Where Your Tax Dollars Went…

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday featuring Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn‘s “Wastebook 2012.”

The highlights:

The annual list of 100 of the most wasteful projects and redundancies includes everything from a $300,000 initiative to market caviar, $516,000 to create a video game simulating a high school prom night, a government funded study to find out if golfers perform better when they imagine a bigger hole, $947,000 spent on studying what food people could eat on Mars, and part of a $325,000 grant spent on a robotic squirrel.

Coburn also points out tax loopholes for professional sports that list themselves as non-profit organizations, pointing out that that status affords the NFL, NHL, and PGA  receive $89.9 million in de facto government subsidies. The report also delves into the mismanagement of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — or food stamps — which has resulted in $4.5 billion spent on things like Starbucks, alcohol, guns, and junk food.

After reading this, I wonder if we should be more concerned about taxing the NFL, NHL, and the PGA instead of all this talk about millionaires and billionaires. Guess what, even if all profession sports were taxed more, people would still pay outrageous prices for tickets.
Please follow the link above to the article. Based on this article, any Congressman responsible for these expenditures needs to be given a different job in November. I strongly recommend that those Congressmen should be asked to live in the private sector economy they have created.
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A Few Thoughts On The Vice-Presidential Debate

The debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan last night probably didn’t change anything. I felt that the moderator was reasonably fair. Joe Biden had slightly more time than Paul Ryan, but it was basically even. The only thing I would have changed was to have the moderator stop the frequent interruptions by Joe Biden when Paul Ryan was talking. I was also totally turned off by Joe Biden’s lack of respect for Paul Ryan, as shown in the smirking, laughing, etc. at Paul Ryan’s answers.

The Daily Caller posted its commentary this morning.

The article quotes Charles Krauthammer:

“If you read the transcript, I think it’s dead even,” Krauthammer said. ”If you heard it on radio, Biden won. If you watched on television, he lost. In the transcript, if you just look at the raw arguments I think it was even because each side had points to make and made them. I think on balance, not one side was stronger than another.”

The article also pointed out that Paul Ryan was not always able to follow up when Joe Biden made statements that were not true:

…And Ryan reacted with, I thought, excessive deference, allowing himself to be cut off and often just ending with a point that you might understand — for instance, when he talked about the Catholic Bishops — he made a point after Biden had said, ‘Oh, the Bishops of the Catholic church is not going to be compelled to do anything under ObamaCare.’”

“Ryan said, ‘Then why is that the Bishops are suing the administration?’ But that is almost an aside, and it was lost, and then it was over by the next question.”

All in all, I thought it was a good debate. I don’t think it changes anything, but it was a good debate. I also appreciated that Martha Raddatz pressed Joe Biden when he repeated the lies that the Obama Administration has told about the attack on the American Embassy at Benghazi. Much of the mainstream media has not covered the Congressional hearings on the attack, and the American people need to be aware that they were purposely lied to.

I Have Totally Mixed Emotions On This

On Wednesday, the Daily Caller posted an article detailing some close ties between vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz and President Obama. Among other things, President Obama was a guest at the moderator’s wedding in 1991. The article reports that Obama and groom Julius Genachowski, whom Obama would later tap to head the Federal Communications Commission, were Harvard Law School classmates at the time and members of the Harvard Law Review.

The article at the Daily Caller goes on to detail a rather close relationship between President Obama and Mr. Genachowski which has continued over the years.

The article reports:

Genachowski’s friendship with Obama would continue through the campaign trail in 2008 and into the White House: He aggressively fundraised for Obama in 2008 as a campaign bundler, and served on the presidential transition team before winning his appointment to chair the FCC.

It should be mentioned that Martha Raddatz and Julius Genachowski divorced and are now married to other people.

I do find this a little unsettling. I think ABC could have found a moderator without a direct connection to the President, but I am willing to watch the debate and hope that Ms. Raddatz is fair and objective.

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Paid Protesters

The video that went viral yesterday was the Obama Phone video, but there was another story at the Romney rally in Bedford, Ohio on Wednesday.

The Daily Caller posted a story yesterday reporting:

The amateur filmmaker who shot the footage (Obama Phone video)  also has released video revealing that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) paid protestors during a recent rally for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney .

