On Monday Shirley Temple Black died. To honor a lady who was both a child success in Hollywood and a lady, I am posting the following. This is a song two of my granddaughters and I used to sit on the swing in the backyard and sing:
Today’s Weekly Standard posted an article by Bill Kristol and Jeffrey Anderson about the 2017 Project. The 2017 Project has developed an alternative heath care proposal to ObamaCare.
The article explains:
It would solve the three core problems that called out for real reform even before the Democrats passed Obamacare: getting more people insured; dealing with the problem of preexisting conditions; and lowering costs. In providing politically attractive and substantively sound solutions to these three core concerns, it would justify bringing an end to Obamacare, and thus would pave the way for full repeal.
Just as important as what our proposal would do is what it wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t force anyone to buy insurance. It wouldn’t auto-enroll anyone in any plan. It wouldn’t reduce the tax break for employer-based insurance (aside from closing the tax loophole at the high end). It wouldn’t cost anywhere near the $2 trillion over a decade that Obamacare would cost. It wouldn’t undermine religious liberty. It would allow Americans to keep their current plan if they like it.
It would be wonderful to have a plan that provided health insurance for every American without spending $2 trillion over ten years. It would also be nice to let Americans make their own decisions about what health insurance they need and what health insurance they don’t need.
More information on the alternate proposal to ObamaCare can be found at 2017Project.com. Please follow the link to see the details.
The New York Times posted a story today about a training class in Iraq that went horribly wrong (at least for the students).
The article reports:
A group of Sunni militants attending a suicide bombing training class at a camp north of Baghdad were killed on Monday when their commander unwittingly conducted a demonstration with a belt that was packed with explosives, army and police officials said.
The militants belonged to a group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, which is fighting the Shiite-dominated army of the Iraqi government, mostly in Anbar Province. But they are also linked to bomb attacks elsewhere and other fighting that has thrown Iraq deeper into sectarian violence.
Unfortunately Iraq is falling into total disarray since the Americans left. This incident during a training class for suicide bombers is one example of that disarray. Recently Al Qaeda raised its flag in Falluja, an act that represented the failure of the Iraqi government to control that city.
The article further reports:
But Iraq is developing a plan, with help from the United States, that would have Sunni tribes take the lead in ending the standoff with ISIS in Falluja, with the Iraqi Army in support, a senior State Department official told Congress last week.
The official, Brett McGurk, said that ISIS had about 2,000 fighters in Iraq, and that its longer-term objective is to establish a base of operations in Baghdad, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has been officially designated as a global terrorist by the State Department.
The rise of terrorism and the rise of Al Qaeda are a result of the weak image America under President Obama is projecting. We shouldn’t be sending troops all over the world, but there should be an implicit threat that we will deal with terrorists and that we have the strength to do so. Right now that threat is not there.
ESPN and other news outlets are buzzing today about Michael Sam, an All-American defensive lineman from Missouri and the Associated Press‘ SEC Defensive Player of the Year. Michael Sam has announced that he is gay. Mr. Sam, no offense, but I really don’t care. My question is, “Would the press make this much fuss if a football player announced that he was celibate because he was a Christian?” Either way, it’s more information that I need. I wish Mr. Sam the best in his career, and I hope that he is treated fairly. Other than that, this really is more information than I need, and it is none on my business.
John Hinderaker at Power Line posted a story today about the testimony recently given by Catherine Engelbrecht before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Some of Mrs. Engelbrecht’s testimony is reported in the article:
In nearly two decades of running our small business, my husband and I never dealt with any government agency, outside of filing our annual tax returns. We had never been audited, we had never been investigated, but all that changed upon submitting applications for the non-profit statuses of True the Vote and King Street Patriots. Since that filing in 2010, my private businesses, my nonprofit organizations, and family have been subjected to more than 15 instances of audit or inquiry by federal agencies.
* In 2011, my personal and business tax returns were audited by the Internal Revenue Service, each audit going back for a number of years.
* In 2012, my business was subjected to inspection by OSHA, on a select occasion when neither my husband nor I were present, and though the agency wrote that it found nothing serious or significant, it still issued fines in excess of $20,000.
* In 2012 and again in 2013 the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms conducted comprehensive audits at my place business.
* Beginning in 2010, the FBI contacted my nonprofit organization on six separate occasions – wanting to cull through membership manifests in conjunction with domestic terrorism cases. They eventually dropped all matters and have now redacted nearly all my files.
