Tag: Obama

The Democratic Party’s disconnect from reality

12:07 pm

Three stories today once again illustrate better than anything the leftwing Democratic Party’s profound disconnect from reality:

The first story is a new poll of the public’s opinions on the subject of gun control and the idea of banning “assault weapons” (whatever those might be). Not surprisingly, the public opposes future bans, and the trend lines show a continuing and nonstop shift away from gun control and towards gun rights that has been on-going since the 1990s.

A majority of Americans oppose banning assault weapons for the first time in more than 20 years of ABC News/Washington Post polls, with the public expressing vast doubt that the authorities can prevent “lone wolf” terrorist attacks and a substantial sense that armed citizens can help. Just 45 percent in this national survey favor an assault weapons ban, down 11 percentage points from an ABC/Post poll in 2013 and down from a peak of 80 percent in 1994. Fifty-three percent oppose such a ban, the most on record.

Indeed, while the division is a close one, Americans by 47-42 percent think that encouraging more people to carry guns legally is a better response to terrorism than enacting stricter gun control laws. Divisions across groups are vast, underscoring the nation’s gulf on gun issues.

The second story describes how, despite the above very broad and obvious poll numbers, ninety-one House Democrats today introduced a bill to ban the sale and manufacture of “assault weapons”. In announcing the bill, its lead sponsor, David Cicilline (D-Rhode Island), made this vague effort to define “assault weapon”:
» Read more

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Budget deal boosts NASA budget

9:56 am

The gigantic $1.1 trillion omnibus budget deal announced today by Congress leaders would increase NASA’s budget by $1.3 billion.

The increase to the NASA budget goes mostly to SLS and the planetary program. Congress also decided this year to fully fund the administration’s budget request for the commercial space budget, the first time this has happened since the program began back in 2006.

Though the increase to the planetary program as well as the funding to commercial space is good news, the fact that the Republican leadership in Congress agreed to increase spending at NASA illustrates everything that is wrong with Washington. These Republicans leaders promised they would bring fiscal common sense to Washington, cutting the budget to bring the deficit under control. You don’t do that by funding everything.

SLS/Orion is a waste of money. It will accomplish little if nothing, as it is so expensive that we can’t afford to finance any actual missions using it. It should be eliminated entirely. Instead, these guys raise its budget 68%. If they were serious about cutting the budget, they would have recognized the inefficiency and impracticality of SLS/Orion and cut it, allowing them to fund the programs at NASA that are working (science and commercial space) while simultaneously reducing the budget.

Sadly, they are not yet serious about regaining control of the budget. The public has been screaming for this to happen, and their failure to do as the public wants is a further explanation for the success in this election cycle of outsiders like Trump, Cruz, and Carson.

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Government audit finds EPA broke the law!

9:38 am

A new government audit has found that the EPA broke the law with its aggressive social media campaign lobbying in support of the Obama administration’s proposed clean water regulations.

The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” and violated federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the public to back an Obama administration rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.

The ruling by the Government Accountability Office, which opened its investigation after a report on the agency’s practices in The New York Times, drew a bright line for federal agencies experimenting with social media about the perils of going too far to push a cause. Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda. “I can guarantee you that general counsels across the federal government are reading this report,” said Michael Eric Hertz, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York who has written on social media and the government.

I am sure this news comes as a complete surprise to everyone. Who ever heard of a modern government agency ignoring the law for its own benefit? The concept boggles the mind!

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Obamacare squeezes the economy

4:16 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A new Congressional Budget Office study has found that Obamacare will shrink the economy over the next ten years.

Not that this conclusion should surprise anyone. Tea party politicians (as well as Republicans) have been pointing out this consequence of adding new unneeded or unwanted regulations to businesses since the day Obamacare was proposed by Democrats. And from the moment the law was forced through by those Democrats the economy has remained stalled, with businesses forced to focus on avoiding the law’s unaffordable costs rather than focusing on expanding and increasing profits.

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Roosevelt’s speech responding to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

6:01 pm

An evening pause: On this anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, we should listen to President Franklin Roosevelt’s entire speech to Congress on December 8, 1941. He came before Congress to ask them to declare war on Japan.

