris? What if we are the fulfillment of Pogo’s observation: “We have met the enemy – and it is us.”?
In some recent correspondence, I raised this question: What if all that we are witnessing, discussing, condemning is, in fact, the sum total of the Obama 3 Ring Circus? In fact, to P. T. Barnum’s famous “there’s a sucker born every minute” line, why isn’t it possible – even probable – Obama & Company are playing us for the “Sucker” role?
Think about it….
While certainly fitting the diagnosis of blowhard, narcissist, incompetent, sociopath… Couldn’t the reality just as easily be: “No, Sucker, you got the part foolishly thinking we were just out of our league? The fact is this has been the game plan all along. You remember Alinsky, Cloward, Piven et al? Didn’t I tell you we were going to ‘fundamentally change America’? Didn’t I tell you my plan to shut down the coal biz and raise your utility bill? Don’t you remember ‘you can keep your doctor,health care plan. Period.’? Transparent? Hell, I’ve been telegraphing every one of my punches since my first stump speech .The ones that didn’t land? OK…little embarrassing…but, hey – I just shrugged it off, said SQUIRREL! and my friends in the press did the rest…along with your own ADD, of course”
So why isn’t that the plan? Not part of the “popular narrative”? Contradicts the All-American Rule of Law Paradigm? For someone who routinely complains about a recalcitrant Congress and then rips off a few executive orders circumventing it, why would a reasonably objective analysis not lead to the conclusion this guy has a lot more unpleasant surprises up his sleeve? After all, who is going to stop him? Congress doesn’t have the necessary body parts or legal apparatus to effectively move against him. Even if they did, any substantive legal action would have to be taken by Attorney General Eric “Waco Whitewash” Holder. When you consider Klapper, Sebelius, Lerner, Clinton and the rest of the Obama outlaws flipping off Congressional subpoenas and Contempt charges, roaming the streets with impunity, would you face palm yourself bloody in surprise if the AG was just “too busy to get around to it”? Even if Boehner/ Pelosi/Reid/McConnell allowed the Congressional process to move accordingly? Well? Anyone? Buehler?
Between the Bush’s Patriot Act to the NDAA and now Holder’s just announced “war” on “domestic terrorists” via The Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, what Congressional committee, law, rule, regulation or any legal plumbing would prevent Obama from declaring martial law at the drop of an ASP Baton? Black swan event? Acid indigestion? By using the Administration’s patented “Ignore Button”, all the lousy ratings in all the public opinion polls have not adjusted his course one wit. So “public opinion” is a big nonstarter. Petitions? Facebook pages? Letters to Congressman/Senators/Editorial Boards? All as deadly and effective as a water balloon on an elephant hunt.
With everyone unilaterally tossing in the towel by chalking the demise of America to a former “community organizer” with a lousy personality, psychological dysfunction and superior incompetence, I think there is ample proof for a contrary and, yes, accurate conclusion. People are indeed connecting the dots but the picture that’s coming into their focus is that of Alfred E Newman.
I’m seeing Dorian Gray.
Our Fearless Leader
kurtnimmoadmin
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 18:41:57 GMT
California county votes to secede from the state
California county votes to secede from the state
Posted on June 5, 2014 by RT.com
Residents of a northern California county on Tuesday voted in favor of a measure that will now force local officials to consider a plan to secede from the state and form a new entity named Jefferson.
That decision — one of three related matters being considered by voters across the Golden State on Tuesday this week — passed by 55.74 percent in Tehama County, with nearly 1,000 more ballots cast towards seceding from California compared to staying.
Elsewhere in the state, however, secessionist efforts in northern California largely failed this week when voters in two of three counties where the issue was up for debate voted against formally beginning the process to separate and start a new state.
Voters in Del Norte County voted Tuesday to reject a secessionist measure on ballots there that would have required local officials to begin examining the prospect of separating from California and forming a new state with the residents of other nearby counties. The measure was rejected by 59 percent.
In Tehama County, however, voters there cast their ballots in favor of an identical measure, passing the initiative by nearly 56 percent. Should the decision still stand afterthe final votes are tallied, then the Tehama County Board of Supervisors will have to adopt a Declaration of Support — purely an advisory measure — concerning the creation of a proposed State of Jefferson and separation from California.
