Obama’s Modest Proposal: Eat the Rich
When Johnathan Swift suggested feeding poor Irish
children to the rich (in an attempt to reduce the burden they place on
impoverished Irish families) he was writing satire. When President Obama
suggests soaking the rich with higher tax rates and increased regulation, he
seems a bit more sincere. His latest pivot toward the economy has predictably
proven to be little more than a re-ignition of the class warfare that sparked
Occupy Wall Street, the entitlement society, and Obama’s miraculous popularity
among over-privileged white children of guilt. Which got this numbers guy thinking: Where would we be without the top one percent? (And don’t say unemployed. I know that is true, as do many of you, but it’s a secret we’re apparently keeping from the White House.)
So, what if the top one percent had expatriated their wealth, families, and honor to another country when America’s first truly progressive President since FDR was elected? The good news: We’d have far fewer people in Congress. (There’s always a silver lining.) But aside from the expatriation of virtually all rich liberal elites, we’d be in poor shape as a nation. It has been said that the top one, ten, and twenty percent of wage earners pay the most in federal taxes. And while few of them are bound to accept food stamps, OBAMAPHONES, or housing assistance, it’s probably safe to assume their consumption of government resources (with the exception of Solyndra, Abound, GM, and other leftist pet projects) is relatively small. So, here is a back-of-the-envelope estimation of where America would be without those greedy Wall Street tycoons and oil billionaires.
Since President Barack Obama was elected, the federal government has collected more than $11.8 trillion dollars in federal revenues. While you and I could do a fair amount of damage on such an income, our government still managed to rack up well over $6 trillion worth of debt. This President’s ultimate legacy might end up being his administration’s ability to spend more than a drunken sailor with a government credit card. But, what was paid into the federal revenue was due – in no small part – to those evil capitalists who make millions while working from their high-rise Manhattan office buildings. (Yes. . . Bloomberg, I’m looking at
you.)
In fact, almost half of all federal revenue comes from personal income taxes. (For the 47% percent of you that pay no federal income taxes, that’s what the rest of us get so worked up about on April 15th of each year.)
What’s interesting about federal revenue sources, is that despite drastic changes to the tax code over the decades, personal income taxes have always accounted for roughly the same amount of total federal revenues. While the top marginal tax rate has fluctuated between 90 percent of a person’s income to 28 percent (Currently it is 39.6 percent), the Internal Revenue Service has never been capable of bringing in enough revenue to cover more than 50 percent of total government receipts. Among the many reasons for this anomaly, is the historically backed concept that there is a limitation to how much the government can extract in
revenue from its citizenry.
But what percentage of this income tax is paid by that evil one percent group? According to historical data, roughly 37 percent. Ironically, this is set to drop in 2013 as higher tax rates hit the wealthy. As the new rates (thanks Obama) hit more Americans, more of the wealthy (described as anyone making over roughly $300,000 per year) are expected to put their money into more tax advantageous vehicles.
So where would America be without our “one percenters”? Well:
According to data gathered from the IRS, Congressional Budget Office, and the Census office, Federal personal income tax receipts were at $1.4 trillion dollars in 2009, and increased to a projected $1.9 trillion in 2013. (Personal income taxes, after all, only account for a portion of total tax revenue. We still tax corporations, cigarettes, gasoline, and other inflation-exempt items.) In 2009 the top one percent paid roughly $518 billion dollars in federal taxes. But yeah, Obama was right. . . They need to pay their fair share.
In 2010 they paid $520 billion. In 2011 they paid $592 billion. Over the course of Obama’s tenure, with the estimated revenue of 2013 included, the top one percent paid nearly $3 trillion to Treasury. But, to put this into perspective, consider if they had all died out at the beginning of Obama’s first term.
Assuming that our government had spent every dime, despite not having nearly as much revenue (so far this isn’t taking much imagination) since 2009, they would have collected roughly $3 trillion less. Of course, the national debt climbs up each year more than our deficit as we continue to finance our interest payments and subject new debts to further interest. So while the nation would have added over half a trillion more dollars to its deficit each year, the total national debt would have climbed even more.
With another debt fight looming, it’s all but certain Obama and the Democrats will be able to raise the debt limit once again. Assuming they are able to do so, the National debt by the end of FY 2013 is expected to be $17.2 trillion dollars. Had the top one percent of wage earners not paid their fair share over his tenure, our
national debt would be close to $21 trillion after taking into account 2 percent interest on all debt incurred.
To put that further into focus, that increase in the National Debt would be just shy of the total debt added to our balance sheet during President George W Bush.
So for all the class warfare our current (1 percenter) President is engaged in, it might behoove the rest of us to look fully at their contribution toward funding the government. And for those on the left who insist the Apple’s, Exxon’s, and Boeing’s of the world are to blame for moving their money overseas: Only 8
percent of total Federal revenues come from corporate taxes.
By every metric imaginable, the wealthiest members of American Society carry the lion’s share of our tax burden. However, the most ironic part of all of this, is that President Obama’s rate increase on high income earners is set to reduce their overall tax contributions. The Bush tax cuts, as maligned as they were in the media, actually increased the percentage of federal revenues for which wealthy households were responsible. In 2013, the richest percentile are expected to pay only 30 percent of all revenues, down from its historic 37 percent. In large part this is due to the wealthy’s ability to move their higher income into more tax advantaged vehicles and accept alternative forms of compensation.
By every metric imaginable, the wealthiest members of American Society carry the lion’s share of our tax burden. However, the most ironic part of all of this, is that President Obama’s rate increase on high income earners is set to reduce their overall tax contributions. The Bush tax cuts, as maligned as they were in the media, actually increased the percentage of federal revenues for which wealthy households were responsible. In 2013, the richest percentile are expected to pay only 30 percent of all revenues, down from its historic 37 percent. In large part this is due to the wealthy’s ability to move their higher income into more tax advantaged vehicles and accept alternative forms of compensation.
