Obamacare Website Quietly Deletes Reference to 'Free Health Care'

Even as President Obama and his administration are making a last minute push to encourage enrollment in Obamacare, a quiet change was made on the Healthcare.gov website regarding those who will still not be able to afford coverage after the program kicks in. From at least June 26, 2013 to as recently as September 15, under the topic, "Where can I get free or low-cost care in my community?" the following statement appeared: "If you can't afford any health plan, you can get free or low-cost health and dental care at a nearby community health center." Here is how the page in question appeared:

Read more at the Weekly Standard Read More......

House Votes to Delay Obamacare, Repeal Medical Device Tax

Shortly after midnight, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal Obamacare’s tax on medical devices and delay the unpopular law’s implementation by one year. ✧ The two amendments to the Senate-passed continuing resolution would fund the federal government through December 15. The measure returns to the Senate, with the fate of a government shutdown now resting with President Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). In the event of a shutdown, the House approved a separate bill that would pay the U.S. military. Read more at Heritage/Foundry... Read More......

An Obama-Cruz Shutdown

Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2013
The President is refusing to compromise on anything. ✧ Washington is careening toward a partial government shutdown on Tuesday amid its usual synthetic outrage. As the partisan cries grow in volume, it's worth a few minutes to sort the truth from the nonsense. ✧ The first thing to keep in mind is that this does not mean "anarchy," in Harry Reid's typically subtle formulation, or even a complete government shutdown. Functions deemed "essential" will continue, and it's debatable how many of those really are crucial to daily American life. The military will be paid, Social Security checks will still go out. Many Americans will be inconvenienced, but tens of millions may come to realize how easily they can do without most of the vast federal Leviathan.

A second reality is that both parties are responsible for getting to this point. Americans chose a divided government in 2010 and again in 2012, electing House Republicans as a check on Democrats whose undiluted liberalism alarmed millions of voters when they ran the entire government in 2009-2010. The inability to compromise now is rooted in the wide disagreement about the role of government that now separates the two parties. We've criticized GOP Senator Ted Cruz for his strategy to make defunding ObamaCare a requirement of funding the rest of government. He and his allies know that Mr. Obama can never agree to that, and even millions of Americans who oppose ObamaCare don't agree with his shutdown ultimatum. It risks political damage for the House and Senate GOP in 2014 even as Mr. Cruz builds his email list for 2016.

Yet it takes two to tangle, and Mr. Obama is as much to blame for the partisan pileup as Mr. Cruz. This is a President who is eager to negotiate with dubiously elected Iranian mullahs but can't abide compromise with duly elected leaders of Congress. He refuses to negotiate at all over an increase in the federal debt limit, claiming this has never happened. Like so much that Mr. Obama says, he knows this is false. His own staff suggested the spending sequester during the 2011 debt debate, and Democratic Congresses have used the debt limit to extract concessions from Republican Presidents.

Mr. Obama also refuses to bend on any part of ObamaCare—except when he unilaterally announces bending in his own political interest. He decided on his own, and contrary to the plain text of the law, to delay for a year the business mandate to provide insurance for employees. He also unilaterally delayed verifying the income of Americans seeking subsidies. He did this to pile more people into the ObamaCare exchanges, lest they fail, and to limit the harm to job creation before 2014.

Yet now he'd rather see the government shut down than accept the ObamaCare compromises that House Republicans have put in their latest government funding bill. He refuses to delay the law for a year though his own actions reveal it is not ready for prime time. And he won't even accept repeal of the medical-device tax that 79 Senators, including 33 Democrats, are on record as supporting. The tax is already hurting innovation and sending jobs overseas.

Mr. Obama's refusal to negotiate suggests that he wants a shutdown—either over the budget or debt limit. His agenda is dying on Capitol Hill, because of Senate Democrats as well as House Republicans. With his approval rating down and independents leaning toward the GOP, he figures his only chance to salvage a second-term domestic legacy is to restore Nancy Pelosi as Speaker in his final two years. His best opening to make that happen is a shutdown or debt-limit crisis that he will try to blame on Republicans. A shutdown is as much his strategy as it is Mr. Cruz's.

A version of this article appeared September 30, 2013, on page A16 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: An Obama-Cruz Shutdown. (Hat tip: Elias Sandervaal on Facebook) Read More......