“The vote is not binding, but serves merely to help the County gauge public support for the proposed separation from the State of California and formation of a new state,” according to the fine print on Tuesday’s questionnaire. “The Tehama County Board of Supervisors may take whatever action it desires, or no action, regardless of the vote.”
“My position is that I want to know the will of the people. And that is what I will follow, that is what I will do,” Supervisor Sandy Bruce said ahead of this week’s vote in Tehama.
Combined, the populations of Del Norte and Tehama counties account for only 91,000 — a statistic that allows residents scant representation with regards to picking elected officials to argue on their behalf in both the state capital and Washington. This has left many of the Californians favoring secession with feeling disenfranchised and has helped to fuel the fire of the secessionist movement in the northern part of the state.
Following weeks of anticipation, however, Tuesday’s elections across California yielded only a partial victory for the local secessionist movement. A third matter up for debate in Siskiyou County which would have renamed the area the Republic of Jefferson — a precursor to the possible “state” of Jefferson still in the works — garnered only 44 percent of the vote.
“I’m going to definitely talk to the people of Jefferson and tell them to stick around,” California Gov. Jerry Brown told reporters outside his residence in the capital city, Sacramento, Tuesday night, the Associated Press reported.
But Mark Baird, a proponent of the creation of Jefferson state, told the AP that secessionists aren’t easily giving up.
“There are people who are going to want this and there are people who won’t, but we aren’t ever going to quit until we get representation in rural Northern California,” the Siskiyou County resident said.
More counties in the region are expected to vote on related measures in the coming weeks. All told, the residents of 16 counties have established plans to help pave the way for the creation of Jefferson state, which would contain around 467,000 residents and be roughlythe size of New Hampshire and Vermont combined.
Lindsay France discusses the results with RT’s Meghan Lopez in Los Angeles.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCFoIiW9AoM]
Courtesy of RT.com
California county votes to secede from the state
RT.com
Thu, 05 Jun 2014 16:00:20 GMT
DHS Renews Non-deportation Policy For Dreamers
The Obama administration announced Thursday that it will renew the non-deportation for young adult illegal immigrants, meaning the more than 560,000 so-called “Dreamers” who are part of the program will be allowed to continue living and working in the U.S. with no fear of deportations.
“Despite the acrimony and partisanship that now exists in Washington, almost all of us agree that a child who crossed our border illegally with a parent, or in search of a parent or a better life, was not making an adult choice to break our laws, and should be treated differently than adult law-breakers,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in announcing the program’s renewal for another two years.
Lauded by immigrant-rights groups as a humanitarian gesture, the program, which the government termed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, has been wildly popular with Hispanic voters, and polls show it receives generally good remarks with the public at large.
Critics, however, call it President Obama’s “mini-amnesty” and say it is contributing to a new surge in illegal immigration — including driving up the number of young children crossing the border alone. Homeland Security officials have termed that a crisis.
Those on both sides view DACA as a trial run for a broader legalization program — whether done by executive action or by law, if Congress can agree on something.
To qualify, immigrants had to have been in the U.S. before age 16, had to have been 30 or younger as of June 15, 2012, and had to prove some degree of educational attainment. Applicants were also put through a background check to try to weed out those with serious criminal charges on their record.
More than 96 percent of those who have gone through the DACA process have been approved, which some analysts say shows how little screening is done. The program’s backers, though, say that shows just how prepared and deserving this population is.
Under the program, when Dreamers encounter authorities they can show papers proving they are not going to be deported.
The program faces a legal challenge. A group of immigration agents has sued to halt the program and other non-deportation directives, arguing they are required by law to arrest illegal immigrants they encounter.
A federal judge in Texas ruled that the agents were likely correct — but also ruled that the case was beyond his jurisdiction. The agents have appealed.
Mr. Obama announced the program in June 2012, in the middle of his re-election campaign, as he was struggling to maintain support among Hispanic voters.
Mr. Obama envisioned the program lasting for two years, but left open the possibility that it could be renewed.
The first applications were filed in August 2012, were approved a month later, and will begin to expire later this year.