It’s the rest of us that will pay for the President’s war on wealth as higher deficits are accrued.
So, go ahead, Mr. Obama. . . Eat the rich.
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/michaelschaus/2013/08/02/obamas-modest-proposal-eat-the-rich-n1654567
A sin tax scorecard
Sin taxes are typically added to liquor, cigarettes and other non-luxury items. State governments favor sin taxes because they generate an enormous amount of revenue and are usually easily accepted by the general public because they are indirect taxes that only affect those who use the products. When individual states run deficits, the sin tax is typically one of the first taxes recommended by lawmakers to help fill the budget gap.We’ve covered plenty of cases here over the past few years of various states looking to fatten their coffers by passing new or ever increasing tobacco taxes. They range from New York to Illinois and across the ocean to Ireland, but the goal is always the same. Find a way to soak more revenue out of the public by claiming to be fighting something awful, while being unwilling to actually outlaw the awful thing in question. In fact, if tobacco actually were outlawed, whole segments of the economy would collapse, massive job losses would follow and state revenues would decrease, so it’s something of a cynical viscous circle. But how has the revenue generating side of this scheme worked out for the states which choose to go that route?
A new study from the National Taxpayer’s Union shows that this particular shell game isn’t delivering anywhere near the promises which were made.
Cigarette tax hikes lead to different types of tax increases, fail to meet revenue projections. In nearly 70 percent of cases between 2001 and 2011, tobacco tax increases were followed by other tax hikes! Whether directly due to their failure to live up to revenue expectations, or simply because they signal a political apparatus desperate for more pet-program funding, there is no denying that every taxpayer has cause for concern when they hear a tobacco tax hike proposal.The study looks at 101 cases where cigarette/tobacco taxes were increased between 2001 and 2011. Of those, a whopping 29 actually met the revenue projections promised when the tax increases were proposed. That’s a seventy percent failure rate, which would be impressive even by Washington standards. And what happened when they failed to deliver? In 66 of 96 cases studied, other, unrelated tax hikes where imposed in the following 24 months.
One of the other big promises of tobacco tax hike aficionados is the smug inference that if they can raise more money by taxing nasty old tobacco users, the tax burden for everyone else can go down. How often does that happen?
Between 2008 and 2013, only two out of 40 revenue actions that raised the tobacco tax were followed by cuts in other taxes. Furthermore, if the results presented in a 2008 National Taxpayers Union study are included, only four of 103 tobacco tax increases between 2001 and 2013 (less than 4 percent) were offset by other tax cuts.Other factors pointing to the systemic failure of this taxpayer fleecing strategy are included, so read the rest of the report. This trick is being pulled all over the country, year after year, with nearly uniform results. And yet it continues.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/04/a-sin-tax-scorecard/
Jeb Bush's Crony Republicans Against Higher Standards
By Michelle MalkinThe resignation of Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett couldn't have come at a better time. His disgraceful grade-fixing scandal is the perfect symbol of all that's wrong with the federal education schemes peddled by Bennett and his mentor, former GOP Gov. Jeb Bush: phony academic standards, crony contracts, big-government and big-business collusion masquerading as "reform."
Bennett stepped down Thursday after the Associated Press reported that he had meddled with charter school accountability ratings in Indiana last fall while serving as that state's schools superintendent. The beneficiary of his intervention? Big GOP donor and charter school operator Christel DeHaan, who has forked over nearly $3 million to Republicans (including $130,000 to Bennett).
DeHaan's Christel House Academy charter school magically went from a "C" rating to an "A" rating despite failing 10th-grade math scores. An abysmal 33 percent of the school's 10th-grade Algebra I students passed. Note: The school uses the widely panned elementary-level Everyday Math curriculum (which I've exposed in previous columns) and a newfangled secondary program called the Carnegie Learning Math Series, whose website prominently brags that its "courses were developed to align to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics." More on that in a moment.
Emails showed that Bennett was far more concerned about how a low grade would look than about maintaining the integrity of the grading system. Evaluators "need to understand that anything less than an 'A' for Christel House compromises all of our accountability work," Bennett complained. "This will be a HUGE problem for us," he worried in another message obtained by the AP.
Cronyism and corruption come in all political stripes and colors. As a conservative parent of public charter school-educated children, I am especially appalled by these pocket-lining GOP elites who are giving grassroots education reformers a bad name and cashing in on their betrayal of limited-government principles.
It turns out that Bennett's wife was hired by an outfit called "Charter Schools USA" to serve as a regional director in Florida. The group just happens to be the same one Bennett contracted with to operate schools in Indianapolis that the state had taken over. The Indianapolis Star reported: "Tina Bennett is now earning a paycheck from the company her husband handpicked to take over schools in Indiana, a decision that was very good for the company's financial fortunes." Like the Church Lady said: How conveeeenient!
Excellent charter schools across the country have a hard time as it is battling hostile public employee unions and far-left detractors. This dirty government scandal makes the fight for local and parental choice in education all the more difficult. Education analyst Jim Stergios at the Pioneer Institute sums up the damage caused: It's "bad for accountability, for the public trust and for education reform."
Amen. But instead of condemning his actions, the tone-deaf, ethics-blind Jeb Bush heaped praise on Bennett for his "leadership" after his resignation. Bush's nonprofit vehicle, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, chimed in, as well, calling Bennett a "bold champion for students" and "a good man and a good friend."