The story continues:
I also refuse to let a precedent be set that allows Members of Congress, particularly the Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to misrepresent this governing body in an effort to demonize and intimidate citizens. Three times, Representative Elijah Cummings sent letters to True the Vote, demanding much of the same information that the IRS had requested. Hours after sending letters, he would appear on cable news and publicly defame me and my organization. Such tactics are unacceptable. It is for these reasons that immediately after this hearing I am filing a formal complaint with the House Office of Congressional Ethics and asking for a full investigation.
If we as Americans continue to elect people who engage in this sort of behavior, we will all eventually pay the price. This is a direct attack on someone who was attempting to insure that an election was honest, and they were attacked by the government. Is that the country we want to live in?
On Friday, the Military Times reported that this week the Senate will consider the repeal of the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) reductions included in the recent omnibus budget bill.
The article reports:
Majority leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has fast-tracked a bill drafted by Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., setting a procedural vote for Monday that paves the way for a vote by mid-week.
The legislation, S 1963, would repeal the portion of the Bipartisan Budget Act that will reduce annual COLA increases by 1 percentage point for “working age” retirees, starting in late 2015.
The Senate Armed Services Committee had scheduled a hearing to consider Pryor’s bill the same evening; that markup has been canceled and the full Senate instead will vote on whether to debate the bill.
Previous attempts at repeal have been unsuccessful–blocked by Senator Harry Reid. It is interesting to me that Senator Mark Pryor is sponsoring the bill that Senator Reid is finally willing to consider. Senator Pryor is considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents facing re-election in 2014. He voted for ObamaCare and has generally supported President Obama’s policies. Recently he has attempted to distance himself from those policies. He is being challenged for his seat by freshman Republican Representative Tom Cotton. The Democrats do not want to lose that seat, and having Senator Pryor sponsor this bill is one way to make him look good.
The article reports:
Numerous lawmakers have offered other proposals to offset the loss of savings. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., has proposed closing a tax loophole that allows undocumented workers to receive tax credits for their children.
As part of a broad, $30 billion veterans’ bill, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., proposed to pay for repealing the COLA caps by using wartime contingency funding.
Other legislators, both in the House and Senate, have introduced bills that would offset the cost of repeal by tightening regulations on U.S. companies that shelter funds in foreign tax havens; cutting Saturday postal service; blocking foreign aid to Egypt or Pakistan; and consolidating the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments’ prescription drug purchasing programs.
It will be interesting to see if the COLA caps are repealed and how that repeal is paid for. The COLA caps were the only cut in the omnibus spending bill. If they go away, Congress will have again succeeded in passing a budget without any actual budget cuts. This is what Democrats and establishment Republicans do. We need to vote all of them out of office.
Breitbart.com posted a story today featuring a quote by Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN). On This Week With George Stephanopoulos. During a discussion of the number of work hours Americans will lose due to ObamaCare, Congressman Ellison stated, “We are going to have parents being able to come home, working reasonable hours. People are going to be able to retire. People might actually be able to cook dinner rather than have to order out and get some takeout.”…”If you look at international comparisons country by country, Americans work way more that the average of industrialized countries around the world.”
Americans probably do work too hard, but that fact is partially responsible for the fact that America is one of the richest countries in the world. Although America has poverty, America’s poor have a higher standard of living than people in many other countries. The American work ethic is part of what makes America great.
Where is the compassion for the Americans who will have a lower standard of living because they are not working the hours they are used to working? Where is the compassion for the wife who was able to stay at home and raise her children who will now be forced to put those children in daycare because her husband’s hours have been cut?
This is probably the most ridiculous spin yet on the economic problems caused by ObamaCare, but I suspect it will not be the last spin attempted by those who voted for ObamaCare who are now running for re-election to Congress.
Yesterday wattsupwiththat posted an article entitled, “Report from the Office of the Inspector General: Global Climate Change Program Data May Be Unreliable.” No kidding. First of all, climate change has been with us since the early days of earth. Second of all, in 1985 TIME Magazine predicted global cooling (which I think may have actually been right). We have already read the emails showing that the charts used to create panic about global warming were rigged. Now the Inspector General is getting into the act.