In addition to the more than 560,000 applications that have been approved, nearly 70,000 more remain in the pipeline, according to the latest statistics from the end of March.
Heading into this year’s congressional elections, many Democrats have pleaded with Mr. Obama to expand the program to include illegal immigrant parents of Dreamers.
“The Obama Administration should build on this program’s successes and expand DACA to include our parents and others who remain targets for deportation,” said Cristina Jimenez, managing director of United We Dream. “As we celebrate the futures that Dreamers now enjoy through DACA, we will keep fighting until our entire families can share in the opportunities that come through a just and humane immigration policy.”
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/5/dhs-renews-non-deportation-policy-dreamers/#ixzz33mtuBOMK
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
DHS Renews Non-deportation Policy For Dreamers
Adan
Thu, 05 Jun 2014 16:04:24 GMT
So we traded one deserter for 5 High Level Taliban Leaders???? This Whole Story and It’s Motivations are Questionable Reminding us Once More that the POTUS is still lying. Will Bowe Bergdahl be the Next Mentally Ill Mass Shooter?: US soldier 'walked off base' before capture
US soldier ‘walked off base’ before capture
A former Pentagon official tells AP news agency that Bowe Bergdahl, a Taliban captive for five years, was “delusional”.
Last updated: 02 Jun 2014 20:44
Bergdahl said he could help Afghans by leaving his post, members of his unit said [IntelCenter]
A US soldier freed after five years in Taliban captivity walked away from his unit and US military decided not to exert extraordinary efforts to rescue him, a former Pentagon official has told the AP news agency.
The agency on Monday reported the unnamed official as saying that the US government instead pursued negotiations to get Bowe Bergdahl back, leading to his release on Saturday.
The official told AP that a Pentagon report in 2010 concluded that he had walked away from his post in Afghanistan before his capture by Taliban fighters.
The official said that members of his unit portrayed him as a naive, “delusional” person who thought he could help the Afghan people by leaving his army post.
However a military investigation did not formally accuse Bergdahl of desertion, the official said.
The 28-year-old from Idaho was on Saturday exchanged for five senior Taliban figures held by the US in Guantanamo Bay prison in a deal brokered by Qatar.
Disillusioned
Bowe enlisted in 2008 without telling his parents, drawn by recruiters’ promises that he would be able to go overseas to help people, according to a 2010 Rolling Stone profile.
Once deployed to Afghanistan, he appeared to become disillusioned about the US military mission. In his final email to his parents before his capture, he wrote, “I am ashamed to even be an American,” Rolling Stone reported.
After he was captured on June 30, 2009, some believed he willingly walked away from his post. According to US diplomatic cables, Bergdahl’s unit began searching for him that morning when he did not show up for roll call.
“He left of his own volition,” one US defence official told the Reuters news agency, declining to be identified. “But we have no idea of his motivation, or what was going through this young man’s mind at the time.”
Asked whether Bergdahl should be disciplined, US national security adviser Susan Rice told ABC News on Sunday: “Anybody who’s been held in those conditions in captivity for five years has paid an extraordinary price.”
The comments came as some in the US began to question the swap of Bergdahl for five high-value Taliban prisoners.
John McCain, a leading Republican senator, said: “These are the highest high-risk people. Others that we have released have gone back into the fight.”
Jay Carney, a White House spokesman, defended the decision. “We have a history in this country of making sure that our prisoners of war are returned to us – we don’t leave them behind,” he told CNN.
“The threat potentially posed by the returned detainees was sufficiently mitigated to allow us to move forward and get Bowe Bergdahl back home where he belongs.”
US soldier ‘walked off base’ before capture
Mon, 02 Jun 2014 20:44:21 GMT
Dinesh D’Souza’s ‘America’ warns Hillary Clinton will ‘finish off’ the country
Dinesh D’Souza’s ‘America’ warns Hillary Clinton will ‘finish off’ the country
BY PAUL BEDARD | MAY 30, 2014 | 1:51 PM
TOPICS: WASHINGTON SECRETS BARACK OBAMA HILLARY CLINTON BILL CLINTON 2016 ELECTIONS DINESH DSOUZA SAUL ALINSKY
In his highly anticipated new book and movie “America,” conservative author Dinesh D’Souza is warning that Hillary Clinton won’t be a clone of her moderate husband, but will instead take the baton fromPresident Obama to continue radicalizing the country and “undo the nation’s founding ideals.”