For those of us who remember President George Bush’s speech after 9/11, the differences are striking. Bush aimed his ire at one element in the Islamic world, al-Qaeda, while ignoring their numerous allies in Iran, Gaza, the West Bank, and elsewhere. He also made it clear that the military would be asked to do the work, not the entire nation. “Be ready,” he told them, while suggesting to everyone else that they need do nothing themselves to join in the battle. Bush did not demand a nationwide commitment. In essence, he asked Americans to just continue shopping.

Roosevelt instead said this: “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.”

The entire nation was now at war, and the goal was total victory so that Japan would never be able to do it again. For the next three and a half years that was the goal. And not just against Japan. The goal was to destroy Japan as well as all of its fascists allies. And to do it as fast as possible.

Had Bush responded to 9/11 as Roosevelt had to Pearl Harbor, the nation would have not just invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, it would have continued into Syria, Pakistan, and then Iran. In addition, there would have been no gentle treatment of Saudi Arabia. They are as complacent in the Islamic War against the west as is Iran, and must either change, or be changed wholly.

Instead, Bush gave us a weak and partial victory that accomplished nothing, and allowed more violence and terrorism to raise its ugly head again, aided and encouraged by the even weaker and wimpier leadership of Barack Obama (illustrated by his own absurdly weak speech just yesterday). The result has been the attacks in France, Benghazi, and California, and increased violence in Israel, Iraq, and Syria. And the rise of a terrorist nation called the Islamic State.

Anyway, watch and see how a real leader responds to evil:

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Western Muslim reformers to name extremists in their mosques

9:11 am

Good news! A group of western Muslim reformers, horrified by the violence being perpetrated in the name of Islam, have announced plans to name and shame the extremists within their religious communities.

Khader and other members of the group on Friday released a declaration of principles calling on Muslims to reject violent jihad and endorse religious freedom for all and secular government, and saying they will call out those who reject it. “We reject the idea of an Islamic state,” Khader said.

In imitation of Christian reformer Martin Luther, the group’s members plan to take copies of the declaration and post them on the doors of their local mosques. “If they reject them then we know they’re on the side of the problem,” said Zuhdi Jasser, president of the Phoenix-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy, at a news conference at which the declaration was unveiled.

It is this kind of reaction that has been sorely lacking within the Islamic community since 9/11. If western Muslims had done this then, then the accusations against them for celebrating on that horrific day would not now be so easy to justify. Still, better late than never.

Interestingly, the two groups expressing opposition to their effort are Muslims within their community, which is not surprising, and liberals here in the U.S. and in Europe. Read the article, as I don’t want to quote it all. It is clearly illustrates the fascist roots of modern liberalism, which seems more willing to forge links with the terrorist elements of Islam rather than fight it.

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Boxer cites California gun laws to stop California terrorist attacks

5:28 pm

The reality-challenged Democratic Party: Today Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California), in demanding new gun control regulations in response to yesterday’s terrorist attack in California, noted that “sensible gun laws work. We’ve proven it in California.”

You can’t make this stuff up. The so-called sensible but very restrictive gun control laws in California did nothing to stop the murderers yesterday, but they did do a good job of making sure the innocent people there were unarmed, helpless, and easy targets. (The attack also took place in a government facility that is a gun-free zone.)

So of course, Boxer and the Democrats want to disarm everyone else, so that these killers won’t have as hard a time at killing us.

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NY’s Obamacare co-op failure forces doctors to demand cash up front

12:37 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Facing the possibility that they won’t be paid because of the failure of the New York Obamacare health insurer, doctors there are now refusing to see patients without an upfront cash payment.

Though the article describes examples where patients were turned away, what is really happening is that the doctors would be glad to treat them, as long as the patient pays for the treatment first. Their insurance ain’t worth anything, and the doctor rightly does not wish to work for free.

Meanwhile, our reality-challenged president, who somehow thought Obamacare would cut health premiums by $2500 and wouldn’t require anyone to change their health plans or doctors, is in Paris this week (which experienced a mass shooting only two weeks ago) telling the world that mass shootings only occur in the United States.

Sadly, the entire Democratic Party generally agrees with him on all issues. Let’s vote for them again!

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The global warming conference’s gigantic carbon footprint

9:24 am

Why are people skeptical of the global warming fear-mongers? Because they do not practice what they preach, flying to huge unnecessary conferences and producing 23,000 times more carbon dioxide then an average American in a year.

Yes, these conferences are unnecessary.