These good ol' boys bonded over their zeal for the top-down racket known as Common Core. As I've reported previously, this Fed Ed program is supported by both big-business interests (Microsoft founder Bill Gates and News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch's education arm) and government educrats. Progressive activists in both parties have worked on nationalized standards, tests and curriculum for decades under previous names: outcome-based education, national school-to-work, Goals 2000 and No Child Left Behind, for example. Obama administration bribery through "Race To The Top" greased the wheels for adoption of the Common Core program by cash-strapped states, many of which had more rigorous standards than the fed-imposed system.
Common Core cheerleaders falsely claimed that untested standards were "internationally benchmarked." Math and English standards have been dumbed down. And a plethora of data-mining firms stand to gain billions from student information gathered under the Common Core assessments umbrella. The Obama administration's sabotage of federal educational privacy protections will help supply that data to the highest crony bidders.
After Bennett was voted out of office in Indiana last fall over his efforts to ram the phony "standards" and nationalized testing scheme through, Team Jeb came to the rescue. In addition to greasing the wheels for the Florida schools chief job, Bush's foundation named Bennett one of its "Chiefs for Change." That group champions Common Core, and many of its members are part of a behemoth, federally funded testing consortium called PARCC (the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), which raked in $186 million through Race To The Top to develop nationalized tests "aligned" to the top-down Common Core program.
Bush's foundation has now joined with the Common Core-peddling Fordham Institute under a new phony-baloney umbrella group: "Conservatives for Higher Standards." While its list of supporters includes federal bureaucrats, politicians and business interests, there are no grassroots conservative parents or teacher groups. So beware of this "conservative" front. And remember: Astro-turfing runs in the Bush family. Under George W. Bush, the federal Department of Education paid GOP mouthpiece/columnist Armstrong Williams to shill for No Child Left Behind.
Heather Crossin, a conservative Indiana mom who helped spearhead the drive to eject Bennett from office and reject Common Core in her state, put it best. She told me after the latest crony Republican education scandal this week:
"This situation illustrates why it is crucial that parents be reinserted into the decision-making process when it comes to the education of their children. When their voices and concerns take a backseat to 'command and control' approaches to ed reform, the public trust can easily be broken." It's elementary.
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/08/02/jeb-bushs-crony-republicans-against-higher-standards-n1654536/page/full
Liberal Foundation Distributed Money from Bermuda to Liberal Nonprofits
CAP, Sierra Club, others received money from foreign dark money Sea Change Foundation
A sizable portion of the Sea Change Foundation’s revenue since 2011 has come from a single company, incorporated in Bermuda, called Klein Ltd. The company’s only officers are employees of a Bermuda law firm, and neither provided information on what Klein actually does.
Documents filed with the Bermudan government suggest that the company exists only on paper.
The money Klein has donated to Sea Change has been passed on to some of the largest liberal and environmentalist groups in the United States, including the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Center for American Progress (CAP).
CAP, which attacked the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2010 for supposedly using foreign money for political purposes, has also received funds from the Bermuda-based Atlantic Philanthropies, as has its 501(c)(4) arm, the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Speaking at a 2009 event held by the Action Fund, Nathaniel Simons, a foundation manager at and major donor to Sea Change, emphasized the importance of foundations in building a “low-carbon economy” but said that they needed to disburse more money to be effective.
“There does need to be more capital to move in from philanthropy,” Simons said. “There need to be more funders, and I think that foundations are starting to understand that.”
Since Simons made those remarks, Klein Ltd. has donated $23 million to the Sea Change Foundation, according to its 990 filings. The donations comprised more than 40 percent of total contributions to the group during fiscal years 2010 and 2011.
According to company documentation provided by the Bermudan government’s registrar of companies, Klein was incorporated in Hamilton, Bermuda, on March 18, 2011.
Its exclusive purpose, according to the company’s articles of incorporation, is to give money to nonprofit groups and foundations.
“The company will require all of its assets that would otherwise be available to its members generally to be transferred, on its winding up, to another body with objects similar to its own,” those articles state.
A number of left-wing foundations have chosen Bermuda and other offshore destinations to mask the origins of contributions, according to Ron Arnold, author of Undue Influence: Wealthy Foundations, Grant-Driven Green Groups, and Zealous Bureaucrats That Control Your Future.
“A number of Big Green donors have chosen offshore foundations for government-guaranteed anonymity,” Arnold said in an email. “Several countries have become favorites in the no-disclosure-required industry, notably Bermuda, Panama, and Liechtenstein.”
“Bermuda boasts an entire building devoted to plagues of lawyers handling secret trusts that funnel personal wealth into foundations which fund non-profit operations in the United States,” he noted.
The documents provided by the Bermudan government list two registered business agents, Nicholas Hoskins and Marlies Smith, both of whom work at the Bermuda-based corporate law firm Wakefield Quin.
The address for Klein Ltd. on file with the registrar of companies is the address of Wakefield Quin’s Hamilton, Bermuda, offices.
Hoskins did not respond to requests for comment. Smith confirmed that Klein is a Wakefield client. She would not say exactly what Klein does or from where it derives its revenue.
The only other donors to the foundation during the two years in which it received contributions from Klein were Nathaniel Simons, a trust bearing his name, and his wife, Laura Baxter-Simons, also a foundation manager at Sea Change.
While the connections between the Simons’ and Klein are not clear, they both have ties to Wakefield Quin through a pair of hedge funds.
Rod Forrest, senior counsel at Wakefield Quin, is listed as a director of Medallion International Ltd. and Meritage Holdings Ltd., two hedge funds incorporated in Bermuda with ties to the Simons family.
Sea Change had $63.9 million invested in Medallion and $16.3 million invested in Meritage in 2011, according to its latest 990 filing. It had sold stakes in both by July 2012, earning the foundation more than $67 million in net capital gains.
Medallion is a fund run by Renaissance Technologies, which was founded by Simons’ father Jim.