“America — Imagine a World Without Her,” published by Regnery and set for release Monday, charges that as students of radical organizer Saul Alinsky, Obama and Clinton could have enough time to “unmake and then remake America” into a nation the founding fathers wouldn’t recognize.
“They may not be responsible for the suicide of America, but they certainly will have helped to finish off a certain way of life in America, and they will leave us with a country unrecognizable not only to Washington and Jefferson but also to those of us who grew up in the 20th century,” wrote D’Souza.
“If they succeed, there may be no going back. Then it will be their America, not ours, and we will be a people bereft of a country, with no place to go,” he adds on page 87.
“America” is D’Souza’s latest book and movie on how he sees progressive politics hurting the nation. He also created the movie “2016: Obama’s America,” which was the second highest-grossing political documentary.
An advance copy of the book provided to Secrets suggests that progressives aim to remake the nation into one that is less powerful, less wealthy and less influential. If that happens, he warns, “We have committed national suicide.”
He focuses on Obama’s and Clinton’s links to Alinsky in a chapter titled “The Plan.” He claims the two followed the radical’s master plan that they hide their views and ideas until they get into power.
“If you see early pictures and video of Hillary, she looks and sounds like a former hippie. Overtime, however, Hillary started dressing like a respectable middle-class mother and speaking in a clipped, moderate sounding voice. Young Barack Obama, too, looked like a bit of a street thug — in his own words, he could have been Trayvon Martin. Over time, however, Obama started dressing impeccably and even practiced modulating his voice,” the popular author writes.
“Hillary and Obama have both learned the Alinsky lesson that your should aggressively pursue power while pretending to be motivated by altruism,” he added.
“More importantly, Hillary and Obama both adopted Alinsky’s strategic counsel to sound mainstream, even when you aren’t,” wrote D’Souza. “These are the ways in which our two Alinskyites make themselves palatable to the American middle class, which to this day has no idea how hostile Hillary and Obama are to middle-class values.
“If Hillary Clinton is elected in 2016, the baton will have passed from one Alinskyite to another. In this case, Alinsky’s influence will have taken on a massive, almost unimaginable, importance. Obama will have had eight years to remake America, and Hillary will have another four or perhaps eight to complete the job,” he wrote.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/dinesh-dsouzas-america-warns-hillary-clinton-will-finish-off-the-country/article/2549114
REPORT: Half of State Obamacare Exchanges Are Collapsing
Obamacare is looking more and more like the utter failure that it is all the time.
People have discovered, contrary to the repeated promises of President Obama, that they can’t necessarily keep their preferred doctor or hospital. Many people are also at risk of losing their employer-sponsored health coverage later this year, and will be scrambling to find an adequate plan with participating doctors and hospitals.
A big part of the problem with Obamacare is the insurance exchanges, which offer limited choices, were hastily constructed, and are full of glitches, leaving taxpayers on the hook for the wasted money while people searching for health coverage are unable to find it.
Follow Conservative Tribune
A report out of Illinois by a nonpartisan, free market based policy think tank, took a look at how the state-run exchanges were doing since the roll-out of Obamacare. It doesn’t look good for the states that choose to run their own exchanges instead of using the federal Healthcare.gov site.
Fourteen states plus the District of Columbia opted to establish a state-funded health insurance exchange. Of those 15 ObamaCare exchanges, eight are either being scrapped or are on the verge of collapse, with some states reverting back to the federal ObamaCare portal.
But the most interesting story is found in Rhode Island, which isn’t facing an inoperable website or insurmountable glitches. Rhode Island is now considering defaulting to the federal exchange on the basis of the administrative costs required to maintaining its exchange.
At an estimated cost of $23 million per year in administrative costs required to operate their site, some lawmakers in the state are finding that this may be too-large a burden – especially since using the federal portal, healthcare.gov imposes no additional costs on the state.
It should be noted that any money a state spends on running their exchange doesn’t go to actually helping anybody get coverage or care, but merely towards the administrative costs of running the exchange. When compared with the federal exchange that states can use for free, it becomes obvious that any money states spend on their exchange is money that could have been spent elsewhere.
