Tag Archives: Daily Caller

When Sixties Radicals Refuse To Go Away

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Bill Ayers, after avoiding prosecution on domestic terrorism charges, famously stated, “Guilty as hell, free as a bird—it’s a great country.” Well, he really hasn’t changed much. He has just adopted a more peaceful strategy in trying to ruin America.

Yesterday the Daily Caller reported that Bill Ayers has signed a letter urging the United Nations to investigate the closing of 49 Chicago elementary schools.

The article reports:

The Midwest Coalition for Human Rights sent the missive to the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland this week.

The letter says that the closing of the schools is causing massive human rights violations.

The article reports:

The letter argues that the 49 school closings violate human rights because they affect black families disproportionately, because they force students to cross gang lines to get to the new schools they will attend, because class sizes will be slightly larger and because the school closings happened despite the objections of some people.

The dispatch asks the U.N. to “urge the United States to investigate and prevent these human rights violations.”

It’s not clear how or if the U.N.’s human rights office will act. The U.N. has no power to direct or regulate any federal, state or municipal government in the United States. The international body is, of course, free to conduct inquiries and issue findings, however.

An American city trying to balance its budget by closing schools and consolidating their educational program is running the risk of being investigated by the United Nations. This is not acceptable. First of all, according to a website called betterworldcampaign.org, America pays 22 percent of the regular UN budget and 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget. I really think we need to take a good look at what we are paying for. While we are at it, I think we should strongly encourage the United Nations to find a new home.

Bill Ayers was a domestic terrorist. He wanted to overthrow the American government. Now he has signed a letter asking the U.N. to take action undermining American sovereignty. I really don’t think he has changed much.

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Why We Can’t Afford A Democrat Congress

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The Democrats control the Senate. The Republicans hold a 33 seat majority in the House of Representatives. The Republicans can occasionally pass something or delay something from taking effect, but generally those odds make it very difficult for either party to get much done.

Recently, the Republicans gained a small victory for common sense and against crony capitalism.. On Thursday, Investor’s Business Daily reported that in explaining why he wanted to stop a federal ban on incandescent light bulbs, Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, said, ‘If the new energy-efficient light bulbs save money, and if they’re better for the environment, we should trust our constituents to make the choice on their own to move toward these bulbs. Let the market decide.”

Oddly enough, if the ban had gone into effect, one company that would make a tremendous amount of money selling very expensive light bulbs would be General Electric. I know it is simply an incredible coincidence, but General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt was appointed to lead the President’s new jobs council in January 2011.

In addition to being more expensive, there are some significant problems with the compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. The Daily Caller posted an artlcle in July 2012 reporting that scientists at the National Science Foundation are warning consumers about the potentially harmful effects energy-saving CFL light bulbs can have on skin. In December 2011 the U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about the fire hazard of a burned out CFL bulb. CFL bulbs also produce a hazardous waste situation when they break.

I think it really is time to celebrate the joys of the incandescent light bulb until some of the bugs get worked out of the alternative.

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I Saw This Story Earlier In The Week, But Didn’t Believe It

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The Daily Caller posted a story Friday about a family in Henderson, Nevada, whose home was invaded by police without sufficient reason. The story was also posted in the Wall Street Journal. In July 2011, Anthony Mitchell was asked by police if they could use his home as a tactical center for a domestic violence investigation they were doing on one of his neighbors. Mr. Mitchell declined, saying that he did not want to get involved. The police decided that they would use his house anyway.

The Daily Caller reports what happened next:

According to Courthouse News Service, the police department decided that if Mitchell refused to leave or open the door, officers would force their way in and arrest him.

Mitchell claims this is exactly what happened. First officers “smashed open” Mitchell’s door with a “metal ram” after he did not immediately open it himself. He then “curled on the floor of his living room, with his hands over his face,” as the police shot Mitchell and his dog — which the family claims did not attack the officers — several times with “pepperball” rounds.

Pepperball is a projectile containing chemical irritant pepper spray, which is released upon impact.

Afterward, Mitchell was arrested for “obstructing a police officer.”

The Third Amendment to the U. S. Constitution states:

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Mr. Mitchell is suing the city of Henderson, Nevada for violating that amendment.

The Daily Caller also reports that the abuse of Anthony Mitchell also extended to his parents who also live in the neighborhood. Michael Mitchell, Anthony’s father, was asked to come to a local police command center to help with negotiations involving the neighbor being investigated for abuse. Upon arrival, Michael was informed the negotiations would not be taking place, and when he tried to leave, he was arrested. Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The article reports:

The elder Mitchell’s wife was not arrested, but she was roughly escorted from her home while other officers entered the house without permission, the complaint alleges. The family claims that when she was allowed to return, “the cabinets and closet doors throughout the house had been left open and their contents moved about… Even the refrigerator door had been left ajar, and mustard and mayonnaise had been left on their kitchen floor.”