Simons was identified as a principal at Renaissance in his 2009 CAP speech on the need for additional foundation funding. A spokesperson at the firm’s New York office said he does not currently work there.
Baxter-Simons was Renaissance’s associate counsel until 2011. She is currently the general counsel and chief compliance officer at Meritage Group L.P., which owns the Meritage Holdings fund.
According to a March 8 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Simons is the chief executive of Meritage Holdings.
Voice mails left at that number and comment requests made through Meritage were not returned.
http://freebeacon.com/liberal-foundation-distributed-money-from-bermuda-to-liberal-nonprofits/
DHS Email: 'We Absolutely Gave Special Treatment to GreenTech' Visa Requests
An April 2013 email from a career Department of Homeland Security official released on Friday by the office of Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) stated that the Department of Homeland Security "absolutely gave special treatment" to green card visa applications filed by foreign national EB-5 investors in GreenTech Automotive, the company Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe served as chairman of from 2010 to 2012.In the released email, the names of the sender as well as the recipient have been redacted, but both are described as "career DHS officials." The text of the email also refers to a person called "D1," which Senator Grassley's office believes is US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) director Alejandro Mayorkas. President Obama nominated Mayorkas to become Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on June 27.
Mr. Mayorkas testified before a Senate committee holding hearings on his nomination on July 25. The hearings were attended by only Democrats. Republicans did not participate because Mr. Mayorkas is the subject of an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General's Office.
The email, dated April 12, 2013, is from a "Senior USCIS Career Official" and is sent to "USCIS Career Officials." It reads as follows:
We absolutely gave special treatment to GreenTech at the directive of D1. D1 was working directly with the RC's [EB-5 Regional Center] atty, [name redacted]. Additionally, I would call a wholesale rewrite of the AAO's [Administrative Appeals Office] decision by the front office special treatment. Look at the first draft in the attached email and the final version, attached.Senator Grassley asked Mr. Mayorkas about an apparent inconsistency between this email and his earlier testimony in a letter he sent to Mr. Mayorkas on Thursday. Grassley wrote to Mayorkas that "you testified [on July 25]: 'I have never ever in my career exercised undue influence to influence the outcome of a case.'" Grassley noted in his letter to Mayorkas that "D1 [mentioned in the April 12, 2013 email] is an apparent reference to you."
Grassley then cited Mayorkas' testimony to the Senate committee on July 25:
Several documents call into question some of the statements you made regarding preferential treatment in your testimony at last Thursday’s hearing. For example, you were asked in the hearing about communications with Terry McAuliffe with respect to Gulf Coast Funds Management. You testified: “I was asked to attend a meeting with Mr. McAuliffe so that I could hear in person his complaints... two years ago... I heard those complaints, and that was the extent of the interaction... I moved on with my work.” (Emphasis included in Grassley letter)But, Grassley wrote, "Contrary to the impression left by your answer, documents indicate that both before and after that meeting, you actually engaged in nearly a dozen contacts with Gulf Coast Funds Management between 2010 and 2013, including direct communications with Gulf Coast’s attorneys." Grassley concluded, "That one meeting with Mr. McAuliffe was clearly not the extent of your interaction on that matter."
The EB-5 foreign national investor program has come under intense scrutiny over the past several years. Under the program, enacted into law in 1990, foreign nationals may obtain temporary and permanent green card resident visas in return for investing a minimum of $500,000 in an American company.
The possibility that foreign nationals who have invested in GreenTech Automotive have been granted temporary green card visas due to the political influence of the principals involved is a key issue currently under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General's Office.
Terry McAuliffe, who was chairman of GreenTech Automotive during the period when political influence may have played a role in the granting of visas, is a friend and chief fundraiser for former President Bill Clinton. Anthony Rodham, brother of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is the President and CEO of Gulf Coast Funds Management, which the Department of Homeland Security designated the EB-5 Regional Center that works exclusively with GreenTech Automotive to help secure green card visas for its EB-5 investors.
Grassley's letter to Mayorkas was one of two stories about GreenTech Automotive that made headlines on Friday. In a related story, GreenTech Automotive confirmed to Breitbart News on Friday that it has received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission to produce company documents. According to the Washington Post, those documents were subpoenaed as evidence in the SEC's investigation into claims made by GreenTech Automotive to its investors.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/03/DHS-Email-We-Absolutely-Gave-Special-Treatment-to-GreenTech-Visa-Requests
Media That Clamored Against Komen Skips Planned Parenthood Paying $4.3 Million in Medicaid Fraud Case
In the first week of February 2012,
the Big Three networks lunged to the defense of
Planned Parenthood when the Susan G. Komen Foundation (very temporarily)
withdrew its donation to abortion giant (about $680,000 the previous year). Network reporters
whacked Komen, promoting “outrage and disappointment engulfing the Internet.”
But Mollie Hemingway of Get Religion pointed out that Planned Parenthood in Texas was recently forced to pay the state of Texas $4.3 million for Medicaid fraud. Where was the “outrage and disappointment” engulfing the media? The networks didn’t notice. Even the local newspaper coverage was terrible.
But Mollie Hemingway of Get Religion pointed out that Planned Parenthood in Texas was recently forced to pay the state of Texas $4.3 million for Medicaid fraud. Where was the “outrage and disappointment” engulfing the media? The networks didn’t notice. Even the local newspaper coverage was terrible.
Hemingway noticed two small
wire-service bulletins and ten reports from pro-life and Christian websites
represented the media coverage.
Good
for Reuters, I guess? Their story frames the fraud charge not as part of a
national fraud problem for the abortion provider but as just the latest in a
battle between Republican legislators and the abortion provider. But, again, at
least they mentioned it. As for the Associated Press, their story is seven
sentences long, includes no quotes, and could not be drier or less interesting
if it tried.