In Illinois, previous estimates show that the state could spend over $100 million to operate its own site. The state is already facing a series of budgetary unknowns concerning implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
There is no upside for the state in adopting a state-funded ObamaCare exchange. Any supposed control or flexibility in operating its own exchange is lost through the numerous and onerous federal requirements. The downsides, as evidenced from experiences across the country, are clear.
All states should opt-out of the exchange system and let the federal government handle it, although that does create a problem of dumping even more people on an already broken and strained federal system. But, it is their creation and they should have to deal with it, problems and all.
States need to also opt-out of the other aspects of Obamacare, like Medicaid expansion. Sure, the feds will pay for the extra costs, at first, but in a few years those added expenses will be reverted back to the states, and state budgets likely won’t be able to handle the additional costs, especially when Medicaid already makes up a quarter of a state’s budget, on average.
We need a full repeal of Obamacare, and have it replaced by free market oriented, patient-centered reforms, with things like Health Savings accounts, portability of coverage from job to job, and the ability to shop for coverage across state lines, among other things.
Please share this on Facebook and Twitter if you aren’t surprised that state-run Obamacare exchanges are collapsing, just like the rest of the law.
Read This Next:
- Meltdown: Obamacare’s State-Run Exchanges Reach Only 3% of Their Goal
- Report: Obama Paid $634,320,919 for the Failed Obamacare Website
- State of California REJECTS Obama’s Illegal Obamacare “Fix”
- Bombshell: LESS Than 50,000 Have Enrolled in Obamacare
- Report: Obamacare Already Making Insurance Prices Double
- Bombshell: 20% of Obamacare Enrollees Have Already Cancelled
- Report: Nearly 100,000,000 Will Lose Insurance by Midterm Elections
- Fighting Back: Tennessee Bill Will Ban Obamacare at State Line
- Picture: The Huffington Post Admits Obamacare is a “Trainwreck”
- WATCH: South Carolina to Outlaw Obamacare in Their State
- IRS Workers Union Says They Don’t Want Obamacare Themselves
- Report: Obamacare Fines Hospitals That Give Free Services to Poor
- Expert: 129 MILLION Will Lose Insurance Under Obamacare
- Insurance Firms: Obamacare is Already Making Prices Double
- Unreal: Obama Increases Funding for the “Obamacare Bailout”
http://www.capitalisminstitute.org/obamacare-exchanges-collapsing/
Putin: US Backed the 'Coup' That Now Threatens Civil War in Ukraine
Russian president says he will honor outcome of weekend elections, but that dialogue must replace military operations and violence
– Jon Queally, staff writer
Russian president Vladimir Putin at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. (Photograph: Mikhail Klimentyev/Ria Novosti)
Ahead of contentious nationwide elections in Ukraine this weekend designed to pave the way for a new government in the politically fractured country, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday had strong words for western nations, including the United States, who he says backed the coup d’etat that has put the nation on the edge of all out civil war.
In his remarks Friday, Putin said that Russia would back the results of the vote, but cautioned the Obama administration on its continued mishandling of the crisis, including its failure to honor diplomatic efforts and an overtly-biased relationship with the individuals and parties in Kiev who overthrew the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovich earlier this year.
In an interview with CNBC, in front of an audience at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Putin offered his overview of what happened in Ukraine and the current conditions by stating (based on CNBC’s transcript):
What happened in Ukraine now is chaos, the country is sliding into chaos. Yanukovych agreed to do anything, whatever, had it all been done legally, we’d continue subsidising them, we’d keep gas prices low, we’d allocate the 15 billion we’d promised. Let us be frank, we’re all grownups in the room, we’re all smart and educated people. The West supported anti-constitutional coup d’état, not just by giving away cookies, but by giving political support, support in the media, using all sorts of tools. And are you blaming us? What we suggested was dialogue. We were denied. When I last came to Brussels we agreed that dialogue would continue but that was before the coup d’état.