The charges against both the father and the son were dismissed.

As I stated in the headline of this story, when I first saw the story (it was posted on Facebook), I couldn’t believe this could happen in America. I still can’t believe this could happen in America, but unfortunately it did. Frankly, I hope the policemen involved in this case are fired and sued along with anyone who issued the order to act as they did.

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Delaying A Major Provision Of ObamaCare For A Year

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This article is based on three articles–one posted at Breitbart.com yesterday, one posted at the Daily Caller yesterday, and one posted in the Washington Post yesterday.

The Obama Administration has announced that it will delay the implementation of the Employer Mandate part of ObamaCare for a year–it was scheduled to go into effect in January 2014. It will now go into effect in January 2015.

The Daily Caller reports the Obama Administration’s explanation for the change:

A blog post by White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett on the White House blog explained that the goal of the postponement is to help “[cut] the red tape” in the “reporting process” for employers, and to give employers “more time to comply.” The changes come as a response to concerns expressed in “ongoing discussions with businesses” that “you need the time to get this right,” Jarrett wrote.

“It will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law,” wrote Mark Mazur, assistant secretary for Tax Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, in announcing the decision. “Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees.”

However, there seems to be another side of the story.

The article at Breitbart reports that the pushing back of this deadline is illegal.

Breitbart reports:

And the Employer Mandate is mandatory. The law Congress wrote explicitly commands that this provision takes effect in January 2014. The ACA (ObamaCare) does not permit the government to grant a reprieve or an extension.   

Yet in a blatantly illegal move, the Obama administration is presuming to rewrite the ACA by choosing not to enforce provisions that are causing visible problems. The IRS—which is tasked with enforcing the Employer Mandate—will simply not enforce it until 2015. Every large employer in the country is under the mandate. If they don’t comply, then they are breaking federal law.

But the IRS not enforcing Section 1513 is like a policeman who patrols a stretch of road who says for the next year, he won’t issue any speeding tickets. He has no authority to suspend the law, but if he chooses to violate his duty by failing to enforce the law, then to all the motorists on the road it’s as if the law does not exist.

There are two main political motives for this move. First of all, the implementation of ObamaCare is not going smoothly, and it is to the political advantage of the party that passed the law (Democrats) to push off at least one major problem in implementation until after the 2014 mid-term elections. Secondly, because employers will not be forced to provide health insurance, employees will be faced with a choice–join the government run healthcare exchanges (sky-high premiums) or pay a fine (much lower). The government is hoping that if employers are not required to provide health insurance for employees, employees will be driven into the government-run healthcare exchanges.

Breitbart reports:

It’s worth noting that the ACA (ObamaCare) only subsidizes insurance policies on an exchange run by a state. Yet 34 states have refused to join this government-run debacle, so in those states the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will set them up.

This is why the IRS issued a regulation last year saying that these tax credits for state-run exchanges also extend to HHS-run exchanges. Several lawsuits are now underway challenging the IRS Rule, and they should quickly lead to federal courts striking down the regulation.

The bottom line here is simple–ObamaCare is a mess–politically and practically. Politically, the fact that the law was passed by a parliamentary technicality with only Democrat votes may come back to bite the Democrats as the problems with the law become evident. Practically, the law does not seem to be well thought out or well written. It is quite possible it will collapse under its own weight.

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The IRS Investigation Continues

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This is a copy of part of one of the letters the IRS sent to a conservative organization seeking tax-exempt status. This copy is taken from an article posted at the Daily Caller yesterday. The article states that there were twelve different groups at the IRS that targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

The article at the Daily Caller reports:

The revelation disproves the suggestion by a top congressional Democrat that only one IRS group was responsible for scrutinizing tea party and conservative applications.

Group 7821, Group 7822, Group 7823, Group 7824, Group 7827, Group 7828, Group 7829, Group 7830, Group 7838, EOG-7887, and EOG-7888, and the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division in Washington, D.C. all targeted conservative groups between 2010 and 2012, according to documentation compiled by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which has filed a class-action suit against the IRS.

ACLJ senior counsel David French told The Daily Caller:

“We know that the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division in Washington, D.C. was involved, and that’s where Carter Hull and Lois Lerner were working. We have 14 letters directly from Lois Lerner,” French said. “When Lois Lerner said on May 10 that this was just a few agents in Cincinnati, we were literally holding in our hands 14 letters that she wrote to conservative groups.”