It didn’t come up in my Google search but I thought I’d see about any stories in The Houston Chronicle. Well, that newsroom did report on it, sort of.
There’s a whopping four-paragraph story headlined “Planned Parenthood finalizes $4.3 million lawsuit settlement.” That was an update of the earlier story they ran — the seven-sentence AP story that said the settlement was $1.3 million. Way to put those local resources to work, fellas!
It didn’t come up in my Google search but I thought I’d see about any stories in The Houston Chronicle. Well, that newsroom did report on it, sort of.
There’s a whopping four-paragraph story headlined “Planned Parenthood finalizes $4.3 million lawsuit settlement.” That was an update of the earlier story they ran — the seven-sentence AP story that said the settlement was $1.3 million. Way to put those local resources to work, fellas!
Planned Parenthood trotted out the
usual corporate line that settlement wasn't an admission of guilt -- which
might be the shriveled fig leaf the "mainstream media" would use to
say it's not newsworthy. But wait -- Texas isn't the only state where this
fraud might be occurring, as the Heritage Foundation reported:
Alliance Defending Freedom’s recent analysis of state and federal audits of family planning programs suggests that in 12 states, Planned Parenthood affiliates overbilled Medicaid for more than $8 million. One federal audit of New York’s Medicaid family planning program reported that certain providers, “especially Planned Parenthoods,” had engaged in improper practices resulting in overpayment.Despite mounting accusations of fraud, the organization that performs roughly one out of every four abortions in the U.S. has continued to ride the waves of taxpayer funding to annual surpluses. During its last reporting year alone, Planned Parenthood received over half a billion dollars in taxpayer government funding, all the while performing a record 333,964 abortions.
Hemingway summarized it perfectly:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2013/08/02/media-clamored-against-komen-skips-planned-parenthood-paying-43-million-#ixzz2b15qwnqcIsn’t it just fascinating, though, that a private breast cancer charity choosing to not give money to a massively federally funded group (that provides 300,000 abortions a year but zero mammograms) is top of the news for weeks — complete with breathless advocacy from reporters and anchors — but Medicaid fraud in the millions of dollars barely registers even the tiniest of blips in the news cycle? What’s the journalistic defense, if any?
Innis: Rangel no better than white Southern Dems who used the ‘n*gger card’
Niger Innis slammed New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel for comparing the tea party to “white crackers” who opposed civil rights in the South, Friday.“It is not surprising that lazy, shiftless politicians who have an abysmal record for their community would want to diffuse the issue of what they are doing for their communities by dropping the race card,” Innis, an African American and the chief strategist for TheTeaParty.net, told The Daily Caller in an interview.
According to Innis, Rangel comparing the tea party to segregationists represents the same strategy white Southern Democrats in the South used prior to the civil rights era — back then obscuring the issues by playing what he called the “nigger card.”
“I’m making a direct connection between the way games were played with poor whites in the South. [White Southern Democrats] would drop the ‘nigger card’ back then,” Innis explained.
“Now black Democrats have learned that trick and are dropping the ‘cracker card,’ with their black constituents,” he added. “But in the case of the poor whites back then and the poor blacks today what you had was politicians running away from their record and confusing the issue.”
Innis, who is also the national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), said that Rangel is part of a “long tradition of Democrat, racist demagogues” who run to race when they are not able to deliver for their constituents.
“What Charlie Rangel should be talking about is the level of performance of kids in the public schools in his district, what he should be talking about are the lack of jobs and the record high unemployment rate in his district and among black Americans all across his country,” Innis explained.
“What he should be talking about is the black-on-black genocide that is taking place in the urban center,” he added. “But unfortunately leaders like Charlie Rangel and the leaders that have run Detroit for the last 50 years have nothing but a record of failure and want to change the issue.”
Of being compared to a “white cracker” Innis joked that Rangel had made history.
“I can tell Charlie that many racial epithets have been used against me, particularly with the spelling of my name, but I have never been called a ‘white cracker’ so he’s made history.” Innis said.
Rangels’ comments about the tea party appeared in The Daily Beast Friday.
“It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police,” The Daily Beast quoted Rangel. “They didn’t care about how they looked. It was just fierce indifference to human life that caused America to say enough is enough. ‘I don’t want to see it and I am not a part of it.’ What the hell! If you have to bomb little kids and send dogs out against human beings, give me a break.”
Intel community worried Obama administration disclosed too much about latest al Qaeda threat
Fear that sources and methods may have been compromised
On Friday, the U.S. State Department issued a worldwide travel alert for Americans, citing an unspecified al Qaeda threat. The bulletin said that the highest threat levels are the Middle East and North Africa, “and possibly occurring in or emanating from the Arab Peninsula.”
As a result of the threat, the United States will close 21 embassies in 17 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia on Sunday, the traditional start of the work week in those countries.
On Saturday, unnamed U.S. officials told media outlets Yemeni intelligence agencies alerted Washington to the threat during the visit by the Yemeni president to Washington.
U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity further told press representatives that “chatter” among “operatives” from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had been taking place over the last several weeks, and increased over the last few days, lending further credence to the Yemeni warning.
Intelligence officials are dismayed that the administration provided so much detail on what prompted the closings, and that the disclosures could work against obtaining new information. Militants are now likely searching for the sources of the information to both the U.S. and Yemeni officials, and almost certainly will kill anyone they suspect of working with Western intelligence.
“There simply are not that many who would know about the attacks,” says one former high-ranking U.S. intelligence officer, “so it won’t be hard for al Qaeda leaders to pin-point the sources of information. Once that happens, they certainly won’t be working with us anymore.”