Top MIT scientist: Newest UN climate report is ‘hilariously’ flawed

“I think that the latest IPCC report has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence,” Dr. Richard Lindzen told Climate Depot, a global warming skeptic news site. “They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase.” Read more at the Daily Caller...

---

From Marc Morano at Climate Depot via Australia
Even if the IPCC predictions were 100% correct... why should anyone trust them? ✧ The AGW advocates delight in making shrill claims about sceptics being funded by “Big Oil”, which the advocates believe is a perfectly good reason to dismiss much, if not all, of what they say as compromised. But what’s the difference with the IPCC? It is an organisation that is funded by “Big Green”, comprised of governments desperate to appear politically correct, vested interests from academia and business, and environmental activist groups. What goes for one, goes for the other. By analogy, anything the IPCC says must be regarded as equally compromised. ✧ The only differences, as far as I can see, are that:

Big Green funds the AGW advocates a thousand dollars for every one dollar funding sceptics;
the IPCC shies away from transparency and open debate, whereas sceptics encourage it.

Read More......

Al-Qaeda returns. The new face of terror

The West thought it was winning the battle against jihadist terrorism. It should think again. A FEW months ago Barack Obama declared that al-Qaeda was “on the path to defeat”. Its surviving members, he said, were more concerned for their own safety than with plotting attacks on the West. Terrorist attacks of the future, he claimed, would resemble those of the 1990s—local rather than transnational and focused on “soft targets”. His overall message was that it was time to start winding down George Bush’s war against global terrorism. Mr Obama might argue that the assault on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi by al-Qaeda’s Somali affiliate, the Shabab, was just the kind of thing he was talking about: lethal, shocking, but a long way from the United States. Yet the inconvenient truth is that, in the past 18 months, despite the relentless pummelling it has received and the defeats it has suffered, al-Qaeda and its jihadist allies have staged an extraordinary comeback.

Read more at The Economist Read More......

76% of GOP now 'conservative,' pick Cruz for 2016 nomination

This won’t surprise Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid or GOP old bull Sen. John McCain -- the largest chunk of the Republican Party is now very conservative. According to a new PPP poll, which has Sen. Ted Cruz the top choice for the 2016 Republican nomination, those who describe themselves as “very conservative” make up 39 percent of the splintered party. Add in those who consider themselves “somewhat conservative,” and the right-leaning voters comprise 76 percent of the party. In the new poll of 743 Republican primary voters, 1 percent called themselves “very liberal,” 4 percent “somewhat liberal,” and just 18 percent as “moderate.” Among the conservative voters, Cruz is the leading choice for the GOP nomination. He won 34 percent of that group. But he also shows remarkable crossover as 32 percent of the “very liberal” crowd also prefer him.

Read more at the Washington Examiner Read More......

Cavuto: Mr. President, Your Health Care Law Is The Problem

Cavuto: Mr. President, Fox News isn't what's making Americans sick about your health care law; your health care law is.

See transcript at RealClear Politics... Read More......

This Year's SAT Scores Are Out, and They're Grim

Fewer than half of the 2013 graduating seniors who took the test got "college-ready" scores.  

Of the 1.66 million high school students in the class of 2013 who took the SAT, only 43 percent were academically prepared for college-level work, according to this year’s SAT Report on College & Career Readiness. For the fifth year in a row, fewer than half of SAT-takers received scores that qualified them as “college-ready.”

The College Board considers a score of 1550 to be the “College and Career Readiness Benchmark.” Students who meet the benchmark(PDF) are more likely to enroll in a four-year college, more likely to earn a GPA of a B- or higher their freshman year, and more likely to complete their degree.

“While some might see stagnant scores as no news, the College Board considers them a call to action. These scores can and must change — and the College Board feels a sense of responsibility to help make that happen,” the report said.

 

Read more at The Atlantic

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Senate exceeds 60 ‘yes’ votes on cloture; Debate halted on continuing resolution

There were many Republicans in the Senate who voted “yes” on the continuing resolution, which is essentially a vote against defunding Obamacare. Exceeding 60 votes means there will be no more debate on the spending bill. ✧ Having gotten the 60 votes means that Harry Reid will now only need a simple majority of votes in order to put the funding for Obamacare back into the spending bill. ✧ Final vote was 79-19. Read more at Twitchy...