I have shared this story before, but two years ago, when working on a campaign in Massachusetts, supporters of the Republican candidate were faced with paid protesters at a debate. There was a definite attempt by the union thugs to stir up an incident that would be reported by the press. No incident occurred, as most of the people attending the debate were mature enough to ignore the provocations. It was a lesson to me on how paid union protesters operate.

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Rats Deserting A Sinking Ship

As the Republicans hold their convention in Tampa, the Democrat convention to be held next week is taking shape. Mostly it seems as if major Democrats are choosing not to attend.

The Daily Caller reported yesterday that although Bill Clinton will be speaking at the Democrat convention, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be out of the country. She will be visiting the Cook Islands, Vladivostok, Russia, and Manchuria, China.

The article reports:

U.S. unemployment, debts and deficits are at record heights, while wages and investment are in decline.

Clinton’s departure prevents Obama from using her popularity to boost his outreach to swing-voting unmarried and married women.

Instead, Obama has awarded a speaking slot to her husband, former President Bill Clinton. That could be risky, because relations between the two presidents have been frosty, and the former president may subtly undercut the current president.

Clinton’s high-profile exit from the country and from party politics forcefully underlines her effort to distance herself from Obama’s waning political fortunes.

But it also protects her fortunes, just in case she decides to run in 2016.

On July 18, Hot Air quoted Representative Nancy Pelosi:

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi says that Democratic members should stay home and campaign in their districts rather than go to the party’s national convention in North Carolina.

“I’m not encouraging anyone to go to the convention, having nothing to do with anything except I think they should stay home, campaign in their districts, use their financial and political resources to help them win their election,” Pelosi said in an exclusive interview for POLITICO Live’s On Congress, a new weekly show to be streamed live on POLITICO’s website and broadcast on NewsChannel 8 on Wednesdays. …

“We nominated a president last time. We have an incumbent President of the United States. We’re very proud of him. There certainly will be enough people there to express that pride, but I’m not encouraging members to go to the convention no matter what the situation was, because they can be home. It’s campaign time. It’s the first week in September,” she said.

That really doesn’t sound like a comment made by a winning team. At this rate, I wonder how many average Americans will be able to get into the Democrat convention just to fill the seats!

 

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Who Is Teaching Our Children and What They Are Teaching Them ?

I have spoken before on this website about Reza Kahlili. The Daily Caller describes him as follows:

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award winning book, A Time to Betray. He is a senior Fellow with EMPact America, a member of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).

His website, A Time To Betray posted an article today about Abbas Maleki, the Iranian regime’s former deputy foreign minister and adviser to the Supreme Leader. Mr. Maleki is set to begin his academic career in America at Harvard and MIT.

The website includes a video:

It’s time to think about what our ‘best and brightest’ are learning in college.

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A Lady Who Speaks The Truth

Yesterday the Daily Caller posted a short video of some comments by Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) whistle-blower Anita Moncrief. Ms. Moncrief called for black voters to stop voting for politicians on the basis of their color. She also articulated very well the idea that she was perfectly able to think for herself and speak for herself. Regardless of where they come down on the political spectrum, we need more voters (of all colors) to do their own thinking.

Please watch the video below. Ms. Moncrief makes some very good points!

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A Historical Site Has Been Endangered By The United Nations

It isn’t news to anyone that some adherents of the Muslim religion do not have a lot of respect for the traditions and practice of other religions. In March 2001, the Taliban dynamited and destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Wikipedia reports:

The smaller of the statues was built between 544 and 595, the larger was built between 591 and 644.[9] They are believed to have been built by the Kushans, with the guidance of local Buddhist monks, at the heyday of their empire. The larger figure was also said to portray Dīpankara Buddha. They were perhaps the most famous cultural landmarks of the region, and the site was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site along with the surrounding cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley.

Note that the site was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Well, on Thursday, the Daily Caller reported that UNESCO is placing the Church of the Nativity on the list of World Heritage in Danger sites. It will be placed under the internationally sanctioned administration of the Palestinian Authority (PA) (a group dominated by Fatah.

Does anyone remember how Fatah treated the Church of the Nativity in 2002?

The Daily Caller article reminds us:

…the future of the church is now at risk.