This is not how the IRS is supposed to work. Why are we giving them more power in ObamaCare?

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How To Investigate Without Really Investigating

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Yesterday the Daily Caller reported that the FBI has not contacted a single tea party group in its investigation of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, who is handling many of the lawsuits filed against the government has stated that neither he or any of his clients have been contacted or interviewed by the FBI.

The article reports:

The revelation suggests that the FBI is in no hurry to get to the bottom of the scandal, despite the Obama administration’s promise to investigate the IRS’s multi-year abuse of conservative groups.

…“I can assure you and the American people that we will take a dispassionate view of this,” Holder told congressional investigators on May 15. “This will not be about parties, this will not be about ideological persuasions. Anybody who has broken the law will be held accountable.”

But in separate testimony before congressional investigators Thursday, FBI Director Robert Mueller seemed completely unaware of the progress of any such investigation.

Director Mueller testified that he did not know the status of the interviews being conducted by the team investigating the IRS scandal. I may be missing something here, which is not all that unusual, but it seems to me that if you are the director of an organization that is supposed to be investigating something and you know that you are going to appear before a Congressional committee, you might want to check on what is going on with the investigation before you appear before the committee.

It is becoming very clear that the people running investigations for the Justice Department are either totally incompetent, incapable of conducting an investigation, or experts at stonewalling. These people are appointed by our elected officials. Maybe it is time to change the elected officials doing the appointing.

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Why The Immigration Bill Should Not Pass

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As I have previously stated, I realize that our current immigration system is broken. However, that is not an excuse to break it further. S.744, the Schumer-Rubio “comprehensive” immigration amnesty bill, would break it further.

Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller provides a ‘pocket guide’ to the problems with the bill:

“Multiple triggers”/Legalization is immediate. DHS just has to write border “plan.”  The most any “triggers” can possibly do is delay green cards and citizenship.

“90 % effectiveness”/ If not reached, triggers only toothless commission

“Pay back taxes”/ Only if already “assessed” by IRS (unlikely). Newly legalized may instead get refunds.

“Learn English”/ Only need to sign up for English class.

“Clean record”/ Allows two free misdemeanors. Additional misdemeanors (including assaults) can be waived by DHS.

No “public charge.” Must earn 125% of poverty line / They’re going to deport people who earn only 124% or less? Ha.

“Pay a fine”/ Can be waived by DHS

“Back of the line”/ Get to wait out the line while living in the U.S (unlike suckers trying to come here legally).

Border fence/ Leaves it up to DHS, which decided not to complete fence in first place

“Comprehensive Southern Border Security Strategy”/ Only has to be “substantially” operational–whatever that means, as defined by DHS–before green cards are issued. (Legalization has already happened, remember!)

“E-verify” employment checks/ Replaces E-Verify with new system. Requires only that this system be “implemented” ( 30%? 70%? Who knows?).  Subject to lawsuit. If still in court after 10 years, never mind!

Entry-exit system for visas/Has been required since 1996. DHS must only be “using” a system before green cards can be issued. (Using in 10% of airports? 50%? Again, who knows?)

I think Mr. Kaus pretty much covers it!

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An Incredible Coincidence

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Today’s Daily Caller posted a story about former Internal Revenue Service commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, a frequent White House guest during the period when the IRS was targeting conservative nonprofits. Mr. Shulman is married to Susan L. Anderson, senior program advisor for Public Campaign, an “organization dedicated to sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics.” I don’t have a problem with the idea of reducing special interest money in American politics as long as the reductions include both unions and corporations. So far, those suggesting these changes are only citing corporations and conservatives.

The article reports:

Public Campaign receives “major funding” from the pro-Obamacare alliance Health Care for America NOW!, which is comprised of the labor unions AFL-CIO, AFSCME, SEIU, and the progressive activist organization Move On, among others.

Public Campaign also receives funding from the liberal Ford Foundation, the Common Cause Education Fund, and Barbra Streisand’s The Streisand Foundation, among other foundations and private donors.

I think that list of organizations provides a pretty good idea of where the group sits politically.

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The Internal Revenue Service Scandal Raises More Questions Than It Answers

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Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted a story that asked the following question:

…could someone at the IRS have leaked Romney’s tax information to Reid? At the time, Reid claimed he learned of Romney’s tax background from someone who had once been an investor in Romney’s firm, though he wouldn’t say who.

The question arises because it has come to light that for the last two years, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been targeting conservative groups and leaking confidential information to liberal groups.