These Republican senators voted 'NO' on cloture:

Cruz (R-TX), Rubio (R-FL), Sessions (R-AL), Vitter (R-LA), Paul (R-KY), Lee (R-UT), Crapo (R-ID), Enzi (R-WY), Fischer R-NE), Roberts (R-KS), Scott (R-SC), Heller (R-NV), Grassley (R-IA), Toomey (R-PA), Moran R-KS), Shelby (R-AL), Risch (R-ID), Inhofe (R-OK), Portman (R-OH)

These Republicans voted 'YES' on cloture:

Alexander (R-TN), Ayotte (R-NH), Barrasso (R-WY), Blunt (R-MO), Boozman (R-AR), Burr (R-NC), Chiesa (R-NJ), Chambliss (R-GA), Coats (R-IN), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Collins (R-ME), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Graham (R-SC), Hoeven (R-ND), Isakson (R-GA), Johnson (R-WI), Johanns (R-NE), Kirk (R-IL), McCain (R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY), Murkowski (R-AK), Thune (R-SD), Wicker (R-MS)

Read More......

Lumber Liquidators Import Probe Follows Gibson Guitar

Although details were initially sketchy, Lumber Liquidators' (LL) stock price plunged as much as 10% early Friday after a reported raid by federal investigators on its headquarters related to a probe of illegal imports.

In a statement, the top flooring retailer with more than 300 stores nationwide, said it would provide to investigators information and documents related to the import of certain products.

The Department of Homeland Security, along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Department of Justice conducted the raid, acting under a sealed court-issued warrant.

Read more at Investor's Business Daily

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Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the 'pathetic' American media

Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.

It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".

He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.

Read more at the UK Guardian Read More......

Heartland Blog: A Short Guide to Obamacare

By Matt Faharty - It’s not a national healthcare system. It’s not the free market. It isn’t what we’ve had for the last forty years. So what is Obamacare?

Maybe I am too late to write about this topic since the Affordable Care Act has already been passed and is in the process of implementation. Then again, the bill is infamously opaque, and I believe very few people, either in Washington, the media, or the general public understand what Obamacare is, or how it will make healthcare more affordable. A study in the Journal of Health Economics published this month claims that only 14% of Americans between ages 25 and 64 have a basic understanding of how insurance works, let alone how Obamacare will effect it. Nobody even seems to know how long the bill is with estimates ranging from 10,000 to 33,000 pages of mind-numbing bureaucratic documents.

According to Nancy Pelosi we should start to know what is in the bill at this point, so I will take a crack at it. Read more at Somewhat Reasonable, a Heartland.org blog ... Read More......

Sign up for Peter DeFazio's October 1st tele-townhall

UPDATE: CANCELLED DUE TO SHUTDOWN

DeFazio cancels townhalls scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday (Sep 25-26). Schedules Tele-townhall for 6:00PM (PDT), Tuesday, October 1st. SIGN UP FOR REP. DEFAZIO'S OCTOBER 1 TELE-TOWN HALL Read More......

On This Date in 1983, Stanislav Petrov Single-Handedly Prevented Nuclear War

On September 26, 1983, the world came very close to nuclear war. Shortly after midnight, alarms inside Serpukhov-15—a bunker in Moscow where the Soviet Union monitored its satellites over the United States—began to go off. The satellites had detected the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile from a base in the United States. Then the system reported that five missiles had been launched and were heading toward the Soviet Union from the U.S.
Read More......

A Perfect Storm in New Jersey’s Senate Race?

When New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg died earlier this year, there were few people who believed the Republicans had a chance of picking up the seat. Pundits, conservatives and liberals alike believed Newark Mayor Cory Booker would simply walk into the Senate as Lautenberg's successor. They didn't count on former Bogota, N.J. Mayor Steve Lonegan who, according to the latest Quinnipiac Poll, is making it a real race. Lonegan has been stumping up and down the Garden State making the case for his candidacy while Booker, who has apparently bought into all the pre-election hype, has spent a significant portion of his time campaigning out of state in places like California. The Quinnipiac poll confirms what several private polls have already shown: it's a 12 point race. Lonegan is down 41 percent to 53 percent among the 948 likely voters surveyed, meaning it's still not quite a horse race; but the former businessman and long-time political activist has cut Booker's lead in half with virtually no money and with almost no outside support.

Read more at US News Read More......