The article reports:
Lack of oversight, non-compliance and a lax review process for the State Department’s global climate change programs have led the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to conclude that program data “cannot be consistently relied upon by decision-makers” and it cannot be ensured “that Federal funds were being spent in an appropriate manner.”
…OIG’s original report found that “OES did not fully implement the guidance for conducting [Data Quality Assessments] to help ensure that the data used in reporting programmatic results were complete, accurate, consistent, and supportable.”
Unfortunately climate science has become a vehicle for poorer countries to shake down richer countries by holding the richer countries responsible for global warming. It is almost impossible to trust any of the data that has been released on climate change. Until the link between politics and science is broken, we really don’t know what the truth is. There are some of us, however, who at this point would not object to a small amount of global warming.
Jonah Goldberg posted an article at National Review today indicating his choice for “word (or phrase) of the year.” He admits it’s only February, but he is convinced that “joblock” will be the winner.
The article reports:
The Congressional Budget Office issued a politically explosive report this week, finding that Obamacare will reduce the number of hours Americans work by the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time jobs. This is different from killing 2.5 million jobs, Obamacare defenders are quick to insist. This will be a shortfall on the supply, not demand, side. In other words, people with health insurance will opt not to work in certain circumstances if they know they won’t lose their coverage.
…House minority leader Nancy Pelosi says the CBO report vindicates Obamacare, because “this was one of the goals: to give people life, a healthy life, liberty to pursue their happiness. And that liberty is to not be job-locked, but to follow their passion.” Pelosi is particularly invested in this view. She’s been mocked for years now for her repeated claims that Obamacare is an entrepreneurial bill because it would let Americans quit their jobs to, among other things, “write poetry.”
Good grief! Mr. Goldberg goes on to point out the irony of wanting people to have the freedom to quit their jobs and write poetry while at the same time forcing them to buy health insurance for conditions they are not physically able to have.
The article concludes:
Which is why the real CBO story should be: “That awkward moment when everyone realizes Obamacare was a huge mistake.” The same CBO report projects that by 2024 the number of non-elderly uninsured will be — drum roll, please — 31 million Americans.
And that’s why all of this talk of Democrats as the Job-Lock Liberators is pathetic and hilarious at the same time. Virtually every promise has been broken, every prediction falsified. And now, at a time when millions want work that doesn’t exist, Democrats are claiming victory by trimming the amount of work actually being done.
Hopefully voters will look for ways to liberate these Democrats from the curse of job-lock come November.
What a wonderful idea!
Investors.com posted an article today analyzing the jobs report that was released today. It is a mixed picture.
In chart form:
The chart shows a decreasing official unemployment rate, but it also shows what the unemployment rate would be if the labor participation rate used to calculate the unemployment rate were constant. The number of people who are not currently in the labor force is extremely high.
The article reports:
To further muddle the picture, January’s employment report showed a gain of 21,000 manufacturing jobs. Construction added 48,000 workers, the most since the recession, after a sharp weather-related drop in December. Meanwhile, retailers shed 12,900 jobs and cut the average workweek to 29.7 hours.
“We shouldn’t be surprised that the job gains are not at the level that they were in October and November,” said Keith Hembre, chief economist with Nuveen Asset Management. “But I am surprised we didn’t get more of a bounceback.”
Other unexpectedly weak data in the past few weeks include sharp drops in durable goods orders as well as new- and pending home sales.
Federal Reserve policymakers noted the housing pause at their January meeting, but decided other improvements in the economy were enough to justify continuing to taper asset purchases.
Hembre said the latest data shouldn’t change that outlook.
At some point the Federal Reserve policymakers are going to have to taper their asset purchases. The longer they postpone that, the more of a shock it is going to be. Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve has propped up the dollar and the stock market to the point where there will not be a soft landing. Because of the financial policies of the Federal Reserve for the past ten or twelve years, we will probably experience a very bumpy landing some time in the next six months. I believe we will come through it, but I also believe it will be very bumpy.
On Monday, Fox News reported on President Obama’s interview with Bill O’Reilly:
Obama addressed concerns over Benghazi, the launch of HealthCare.gov and the IRS, during the interview Sunday before the Super Bowl. He adamantly rejected the suggestion that the IRS was used for political purposes by singling out Tea Party groups seeking tax exemption.
“That’s not what happened,” he said. Rather, he said, IRS officials were confused about how to implement the law governing those kinds of tax-exempt groups.
“There were some bone-headed decisions,” Obama conceded.