That’s because the responsibility for the caretaking of this site has now been entrusted to the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which has not proven itself worthy of such responsibility. Fatah has been, since its founding in 1964, complicit in the harassment, persecution, assassination, imprisonment and expulsion of Christians from Palestine. In fact, it was Fatah gunmen who commandeered the church, held monks hostage within its walls and wired it with explosives in 2002 during a standoff with the Israel Defense Forces. Where was the respect for this holy site then? Who can guarantee that respect exists today? The international community has turned to the United Nations and specifically to UNESCO.

Christianity does not depend on the existence of the Church of the Nativity. The mistreatment of that church will not greatly impact what Christian people believe. It will, however, show, beyond a shadow of doubt, what the PA is made of. I truly do not see a lot of difference between the past behavior of Fatah toward the Church of the Nativity and the behavior of the Taliban toward the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

If this is the best that the UN can do to take care of an important part of the heritage of Christianity, they need to be relived of their responsibilities.

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Those Pesky E-Mails

Investors.com posted an article today about the latest scandal in the Obama Administration. You may not see this in the major media–they are too busy trying to distract the public with shiny objects–but it is an indication of how things work in the Obama Administration.

The article deals with GM’s Delphi auto parts unit and how its non-union employees were dealt with during the GM bailout.

The article reports:

The news site The Daily Caller has obtained internal government emails that show the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, pushed in 2009 to end the pensions of 20,000 non-union employees of GM’s Delphi auto parts unit as part of the auto bailout.

What’s truly outrageous is that, while those workers were cheated of their full pensions, union employees of the same Delphi company got their pensions paid.

This financially ruinous favoritism of union workers over nonunion workers is blatantly unfair, illegal and a violation of Constitutional guarantees of equal treatment under the law. And the reason is political.

This is one of many examples where government agencies were used for political purposes (paying back union supporters or wealthy donors) in the Obama Administration.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is responsible for overseeing private pensions. This organization is an independent, quasi-governmental insurer of private pension plans. Under law, that organization would have had the authority to determine how the pensions were handled.

The article further reports:

The email trail shows clearly that in April 2009 the Treasury Department held meetings on GM and Delphi, including “pension issues.” However, the PBGC was, in the words of one official, “disinvited.”

This was well before the decision, made in July, to stiff nonunion workers on their pensions. It suggests that the White House and Treasury were calling the shots — not the compromised, and politically bullied, PBGC.

This violates PBGC’s independence under the law as the sole agency that can terminate a private pension — not Treasury. Worse, the PBGC, based on the emails, seems to have thought it needed to clear whatever it did with the White House and Treasury. It didn’t.

There is also the question of whether or not several White House officials may have lied under oath when questioned about the decision on the pensions.

The Obama Administration has taken political cronyism to a new level. It is time to vote them out of office.

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The Power Of The New Media

Image of a family farm near Stockbridge, Wisco...

Image of a family farm near Stockbridge, Wisconsin, United States Espanol: un granja de la familia en Stockbridge, Wisconsin, Estados Unido (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted an article showing the power of the Internet and the new media. (Note: I suspect what happened in this case is the result of the fact that it is an election year.)

On Wednesday I posted an article about new farm regulations which will severely limit the activities of children on the family farm (rightwinggranny). I wasn’t the only one who was concerned about the regulations–the Daily Caller article I sourced made it to facebook, the Drudge Report, and other social media.

The results:

Under pressure from farming advocates in rural communities, and following a report by The Daily Caller, the Obama administration withdrew a proposed rule Thursday that would have applied child labor laws to family farms.

Score one for the good guys! However, don’t get too confident. If Obama wins a second term and has more flexibility in his policies (as he told Russian leader Dmitri Medvedev recently), these regulations may magically reappear.

Meanwhile, we can celebrate at least a temporary victory.

 

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Haven’t These People Ever Heard Of Motel 6 ?

The Daily Caller reported today that Michelle Obama‘s trip to Spain in 2010 cost the American taxpayers an estimated $467,585. Let’s take a minute and talk about some of the places we could easily cut federal spending. I don’t begrudge the First Lady a vacation–she deserves time off. But it does seem a little insensitive that when many Americans are putting aside their vacation plans in a tight economy with rising gasoline costs, Michelle Obama is living like a queen.