Senator Cruz Continues Floor Speech on Senate Floor - Procedural Vote on CR Later Today

UPDATE: Senator Cruz held the floor for 21 hours. Technically, his speech was not a filibuster since he was not delaying action on a bill and thus, was required to stop speaking before voting commenced on the continuing resolution on procedure.

Watch on C-Span2 - Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) continues to speak [started at 2:41pm ET on Tuesday] on the Senate floor about his opposition to the ACA and why he wants to block the continuing resolution. He stated he intends to talk “until I am no longer able to stand.” Throughout the evening he responded to questions from fellow opponents of Obamacare, such as Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), as well as Democratic supporters of the health law, Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA). Read More......

Human population a plague on the Earth?

Rob Sloan of The American Vision takes on 16th Century Giovanni Botero, 18th Century Dr. Robert Wallace, 19th Century Thomas Robert Malthus, and now Sir David Attenborough, Bill and Melinda Gates, and hoards of environmentalists and NGO utopians claiming that earth cannot support high populations or that people are the scourge of the earth and strict population control is a necessity. Sloan disputes the dire warnings that worldwide famine and poverty is a certainty if human population is not drastically reduced. He writes,

It is quite simply a fallacy to equate large populations with famine and poverty and an even bigger error to propose population control as the means of dealing with the situation. As the economist Murray Rothbard pointed out, “A rising population is generally a sign of, and goes along with, prosperity and economic development.

Snip

The fact is, Sir David Attenborough, along with Bill & Melinda, have no more idea what the maximum population of the Earth is than I do or Malthus did 200 years ago. Only God knows that. Nor do they know how much more abundance the Earth can bring forth than it presently does. Again only God knows that. What we do know is that where the gospel has prospered and where people have by and large been allowed to innovate and produce, blessing has followed, populations have grown and the people have been fed. And where the state has attempted to fill the role of God, centrally planning, disincentivising work and innovation, poverty and famine inevitably follow.

Read full article at American Vision... Read More......

URGENT Obamacare Update – ACTION NEEDED NOW!

Over one million, six-hundred thousand Americans have signed the online DO NOT FUND OBAMACARE petition. Last week the House voted to fund the government, but NOT Obamacare, which is what We the People asked them to do.

Now Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and John Cornyn (R-TX) – the top two Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate have announced they will support “cloture” on the total government funding. This means the government funding bill which INCLUDES funding Obamacare can be passed with only 50 votes. These men who took an oath to uphold the Constitution are turning their backs on the wishes of the American people, their fellow partisan senators and siding with Obamacare. ✧ Call them now and tell them to represent The People, not Washington politicians.

Mitch McConnell - 202-224-2541
John Cornyn - 202-224-2934

Please go to THIS LINK for a list of senators to call and a script to print off so you can add your voice to this swelling cry! Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see who has pledged to not fund Obamacare!

(Hat tip: J.A. Hetterle) Read More......

U.S. House votes to defund Obamacare

See final vote results HERE. Oregon's U.S. Representatives voted as follows:

• Suzanne Bonamici (D) - NO
• Greg Walden (R) - YES
• Earl Blumenauer (D) - NO
• Peter DeFazio (D) - NO
• Curt Schrader (D) - NO

Urgent! Call your senators and make your voice be heard!

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) - DC (202) 224-3753, Salem (503) 362-8102
Sen. Ron Wyden (D) - DC (202) 224-5244, Salem (503) 589-4555

Read More......

Spitting on Their Graves: Democrats Leave Benghazi Hearing Before Testimony From Families of Victims

By Katie Pavlich, Townhall.com
During the second portion of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing about Benghazi Thursday on Capitol Hill, the majority of Democrats on the Committee left the room and refused to listen to the testimony of Patricia Smith and Charles Woods. Ms. Smith is the mother of Sean Smith, an information management officer killed in the 9/11 Benghazi attack. Charles Woods is the father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, who was also killed. ✧ The only Democrats who stayed were Ranking Member Elijah Cummings and Rep. Jackie Speier.

Never forget Benghazi! Read More......

NRO: Congress’s Exemption from Obamacare

By John Fund
Make Congress get insurance the same way the little people do? Hill denizens howl in fury. Prostitution. Bribery. Blackmail. Thuggery. Hypocrisy. ✧ Those were just some of the incendiary words thrown around the U.S. Senate last week, and that doesn’t count what people said in private. ✧ The Senate may still have a reputation as a genteel club, but lawmakers seemed to abandon rules of decorum completely last week in arguments about whether Congress should be treated like the rest of the country when it comes to Obamacare. Read more at National Review Online...