But when asked whether corruption, or mass corruption, was at play, he responded: “Not even mass corruption — not even a smidgen of corruption.”
The question of the day (and it is not an original question) is, “if there was not a smidgen of corruption, why did Lois Lerner take the fifth rather than testify before Congress?”
Yesterday Scott Johnson at Power Line posted a letter from William Henck, a man who has worked inside the IRS Office of the General Counsel as an attorney for over 26 years. I am not going to post the letter as it is very long, but I strongly suggest that you follow the link to Power Line and read the letter. It is chilling.
Scott Johnson also posted a story at Power Line today about Cleta Mitchell, who he describes as the most dangerous woman in America. Ms. Mitchell is the Washington attorney who represents several clients victimized by the criminal misconduct of the IRS over the past four years. A video of her testimony before Congress on Thursday is included in the article. She is smart and articulate–she does represent a danger to the Obama Administration. Please watch the video to see why.
The IRS scandal is dangerous to America. It means that whichever party is in power in Washington can use the IRS to target its enemies. This is an impeachable offense, and any administration that engages in this behavior should be faced with the threat of impeachment.
Today Townhall.com is reporting:
Last month Maureen Faulker, the widow of murdered Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, requested a chance to give testimony against President Obama’s nominee to head the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Her husband was killed in 1981 by former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of murder in 1982. Thirty years after the conviction, nominee Debo Adegbile voluntarily took up Abu-Jamal’s case and the cause in the name of race during his time as the head of NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley asked for Faulkner’s request to present testimony be granted, but Democrats have blocked her from doing so. The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote today on Adegbile’s nomination.
In January of this year, I posted a copy of the letter from the Fraternal Order of Police (rightwinggranny.com) regarding the appointment of Debo Adegbile. That letter explains why Mr. Adegbile is simply the wrong man for the job.
Mrs. Faulkner has written a letter to the Senate regarding the nomination. Her letter is posted at the Townhall.com link above. Please read the letter. If the Senate approves this nomination, it will be a slap in the face to all of the policemen in America. This appointment is a disgrace.
Yesterday Bleacher Report posted a story about Texas A&M and Cedric Collins. Cedric Collins is a high school football cornerback who committed to Texas A&M in August 2012, just before the start of his junior year at Skyline High School in Dallas.
After the playoffs in 2012, Cedric Collins suffered numbness in his legs, and the doctors discovered that he had a rare congenital cervical abnormality. Cedric Collins would never be able to play football again. Texas A&M had a decision to make.
The article reports:
However, even though Collins will never suit up for the Aggies in College Station, the school has decided to honor his scholarship, according to Kate Hairopoulos of The Dallas Morning News.
The head coach at Texas A7M sent out the following tweet:
The article further reports:
Collins, who was a 3-star prospect, according to 247Sports, will work as a student coach at Texas A&M, hoping to eventually get into coaching as a long-term endeavor.
He will still be part of the program and might still have a future in football, despite not being able to take the field. And Texas A&M did this despite not being forced to, dispelling the notion that all college programs are heartless, soulless guilds that only care about young men who can help them win football games.
That is a very cool thing.
It is a credit to Texas A&M that they have made a commitment to this young man’s future regardless of the fact that he won’t be playing football for them.
Jonah Goldberg posted an article at Townhall.com today that offers an interesting solution to the ‘inequality’ President Obama and some of the political left seem to be focused on lately. Oddly enough, the solution does not include giving more money or power to Washington.
In referring to the culture of Alaska (many of Mr. Goldberg’s wife’s family members live in Alaska, so he has spent some time there), he notes:
In my experience, Alaska stands out in another way: social equality. When I started going there regularly, I was shocked to discover how casually different economic classes intermingle. Scanning the attendees of a party or patrons of a restaurant, it’s pretty much guesswork to figure out who’s a millionaire and who’s a mechanic. Nothing like that happens in places like Washington, New York or Los Angeles, where upper and lower classes get along little better than the Morlocks and Eloi did in H.G. Wells‘ “The Time Machine.” But it does happen in lots of places — liberal and conservative — outside the Amtrak Acela corridor.
Mr. Goldberg points out a very logical solution to ‘inequality’ in America:
For practical purposes, people don’t live in the United States of America. They live in their neighborhoods, towns and communities. Yes, these are American communities, but your neighbors live in your neighborhood, not seven states over. Your kids don’t go to “U.S. schools”; they go to the school down the road.