Asked repeatedly by the interviewer to discuss how Russian president intends to work with the new government in Kiev, even if the outcome is unfavorable to many in the east and the south, Putin indicated that though he would like to see reforms that address the concerns of all Ukrainians, he is committed to a renewed and healthy relationship with Russia’s neighbor. Putin stated:
Like I said, and I’m not kidding and I’m not being ironic, what we want for Ukraine is peace and calm. We want this country to recover from crisis and conditions are to be created for that. … Again not being ironic, [Ukraine] is a sister nation and we want it to enjoy peace, order and we already cooperate with people that are in power and after the election of course we will cooperate with the newly-elected head of state. But just to make it clear I hope that after the election all military action will stop and national dialogue will begin.
Tensions in the nation are again ascendent as new violence was reported in the east of the country on both Thursay and Friday.
As the Guardian reports:
Ukraine’s defense ministry [said on Friday that] up to 500 insurgents attacked government troops in one clash in eastern Ukraine that left 20 insurgents dead. The ministry said in a statement the clash took place on Thursday as a convoy of Ukrainian troops was attacked outside the eastern village of Rubizhne. Up to 16 Ukrainian soldiers also died on Thursday in an assault on a checkpoint by separatists.
On Friday, the Donbass paramilitary group, which operates with the tacit backing of Kiev, said it had been ambushed by separatist forces, with at least one dead, and many injured or taken hostage.
Voting in the east will be severely limited on Sunday, with pro-Kiev forces not fully in control of the region and a fear that violence could spike as the separatists attempt to disrupt the vote. Kiev has said it will halt its “anti-terrorism operation” against separatist forces on voting day.
_____________________________________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
IRS Delays New Rules for Dark Money Groups
Published on Saturday, May 24, 2014 by ProPublica
IRS Delays New Rules for Dark Money Groups
The agency has pushed back indefinitely a hearing on new regulations for social welfare nonprofits that spend money on politics.
by Theodoric Meyer
(Photo: Light Brigading/ Creative Commons)After intense criticism from both ends of the political spectrum, the Internal Revenue Service has delayed indefinitely proposed rules that would have imposed new limits on social welfare nonprofits, which have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars from anonymous donors into recent elections.
The agency said yesterday it would postpone a hearing on the proposal it released in November defining more clearly what constitutes political activity for such groups, and would revise the plan to reflect some of the more than 150,000 comments it triggered.
Officials put no timeline on the process, disappointing those who had hoped the new regulations might kick in before this year’s mid-term elections.
“I think it’s unfortunate that new rules will be delayed even further and that we’re going through another election cycle” without them, said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel with the Campaign Legal Center.
Others called the delay a prudent step that would give the IRS an opportunity to get a crucial change right.
“They’re not going to put out some slapdash rule just to check it off their list,” said John Pomeranz, a Washington lawyer who works with nonprofits that spend money on politics. He doesn’t expect the agency to finish the rules any time soon. “I think we’ll be lucky if they’re in place for the 2016 election.”
Social welfare nonprofits have poured money into politics since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, which allowed corporations, unions and nonprofits to spend unlimited money on elections.
Social welfare nonprofits spent more than $256 million in the 2012 cycle alone, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Campaign finance watchdogs have viewed their rise with concern, fearing the influence of so-called “dark” money from secret donors, and had called for more oversight from the IRS.
Under IRS regulations, the groups can spend some of their resources on politics, but must devote themselves mostly to social welfare to keep their nonprofit status. But the rules defining what is and isn’t politics are murky.
Late last year, the IRS moved to clarify the issue, but its proposal came under fire from both the left and the right.
Conservatives complained that the rules would stifle political speech. The American Civil Liberties Union chafed at a provision in the proposed rules that would prevent nonprofits from backing ads that even mentioned politicians in the two months before a general election.
“We have no doubt that the Service is acting with the best of intentions, but the proposed rule threatens to discourage or sterilize an enormous amount of political discourse in America,” the ACLU said in its written response to the proposal.
The plan was also criticized for impeding nonpartisan election work such as voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote efforts.
The IRS, still facing fallout from accusations that it singled out the applications of conservative nonprofits for special scrutiny in the run-up to the 2012 election, decided it would make revisions.
“Given the diversity of views expressed and the volume of substantive input, we have concluded that it would be more efficient and useful to hold a public hearing after we publish the revised proposed regulation,” the agency said in statement.