Political malpractice! Read More......

Examiner: White House criticizes GOP for blocking gun-control agenda

A day after a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, White House press secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday placed the blame for President Obama’s stalled gun-control agenda solely on Republicans. See Brian Hughges article at the Washington Examiner... Read More......

Gresham bakery: example of why people mistrust the media

By Dan Lucas
Gallup reported a year ago that distrust in the media had hit a new high, with 60% saying they had little or no trust in newspapers, TV and radio when it came to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly. ✧ A recent example in Oregon shows why there is that distrust. ✧ The example involves the Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery in Gresham. In January the bakery said they wouldn’t bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple for a same-sex marriage, as it violated their religious beliefs. The bakery had previously sold a wedding cake to the same lesbian couple when the wedding cake wasn’t for a same-sex marriage, and the bakery does sell their cakes to gays and lesbians, just not for same-sex marriages. Find out what the press 'didn't report' at Oregon Catalyst... Read More......

Warren Buffett: Scrap Obamacare and Start Over

You know things are bad for President Obama when even Warren Buffett has soured on Obamacare and says that "we need something else." Money Morning writes:

"Healthcare costs in the United States are like a tapeworm eating at our economic body." Those words come from famed investor Warren Buffett, who said he would scrap Obamacare and start all over. "We have a health system that, in terms of costs, is really out of control," he added. "And if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So we need something else." Read more at Weekly Standard Blog...

Read More......

Oof! Wanna see what Pravda has to say?

Barack Obama: The worst President in the history of the USA Read More......

WP: Where Congress stands on Syria

Lawmakers appear to be tentatively dividing into four camps over military action in Syria; 1) AGAINST Military Action, 2) LEANING NO, 3) UNDECIDED and, 4) FOR Military Action. The Washington Post is tracking House and Senate members positions. Read more at the Washington Post...

OREGON - As of Sept. 12th:

• Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR First District): Leaning NO
  
• Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR Second District): AGAINST - “Absent a direct threat to the United States or our allies and a clear goal and definition of victory, I must oppose using military force in Syria.”
  
• Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR Third District): UNDECIDED
  
• Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR Fourth District): AGAINST - “This situation is incredibly fluid, but I currently do not support an open-ended, ill-defined intervention in another civil war.”
  
• Rep. Curt Schrader (D-OR Fifth District): AGAINST - “...direct U.S. military involvement at this time is one of the worst of many bad options.”
  
• Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR): UNDECIDED
  
• Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): UNDECIDED

Read More......

Putin's letter

New York Times/Opinion "A Plea for Caution From Russia" by Vladimir V. Putin, published September 11, 2013 - What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria Read More......

Indoctrination in Common Core ELA Texts

Please watch! See Flyer for AFP and Capitol Watch Rally on Capitol Steps in Salem, 11AM-1PM, Wednesday, September 18, 2013

(Hat tip: Democrats Against U.N. Agenda 21, "This is Common Core. Common Core is Agenda 21.")

Read More......

New Poll Shows GOP Shifting in Fascinating New Direction

Republicans in record numbers moving toward the ideals and principles of libertarianism, according to a new poll by released by the grassroots group FreedomWorks. ✧ The survey of all registered voters, which was conducted last month, found that a full 78 percent of Republican and GOP-leaning voters self-identify as being fiscally conservative and socially moderate. Read more at The Blaze...

(Hat tip: Christie) Lots of interesting data. --bc Read More......

Companies lay off thousands, then demand immigration reform for new labor

On Tuesday, the chief human resources officers of more than 100 large corporations sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urging quick passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill.  The officials represent companies with a vast array of business interests: General Electric, The Walt Disney Company, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, McDonald's Corporation, The Wendy's Company, Coca-Cola, The Cheesecake Factory, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications, Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, and many more. All want to see increases in immigration levels for low-skill as well as high-skill workers, in addition to a path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants currently in the U.S. illegally.  A new immigration law, the corporate officers say, "would be a long overdue step toward aligning our nation's immigration policies with its workforce needs at all skill levels to ensure U.S. global competitiveness." The officials cite a publication of their trade group, the HR Policy Association, which calls for immigration reform to "address the reality that there is a global war for talent." The way for the United States to win that war for talent, they say, is more immigration.

Read more at the Washington Examiner Read More......