The article reports:

The New York Times reported that those on the trip included the first lady, one of her daughters and “two friends and four of their daughters, as well as a couple of aides and a couple of advance staff members.”

Fitton’s group has previously disclosed the cost of sending the first family on overseas trips. Its analysis indicated that it cost $424,142 to fly the first family to South Africa and Botswana in 2011.

That’s nearly one millions dollars on trips in two years. It seems a little high. I would think that the First Family would be willing to set an example for the rest of the country in cutting back their spending.

In February 2010, as quoted in an article in The U. K. Telegraph, the President told Americans:

Speaking about the economy at an event in New Hampshire, Mr Obama told Americans: “When times are tough, you tighten your belts.

“You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college. You prioritise. You make tough choices.”

The President should start listening to his own speeches.

 

 

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Isn’t It A Little Early For The Democrats To Be Desperate ?

It isn’t news to anyone who pays attention that some of the attacks on Mitt Romney will be based on his Mormon religion (just as John Kennedy was attacked for his Catholic religion). But sometimes the attacks are stretched far enough to be ridiculous.

Today’s Daily Caller reports that Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, described as a moderate Democrat, has stated:

…likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney may have trouble in the general election because his father was “born on a polygamy commune in Mexico,”
 
George Romney was born in 1907. He was born–he was not responsible for the circumstances surrounding his birth!
 
The article at the Daily Caller points out that George Romney’s parents were in a
monogamous marriage and moved back to the United States when George was still a child. This isn’t even criticism of the candidate–it is criticism of the circumstances surrounding the birth of his father. Where is the commentary on Barack Obama’s father? Where is the commentary on his numerous wives?
 
How many generations are the Democrats willing to examine in order to do opposition research on the Republican candidates?

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Why Is It That The People Who Are Not Impacted By Higher Gas Prices Always Want The Rest Of Us To Pay More ?

I live in Massachusetts. After the redistricting this year, I was moved into Representative Barney Frank‘s district. Barney Frank is not running for re-election–thus there is an open seat. At the present time, there is only one Republican in the Massachusetts Congressional delegation–Scott Brown. If I have my way, there will be at least two after the 2012 election.

The Massachusetts Democrat party, in a truly typical move, put forth Joseph Kennedy III as the candidate for Barney Frank’s seat. I am not even sure he lives in the district he will represent, but he can afford to buy another house if he needs to. Qualifications? You’re kidding.

The Daily Caller that Joseph Kennedy III wrote an online letter to supporters calling for an end to “cheap oil.”

The online letter states:

Second, we need to get serious about our dependence on foreign oil. Energy independence is the goal most often talked about over the last 40 years while also the most neglected.

Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama – they’ve all talked about the same thing: the need to wean ourselves off our debilitating dependence on foreign oil.

The cycle that allows cheap oil to trump tough choices has to stop. 40 years is enough.

And while mortgaging our energy future to foreign interests, we’ve also surrendered our financial independence. We’ve run up $15 trillion in national debt.

Has it not occurred to this man that energy independence (development of our own energy sources) might be a better answer to this problem?

The article reminds us:

Since 2005, Kennedy’s father, former Massachusetts Rep. Joseph Kennedy Jr., has teamed up with Hugo Chavez, the anti-American, communist strongman of Venezuela, to bring free oil to poor people in the United States.

I hope the Massachusetts voters think carefully before they vote. Joseph Kennedy III is not a man we need in the House of Representatives right now. The increased cost of gasoline has stretched the budgets of all ordinary people–raising it more will do serious economic damage to the state and national economy. What in the world is this man thinking?

 

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An Election Year Is No Excuse To Avoid Doing Your Job

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday on the progress of the Senate in producing a budget. The Senate is legally required to pass a budget by April 15th, but is not at all interested in doing so. Why? Because it is an election year, and Democrat Senators (who hold the majority) do not want to go on the record as supporting anything.

Outgoing Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad announced that his committee would be marking up a budget, but his efforts were shut down by Harry Reid.