People Are Getting Busted for Growing 'Legal' Weed in Washington
At the center of the sweep are 70-year-old Larry Harvey and his family, who garnered national attention recently after getting a slew of felony trafficking charges for growing marijuana on their property, despite having doctor-assigned medical marijuana papers. But the legally owned hunting rifles Harvey kept at home are the reason why federal prosecutors are seeking trumped-up charges and years in prison.
People Are Getting Busted for Growing ‘Legal’ Weed in Washington
Sat, 24 May 2014 05:00:00 GMT
Oligarchs Join Forces… Lying, Cheating and Stealing Together
May 16, 2014 | Author Bill Bonner
The Dow fell 101 points on Wednesday. Gold managed to climb back over $1,300 an ounce. But the important news was barely noticed. Of those who bothered to read it, few realized its significance. For the first time, oligarchs from North America and the steppes of Eurasia have teamed up to lie, cheat and steal together. The Wall Street Journal reports:
“Vice President Joe Biden‘s son and a close friend of Secretary of State John Kerry‘s stepson have joined the board of a Ukrainian gas producer controlled by a former top security and energy official for deposed President Viktor Yanukovych. […] Hunter Biden, a lawyer by training and the younger of the vice president’s two sons, joined the board of directors of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma Holdings Ltd. this month and took on responsibility for the company’s legal unit, according to a statement issued by the closely held gas producer.”
R. Hunter Biden miraculously becomes a gas specialist who’s urgently needed in Ukraine. From Burisma’s press release: “R. Hunter Biden will be in charge of the Holdings’ legal unit and will provide support for the Company among international organizations.” The other new American board member of Burisma is Devon Archer, who works with Hunter Biden at Rosemont Seneca partners, which is half owned by Rosemont Capital, a private equity firm founded by Archer and Christopher Heinz…who is John Kerry’s step-son!
(Photo via opposingviews.com)
Standing on Hind Legs
Most people have no idea what government is about. They think it is a benign institution, designed to make life better for everyone.
“The government is all of us,” said Hillary Clinton, talking her book.
This myth helps keep the voters and the taxpayers in line. Some governments, desperate to get more “buy in” from the public, even insist eligible voters go to the polls – or face penalties. In Argentina, for example, you can collect welfare benefits – but only if you can prove you voted. In other words, you have to stand on your hind legs before they throw you a bone.
Other countries, such as the US, merely excite the voters with dreams of avarice and threats of sanctions. One group votes because it hopes to score more of another group’s money. The other group votes to protect itself.
Among “get out the vote” campaigns, Denmark’s recent cartoon for the European parliamentary elections (by all accounts a snooze-fest) must set a new milestone in the history of democratic fraud and absurdity. The Financial Times reports:
“The 90-second video features “Voteman,“ a muscleman first seen in bed with five naked women who then proceeds to beat up young people to force them to vote. He then decapitates one man, interrupts a couple having sex to throw them out of a window, and uses a dolphin to help chuck people into voting booths.”
The Danish parliament withdrew the video on Tuesday.
Politicians want you to vote so they can claim to represent you. Then they do what they want. Like any other organization, government promotes the goals of those who control it. In that sense, it is no different from the Kiwanis International club or the electric power company. Every business, club or charitable institution is meant to do something – and always and everywhere it does what the people running it want done.
The bizarre Danish ‘Voteman’ video
(Cartoon by Borsotti)
As Naked as a Christmas Goose
This is not a bad thing. In a civilized society, as Adam Smith explained, it is self-interest that fills the marketplace with products and services. A baker counts on the hunger of his clients to fill his own stomach. A cobbler depends on others’ sore feet to enable him to shoe his own family.
But an oligarch? This bird sings a different song altogether. He provides no real service… produces no real products… and exchanges no tit for tat. Instead, he feathers his own nest with forlorn hopes plucked from an ignorant and impotent public.
The voters believe they are in charge. They believe the government – as imperfect as it is – nevertheless reflects the desires of the public, as filtered through elections, lobbyists and back-room deals. It is not a perfect system, the voter bravely tells himself, trying to recall Churchill’s word, but it is better than the alternatives. But by voting the poor democrat sets himself up for disappointment and despoliation.