Yet most of our money goes to the government in Washington, and so does most of the power. Why not flip that around? Want to see the rich, poor and middle class interact more? Give them a reason to show up to a city council or school board meeting. Sure, money has power at the local level, too, but so do votes.
Moreover, when rich people get their way at the local level, people usually know who they are and why they are doing things. And you can bend their ear at the supermarket or at soccer practice.
But when all the decisions are made in Washington or New York, most Americans are simply out of the loop.
And they resent it.
Having lived in New England for many years, I attended many Town Meetings where budgets, roads, zoning, and community growth were discussed. It was a way to see politics on a local level, and it was a way to be involved in the politics of your town. The taxpayers voted on the budget; the taxpayers voted on the zoning; and the taxpayers got to see their elected city officials at work. The taxpayers also had a chance to talk to their elected officials after the meeting. I don’t know if a Town Meeting would work in a larger setting, but certainly if more Americans felt that they had some sort of power, they would attend some of the various committee meetings in their cities and towns. Involving taxpayers in their local governments would be a step forward. I think Mr. Goldberg is on to something.
The Daily Caller posted a story today about the plan to put new rules in place that would silence conservative grass roots organizations before the 2014 election.
The article reports:
The Obama administration’s Treasury Department and former IRS official Lois Lerner conspired to draft new 501(c)(4) regulations to restrict the activity of conservative groups in a way that would not be disclosed publicly, according to the House Committee on Ways and Means.
The Treasury Department and Lerner started devising the new rules “off-plan,” meaning that their plans would not be published on the public schedule. They planned the new rules in 2012, while the IRS targeting of conservative groups was in full swing, and not after the scandal broke in order to clarify regulations as the administration has suggested.
The article explains:
Ways and Means chairman Rep. Dave Camp blasted the off-the-record plan during a hearing Wednesday with IRS commissioner John Koskinen, and called for the administration’s newly proposed 501(c)(4) rules to be halted until criminal investigations into the IRS targeting scandal are complete.
“If Treasury and the IRS fabricated the rationale for a rule change it would tend to raise questions about the integrity of the rule-making process,” Camp said.
...New IRS commissioner Koskinen said that the rules should “put to rest all of the issues surrounding applications for tax-exempt status.”
But Madrigal’s email to Lerner proves that the regulations were being developed long before the IRS needed to publicly put anything “to rest.”
At least 292 conservative groups were subjected to unfair targeting between 2010 and 2012, against six liberal groups that were allegedly given similar treatment.
Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you side on, this should be chilling. The changes in the law will allow whichever party is in control of the executive branch to use the IRS to silence the speech of their opposition. This is not what America is about. Unless this ends now, the American people will never again get to hear both sides of a political campaign. That is frightening.
John Podhoretz posted an article at the New York Post today with the headline, “Congressional Budget Office sends death blow to ObamaCare.”
The article reports the contents of the CBO report:
The one-two punch: Virtually as many Americans will lack health coverage in 10 years as before the law was passed — but 2 million fewer will be working than if the law hadn’t passed.
One killer detail comes on Page 111, where the report projects: “As a result of the ACA, between 6 million and 7 million fewer people will have employment-based insurance coverage each year from 2016 through 2024 than would be the case in the absence of the ACA.”
The irony of the whole ObamaCare program is the fact that ObamaCare was supposedly designed to provide health insurance to some 30 million Americans who are currently without health insurance. The CBO report predicts that in 2024, under ObamaCare, 31 million Americans will be without health insurance. If you consider ObamaCare as the ‘War on the Uninsured’ in America, it appears that it will be about as successful as the War on Poverty in America.
The article also reports:
If that’s not startling enough, there’s also the telling projection about ObamaCare’s impact on employment — “a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024.”
Overall employment will rise, the report says, but not steady, secure, long-term assured employment. The possibility of securing government-provided health-care without employment will give people a new incentive to avoid it. “The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply,” the report says.
Indeed, overall, between 2017 and 2024, the actual amount of work done in this country will decline by as much as 2 percent.
It really is time to come up with an alternative to ObamaCare. I only hope Congress is up to the task.