Power Line reports:

Then, earlier this afternoon, Conrad gave a press conference in which he made the stunning announcement that there will be no budget markup after all. Instead, he will present a budget to the Budget Committee tomorrow. There will be no amendments and there will be no votes; not, at least, until after the election. Apparently Conrad had been proceeding on his own initiative, and at the 11th hour Harry Reid–supported by members of his caucus who do not want to have to go on record in favor of any budget–shut down the process.

Whoops!

The article further reports:

The content of Conrad’s budget is almost an afterthought, but it may be even worse than President Obama’s. It includes zero spending cuts from the existing baseline and increases taxes by $2.6 trillion, $700 billion more than Obama’s budget. Under Conrad’s budget, the federal debt (granting all assumptions underlying the calculations) would increase by $7 trillion.

A Daily Caller article posted today tells what happens next: 

Without a formal budget process, the 2013 budget will be prepared in a closed-door, end-of-year conference meeting of Senate and House leaders.

It’s time to elect people to Congress who care more about the country than their own political futures.

 
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Sometimes History Is Amazing

 
Official Portrait of President Ronald Reagan.

Official Portrait of President Ronald Reagan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

March 30, 1981, was the day that President Reagan was shot. The Daily Caller posted a very interesting article on the shooting on Friday. It seems that sometimes a small decision can have a lot of impact.

The article at the Daily Caller reported that after the assassination attempt on President Reagan, Mike Deaver felt responsible for the injuries to James Brady. It seems that as they were leaving the hotel, one of the reporters asked a question and Mr. Deaver moved Press Secretary Brady closer to the reporter to answer the question. Mr. Deaver felt that he had put the Press Secretary in the line of fire and was responsible for his getting shot.

Later, Mr. Deaver talked to the neurosurgeon that had operated on the Press Secretary.

The article tells the story:

The doctor listened, thought about it. When Deaver had told his story, the doctor asked, “How tall are you?”

Deaver was startled. “I told him, ‘I’m five foot nine.’ ”

And the neurosurgeon said, “Jim Brady is six feet tall. And if he’d stayed there where he had been before you moved him Ronald Reagan would be dead. Because Brady took the bullet that would have killed Reagan.”

If it had been Deaver standing where Brady was, the bullet would have gone over his head and hit the president.

As it was, we came very close the losing a great President. If Mike Deaver had not wanted to let the Press Secretary answer the question, we probably would have lost Ronald Reagan in that incident. There is a very good book written about the events of that day called Rawhide Down written by Del Quentin Wilber. I strongly recommend it.

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An Apology Is Definitely Required

Today’s Daily Caller asks the question:

Has Obama called David and Elaine McClain to make sure they’re holding up ok? They’re the elderly Florida couple whose address Spike Lee tweeted because he thought it was George Zimmerman’s. Presumably because he wanted people to go there and discuss things calmly.

That is the danger of stirring up unrest without bothering to find out what the facts are.

Fox News reported:

An elderly Florida couple have been forced to move into a hotel after their home address was wrongly tweeted as belonging to the man who shot teen Trayvon Martin.

The tweets were traced back to a man in California and the address was also reportedly retweeted by director Spike Lee to his almost 250,000 followers.

The couple, aged 70 and 72, have been harassed with hate mail, been hassled by media and had scared neighbors questioning them since the tweet, their son Chip Humble told the Orlando Sentinel.

Fearful for their safety, and hoping to escape the spotlight, the couple have temporarily moved to a hotel.

We need to take a really good look at this event and, as the President said, do some serious soul-searching.

 
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Exactly What Are We Teaching Our Children ?

Yesterday the Daily Caller posted a story about Fairfax County Virginia 8th Grade Students who were asked to do opposition research on the Republican presidential candidates and then find our where the information could be sent to help the Obama Campaign. No assignments were given to do opposition research on President Obama and send it to the Republicans (although I am told that was added in after the story hit the news).

The article reports:

The assignment was for students to research the backgrounds and positions of each of the GOP candidates for president and find “weaknesses” in them, the parent explained. From there, students were to prepare a strategy paper to exploit those weaknesses and then to send their suggestions to the Obama campaign.

Liberty teacher Michael Denman, who declined to comment, unveiled the assignment in mid-January when he broke the Civics Honor’s class into four groups, one for each Republican candidate. The students were then to collaborate as a group and research the backgrounds of their assigned candidate.