Harry Reid used his position as Senate Majority Leader to level charges at Mitt Romney that would have been impossible to disprove without totally compromising any bit of privacy Governor Romney might have had. In essence, he demanded that Mitt Romney prove a negative. The narrative went something like this:

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Reid claimed he had been called by someone who had invested in Romney’s former firm, Bain Capital. That person said Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years.

“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” Reid told the liberal news outlet. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?”

Romney’s campaign denied Reid’s accusations, eventually releasing a summary of the former Massachusetts governor’s taxes that — according to Romney staffers — showed he paid taxes over the last 20 years.

But Reid continued to argue that Romney’s tax returns included something that the Republican didn’t want everyone to see.

“He’s hiding something,” Reid said on a conference call. “He’s hiding something! It is so evident he’s hiding something!”

First of all, I seriously doubt the charges were true. However, since when did investors get to see the tax returns of board members of the companies in which they were investing? If in fact Harry Reid actually knew anything about Mitt Romney’s tax returns, where did he get that information?

Just a note–last year was the first year my husband and I have ever been audited. I am on the membership list of a number of conservative groups that probably have applied for tax exempt status. Hopefully, that is just a coincidence.

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It’s An Old Story But We Are Just Now Hearing It

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There is a lot of information coming out today about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeting conservatives for excessive scrutiny.  On Saturday, I posted an article which included some of the extra questions conservative groups were asked when they applied for their tax exemption status (rightwinggranny.com).  The use of the IRS and other groups to target political opponents is not new–the Clintons turned it into an art form. The Obamas have also learned to use it frequently.

In May of 2012, I posted an article about Intimidation of one Romney donor (rightwinggranny.com). Frank VanderSloot, the CEO of Melaleuca Inc.was subjected to the same kind of scrutiny that normally be reserved for a political candidate. Today’s Daily Caller details some of what Mr. Vandersloot was subjected to.

Fox News posted a story today showing how the initial interest of the IRS into the Tea Party Movement was expanded:

The article at Fox explains:

The internal IG timeline shows a unit in the agency was looking at Tea Party and “patriot” groups dating back to early 2010. But it shows that list of criteria drastically expanding by the time a June 2011 briefing was held. It then included groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to “make America a better place to live.” It even flagged groups whose file included criticism of “how the country is being run.” 

By early 2012, the criteria were updated to include organizations involved in “limiting/expanding government,” education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and social economic reform. 

I remember that when Barack Obama was elected, many people were complaining that we were about to enter Jimmy Carter’s second term. I don’t think that is right. I think Barack Obama has morphed into the third term of Richard Nixon.

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Why Are We Giving Food Stamps To People Who Are Not American Citizens?

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Why are we giving food stamps to people in America who are not American citizens? Wouldn’t that be a good thing for the sequester to cut? Wouldn’t it be cheaper simply to give them an airplane ticket (and an escort onto the airplane) home?

On Sunday the Daily Caller posted an article about food stamps for non-citizens.

The article reports:

After an effort to defund the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food stamp outreach partnership with the Mexican government went down in committee Thursday, Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions continued to press the agency for more information about non-citizen participation in the food stamp program.

The article stated that since 2004 between 3 and 4 percent of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamp program is going to non-citizens.

Does anyone really believe that if you were an American living in another country (legal or otherwise), that the country you were living in would give you free food? This is simply another attempt by the government to make everyone in the country more dependent on the government for their existence.

It’s time to remember what America is about–equal opportunity, self reliance, and independence from intrusive government. We cannot financially afford to let the food stamps program continue to grow at its current rate, but more than that, we cannot afford to let the program create a mindset of dependency. There are signs in our national forests telling us not to feed the animals as they will grow lazy and dependent on humans for their food. Do we need a “Do Not Feed The People” sign?

It’s Time To Remember That Discrimination Goes Both Ways

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Today’s Daily Caller reported that an elementary school in the suburbs of Denver has started an after-school tutoring program. What a great idea. Unfortunately, the school principal has told parents that white children would be excluded from the program. The article reports that Andre C. Pearson, the principal at Mission Viejo Elementary in Aurora, Colorado sent letters home to parents informing them that only students of color are eligible for the program

Wow. I would call that a civil rights violation.

Fortunately, the school has realized its mistake. The article reports:

The district has since apologized for the error. A spokeswoman for the school district told KJCT that Pearson’s letter was a mistake and that white students can participate in the tutoring program.

“We deeply regret that they got that communication,” the spokeswoman added, according to notes CBS Denver.

I have a couple of questions. Why did the Principal even think he could get away with that kind of racism (yes, it is racism regardless of what direction it takes)? If the parents and the media had not gotten involved, would the policy have been allowed to stay in place? Why did such a letter even exist?