It’s 2015. We have incredibly advanced telecommuting systems. All of the political and scientific work behind a climate conference is performed using such global computer networking, long before the conference is held. Climate confabs are an excuse for politicians to soak their taxpayers for luxury junkets to exotic vacation destinations, where they stay in five-star hotels and dine on the finest gourmet foods.

(Lunch at the Paris climate conference on Monday, according to Politico: special turnip soup, scallops in a climate-symbolic “modern” sauce, stuffed celery confit with veined spinach cream, and then a trilogy of freshwater trout roe caviar, vegetable jelly, and coltsfoot, plus Reblochon au jus scented with myyrh, caraway wood, and a salad of wild undergrowth and tree beans. And yes, of course there will be dessert – citrus compote and light cream with praline.)

Climate conferences are pricey photo ops with no valid purpose beyond influencing media coverage, a fact the grandees at the Paris event have emphasized with their insulting blather about how holding the conference will somehow “rebuke” the Islamic State.

The hilariously obvious truth that no one attending the event actually believes the apocalyptic predictions they dump on their constituents makes these conferences into the equivalent of a “safari” at Disney World – a chance to laugh, hang out with friends, and enjoy a little shiver of play-acting fear as animatronic wild animals lunge at your robot-piloted jungle cruise boat.

The article researches the carbon footprint of the Paris conference, and finds it to be quite significant. If these leftwing global warming activists (they are not scientists, as this conference has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics) really believed their lies about how fossil fuels and global warming was going to destroy humanity, they would never agree to their periodic parties in five-star hotels in beautiful cities throughout the world.

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Iran deal “not legally binding”

10:15 am

More absurdity from the Obama administration: In a letter the State Department wrote to a congressman, they admitted that the Iran treaty was not a “legally binding” document.

“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document,” wrote Julia Frifield, the State Department assistant secretary for legislative affairs, in the November 19 letter.

In other words, the whole kerfuffle about the Iran deal was garbage. There was no deal. All the Obama administration accomplished was to lay out what they’d like Iran to agree to, even as Iran refused to agree to it. Worse, what the Obama administration wished Iran would agree to was still weak and pointless and would allow them to develop nuclear weapons. They rejected that sweet deal (that Congress approved) and instead are proceeding with nuclear weapon development as fast as they can.

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They mean what they say

5:25 pm

And “they” are the evil murderers of ISIS and other Islamic terrorist killers.

Here we have ISIS, a murderous, genocidal Islamic supremacy group. They have stated quite openly that they intend to carve a caliphate out for themselves by any means necessary, and by “by any means” they mean as violently as possible. They view the West, Christianity, Secular Humanists, Hindus, everybody who doesn’t conform to their brand of Islam as the enemy, and they have only one tactic for dealing with the enemy : kill them and keep on killing them until they are either all dead or their remnant is so cowed that they convert to Islam. They justify this using the Koran and various Hadiths and they will quite happily tell anyone who will listen exactly what they believe is divine rational for their actions.

The author then describes how the left-leaning intellectuals of the west seem to have a fundamental inability to recognize this reality, an inability that has gotten so profound that it now feeds a blindness that makes them willing to even help these killers in order to avoid seeing them for what they are.

Read it all. The author makes a reasonable effort to understand why the intellectual leadership of the west, in the U.S. and Europe, seems incapable of understanding the threat of Islam. In order to defeat these terrorists, we are going to have to overthrow the blind fools we presently consider our intellectual elite. And to do that we need to see them for the fools they are.

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The climate fraud at NASA

10:51 am

A German scientist has taken a very close look at the climate data being released by NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS) and found significant and unjustified tampering in order to create the false impression that the climate is warming.

A German professor has confirmed what skeptics from Britain to the US have long suspected: that NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies has largely invented “global warming” by tampering with the raw temperature data records.

Professor Dr. Friedrich Karl Ewert is a retired geologist and data computation expert. He has painstakingly examined and tabulated all NASA GISS’s temperature data series, taken from 1153 stations and going back to 1881. His conclusion: that if you look at the raw data, as opposed to NASA’s revisions, you’ll find that since 1940 the planet has been cooling, not warming.

Ewert’s results confirm what numerous climate skeptics and scientists have already noticed. The raw data shows a cooling trend in recent years, but the released data unjustifiably cools past records while warming recent records to reverse this into a warming trend.

Either everyone at GISS should be fired forthwith, or its funding must cease. They aren’t scientist there, but propagandists for the Obama administration.