Other sources are also likely to reconsider their relationship with the United States over the disclosures. “These guys know their lives are in danger. As soon as the U.S. shows we can’t be trusted, they will go under ground and we won’t hear from them again,” says a current intelligence officer.
The officer explained that the terrorist threat
is one of the most difficult targets in intelligence, and obtaining
sources among terrorists is extremely hard.
“You can’t just walk into an al Qaeda training camp and say, ‘Hi guys, I’m from the CIA and I would really like to hear what you have to tell me.’ Usually we have to use multiple layers of sub-sources to get any access at all, and even that is hard because these guys don’t trust anyone. Who do you think knows if they are going to attack an embassy? It’s something they hold very closely. You can’t believe how really hard this is.”
“Any statement like this, even though it seems relatively benign, will absolutely have repercussions. We’re going to have to start all over again,” adds an intelligence officer currently assigned to the Middle East.
Intelligence officers say Washington could have cited other reasons for closing the embassies, which likely did play into their decision-making. Recent drone attacks have successfully targeted militant leaders, raising the possibility of retaliation against the United States. Additionally, over the last month, al Qaeda has mounted attacks on numerous prisons to release al Qaeda prisoners. Ten days ago, al Qaeda took credit for breaking out more than 500 militants from Abu Ghraib prison, for example.
Sunday also marks the 27th day of Ramadan, known as “The Night of Power,” when the first verses of the Koran were revealed to the Prophet Mohammed, and some analysts believe that date may encourage militants to launch attacks against “infidels.”
The statement that the threat could be from ” the Arab Peninsula” suggests that the terrorist group planning the operation is al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). That group has brown stronger over the last two years, according to intelligence sources. It has garnered new adherents and developed new weapons.
Moreover, the unsettled situation in Yemen has provided increased opportunities for the group to operate without scrutiny and to recruit followers. The group has launched numerous successful attacks over the last year, including the killing in early July of a former high-ranking government official responsible for counter-terrorism during his tenure.
The United States views AQAP as such a significant threat that it not only uses drone attacks to target the group, but it has also sent advisors to Yemen to help the military combat AQAP on the ground.
Intelligence, however, is the most successful method to counter terrorism. “How do drones know where to strike? How do we know where AQAP is going to target next? How do we know what people and resources to move to protect them? Intelligence. I can’t even begin to tell you how many attacks we have stopped thanks to intelligence. But we don’t go out and broadcast that to the world. It doesn’t work that way,” says the active intelligence officer in the Middle East.
“Now? We are going to have to start all over again. We are operating blind,” he says.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/08/03/Middle-East-Jailbreaks-Connected-To-Security-Threat
Tapper Peeks into Benghazigate
CNN's Jake Tapper peeked
over the transom of that dark room into which the MSM has swept the
Benghazigate scandal, but that peek was just a small blessing for which
we should just give small thanks.
His report was not an investigation, and many questions remain, questions that I discussed here, here, and here and questions that I shall recapitulate below in order to prompt readers on things to look for in subsequent reports on Benghazigate.
By the end of September we knew that there were more than 30 people in Benghazi at the time of the attacks and that the facility and annex were involved in gun-running, so Tapper was not reporting anything new about the numbers of people in Benghazi and what they were up to, but rather confirming earlier reports.
The real piece of significant new news in Tapper's report was that the CIA has been conducting an unprecedented number of polygraph examinations of agents and operatives with knwledge of the events in Benghazi, in what appears to be an attempt to intimidate and silence those agents and operatives.
The most important unanswered questions that remain are:
First, who were the intruders into the compound? Tapper's report and the endless commentaries on it do not even address the issue. Dr. Mark Christian from the Global Faith discusses the question here in a report to Gateway Pundit:
Read it all, for it presents a compelling argument for that clam.
Second, why did they intrude? Dr. Christian also presents his answer to that question:
Third, what did the intruders do after they entered the compound? This has always been the most puzzling question for me because the intruders went first to an empty building and trashed and burned it and the vehicles parked there.
They then slowly made their way to the main building of the compound that was occupied by Ambassador Chris Stephens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, and State Department Diplomatic Security agent David Ubben.
After making a half-hearted attempt to enter the secure area, the intruders set the rest of the building afire. They could have used their RPGs to blast their way into the secure area by blowing down the gate separating the two areas of the building, but they didn't.
Nor did they attempt to blast their way into the secure area from the outside, something that would have been very easy for them to do considering that Agent Ubben went out and in several times from one window of the secure area.
Instead, they engaged in a series of "immaculate confrontations" with other security personnel during which the two parties fired at each other to no effect at point-blank range.
And then they left and then returned to engage the agents and the rescue party in further "immaculate confrontations" before leaving again without having done anything else so far as we know.
Tapper's report has a couple of math problems because its breathless headline says "Dozens of CIA operatives on the ground during Benghazi attack," and the report says:
But further on we learn:
Where I went to grammar school, 21 did not equal "dozens,' but I attended that school long before New Math was introduced to young minds.
Now, we know that there were seven State personnel at the compound, and Tapper says that twenty-one were at the annex. But thirty-five Americans were in Benghazi at the time.
So, who and where were the remaining seven? If they were all CIA, and if all in the annex were CIA, then there were, in fact, slightly more than two dozen CIA agents or operatives.
If the remaining seven were neither at the compound nor the annex, where were they? At a third facility?
My long summary of events may be found here, and in it I discuss other questions that remain unasked and unanswered other than in select outlets.
His report was not an investigation, and many questions remain, questions that I discussed here, here, and here and questions that I shall recapitulate below in order to prompt readers on things to look for in subsequent reports on Benghazigate.
By the end of September we knew that there were more than 30 people in Benghazi at the time of the attacks and that the facility and annex were involved in gun-running, so Tapper was not reporting anything new about the numbers of people in Benghazi and what they were up to, but rather confirming earlier reports.