If nothing else, this is an example of why parents need to know what is going on in their local schools and to be involved.

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Showmanship Over Substance

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The Daily Caller reported today that at least five Democrat Senators are bringing illegal aliens to President Obama’s State of the Union speech.

The article reports:

The DC reported Tuesday that five Democrats — First Lady Michelle Obama, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Rep. Marc Veasey and Rep. Kathy Castor — have announced that they are bringing illegal immigrants to the speech as their guests.

Most of those guests are young. Alan Aleman, the 20-year-old guest of Michelle Obama, is a benefit of President Obama’s deferred deportation program for illegal immigrants who were brought into the country when they were under 16 years old. He has since been given a Social Security number.

But Gutierrez is bringing 27-year-old Gabino Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who lives in South Carolina and is fighting deportation, as his guest.

The article points out that all attendees of the speech undergo a government background check which includes providing a Social Security Number, which theoretically an illegal alien would not have. An American citizen would have to provide that information.

It would be interesting to know what inspired these government officials to bring people who were in the country illegally to a major Presidential speech.

Our government seems to have forgotten that protecting our borders is supposed to be one of its highest priorities. The government also seems to have a problem understanding the meaning of the word illegal.

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The Double Standard At Work

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There is a really ugly scandal evolving about New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez. It seems that he had a close friendship with a major Democratic donor named Dr. Salomon Melgen. The two of them frequently flew on the Doctor’s private jet to the Dominican Republic where the Senator spent time with underage prostitutes.

The story can be found at Breitbart.com and in the Daily Caller. Recently the Doctor’s offices were raided by the FBI and records removed from the office. So what is this all about? News reports state Menendez has denied published reports he improperly lobbied on behalf of Melgen’s interest in a Dominican Republic Port security contractor.

To be very honest, this scandal is going nowhere. (I would love to be wrong about this.) The Senator did something gross outside of the country, and I don’t even know if what he did is illegal in the Dominican Republic. There is an ethics violation if he accepted free flights, but that will be corrected by paying for the flights. Essentially, I believe that this is much ado about something that will actually have no impact on anything. Unfortunately this man was legally elected to the Senate and the cronyism in the Senate (particularly among Democrats and the media) will keep his dishonesty and shameful behavior from causing him any problems.

Until we elect honorable men to Congress and the press actually reports the news accurately, this sort of thing will continue unpunished.

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A Wise Decision By A Court

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The Daily Caller is reporting today that the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot force refiners to use cellulosic biofuels, which aren’t commercially available.

The article reports:

The court sided with the country’s chief oil and gas lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, in striking down the 2012 EPA mandate that would have forced refineries to purchase more than $8 million in credits for 8.65 million of gallons of the cellulosic biofuel. However, none of the biofuel is commercially available.

The decision applies to the cellulosic biofuel which is currently not commercially available–it does not apply to  EPA regulations regarding other renewable fuels, like ethanol and biodiesel.

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Al Gore’s Current TV Has Been Sold to Al Jazeera

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There are three sources for this article–an article posted at the Daily Caller today, an article posted at The Blaze yesterday, and an article posted at the New York Times yesterday.

There are a few interesting aspects of this story. One is that Al Gore refused to sell Current TV to Glenn Beck, stating that “the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.” I am really sorry to hear that Al Jazeera is more in line with Current TV than Glenn Beck’s The Blaze.

The Daily Caller reported that Al Gore had hoped to sell the station before the end of the year to avoid the new 2013 tax rates, but was unable to complete the sale until Wednesday.

The New York Times reports:

Distributors can sometimes wiggle out of their carriage deals when channels change hands. Most consented to the sale, but Time Warner Cable did not, Mr. Hyatt told employees.

Time Warner Cable had previously warned that it might drop Current because of its low ratings. It took advantage of a change-in-ownership clause and said in a terse statement Wednesday night, “We are removing the service as quickly as possible.”

The New York Times also reports:

For Al Jazeera, which is financed by the government of Qatar, the acquisition is a coming of age moment. A decade ago, Al Jazeera’s flagship Arabic-language channel was reviled by American politicians for showing videotapes from Al Qaeda members and sympathizers. Now the news operation is buying an American channel, having convinced Mr. Gore and the other owners of Current that it has the journalistic muscle and the money to compete head-to-head with CNN and other news channels in the United States.

America and the media market in America allow free speech. However, I do not see the attempted mainstreaming of Al Jazeera as a good thing. However, people are free to watch what they choose, and they are responsible for the decisions they make. If Al Jazeera plans to function as an unbiased news source, it will do well. If it is used primarily to dispense propaganda, the pressure of the marketplace will remove it from the market.