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Obamacare regulations to destroy craft beer industry

9:02 pm

Finding out what’s in it: The cost to meet Obamacare regulations requiring beer companies to include specific calorie information on every beer they make is likely going to destroy many small local beer breweries.

As of December 2016, all brewers must include a detailed calorie count on every type of beer they produce. Failure to comply with the new regulations means craft brewers will not be able to sell their beer in any restaurant chain with over 20 locations. Because this is a major market for selling beer, it hamstrings smaller craft brewers if they do not comply.

The Cato Institute estimates the Obamacare calorie labeling requirements will cost a business as much as $77,000 to implement. For larger beer companies, this is a drop in the bucket, but for small, local craft brewers it represents a significant cost that they must pay. As a result, it creates a significant disadvantage compared to larger beer companies who can better absorb the cost of this new regulation.

But hey, who cares if a major thriving industry should be destroyed by Obamacare. The Democrats passed it because they care. And caring is all that matters, no matter what the consequences.

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The uncertainty of climate science

11:54 am

For the past five years, I have been noting on this webpage the large uncertainties that still exist in the field of climate science. Though we have solid evidence of an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we also have no idea what the consequences of that increase are going to be. It might cause the atmosphere to warm, or it might not. It might harm the environment, or it might instead spur plant life growth that will invigorate it instead. The data remains inconclusive. We really don’t even know if the climate is truly warming, and even if it is, whether CO2 is causing that warming.

While government scientists at NASA and NOAA are firmly in the camp that claims increasing carbon dioxide will cause worldwide disastrous global warming, their own data, when looked at coldly, reveals that they themselves don’t have sufficient information to make that claim. In fact, they don’t even have sufficient information to claim they know whether the climate is warming or cooling! My proof? Look at the graph below, produced by NOAA’s own National Centers for Environmental Information.
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Obamacare causing large numbers of doctors to flee medicine

6:50 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Because of Obamacare doctors are abandoning their practices in alarming numbers according to a new report.

Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner says the exodus is alarming, as evidenced by a Physicians Foundation report showing the number of doctors who say they run an independent practice has dropped from 62 percent in 2008 to 35 percent in 2014. The survey of 20,000 physicians also shows only 17 percent in solo practice. Eighty-one percent of doctors are at full capacity or even overextended. Forty-six percent grade Obamacare as a D or an F. Just 25 percent give the law an A or a B.

For those greatly frustrated by the system, Turner said the government is making their lives miserable. “The doctors cannot navigate this incredible bureaucracy,” she said. “They may see 40 patients during a day, and then they have mountains of paperwork to fill out. If they slip up and say something in carelessness or not understanding the rules and make a mistake, they could be subject to tens of thousands of dollars in fines. They just cannot expose themselves to that kind of jeopardy.”

Hey, not only has Obama contained ISIS and its violent tendencies, he and the Democratic Party have made medicine affordable and a joy for doctors to practice! Let’s all vote for the Democrats again. They care and they are so smart!

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Obama declares “we have contained ISIS” even as they execute an attack in Paris

5:33 pm

Irony alert! Yesterday, in an interview with WABC’s Chief Anchor and Democratic Party operative George Stephanopoulos President Obama declared that ISIS has been “contained” by his policies.

“I don’t think they’re gaining strength,” the president told Stephanopoulos in an interview at the White House Thursday. “From the start our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq. And in Syria it — they’ll come in, they’ll leave.”

Today, a terrorist attack planned and executed by ISIS took place in Paris across seven different locations, killing dozens, including many of approximately 100 hostages in a concert hall, where the terrorists had been killing them one-by-one. Police moved in ahead of schedule because they had been getting texts from the hostages begging them to attack because they were going to be executed anyway and a police attack was the only way they had a chance of surviving.

Thank god Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama has contained ISIS. Otherwise, we wouldn’t see them do this sort of stuff. And it’s a good thing that France has strict gun control laws so the country is gun-free. Otherwise, how would these terrorists get access to weapons?

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Cruz demands Justice Dept preserve IRS scandal documents

1:46 pm

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today put the Justice Department on notice that he wants all their documents relating to the IRS scandal preserved so that future administrations have the ability to complete their own investigation.

“It is important for you and other officials in this Administration to understand that this administration’s decisions to neither continue this investigation nor appoint a special prosecutor do not represent the conclusion of this matter,” Mr. Cruz said in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. “Given this Administration’s refusal to conduct itself appropriately, or take the issue of the potential illegal conduct of IRS employees seriously, any subsequent administration should reserve the right to reopen the matter, conduct its own investigation, or appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an investigation.”