Denman assigned two kids to write a paper revealing the identified “weaknesses,” two to write the attack strategy paper and two others to locate an individual inside the Obama campaign to whom they could send the information.

Somehow, this doesn’t seem quite right. The thing to keep in mind here is that the only reason we know about this is that some parents cared enough about what their children were being taught to speak out. We, as parents, are responsible for the education of our children; and we, as citizens, are responsible for what happens in our representative republic. 

 

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The Question Here Is Why The Truth Is Coming Out Now

Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller posted a story about a Washington Post story detailing what happened during the negotiations on the deficit last summer. As you probably remember, the media story was that the Republicans were intransigent and the Democrats couldn’t do anything about it. Well, it seems as if what we were told was not actually true.

The article at the Daily Caller summarizes the information in the Washington Post:

According to the Post,  the two sides (Obama and Boehner) were close to a deal. Then Obama foolishly trumpeted a “Gang of Six” proposal that had a much higher tax number, which had the effect of making the deal look small. ** He then demanded a 50% increase ($400 billion) in new revenues. When the talks then blew up, he tried to get his old deal back, but it was too late.

I believe the Republicans stated this at the time, but I seriously doubt anyone heard them above the roar of the media template.

Please follow the link to the Daily Caller to read the entire article. It is a great read. It makes very clear that President Obama’s inexperience as a negotiator was responsible for the difficulty in coming together. The article also reminds us that part of the Democrat plan was to raise the age of eligibility for Medicare. I think it’s time to remind the baby boomers of that before they vote in November.

 

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Smoke And Mirrors In ObamaCare

The Daily Caller is reporting today that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has finalized its policies governing state health care exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Included in these policies are the laws governing abortion coverage.

Section 1303 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires enrollees in the health care exchanges to pay a separate monthly surcharge for abortion coverage. Well, HHS has set those guidelines–the surcharge will be one dollar.

The article reports:

“Obamacare nearly collapsed under the allegations that the law would use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions. Because of a useless executive order, which was supposed to forbid tax dollars from paying for abortions, that swayed self-professed pro-life Members of Congress to vote for the monstrosity, the bill passed,” Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life of America, told TheDC.

“Now final rules from HHS could not be clearer: taxpayers, whether they are pro-life or pro-choice, will certainly be paying for abortions,” said Hawkins.

If you value the lives of the elderly, the terminally ill, or the unborn, you need to vote Republican in November so that ObamaCare will be repealed and the lives of the people you love will be protected.

 

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It May Already Be Too Late To Deal With The Problem Of Iran

Reza Kahlili posted an article at the Daily Caller today about some recent comments in the Iranian newspaper Kayhan. Reza Kahlili is the pseudonym of a former Iranian Revolutionary Guard member who worked undercover as a CIA agent for several years in the ’80s and ’90s.

The article at the Daily Caller reports:

The newspaper, which is under the supervision of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ran the story under the headline “11,000 Missiles Ready to Launch.”

And on Saturday, Tehran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Qazanfar Roknabadi, confirmed during a public roundtable event that the Islamic regime is prepared to attack both Israel and U.S. bases in the region if its nuclear facilities are attacked.

Citing comments from Gen. Zakaraia Hossein, the former head of the superior academy of Egypt, the Kayhan report added that “America fully knows that Iran is not Iraq” and that “a war with Iran would jeopardize all its interests in the region.”

One of the things to remember in dealing with Iran is that this is the country that put keys around the necks of twelve-year-old boys (the keys were supposed to be the keys to paradise) and told them to walk through minefields during the Iran-Iraq War to clear the way for the Iranian tanks. The leaders of the country are truly irrational.

In December of 2011, Fox News reported that Iran was buying weapons from China. It was reported that China sold Iran $11 billion worth of advanced DF-31 ICBMs which are capable of reaching U.S. soil with nuclear warheads. North Korean engineers are helping to get the missile system up and running. Stopping Iran’s nuclear program is not only about the destruction of Israel.

Whether we attack Iran or Israel attacks Iran, the results are going to be messy and a lot of people are going to die. The only hope we have is regime change, and that seems to be a very slim hope right now. The Israelis have tried everything short of war to stop Iran’s nuclear program, and I fear that we are rapidly reaching the point where attacking the nuclear facilities of Iran will be the only solution, as awful as that solution will be.