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Why Repealing ObamaCare Is Still A Good Idea

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As we approach the fiscal cliff and some of us realize that no matter what happens taxes on all Americans will be going up, we are forgetting what Obamacare is going to do to our taxes. Before I go into the details, I would like to remind everyone that the Medieval surfs only paid 10 percent of their crops to the lord of the manor. They were allowed to keep more of the fruit of their labor than Americans are currently keeping.

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday listing some of the new taxes that will be imposed by Obamacare. The new ‘taxes on the rich’ are expected to average approximately $700 billion over 10 years.

The article lists some of these new taxes. Here are a few:

Upper-income households. Starting Jan. 1, individuals making more than $200,000 per year, and couples making more than $250,000 will face a 0.9 percent Medicare tax increase on wages above those threshold amounts. They’ll also face an additional 3.8 percent tax on investment income. Together these are the biggest tax increase in the health care law.

Employer penalties. Starting in 2014, companies with 50 or more employees that do not offer coverage will face penalties if at least one of their employees receives government-subsidized coverage. The penalty is $2,000 per employee, but a company’s first 30 workers don’t count toward the total.

Health care industries. Insurers, drug companies and medical device manufacturers face new fees and taxes. Companies that make medical equipment sold chiefly through doctors and hospitals, such as pacemakers, artificial hips and coronary stents, will pay a 2.3 percent excise tax on their sales, expected to total $1.7 billion in its first year, 2013. They’re trying to get it repealed.

The insurance industry faces an annual fee that starts at $8 billion in its first year, 2014.

The article also lists pharmaceutical companies, which are already paying fees; people who don’t have insurance, who will be fined; and people who use tanning salons. It is no wonder that the only gains in employment that have resulted from Obamacare are in the Internal Revenue Service.

The prospect of a fiscal cliff is looming right now. The prospect of a serious recession brought on by the taxes of Obamacare is also looming, but has somehow been lost in the shuffle. If America is to survive economically, we need a Congress who will deal with both in a way that is good for the country–not simply good for their re-election campaigns.

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Does The President Really Want To Negotiate ?

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Today’s Daily Caller is reporting that President Obama has turned down Speaker of the House John Boehner‘s offer to raise tax rates for Americans earning more than $1 million per year. The offer also included raising the government’s debt limit by roughly $1 trillion over its current level of $16.3 trillion.

The article reports:

Obama’s rapid spending — he has raised the national debt by $5.7 trillion since 2008 — means that he must persuade Congress to raise the debt ceiling again in the next few months.

Boehner’s Friday proposal would have transferred another $460 billion from roughly 400,000 investors and entrepreneurs to the federal government by raising their top marginal income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

Other federal, state and local taxes lift the effective tax rate on top earners to well over 50 percent.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, the White House has demanded that the GOP “acknowledge” that higher tax rates are needed.

This demand for the GOP to abandon its ideological principle against higher tax rates is itself a ideological demand from Obama, and spotlights his gamble that November’s election results can help him win a long-lasting ideological victory over his Republican adversaries.

I am not a big fan of John Boehner, but it does seem that he has done everything he can to try to reach an agreement with President Obama. It appears that it is the President who is not willing to negotiate.

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Climate Change Really Is All About Money

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This article is based on three articles, one posted at Power Line yesterday, one posted at Tulsa World on Saturday, and one posted at the Daily Caller yesterday. All three articles are related to the United Nations climate conference at Doha.

The article at Power Line quotes Walter Russell Mead in it’s closing remarks:

The Kyoto protocol, the ineffectual walking dead climate treaty, will lurch on for a few more years, toothless and brain dead. The rich countries yet again remain vague about what for most developing countries is the only real point of the whole thing, substituting vague pledges of good well for the annual $100 billion in green gold demand by the third world countries whose clueless militancy turned the General Assembly into a pointless sideshow decades ago.

The inexorable decline of the climate movement from its Pickett’s Charge at the Copenhagen summit continues. The global green lobby is more flummoxed than ever. These people and these methods couldn’t make a ham sandwich, much less save Planet Earth.

The Daily Caller reports:

However, the Kyoto extension — which lasts until 2020 — was only backed by 37 out of 194 countries, accounting for 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the German publication FOCUS magazine. There is still no clear deal on how much these countries would reduce their emissions.

Der Spiegel online also reports that only 37 countries have agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2012, but that no reduction targets were specified.

Tulsa World reports some of the background on the United Nations and climate charge:

“Three years ago, President Obama helped create a United Nations Green Slush Fund that would redistribute over $100 billion from developed countries to developing countries,” Inhofe (U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe) said.