The real piece of significant new news in Tapper's report was that the CIA has been conducting an unprecedented number of polygraph examinations of agents and operatives with knwledge of the events in Benghazi, in what appears to be an attempt to intimidate and silence those agents and operatives.
The most important unanswered questions that remain are:
First, who were the intruders into the compound? Tapper's report and the endless commentaries on it do not even address the issue. Dr. Mark Christian from the Global Faith discusses the question here in a report to Gateway Pundit:
Syrian president Bashar el Assad, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah of Lebanon are fully responsible for the death of United States Ambassador Christopher Stevens. President Obama has known this fact since the minute he first learned about the attack.
Read it all, for it presents a compelling argument for that clam.
Second, why did they intrude? Dr. Christian also presents his answer to that question:
Stevens covertly used Benghazi as his base of operation...[to overthrow] Assad in Syria. From his Benghazi compound Stevens stored and supplied weapons for thousands of hired, rebel fighters - many of which were al-Qaeda - headed to Syria.
Third, what did the intruders do after they entered the compound? This has always been the most puzzling question for me because the intruders went first to an empty building and trashed and burned it and the vehicles parked there.
They then slowly made their way to the main building of the compound that was occupied by Ambassador Chris Stephens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, and State Department Diplomatic Security agent David Ubben.
After making a half-hearted attempt to enter the secure area, the intruders set the rest of the building afire. They could have used their RPGs to blast their way into the secure area by blowing down the gate separating the two areas of the building, but they didn't.
Nor did they attempt to blast their way into the secure area from the outside, something that would have been very easy for them to do considering that Agent Ubben went out and in several times from one window of the secure area.
Instead, they engaged in a series of "immaculate confrontations" with other security personnel during which the two parties fired at each other to no effect at point-blank range.
And then they left and then returned to engage the agents and the rescue party in further "immaculate confrontations" before leaving again without having done anything else so far as we know.
Tapper's report has a couple of math problems because its breathless headline says "Dozens of CIA operatives on the ground during Benghazi attack," and the report says:
Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.
But further on we learn:
Among the many secrets still yet to be told about the Benghazi mission, is just how many Americans were there the night of the attack. A source now tells CNN that number was 35, with as many as seven wounded, some seriously. While it is still not known how many of them were CIA, a source tells CNN that 21 Americans were working in the building known as the annex, believed to be run by the agency.
Where I went to grammar school, 21 did not equal "dozens,' but I attended that school long before New Math was introduced to young minds.
Now, we know that there were seven State personnel at the compound, and Tapper says that twenty-one were at the annex. But thirty-five Americans were in Benghazi at the time.
So, who and where were the remaining seven? If they were all CIA, and if all in the annex were CIA, then there were, in fact, slightly more than two dozen CIA agents or operatives.
If the remaining seven were neither at the compound nor the annex, where were they? At a third facility?
My long summary of events may be found here, and in it I discuss other questions that remain unasked and unanswered other than in select outlets.
51st State Gains Public Support
In June, rumors began to float out of the plains of northeastern Colorado about the possibility of secession. The idea of forming North Colorado became the talk of the counties in the flatlands east of the Rocky Mountains. The major industries of this corner of the state are agricultural and energy – oil and gas.The residents are growing unhappy with the way liberal Democrats have been running the state. They don’t like all of the new anti-gun laws that were passed and they’re not that happy about the green energy laws the liberals passed either.
As difficult as secession is, it isn’t an impossible task. A group of political leaders from 11 of the northeastern counties have been meeting and discussing the possibility and if it is worth pursuing. Last Thursday night, the first public hearing on the matter was held in Weld County, whose commissioners are spearheading the secession movement.
Barbara Kickmeyer, one of the Weld County Commissioners involved in the secession movement said:
“We believe there’s an attack on oil and gas. We believe there’s an attack on agriculture. I don’t think those folks who are making laws down in Denver understand any of it.”Her words were echoed by another commissioner, Sean Conway who said:
“People when they feel disenfranchised and they feel their voices aren’t being heard. That’s a problem in a representative form of government.”On July 18, residents showed up at the Phillips County Commissioner’s meeting and expressed their support of placing secession on the November ballot. The issue will probably go on the November ballot in Cheyenne County.
Secession is a long and difficult process, but in lieu of what the Democrats have done to the state of Colorado, I’m pulling for them to succeed in their effort to secede.
http://godfatherpolitics.com/11978/51st-state-gains-public-support/#d3AXZr7QSafqgYtd.99
What should be next to Trayvon Martin's hoodie in the Smithsonian?
I have a suggestion. How about an exhibit on Tawana Brawley? If the purpose of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian is to remember racial controversies, as the proposed Trayvon exhibit seems to confirm, then how about an honest look at the phenomenon of hate crime hoaxes? Particular attention should be paid to the role of the media in both the Trayvon and Tawana materials. Unquestionably, the media stirred up racial animus, and these incidents both contributed to raising racial tensions.One exhibit should be a copy of Tawana Brawley's first paycheck with hundreds of dollars garnisheed from it, to pay off a lawsuit for having defamed prosecutor Steven Pagones. After delivering 10 checks to him for $3,764.61, she still owes him 430 grand, according to Michael Gartland writing in the New York Post.
Brawley's advisers in the infamous race-baiting case - the Rev. Al Sharpton, and attorneys C. Vernon Mason and Alton Maddox - have already paid, or are paying, their defamation debt. But Brawley, 41, had eluded punishment.
She's now forced to pay Pagones $627 each month, possibly for the rest of her life. Under Virginia law, she can appeal the wage garnishment every six months.