Polls shows likely GOP senate takeover in 2014

A new Landmark/Rosetta Stone poll of the upcoming South Carolina senate primary, released last night, shows incumbent Senator Lindsey Graham to be facing a strong primary challenge in his bid for reelection next year. While Graham polls at 42 percent, that is well below the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Should a runoff take place, he would run against the second place candidate, and if most of that other 58 percent unified behind the challenger, Graham could find himself being fired by Republican primary voters in his bid for another six-year term as South Carolina's Senior Senator. Aside from that seat, there are 33 other senate seats in contention during this election cycle. With the Democrats finding themselves defending many of these seats, including some in so-called “red” Republican-leaning states, the GOP has an excellent opportunity to regain majority control of the U. S. Senate after the 2014 elections.

Read more at the Examiner Read More......

The Colorado recalls dealt a serious blow to gun-control advocates. Here’s why.

Something pretty remarkable happened in Colorado on Tuesday night. John Morse, the Democratic president of the state Senate, was recalled from office. So was Democratic state Sen. Angela Giron.

Taken together, the losses arguably represent the biggest defeat for gun-control advocates since the push for expanded background checks failed in the U.S. Senate earlier this year.

Read more at the Washington Post Read More......

Lyndon McCain Meets Woodrow Obama

What made John McCain Senator John McCain?

Republican presidential nominee John McCain?

Long before that, Congressman John McCain?

And what exactly does Barack Obama have in common with Woodrow Wilson?

First, let’s deal with Senator McCain and his fellow Vietnam vets Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

Read more at the AmericanSpectator Read More......

IRS Gave Black Nonprofits Preferential Treatment

At the same time the IRS harassed Republican nonprofit groups during the 2012 political campaign, it selectively advised black churches and other Democrat nonprofits on how far they can go in campaigning for President Obama and other Democrats. This raw exercise in political favoritism has not been reported in the context of the still-smoldering IRS scandal, in which the agency in 2012 audited big GOP donors and blocked Tea Party groups trying to obtain tax-exempt status as part of what House investigators suspect was an effort to re-elect the president. But that same year, top officials with both the IRS and Justice Department—including the IRS commissioner and attorney general —met in Washington with several dozen prominent black church ministers representing millions of voters to brief them on how to get their flocks out to vote without breaking federal tax laws. The “summit” on energizing the black vote in houses of worship was hosted by the Democrat-controlled Congressional Black Caucus inside the U.S. Capitol on May 30, 2012.
Read more at Investor's Business Daily Read More......

US consulate attack in Benghazi: a challenge to official version of events

A year after the first US ambassador in 33 years was killed on duty, Chris Stephen, one of the first western reporters on the scene in Benghazi, pieces together what really happened from witness accounts, official reports, and the ruins of the compound.

The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was striking for a number of reasons: the date, 11 September, the toll – four diplomats killed, including an ambassador – and the knock-on effects on the careers of senior American politicians.

But what is perhaps most striking is the inconsistencies: the US version of events compared with those of witnesses and the facts on the ground. The two do not tally. And so, a year later, there remain pressing questions about what happened that night – and what the Americans say happened.

Read more at the UK Guardian Read More......

Town hall meeting Friday challenges federal land ownership

BULLHEAD CITY — Almost half the land in Arizona — 48.1 percent to be exact — is owned by the federal government. Nevada leads the nation in federally owned land with an astounding 84.5 percent. And the feds own 45.3 percent of the land in California. “The federal government controls more than 50 percent of all the land in the Western United States — a third of all land in the entire land mass of the United States,” said Ken Ivory, a Utah state senator and president of the American Lands Council. Ivory has assumed a leading role in the fight to get federal lands transferred to the Western states. He said he believes it is an opportunity for the states to generate more income from oil and mineral rights, funding education, creating jobs and growing local and state economies and tax bases.

Read more at the Mohave Daily News Read More......

Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011

The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material. In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to the documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Read more at the Washington Post Read More......

Citing costs, IBM to move retirees off health plan

International Business Machines Corp. plans to move about 110,000 retirees off its company-sponsored health plan and instead give them a payment to buy coverage on a health-insurance exchange, in a sign that even big, well-capitalized employers aren't likely to keep providing the once-common benefits as medical costs continue to rise. The move, which will affect all IBM retirees once they become eligible for Medicare, will relieve the technology company of the responsibility of managing retirement health-care benefits. IBM said the growing cost of care makes its current plan unsustainable without big premium increases. IBM's shift is an indication that health-insurance marketplaces, similar to the public exchanges proposed under President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, will play a bigger role as companies move coverage down the path taken by many pensions, paying employees and retirees a fixed sum to manage their own care.