As a former New Englander, I remember when Rhode Island representative Patrick J. Kennedy was driven home in Washington, D. C. after a small automobile accident. His spokespeople reported that he was taking sleeping pills and had suffered side effects. There were other drug-related incidents, and Representative Kennedy eventually entered a short rehabilitation program for OxyContin use. He was re-elected until 2010, when he decided not to run for office.
Fast forward to 2013.
On January 27, 2014, the Christian Science Monitor reported:
US Rep. Trey Radel (R) of Florida, a once-rising star in the tea party movement, resigned from Congress on Monday, following a November conviction of cocaine possession.
Congressman Radel pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of narcotics possession in November, after he was caught Oct. 29 trying to buy 3.5 grams of cocaine from an undercover federal agent in Washington’s Dupont Circle area. During his trial, he reportedly told Judge Robert Tignor that he had “hit a bottom” and realized that he needs help. Radel was sentenced to a one-year probation and a $250 fine.
The story was widely reported.
Today, this story was reported in the Huffington Post:
Rep. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.) will resign his seat Tuesday, a source familiar with the situation told The Huffington Post. The congressman will hold a press conference at 11:30 to make the announcement.
The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported that Andrews was leaving to take a job at a Philadelphia law firm.
Andrews is the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation over whether he improperly spent campaign cash to pay for personal trips to Scotland and Los Angeles, and over allegations that he used a graduation party for his daughter to raise funds. His legal bills have risen as a result of the investigation.
A resignation would likely end the ethics investigation against him.
The story also appears at ABC News, but Representative Andrews political party is not mentioned in that version of the story.
Above are some examples of why we need alternative media.
Benghazi was a horrible event. Killing an ambassador is an act of war, but somehow in all the discussion that fact has been overlooked. I’m not sure what we would have accomplished by going to war with Libya, but on the other hand, not doing much of anything hasn’t worked either.
To add to the miscellaneous information that has dripped out about the Benghazi attack, the report of the Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report cites former CIA Director Mike Morell as having a major role in creating the talking points used by Susan Rice on the Sunday news shows after the attack. (see Fox News video February 3, 2014.)
The Washington Free Beacon also posted the story yesterday.
The article in the Washington Free Beacon reports:
On September 15 one day before Susan Rice made her infamous appearances on various Sunday shows, according to the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report Morell received an email from the CIA station chief in Libya indicating the Benghazi attacks were “not/not an escalation of protests.” The report does not indicate when Morell read the email, but that same day Morell cut the word “Islamic” from the talking points and left the word “demonstration.”
On September 16, Morell emailed embassy staff in Tripoli asking for more information. The FBI and CIA reviewed the closed circuit footage on September 18 showing there were no protests. Yet, President Obama still employed the “demonstration” verbiage just days later.
It is becoming obvious that the Obama Administration chose to lie to the American people about the Benghazi attack–who did it and why. It was politically expedient to lie about the attack, because admitting it was an Al Qaeda attack would have created a problem with President Obama’s statement that Al Qaeda had been destroyed. The attack on Benghazi might also have been seen as a threat to Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions.
The article further reports:
Adding another layer of complexity to the Morell’s backstory, Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) told Fox News many of Morell’s recent statements on the war on terror run contrary to what he told Senate committees over the previous decade as a CIA employee.
Herridge goes on to report some speculate Morell may have higher political ambitions considering his employment at Beacon Global Strategies, a government relations firm founded by close Hillary Clinton confidante Philippe I. Reines.
Whatever the reason for the lies, a country that elects leadership that puts politics above national security will not continue to exist in a world where terrorism is growing stronger. Islamic radicals now control more territory in the Middle East than they did before President Obama took office. This is not a good thing for innocent civilians in these areas (or non-Muslims), and it is not a good thing for America.
Yesterday the Washington Free Beacon posted an article expressing concern about the software in ObamaCare.
The article states:
U.S. intelligence agencies last week urged the Obama administration to check its new healthcare network for malicious software after learning that developers linked to the Belarus government helped produce the website, raising fresh concerns that private data posted by millions of Americans will be compromised.
The intelligence agencies notified the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency in charge of the Healthcare.gov network, about their concerns last week. Specifically, officials warned that programmers in Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, were suspected of inserting malicious code that could be used for cyber attacks, according to U.S. officials familiar with the concerns.
The article reports that last year there was an Internet data “hijacking” involving Belarusian state-controlled networks. Belarus is a dictatorship aligned with Russia.