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Common Sense Happens

The Daily Caller is reporting today that the New Hampshire Senate has passed a bill requiring voters to show identification when they vote.

This is in response to the following video:

 

The video was done by James O’Keefe and shows people giving the names of people who had recently died receiving ballots to vote. The legislation still has to be passed by the New Hampshire House.

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Why We Need Internet News Sources

The Daily Caller has recently been doing an investigation into the group Media Matters. Media Matters is a tax exempt organization supposedly created to correct conservative misinformation in the media. However, Media Matters is looking more and more like an auxiliary wing of the White House and Democrat party.

The Daily Caller reports:

The liberal Media Matters for America organization once accepted a $50,000 grant to monitor and attack religious news outlets, according to tax returns examined by The Daily Caller.

The grant came in 2006 from the ARCA Foundation, a 60-year-old philanthropy that funds Democratic causes. The foundation gave Media Matters the $50,000 “to support a Religious Broadcasting Project to expand the monitoring and fact checking of religious broadcasts,” according to its tax return that year.

This is the link to the Daily Caller page with information about the other aspects of the investigation.

This organization is tax exempt. It seems to me that the first step in dealing with Media Matters would be to revisit their tax-exempt status.

 

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This Sort Of Logic Almost Earned Me An F In Geometry

The Daily Caller posted an article on some of the recent testimony of  U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Mr. Holder was testifying on the subject of Operation Fast and Furious, but his testimony included the following statement:

This administration has consistently favored the reinstitution of the assault weapons ban. It is something that we think was useful in the past with regard to the reduction that we’ve seen in crime, and certainly would have a positive impact on our relationship and the crime situation in Mexico.

This is an amazing statement. It is becoming very obvious that the Obama Administration (including Eric Holder) purposely allowed large numbers of guns to flow into Mexico illegally. Now the Attorney General is saying that stricter gun laws would help our relationship with Mexico and reduce crime in Mexico. Wait a minute! The guns that went into Mexico went in illegally–more laws won’t do any good if no one is willing to follow them (particularly the government). The problem with gun laws is that only law-abiding citizens follow them–criminals don’t. Adding more gun laws simply disarms the general population making them more vulnerable to assault by those with illegal guns. Maybe the answer is better enforcement of the laws we currently have.
 
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I Am Glad That The Unions Are Helping People Find Work

Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted an article and a video about the Occupy Protesters at the Conservative Political Action Convention (CPAC). Occupy Wall Street had said last week that they would be protesting CPAC, so the protesters were not unexpected.

However, the video is a bit of a surprise. One protester is asked whet he is protesting–he has no idea. Another protester explains that the local union offered him $60 to protest and since he has been out of work for a long time, he accepted the offer. He also has no idea what he is protesting–he simply needs the work!

There is nothing illegal about what the union is doing–protesters can be paid or unpaid. However, I have been to a few tax day protests by the Tea Party, and I can assure you that no one there was getting paid. I think it says something that the left has to pay its protesters (and that they have no idea what they are protesting) and the right protests for free and can articulate their cause (less government, lower taxes, and a return to the U.S. Constitution).

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A Great Idea That Will Probably Die In The Senate

On Friday, the Daily Caller reported that Harry Reid told reporters that the Senate would not pass a budget this year. Senator Reid did not feel a budget was necessary because he felt that the debt-ceiling agreement already covered that. Never mind that the Senate is constitutionally required to pass a budget.

To add to the confusion, CNS News reported on Friday that the House of Representatives has now passed a bill to eliminate baseline budgeting. Baseline budgeting is the practice that allows Congress to claim it is cutting the budget while it continues to increase spending. This is done by assuming every government agency will have a certain percentage increase every year. If the amount of that increase is cut, it is a considered a spending cut, even though the agency got an actual increase in the amount it could spend. For example, let’s say the Department of Education spent $100 this year. Next year they would automatically get $110. If Congress cut the budget and they were only given $105, that would be considered a budget cut, even though their budget grew.

That is baseline budgeting. That is what the House of Representatives voted to end on Friday. Is anyone willing to make a bet on how far this bill will get in the Senate?

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