I would not be surprised at all if the Justice Department, now working full time for the Democratic Party, decides to destroy these documents at first opportunity. They know that they will face no criminal charges, even though this would be a blatant act of obstruction of justice, because the Democratic Party in Congress will stonewall any investigation. And unless the next Republican President has the courage to fire the lot of them, they themselves will be able to stonewall the next President as well.

In fact, which Republican candidates running for President would have the courage to fire the lot of them? Cruz for sure. Trump probably. Anyone else? I don’t think so.

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2016 Obamacare premiums to skyrocket 20%

12:38 am

Finding out what’s in it: Health insurance premiums in 2016 will rise more than 20%, three times more than predicted by Obama officials.

The discrepancy is because the government excluded price data for three of the four Obamacare health insurance plans when the officials issued their recent forecast claiming enrollees would face only a 7.5 percent average rate increase in 2016. When data for all four plans are included, premium costs will actually rise on average 20.3 percent next year.

In other words, Obama administration officials purposely manipulated the numbers to hide the actual rate increase. Then, not surprisingly, “The mainstream media was quick to embrace the 7.5 percent number, claiming it reflected the real-world experience of most Obamacare customers,” when it truth the number was a lie.

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Another Obamacare co-op, the largest, collapses

8:45 am

Finding out what’s in it: New York’s Obamacare co-op, the country’s largest and the one that took the most government loans to get established, is now facing bankruptcy and collapse.

It is unclear if the co-op deliberately misled state regulators in its original filings, or if regulators found evidence of financial wrongdoing while they tried to close down the defunct non-profit. The co-op’s insolvency was announced September 25.

The New York Department of Financial Services, which regulates insurers in the Empire State, also revised its earlier announcement to the co-op’s 215,000 policyholders that they had until Dec. 30 to find new insurance coverage. Regulators now advise the co-op’s enrollees, many who are poor, that they have to secure new coverage within the next two weeks. DFS said in a statement late Friday that consumers “must take action to choose a new plan for the remainder of 2015 on or before November 15, 2015.”

It also appears that the co-op has been understating its bad financial condition to government officials. Other than that, things remain peachy-keen!

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Another Obamacare co-op fails

10:14 am

Finding out what’s in it: Utah’s only Obamacare co-op has announced it is shutting down at the end of the year due to lack of funding/income.

Arches, the only co-op health plan in Utah, began offering insurance through the Affordable Care Act in fall 2013, beginning coverage in January 2014. The nonprofit group says it’s ceasing operations because of a lack of funding from the federal “risk corridor” program, which was built into the Affordable Care Act and intended to protect insurance companies from their losses. “As one of the carriers on the (health care) exchange, we stood to benefit by our calculations in excess of $30 million for those ‘risk corridor’ payments,” Tricia Schumann, chief marketing and communications officer for Arches, told KSL. “We did anticipate those cash payments coming in … this quarter.”

The point of the fund was to mitigate losses among insurance companies and co-ops that suffered large financial risk associated with the Affordable Care Act because of unprecedented enrollment for coverage.

However, federal officials announced Oct. 1 that only 12.6 percent of the expected windfall from that risk management fund would be awarded to insurance companies.

In other words, they — and Obamacare — never had a viable profit model (as predicted by conservatives even before the law was passed). Instead, they were depending on large federal government handouts, as mandated by Obamacare itself. The federal government however simply can’t afford to give out that much money, and thus, bankruptcy.

All the more reason to continue to vote Democrat! They cared, even though they hadn’t the slightest idea of what they were doing and thus pushed through a law that was incredibly stupid and damaging. That they cared however is all that matters.

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Congressional leaders negotiating 2-year spending deal

10:48 am

The fix is in: The White House and Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders hope to complete a two year budget deal by tonight that will allow an increase in the debt limit.

White House budget director Shaun Donovan and legislative affairs director Katie Beirne Fallon are hammering out the package with staff representing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is expected to be elected Speaker on Thursday, but he has not taken part in these budget negotiations, aides said. In recent weeks, Boehner has said he wants to “clean the barn up a little bit” before he leaves Congress at the end of the week.

Legislation to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government is central to the deal, but the talks are also said to include measures that would fund highway and infrastructure construction and renew the Export-Import Bank for one year.  