Read more at Fox News Read More......

Gingrich: Reagan Would Say No

Leaders who would consider involving the United States in Syria’s civil war against the will of the American people should weigh their decision against Ronald Reagan’s four principles for “the application of military force abroad.” Reagan established these principles after nearly 300 American and French troops were killed in an attack on their barracks in Beirut in 1983. He listed them in his autobiography:

1. The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.
2. If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support needed to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives.
3. Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the actions we take will have the support of the American people and Congress. (We all felt that the Vietnam War had turned into such a tragedy because military action had been undertaken without sufficient assurances that the American people were behind it.)
4. Even after all these other combat tests are met, our troops should be committed to combat abroad only as a last resort, when no other choice is available. (Ronald Reagan: An American Life, 466)

Read more at Gingrich Productions... Read More......

Syrian Woman pleads with Sen. McCain to stop America's looming bombing strikes on Syria - Listen to her argument

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POLL: HALF OF GOP VOTERS IN BOEHNER’S DISTRICT WELCOME PRIMARY CHALLENGE TO SPEAKER

A Sept. 4 Human Events/Gravis poll of more than 1,000 Republican primary voters in his congressional district, Ohio-8, shows 50 percent of them would welcome a primary challenge to Speaker John A. Boehner (R.-Ohio). The poll, which dealt with issues facing Capitol Hill as the calendar collapses on unfinished business and new urgencies, was conducted by Human Events with Gravis, a Florida-based pollster, which has a margin of error of 2 percent. The poll had a sample population more than twice the size of a typical poll in a single congressional district, said Doug Kaplan, the founding owner of Gravis.

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Media/Political Establishment: More Conservatives Not Needed in Reporting

Journalists and professional political tacticians in Washington's permanent political class ecosystem apparently do not believe the mainstream media would be better served if they had more reporters who were familiar with conservative politics and voters.

After the 2012 presidential election, CNN reporter Peter Hamby interviewed over 70 "journalists and political tacticians" that make up a "who's who" of the Washington permanent political class for ideas on new election beats and how presidential elections may better be covered. He published his findings in a paper for Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, titled, "Did Twitter Kill the Boys on the Bus? Searching for a better way to cover a campaign."

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Was Mitt Romney Right About Everything?

Ten months after Mitt Romney shuffled off the national stage in defeat — consigned, many predicted, to a fate of instant irrelevance and permanent obscurity — Republicans are suddenly celebrating the presidential also-ran as a political prophet. From his widely mocked warnings about a hostile Russia to his adamant opposition to the increasingly unpopular implementation of Obamacare, the ex-candidate’s canon of campaign rhetoric now offers cause for vindication — and remorse — to Romney’s friends, supporters, and former advisers. “I think about the campaign every single day, and what a shame it is who we have in the White House,” said Spencer Zwick, who worked as Romney’s finance director and is a close friend to his family. “I look at things happening and I say, you know what? Mitt was actually right when he talked about Russia, and he was actually right when he talked about how hard it was going to be to implement Obamacare, and he was actually right when he talked about the economy. I think there are a lot of everyday Americans who are now feeling the effects of what [Romney] said was going to happen, unfortunately.”

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Obama’s Half-Assad War

In Obama’s 2002 speech against the Iraq war, he scoffed at “armchair weekend warriors” who pursue “dumb” and “rash” interventions. As if to punctuate that he has become what he once opposed, Obama went golfing on Saturday right after announcing his plans to bomb Syria. Not even Wag the Dog captured that level of presidential cynicism.

In his 2002 speech, Obama said that “petty dictators” don’t justify military intervention, that Saddam Hussein posed no “imminent threat” to the U.S., that war would divert attention from domestic problems, and that a poorly conceived war would “fan the flames” of the Middle East and make a bad situation worse. Substitute “Syria” for “Iraq” in the speech and one has a decent rejoinder to his Saturday announcement: Assad is a petty dictator; he hasn’t attacked the U.S.; this is a wag-the-dog diversion by a floundering president; the lack of any coherent strategy is sure to destabilize Syria and boost Islamic radicals.