“While he has been racking up huge deficits and talking up tax increases, the president has already sent billions of American taxpayer dollars to the United Nations – and he’s managed to do it quietly so that no one will notice.”

The U.S. also subsidizes fossil fuel use – at five times the rate of alternative fuels, according to some sources – in developing countries, but those subsidies do not threaten the status quo.

In his video message to the Doha group, Inhofe quotes U.N. Climate Chief Christiana Figueres as saying her job involves “transformation” directed by “a centralized policy perspective.”

“This is the top U.N. climate chief,” Inhofe said. “She sees herself as the overseer of ‘transforming’ the lives of everyone on the planet.”

This is a worldwide redistribution of wealth program. I would be truly wise of the United States to refuse to cooperate.

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Quietly Placed Inside The National Defense Authorization Act…

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On Tuesday, the Daily Caller reported that an amendment has been added to the National Defense Authorization Act that would introduce sales tax to items purchased on the internet. The Computer and Communications Industry Association opposes this move.

The article reports:

“This proposal, and other online sales tax collection proposals like it, would allow states to penalize the innovative e-commerce business model by targeting small online businesses as convenient sources (and collectors) of revenue,” said CCIA President and CEO Ed Black.

The Marketplace Fairness Act, and its House counterpart the Marketplace Equity Act, seek to clarify, and arguably overturn, a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that requires retailers to have a physical presence in a state in order to collect sales tax on goods.

Is there any length Congress will not go to in order to take money away from the people who earn it?

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More Legal Action On ObamaCare

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Today’s Daily Caller is reporting that on Wednesday a federal appeals court blocked the implementation of the HHS mandate requiring employers to provide health care plans that include coverage for contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.

The article reports:

Missouri business owner Frank O’Brien, who employs 87 people at O’Brien Industrial Holdings, alleged in the lawsuit that led to the injunction that the mandate unconstitutionally infringes on his religious beliefs.

…The order by the three-judge panel on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals prohibits HHS from forcing O’Brien to comply with the mandate, until the court issues a substantive ruling on the matter. The injunction order is not a final determination on the merits of O’Brien’s case or the constitutionality of the mandate.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) also reported on this case yesterday:

In October, a federal district court judge granted the Obama Administration’s Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit. The ACLJ immediately filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. In an order issued today, the appeals court granted the ACLJ motion requesting an injunction pending an appeal.

The lawsuit, which was filed in March 2012, marked the first legal challenge to the HHS mandate from a private business owner and his company. Until the suit was filed, only religious organizations or institutions brought lawsuits challenging the mandate.

…In addition to the O’Brien case, the ACLJ has filed two other direct challenges to the HHS mandate and filed amicus briefs backing other challenges in more than a dozen cases.

I believe that it is unconstitutional for the government to require Americans to buy health insurance, much less tell employers what health insurance has to include. I hope one of these cases makes it to the Supreme Court and this time the Supreme Court makes the correct decision–I think the Supreme Court’s last decision on Obamacare was incorrect.

The Gift Of Distraction

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Up until the sex scandal broke, the media had been doing a pretty good job of ignoring the death of four Americans in Benghazi. When the sex scandal broke, the media had something to write about related to Benghazi that didn’t relate in any way to the fact that these Americans were put in harms way and then abandoned. Most of the media (there are one or two exceptions) is continuing to ignore the real story. Every now and then, though, they have to work at it, and were it not for the seriousness of the situation, their efforts would be comical.

The Daily Caller posted a story yesterday with the headline, “Sure, our ambassador was murdered and the Obama administration is lying about it, but the real story is that McCain is a grouch.” Unfortunately, that pretty much sums up the approach taken on Benghazi by most of the major media.

An article at CNN reported this week that Senator McCain skipped a classified briefing by administration officials on the Benghazi attack Wednesday and then got testy when asked about it. What in the world does this really have to do with the attack on Benghazi? How many classified briefings has the President missed?

The article at the Daily Caller reminds us:

Meanwhile, four Americans who fell in service of their country are still dead, a guy who made a stupid YouTube video is still sitting in jail, and the Obama administration is still lying about it. But hey, what is all that compared to Wolf Blitzer’s hurt feelings?

This kind of reporting by CNN is one of the main reasons the alternative media has grown. Unless the Obama Administration seriously limits the First Amendment, Americans looking for real news will continue to turn to the alternative media rather than those sources who have forgotten the concept of actually reporting the news.

 

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Would You Trust These People With Your Investment Portfolio ?

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Yesterday the Daily Caller posted an article about the investments the Obama Administration has made in alternative energy companies.