Ouch! He loses a feather to the financial industry. Ouch! Another to the health-care oligarchs. Ow! There go a few to the farm lobby. Before you know it, he is as naked as a Christmas goose… cooked in his own stupid juices.
“The government that governs least, governs best,” said Jefferson. He understood it better. All governments work for their masters – the elite, the oligarchs. All are essentially parasitic, larcenous… and often, murderous. The more government you have, the worse off you are.
The choice
(Cartoon by Jonik)
Progressives Unite in Call Against 'Horrific' TPP
Progressives united outside the Capitol building on Wednesday in a rally against the TPP. (Photo: Rachel LaBruyere/ Twitter)Braving thunder and rain, hundreds of protesters rallied outside of the Capitol building in Washington DC on Wednesdayto declare to the government that “the entire progressive movement is united” in the call to reject unjust trade deals and embrace an economy for all.
Braving thunder and rain, hundreds of protesters rallied outside of the Capitol building in Washington DC on Wednesdayto declare to the government that “the entire progressive movement is united” in the call to reject unjust trade deals and embrace an economy for all.
“They say ‘Fast Track!’ We Say ‘Fight Back!'” the group chanted, referring to recent efforts by President Obama to push through legislation to cement the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, or TPP, without congressional deliberation. Thus far, the details of the deal have been negotiated behind closed doors, with the only information made available to the public via leaks.
Under the banner “Fair Trade is Not Free,” a diverse coalition of environmental organizations, good government groups, farm groups, and over a dozen unions took part in the protest, carrying umbrellas and placards, which read: “Stop Secret Trade Deals.”
“Let’s show Congress that the entire progressive movement is united in the fight for a 21st century global economy that works for everyone,” declared the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which organized the rally.
The TPP has been blasted by critics for undermining labor and environmental standards, as well as the open Internet. “The TPP is a horrific thing,” said Kian Frederick, national field director for Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “There’s something for everyone to hate.”
Frederick, who attended the action, told Common Dreams that she believed the aspect of the deal with the most potential harm is the Investor State Dispute Resolution, which grants global corporations state status, much like NAFTA, allowing them to sue a country for supposed loss or damages if they amend their laws. However, according to Frederick, the TPP goes a step further by allowing a corporation to sue for the loss of future expected profits.
“It’s an absolute race to the bottom,” Frederick declared, citing the myriad ways a government will be handcuffed to old legislation: food safety standards, environmental standards, labor laws. “If we go through with it, taxpayer money will all be recouped by the corporations.”
Public Citizen is hoping the rally draws attention to an upcoming congressional vote on whether to eschew legislative authority and “Fast Track” the trade deal without deliberation or input. The vote will likely occur after the midterm elections.
Speaking before the crowd, Tefere Gebre, Executive Vice President of AFL-CIO America,declared: “This is what solidarity looks like!” Gebre was joined by other speakers including Reps. Rosa deLauro (D-Conn.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Mike Michaud (D-Me.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).
_____________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
read more
![[field_image_caption-raw]](https://i0.wp.com/www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imagecache/news_archive_thumbnail/article_images/tpp_rally_thumb.jpg?resize=70%2C42&ssl=1){kind=small}
Progressives Unite in Call Against ‘Horrific’ TPP
lauren
Wed, 07 May 2014 17:31:50 GMT
Cruz secretly plotting Boehner's ouster?
(ROLL CALL) Sen. Ted Cruz gathered a group of House conservatives in his office Tuesday night, talking about immigration and House GOP leadership elections slated for after the midterm elections.
As CQ Roll Call first reported last October, Cruz held a secret meeting with members at Tortilla Coast during the height of the government shutdown drama. Many of these same Republicans are the agitators who aren’t happy with Speaker John A. Boehner.
The Texas Republican gathered roughly 10 members of the GOP Conference at 8 p.m. Tuesday for a 90-minute session that included candy bars, crackers and soda. Cruz’s office would not give further details, calling the pow-wow a “private meeting.”
Cruz secretly plotting Boehner’s ouster?
-NO AUTHOR-
Thu, 01 May 2014 13:36:35 GMT