If you read the article with a clear mind, you will see that all the dealmaking is designed to increase spending. Moreover, it notes how Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) does not want to have the renewal of the Export-Import Bank on a stand-alone bill. Unstated is why, as he knows that on its own the Republican majorities in both Houses would shoot it down in a second.

When Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) refers to these guys as the “Washington cartel” he is exactly right. They have no interest in cutting the size of the federal government, and are doing whatever they can to maintain their steadily weakening grip on power. The good news is that their grip is weakening.

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Billions of Obamacare funds pocketed by Democrats

9:17 am

Finding out what’s in it (for Democrats): Billions of dollars of Obamacare funds have vanished, having been given to sixteen states — mostly Democratically-run — to build Obamacare marketplaces but never used as intended.

The controls on federal spending right now are nil. The money almost goes out randomly, without any scrutiny, funding the friends of the Washington politicians both in Washington and throughout the country. The Democrats might have benefited royally from Obamacare, but the Republican leadership gets its own payoffs with these funds, which is why they haven’t done much to cut spending, even though that was the promise they ran under.

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Justice Dept ends IRS investigation with no charges

1:49 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: The Obama Justice Department has decided to file no criminal charges against anyone, including Lois Lerner, in the IRS scandal.

I was going to label this a whitewash in the headline, but decided to leave that conclusion to my readers. This quote from the article however should help you decide whether it was a whitewash:

Some Republicans have questioned the validity of the probe from the beginning, after learning that one of the Justice Department lawyers assigned to the investigation was a contributor to Mr. Obama’s political campaigns. [emphasis mine]

So, Lerner and the IRS conspire with the Obama administration from 2010 to 2012 to squelch the ability of conservatives to organize and raise funds prior to the 2012 election. The result: Obama wins, and the Republicans fail to win the Senate. Afterward the Democrats shrug their shoulders, say they shouldn’t have done it, but it wasn’t really bad anyway.

The worse part will be the number of reporters and media folk who will rally to the Democrats for this corrupt use of government power to crush their political opposition.

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Obamacare still accepts fake enrollees

9:05 am

Finding out what’s in it: For the second time the GAO has been able to sign up fake enrollees to Obamacare.

The Government Accountability Office sent 10 auditors with fictitious enrollment information to the federal healthcare.gov site as well as two state-run ObamaCare exchanges, to sign up for subsidized insurance. While eight didn’t make it through the initial identity-checking process, all 10 eventually obtained coverage, even though four obviously had made up Social Security numbers that started with “000.” They all were able to keep their coverage despite filing fake follow-up documentation.

In addition, the GAO tried to sign eight more up for Medicaid coverage. Three made it through the process, and four ended up getting subsidized private coverage instead. The only one that failed was in California, which refused to sign the person up without a Social Security number.

The GAO did this also last year. Apparently, despite having a year to fix the problem, our crack government officials couldn’t do it. Not that I am surprised. Government operations are never very efficient or successful. There is no incentive to do well, as it is impossible to get fired, there is no competition, and the funds are coerced tax dollars rather than freely given by voluntary customers.

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Two NASA employees indicted for allowing Chinese scientist access

8:37 am

Two NASA supervisors from the Langley Research Center in Virginia have been indicted for allowing a Chinese scientist unrestricted access to the facilities there for two years, including allowing the scientist to return to China with a NASA-issued laptop.

What I find amazing about this indictment is that a U.S. attorney in the Obama Justice Department has issued it. The Obama administration and NASA administrator Charles Bolden want unrestricted cooperation with China, and have even done some things that could also violate the same laws against providing U.S. technology to China. Under these conditions, I would have thought the attorney would have been ordered to drop the case, just as the Obama administration has done with numerous other examples where someone in that administration did something illegal and got away with it.

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Obamacare causes school shutdowns in Tennessee

10:39 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A Tennessee school district has been forced to shutter classrooms, putting more than a thousand students out of school, because of the cost of Obamacare.

It is important to repeatedly note the disaster that is Obamacare, because many of the same people who wrote and imposed Obamacare on the nation, the Democratic Party, are still in office and are running for office again. Do we want these people writing additional laws?

Or are we so stupid that we are willing to ignore their failure and give them an opportunity to screw us again?

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Eleven more Obamacare co-ops face bankruptcy

9:03 am

Finding out what’s in it: Eleven more Obamacare state health insurance co-ops are on the verge of bankruptcy, according to an assessment that the Obama administration is keeping secret.