The article further reports:
David Kennedy, head of the security firm TrustedSec, said the Obamacare website was not designed well and has “a lot of security flaws.”
One major concern is that the system connects the healthcare network to other sensitive U.S. government networks, including the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security.
“That makes it a treasure trove for hackers,” Kennedy said in an interview, adding that a major concern would be cyber attacks from sophisticated state-sponsored adversaries.
The threat of “backdoor” access points is a particular worry. The Chinese military-linked Huawei Technologies is suspected of using that technique in its network equipment, Kennedy said.
HHS technology officials recently contacted him about the security vulnerabilities and indicated the department is interested in taking measures to mitigate the security flaws.
White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden has stated that the Belarusian software was “recalled by the intelligence community shortly after it was issued.”
To me, this is just another reason to avoid the ObamaCare website. Lately, I tend not to believe a lot of what White House spokespeople are saying.
Yesterday the Washington Times posted an article about the farm bill that is making its way through Congress. Included in the bill is a fee (a fee as opposed to a tax?) of two-tenths of a cent on every gallon of home heating oil sold. Last week the farm bill passed the House of Representatives with a bipartisan 251-166 vote.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune is reporting today that the Senate voted to close debate on a five-year farm bill late Monday afternoon paving way for its passage Tuesday.
The article at the Washington Times reported:
Lawmakers in the House and Senate sponsored bills to try to renew the National Oilheat Research Alliance, but the legislation got bottled up in committee. The farm bill offered them a chance to short-circuit the usual legislative process and avoid the kind of scrutiny that accompanies a stand-alone bill.
Indeed, it was not raised at all during the debate on the House floor last week.
Damn the consumer–full speed ahead! This Congress needs to be very quickly voted out of office!
CNS News posted a story today stating that the Obama Administration has allowed the transfer of $550 million in Iran’s frozen oil revenues to the country under an interim nuclear deal. Wait a minute. Congress just cut $6 million from the federal budge (the cut was obtained by cutting the cost of living allowance on military pensions) because we needed to cut the budget. Where did this $550 million come from?
The article states:
The money is the first installment of $4.2 billion in blocked oil funds that were to be made available to Iran under the nuclear deal signed in November. Iran received limited sanctions relief in exchange for agreeing to curb its nuclear activities.
So we are transferring millions of dollars to Iran while Iran is saying they will not stop their nuclear weapons program. In what world does this make sense?
Yesterday the Daily Caller posted a story about the interview that Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly did with President Obama.
The interview included the following exchange:
The president also refused to acknowledge that the IRS illegally targeted tea party groups in the run-up to the 2012 election. “Absolutely wrong,” he said when O’Reilly broached the subject. “These kinds of things keep on surfacing, in part, because you and your TV station will promote them… We’ve had multiple hearings on it!”
“So you’re saying there was no corruption there at all?” O’Reilly asked.
“Absolutely not,” the president replied. “There were some bone-headed decisions out of a local office.”
“But no mass corruption?” O’Reilly persisted.
“Not even mass corruption,” a visibly-annoyed Obama replied. “Not even a smidgen of corruption.”
This is a very interesting contrast to a story filed by NBC News on May 13, 2013, which stated:
A partial draft report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration — obtained by NBC News — shows that top officials knew about the targeting nearly a year before then-IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, testified to Congress in March 2012 that no singling out of conservative groups ever occurred.
The House Ways and Means Committee announced after the president’s remarks that it will hold a hearing on the alleged targeting on Friday, May 17. Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller and J. Russell George, the Inspector General who headed up the IRS report, are expected to testify.
And the IRS confirmed Monday night that Miller was informed in May of last year that “some specific applications were improperly identified by name and sent to the [IRS] Exempt Organizations centralized processing unit for further review.”
In a statement earlier Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president is “concerned” about the reported conduct of “a small number of Internal Revenue Service employees.”
The investigation into the IRS is being done by a major Democrat party campaign donor.
On January 17 2014, Fox News reported:
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI did not expect to file any criminal charges in connection with the IRS’s admitted, systemic, multi-year targeting of conservative nonprofits for improper scrutiny.
To be clear, the FBI made this decision without interviewing even a single one of the American Center for Law and Justice’s 41 targeted clients. And we’re not alone. Other Tea Party attorneys report their clients weren’t interviewed either.
Put simply, the FBI leaked its conclusions in a criminal investigation without even interviewing the victims of the potential crime.