The article reports:

The Romney campaign later clarified that he was talking about the DOE’s 1705 loan program which doled out $16.1 billion to green energy companies, accordingto the Washington Post. Of the 33 companies that received 1705 loan guarantees, only three have declared bankruptcy.

The article further reports:

The blog Green Corruption’s “Obama green-energy failure” list contains 23 bankrupt and 27 troubled green energy companies which were backed by the federal government. This list uses data compiled by the Heritage Foundation, but also includes some things the conservative think tank doesn’t.

According to the Heritage Foundation, $80 billion was set aside in the 2009 stimulus package for clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits, and 10 percent of these funds have gone to companies that have filed for bankruptcy or are in dire straits.

As I have said before, I believe there will come a day when green energy makes sense. I also believe that day will come after the free market has culled out the technologies that do not work and the technologies that do work have naturally risen to the top of the pile. Government subsidies interfere with that process and actually slow down the successful development of green energy–not to mention the amount of money the government has lost in picking winners and losers (mostly losers).

As taxpayers, we have the right to invest our money where we chose to invest it. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the government the right to make investments in green energy for us.

 

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There Really Are No Controls On Some Campaign Donations

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Today’s Daily Caller posted a story today that illustrates the problems with controlling the amount of money that flows into some political campaigns and the sources of these donations.

The article reports:

A Jerusalem journalist writing for a conservative website reported Monday night that he was able to make two small financial contributions to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in the name of the late terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Aaron Klein, writing for WorldNetDaily, said he successfully made campaign donations of $15 and $5 through a “proxy” service that masked his location and provided the Obama campaign website with a Pakistani Internet Protocol (IP) address instead.

The Obama campaign, Klein wrote, accepted and acknowledged both contributions, made with a disposable credit card, and followed up with additional fundraising emails to a Gmail account set up in the dead terrorist’s name.

This is not good. On October 8, Breitbart.com reported:

Even though the Obama campaign is touted for its technological sophistication and sites run by top Obama technology advisers use the “CVV” feature, the Obama campaign itself does not use the “CVV” feature on its donation pages — even though it does use the feature on the merchandise pages where it sells campaign merchandise. 

This means someone who donates $2,500 to the campaign online has to go through less security than someone who goes online to buy an Obama campaign mug.

There are simple ways to prevent foreign donations being made online. The problem here is that some candidates are not willing to employ these measures. The answer is not more regulation–the answer is honest people running for office.

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Searching For The Truth About Delphi

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The Washington Free Beacon and the Daily Caller have both posted articles about how the bailout of the automobile industry was handled in regard to Delphi, a company which supplies electronics and technology to the auto industry.

The Daily Caller posted an article stating that the decision to end the pensions of the non-union  workers at Delphi was not made independently by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the federal government agency that handles private-sector pension benefits issues, but that the decision was the result of pressure from the Treasury Department. They have uncovered a chain of e-mails that backs up this conclusion.

The Daily Caller reports:

The email chain was titled “Delphi Hourly Plan.” Delphi’s unionized hourly retirees originally saw their pension plans terminated together with the nonunion Delphi salaried retirees’ plans in a process that commenced on July 31, 2009.

Later, in September 2009, the union retirees’ plans were topped up while nonunion retirees’ plans remained terminated.

 These emails contradict July 2012 congressional testimony Feldman (Treasury official Matt Feldman) gave during an investigation by the subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs.

The treatment of Delphi employees is becoming a campaign issue in Ohio, where many of its employees were located. Paul Ryan met with nine Delphi retirees who lost their pensions, while their union coworkers pensions were untouched.

The Washington Free Beacon explains some of the details of the bailout:

Delphi was an important element of the auto-bailout. The company, one of GM’s largest parts suppliers, had been in bankruptcy since 2005 and Treasury officials recognized that it would need to be lifted from bankruptcy along with GM.

To cut costs, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), an independent federal insurer of retirement systems, terminated the nonunion plan while GM volunteered $1 billion to top-off pensions belonging to the United Autoworkers union.

The administration has contended that GM was acting on a 1999 agreement with the union to close any pension gap that emerged if Delphi declared bankruptcy.

That agreement, however, was liquidated when GM itself entered bankruptcy and emerged as a new company, according to bankruptcy expert Todd Zywicki.

“General Motors’ decision to guarantee the obligations of a separate company—Delphi—was completely unjustified under established principles of bankruptcy law, and it increased the cost of the taxpayer bailout of the automotive industry by more than $1 billion with no reciprocal benefit to General Motors,” he told Congress in July.

The auto industry bailout is an example of the government interfering with the laws of bankruptcy and acting in total disregard to the law. It’s time to bring people into Washington who respect the laws of this country.

 

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