The key to this story is this quote:

Just in the last three weeks, five of the original 24 Obamacare co-ops announced plans to close, bringing the total of failures to nine barely two years after their launch with $2 billion in start-up capital from the taxpayers under the Affordable Care Act. All 24 received 15-year loans in varying amounts to offer health insurance to poor and low income customers and provide publicly funded competition to private, for-profit insurers. Among the co-ops to announce closings were those in Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, West Virginia, Louisiana, Nevada, Tennessee, Vermont, New York and Colorado.

Nearly half a million failing co-op customers will have to find new coverage in 2016. More than $900 million of the original $2 billion in loans has been lost. [emphasis mine]

In other words, this part of Obamacare was really nothing more than a way to funnel a lot of cash to Democratic activists and supporters. That the co-ops are going bankrupt really doesn’t matter, because the money will remain in those Democratic hands regardless.

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Two more Obamacare state co-ops fail

12:27 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Obamacare co-ops in Tennessee and Kentucky have announced that they are going out of business and their customers need to find new health insurance plans.

The following two paragraphs about the failure of the Kentucky co-op illustrate succinctly what conservatives were saying about Obamacare before it was launched about why it was never going to work:

The co-op lost $50 million last year, partly because over 20,000 more people had purchased the insurance than originally estimated. Glenn Jennings, Kentucky Health Cooperative’s interim CEO, told the Herald-Leader that further financial woes came because many of their new members had not previously had health insurance, leading to “a lot of people with pent up medical needs.” Then, said Jennings, “when they suddenly had health insurance…they began using their benefits.”

Jennings said that they had slowed their losses to $4 million in the first half of 2015, but were counting on substantial federal loans to continue operations. Instead, the feds announced they would only provide 12.6 percent of the funds requested by insurers through the assistance program. Kentucky’s insurers were hoping to get a total of $77 million in loans, but only received $9.7 million.

If insurance companies are forced to take anyone, as Obamacare does, then no one is going to buy insurance until they need it, defeating the entire premise of insurance. Thus, the Kentucky co-op was quickly saddled with too many sick customers and not enough healthy ones to pay the costs. To solve this they were then depending on the government to make up the difference. This however is simply impossible. There just isn’t enough of other people’s tax dollars to fund such inefficiencies.

The unsurprising result: Bankruptcy. As the article notes, of the 23 state co-ops still in operation, 21 are losing money. Expect more bankruptcies to come.

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Iran writes its own bill

9:56 am

The bill approved by Iran’s legislature this week is not the deal negotiated by John Kerry and approved by Obama.

Instead, the Majlis approved by a 161 to 59 vote, with 13 abstentions, a nine point document they created which authorizes the Iranian government to move forward on a path that will do at least two things: one, remove international sanctions against Iran, and two, end Israel’s nuclear weapons program.

Got that?

End Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Not end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Ending Israel’s program is apparently point one of the nine point document approved by the Majlis on Tuesday.

Read it all. Rather than agree to limit their nuclear production, as declared by the idiots in the Obama administration, the legislation allows them to accelerate it. As the article notes, the only person sticking with Obama’s Iran nuclear deal is Obama.

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Republicans investigate global warming scientists who demanded skeptics be prosecuted

8:41 am

Turnabout is fair play? The lead signer of a letter from global warming scientists demanding the Obama administration investigate and prosecute corporations and scientists who express skepticism of human-caused global warming are now being investigated themselves.

Last week, Representative Lamar Smith (R–TX), the chairman of the science panel of the House of Representatives, announced plans to investigate a nonprofit research group led by climate scientist Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He is the lead signer of a letter to White House officials that urges the use of an antiracketeering law to crack down on energy firms that have funded efforts to raise doubts about climate science.

In a 1 October letter, Smith asked Shukla, who is director of the independent Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES) in Rockville, Maryland, to preserve all of the “email, electronic documents, and data” that the institute has created since 2009. Smith’s panel soon may be asking for those documents, the letter suggests.

This is not good news and illustrates the truly poisonous culture we now live in. The original demand that skeptics be prosecuted was horrible. To respond by considering prosecution of global warming scientists is just as bad.

The solution to the debate about climate is to do research, to openly challenge the theories and claims of either side with facts. Attacking those with whom you disagree gets us no closer to the truth, and in fact hinders that effort significantly.

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