So there was no crime. That conclusion was reached without interviewing any of the people who were targeted. This is the equivalent of refusing to interview a robbery victim and then claiming that since you did not interview the victim, there was no robbery.
Is the American voter that stupid? We will find out in November.
The American Thinker posted a follow-up story today about the government’s 2011 raid on Gibson Guitar Company.
The article reminds us of the details of the raid:
In 2011, the Department of Justice conducted raids on the Tennessee facilities of the famed Gibson Guitar company and confiscated large quantities of tonewood that had been imported from India and Madagascar. The action included armed SWAT teams, with automatic weapons, who apparently feared being garroted with a guitar string by an enraged Gibson employee. These raids were conducted due to the Lacey Act, which bans the importing of certain woods. The issue at hand was not that the wood was endangered or illegally harvested, but that it was not of the proper thickness that would have meant that some labor had been performed on it by workers in India and Madagascar. This was the law in Madagascar and India as a nod to the unions in those countries. Gibson, who hand-makes its guitars, cannot guarantee the craftsmanship of its products if a portion of the work is done outside their facilities.
There were a number of problems with the justification for this raid. India and Madagascar, the countries involved, were not interested in pursuing the matter. The guitar manufacturers CF Martin and Company and Fender.use the same kind of wood, and they were not raided.
The article reports:
The principle difference seems to be that those companies contributed to Democratic candidates, while Henry Juszkiewicz, the CEO of Gibson, gives openly to Republicans, and Gibson has plants in a right-to-work state.
This is pretty much old news, but there is a new twist to the story. Gibson had a special use for the wood the government returned to it.
The article concludes:
Gibson took that wood and made it into the Government Series II Les Paul. These special edition guitars are hot stamped in gold with the Government Series graphic, which is an American bald eagle holding a Gibson guitar neck. It is an admirable statement of defiance of an abusive government and a refusal of a historic American company to be intimidated.
Score one for the good guys!
Regardless of what has been said by the White House, the Obama Administration has not been a friend of Israel. Under President Obama, America has tried to force Israel into a peace deal that would mean the end of Israel.
Breitbart.com reported today on Israel’s response to the Obama Administration’s latest threat to her security.
The article reports the American Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that Israel could face “delegitimization” and “boycott” campaigns without a peace deal with the Palestinians. I need to mention at this point that Secretary Kerry‘s peace plan includes the dividing of Jerusalem and a return to the 1967 borders.
There is a video posted at YouTube that helps explain why that peace plan would not bring peace:
Please understand that Israel needs to defend its small piece of land. It would be nice if America chose to be part of that defense instead of refusing to acknowledge that reverting back to the 1967 borders would bring war–not peace.
As someone with a family member in the military, the cuts to the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) on military pensions hit close to home. Not only are they the ONLY cuts made in the budget agreement, they also represent a broken promise to our military troops. One of the best articles I have seen on the subject is posted at Allen West’s website.
The article reminds us that the four retired senior officers — three generals and one admiral–who supported the cut would not be impacted by the change in the rules. However, there are some retired senior enlisted men who are impacted who are speaking out.
One of those senior enlisted men shares the story of a friend who landed a high-paying job with a defense contractor in the same field he worked in on active duty:
But several years later, the company went bankrupt, and Hoynes, a former chief operations specialist, found himself jobless. Now Hoynes and his wife must rely on his $1,600-a-month military retirement pay (after taxes, health care and insurance payments) and her small retail salary to pay the bills.
If the cost-of-living adjustment reduction to military retired pay included in the Bipartisan Budget Act goes into effect in December 2015, the retired chief, now 50, stands to lose as much as $55,000 in retirement pay over his lifetime.
This is obscene simply on the facts, but it is even more obscene that it represents a broken promise to our military.
Allen West also points out:
There are close to 350,000,000 Americans and 840,000 have to be sacrificed to support the legislative budgetary process? That’s two-tenths of a percent. All over $6 billion? You mean to tell me that lawmakers in Washington DC — Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray specifically — could not find $6 billion dollars elsewhere? Hmm, will one of them explain to retired Chief Chip Hoynes and his wife that a Member of Congress only needs to serve 5 years to earn 70 percent retirement, for life (since it goes to the spouse upon death of the Member)?
This needs to be corrected as soon as Congress resumes. Otherwise the Republicans who signed on to this deal should be quickly voted out of office.