"Finally, she's paying something," said Pagones' attorney, Gary Bolnick. "Symbolically, I think it's very important - you can't just do this stuff without consequences."
Pagones filed for the garnishment with the circuit court in Surry County, Va., in January, a few weeks after The Post tracked down Brawley to tiny Hopewell, Va.
The Smithsonian is funded by all taxpayers for all Americans. The new Museum of African American History and Culture must serve all Americans and be devoted to the truth, not to special interest advocacy. We should pay close attention to the way the Museum decides to display the famous hoodie, and demand that it present the truth about the controversy, including the many systematic media distortions, and the role of the Justice Department in ginning up protests.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/08/what_should_be_next_to_trayvon_martins_hoodie_in_the_smithsonian.html#ixzz2b1Fhbv8J
PK'S NOTE: Be prepared, HEADSLAMS ahead ...
Pelosi: Obama ‘one of the most practically non-partisan presidents’
Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that President Obama is “one of the most practically non-partisan presidents” that she has ever seen in her career and that he “really is working” to forge a budget
agreement.“Here’s the thing — the president is one of the most practically non-partisan presidents I have seen in the White House. I’ve been there since Ronald Reagan, and he really is working to try to get some bipartisan agreement. They’ve been working very hard to try to get the Senate consensus or some agreement on how we can avoid a shutdown of government but also how you can even remove all doubt that we’re not going to honor the full faith in credit of the United States of America by lifting the debt ceiling,” Pelosi said Friday in an interview with the USA Today editorial board.
“There are some glimmers, a possibility of coming to a grand bargain
.
The president is talking about a grand bargain for middle-income jobs,
but the bigger, the grander the bargain the more you can accommodate,
shall we say, other things you don’t like so much. But weighing all the
equities, this is the way that we need to go forward,” Pelosi said.Pelosi also said in the interview that government spending will help
reduce the deficit, and offered a curious response to a question about
the Obama administration’s delay of Obamacare’s unpopular employer
mandate.“The president didn’t postpone the mandate. He postponed the penalties for not engaging in the mandate,” Pelosi said.
“The administration’s recent announcement to delay the onerous and unpopular employer mandate until after the 2014 election… confirms what has been obvious from the start — this law is a colossal mistake,” Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz recently said. Cruz and other Republicans, disagreeing strongly with Pelosi’s characterization of Obama as “practically non-partisan,” are currently engaged in an effort to block all continuing-resolution budget bills until Obamacare is defunded.
War On Words: NYC Dept. Of Education Wants 50 ‘Forbidden’ Words Banned From Standardized Tests
'Dinosaur,' 'Birthday,' 'Halloween,' 'Poverty,' 'Divorce' Among Those Suggested
The New York City Department of Education is waging a war on words of sorts, and is seeking to have words they deem upsetting removed from standardized tests.Fearing that certain words and topics can make students feel unpleasant, officials are requesting 50 or so words be removed from city-issued tests.
The word “dinosaur” made the hit list because dinosaurs suggest evolution which creationists might not like, WCBS 880′s Marla Diamond reported. “Halloween” is targeted because it suggests paganism; a “birthday” might not be happy to all because it isn’t celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Julie Lewis’ family celebrates Christmas and Kwanzaa, but she told CBS 2′s Emily Smith she wants her children to appreciate and learn about other holidays and celebrations.
“They’re going to meet people from all walks of life and they’re going to have to learn to adjust,” Lewis said.
Words that suggest wealth are excluded because they could make kids jealous. “Poverty” is also on the forbidden list. That’s something Sy Fliegal with the Center for Educational Innovation calls ridiculous.
“The Petersons take a vacation for five days in their Mercedes … so what? You think our kids are going to be offended because they don’t have a Mercedes? You think our kids are going to say ‘I’m offended; how could they ask me a question about a Mercedes? I don’t have a Mercedes!’” Fliegal said.
In a throwback to “Footloose,” the word “dancing” is also taboo. However, there is good news for kids that like “ballet”: The city made an exception for this form of dance.
Also banned are references to “divorce” and “disease,” because kids taking the tests may have relatives who split from spouses or are ill.
Some students think banning these words from periodic assessment tests is ridiculous.
“If you don’t celebrate one thing you might have a friend that does it. So I don’t see why people would find it offensive,” Curtis High School Sophomore Jamella Lewis told Diamond.
Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the DOE is simply giving guidance to the test developers.
“So we’re not an outlier in being politically correct. This is just making sure that test makers are sensitive in the development of their tests,” Walcott said Monday.
To which Fliegal responded: “It’s all of life! I don’t know how they figure out what not to put on the list. Every aspect of life is on the list.”
There are banned words currently in school districts nationwide. Walcott said New York City’s list is longer because its student body is so diverse.
Here is the complete list of words that could be banned:
Abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological)
Alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, or drugs
Birthday celebrations (and birthdays)
Bodily functions
Cancer (and other diseases)
Catastrophes/disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes)
Celebrities
Children dealing with serious issues
Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia)
Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or library setting)
Crime
Death and disease
Divorce
Evolution
Expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes
Gambling involving money
Halloween
Homelessness
Homes with swimming pools
Hunting
Junk food
In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge
Loss of employment
Nuclear weapons
Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling)
Parapsychology
Politics
Pornography
Poverty
Rap Music
Religion
Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan)
Rock-and-Roll music
Running away
Sex
Slavery
Terrorism
Television and video games (excessive use)
Traumatic material (including material that may be particularly upsetting such as animal shelters)
Vermin (rats and roaches)
Violence
War and bloodshed
Weapons (guns, knives, etc.)
Witchcraft, sorcery, etc.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/03/26/war-on-words-nyc-dept-of-education-wants-50-forbidden-words-removed-from-standardized-tests/
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