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Black Mob Violence in the Liberal City of Portland

Portland is in the middle of a nasty bout of black mob violence. This time directed at bicyclists.

But Tim Oberlander does not want us to know. Oberlander says he wants to be able to live in a city that does good things for good people.

So what’s wrong with that?

Everything.

Read more at Front Page Magazine
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Sage Grouse Debate Prompts Scrutiny of Far-Reaching Federal Species Law

WASHINGTON — The federal government listed Johnston’s Frankenia as an endangered species in 1984 insisting the special protection was needed because there were only 1,500 of the Texas shrubs left on the planet.

But the government made a mistake; there are at least nine million of the plants living a healthy existence throughout the state and in northern Mexico, yet the shrub remains on the federal Endangered Species List as a protected plant because the de-listing efforts that started a decade ago have become too cumbersome to complete.

Now as debate heats up on Capitol Hill over the proposed listing of the Sage Grouse as an endangered species, a key concern of Colorado Republican Rep. Scott Tipton is that it may never be de-listed, even if the population recovers.

Read more at the Colorado Observer Read More......

The Holder-Jindal Collision: The federal government attacks Louisiana school choice.

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal found out late on Friday, August 23. Attorney General Eric Holder was suing to block the state’s school voucher program, which aims to give low-income kids in terrible schools the opportunity to attend better public schools and even private schools. The Justice Department claims the two-year-old program could interfere with federal desegregation orders in several Louisiana parishes, holdovers from the Civil Rights era. “This was a complete shock,” Jindal says. “A complete surprise.” Maybe it shouldn’t have been. Liberals have been fighting the Louisiana voucher initiative, officially called a “scholarship” program, from the beginning. “The teacher unions took us all the way to the state supreme court, and the program’s still here,” says Jindal. In May, the court ruled the voucher program was constitutional but that funding it through the general education budget wasn’t. Jindal and the legislature made it a line item in the state budget instead.

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CIA finds 1 in 5 flagged job applicants come from Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda

An estimated one-fifth of a subset of all applicants for Central Intelligence Agency positions had significant ties to the terror groups Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda, a newly released document from NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s collection revealed Monday. The document — released by Mr. Snowden as part of his National Security Agency intelligence dump — said the terrorist groups worked hard to infiltrate America’s top security agencies. CIA officials uncovered thousands of applicants, roughly one in five of a subset, with “significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections,” the document states, as Ynet News reported. The specifics of those ties were not revealed, but the groups most often cited as attempting to infiltrate the U.S. intelligence network were al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.

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Brawndo Recovery: 8 Headwinds For Economy, Housing and Mortgage Markets

The US economy is straying further and further away from a free-market model and towards a government-controlled, crony economy. We can see the results of the move to government control of the economy in the headwinds. Like in the movie “Idiocracy” where the government orders Brawndo, a green liquid that resembles Gatorade, be used instead of water for crops, the government’s solution to all problems is more government, more regulation, more taxes, etc. Government is what statists crave.

Here is a partial list (the actual list is way too long) of headwinds facing the economy, the housing market and the mortgage market.

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Oregon wave energy stalls off the coast of Reedsport

Last September, with great fanfare, Ocean Power Technologies began construction on America's first wave-powered utility. Holding the first - and only - wave energy permit  from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, OPT had planned to deploy a test buoy off the coast of Reedsport by spring.

 But a year after the permit, regulatory and technical difficulties have all but halted the project. Federal regulators notified the company earlier this year it had violated the license after failing to file a variety of plans and assessments.

All that remains in the water are pieces of a single anchoring system on the ocean floor. State officials have told the New Jersey company to remove them by month's end.

Read more at Oregon Livehttp://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/08/oregon_wave_energy_stalls_off.html Read More......

Harkin on Classified Syria Briefing: 'Frankly Raised More Questions Than It Answered'

President Obama has some work to do if he wants congressional authority to bomb Syria. Already some of his liberal allies are questioning the evidence which is supposed to show that Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on his own people. “I have just attended a classified Congressional briefing on Syria that quite frankly raised more questions than it answered. I found the evidence presented by Administration officials to be circumstantial. The atrocious use of chemical weapons against civilian is an affront to human values and a violation of international law. It should be condemned by the international community as a whole," liberal Democrat Tom Harkin says in a statement released after today's classified Capitol Hill briefing.

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