Current Events - September 24, 2013

 Most government employees would work through shutdown

Even in a shutdown, federal buildings would be more than half full.

If Congress doesn't pass a new spending bill in the next week, the federal government will shut down on Oct. 1.

That is, 41% of it will.

An estimated 59% of non-defense federal employees would be exempt from the shutdown and would go to work as usual, according to a USA TODAY analysis of 119 shutdown contingency plans filed with the Office of Management and Budget.

Among them: political appointees, law enforcement, most overseas foreign service officers and anyone else deemed necessary for health or safety of people or property.

That last category can account for a broad cross-section of federal employees, because positions that support a key function — such as information technology, security or even legal help — are also protected. Even a receptionist responsible for picking up sensitive mail deliveries could be considered essential and exempted from furlough.

Maintaining an agency website usually isn't a necessary function, although the Office of Management and Budget said this month that the IRS website may be necessary "to allow for tax filings and tax collection." That's one key difference from the last government shutdown in 1996, when agencies were less reliant on the Web.

"Where those lines are drawn can change from time to time," said Ray Natter, a former deputy chief counsel of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. And the two government agencies responsible for interpreting the law on who's essential and who's not — the Office of Legal Counsel and the Comptroller General — often give inconsistent advice, he said.

Agencies that don't operate on an annual appropriation from Congress also will continue to operate normally. That would include the Postal Service, the Patent and Trademark Office and the Federal Highway Administration. A Census Bureau statistician working on a project in Bangladesh is paid outside of the annual budget and could continue to work.

Meteorologists at the National Weather Service would continue to issue weather forecasts because they're necessary for aviation safety. But ocean and atmospheric scientists who don't produce daily forecasts would also continue to work in order to maintain "crucial long-term historical climate records," according to the Department of Commerce's plan.

At the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the commissioners would continue to work because they're appointed by the president. But the commission's contingency plan also calls for some of the agency's lawyers to go to work, so they can provide "timely and accurate legal advice" to the commissioners about what they can and can't do during a shutdown.

About 65% of Washington-based State Department employees — and 10% of overseas-based employees — would be furloughed. Passport offices would be closed, but any State Department official deemed necessary for the president to carry out his treaty-making responsibilities under the Constitution would come to work. And foreign nationals employed by the State Department may be subject to their country's labor laws, which may not allow an unpaid furlough.

For most federal agencies, almost all employees would work at least a half-day after a shutdown to lock their filing cabinets, update their voicemail and fill out time cards. When the shutdown is over, agencies might take a half-day to ramp back up before opening their doors to the public.

USA TODAY looked at the most recent contingency plans for 339 federal departments, agencies and offices, all filed in 2011 when the government last faced the possibility of a shutdown. The analysis does not include the District of Columbia and many smaller agencies that did not submit a report or those that did not provide personnel figures in their reports.

Also not included: the Department of Defense. "While military personnel would continue in a normal duty status, a large number of our civilian employees would be temporarily furloughed," Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said in a memo to employees Monday. Just how many would be furloughed is unclear; Carter said the department is still updating its contingency plan.

At the White House, 365 staffers would report to work and 1,166 would be furloughed during a shutdown.
Natter noted that the Anti-Deficiency Act, the 129-year-old law that forces the government to shut down without an appropriation from Congress, also makes it illegal for furloughed workers to volunteer — even though many end up getting paid whether they work for not. "It really ought to be rewritten to be more relevant for the 21st century," he said.

Roy Meyers, a professor at the University of Maryland-Baltimore who teaches federal budgeting, said he's not surprised to see agencies use as much flexibility as they can get away with.

"To the extent that agencies are taking advantage of the vague guidance OMB has given them, it doesn't bother me a bit," he said. "What the agencies are being told to do (is) an asinine thing."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/09/23/government-shutdown-furloughs-exempt/2855461/

Obama the Storyteller

President Obama unwittingly disclosed his modus operandi in a single statement back in 2012. The sentence explains why he has been able to both win elections and been such a failure once in office.
In the summer of 2012, President Obama refused to take responsibility for failures during his first term. As is his wont, he blamed others.  In this case it was not the "usual suspect," Republicans,  but all Americans. He told CBS News; Charlie Rose that his biggest mistake of his first term was not being a good enough storyteller:

"The mistake of my first term. . .was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that's important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times."

Mitt Romney mocked his answer, "Being president is not about telling stories. Being president is about leading, and President Obama has failed to lead."

But why wouldn't Obama think that success was based on telling stories? After all, his ability to tell stories was key to his string of election victories. He never had much of a record to run on (many Americans overlooked or did not care that his career was marked by "voting present" when not claiming credit for work he did not do) so to fill up a sparse resume he created stories.

As many politicians have done, he published a book "Dreams from My Father; A Story of Race and Inheritance" that served as the foundation of his political biography. Many of his early supporters -- and later ones as well -- were inspired to support him after reading the book. But a book by the Washington Post reporter and highly-regarded biographer David Maraniss confirmed reports from others (including New York Times reporter Janny Scott in her own book,  "A Singular Woman," about Obama's mother)  that the book was filled with "errors" -- characters that never existed or were "composites," incidents that never happened, girlfriends that never existed, mentors that were misidentified, and more. There was a pattern in the book that became a pattern when Obama became a politician and then the President.

Perhaps the most disturbing fabrication in Obama's book was the tale that he routinely used when pushing ObamaCare and while on the campaign trail of his own mother's death. He blamed insurance companies for denying treatment. This was a blatant lie that he knew was a lie since he served not just as her son but as her lawyer.

During the 2008 presidential debate he peddled this fiction:

For my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they're saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don't have to pay her treatment, there's something fundamentally wrong about that.

Why was this lie more important than any others?
It was a foundational lie; a talisman for all that would follow for, as Victor Davis Hanson so keenly noted, a man who would lie about his own mother's death would "fudge" about anything, and do so shamelessly.

And so he has.

The storytelling worked for years. Indeed, they lifted him from a lowly state senator in Illinois to the highest office in the land. Such rags to riches stories are part of the American creed and often are celebrated. But another part of American history has been the role of con men.

He relied on his promises to, not to put too fine a word on it, dupe enough voters to put an X next to his name.  When he was subjected to scrutiny, his critics were described as, inevitably, racists or birthers -- beyond the pale. He told people not to be "bamboozled" -- one of many instances of his practice of projection. To his base of low information voters, his words "hope and change" and "we are the ones we have been waiting for" were all the information they needed to cast their votes.  Listeners swooned to the telepromptered mush regurgitated by him during his campaigns. It was manna from heaven.  No wonder he is so welcome in Hollywood: moviemakers and Obama both manipulate people to suspend their disbelief.

Sadly, one of the features of modern technology is that it allows people to construct so-called "silos" around themselves -- narrowcasting "news" to them in such a limited and partisan way they see no need to look elsewhere for those pesky things known as facts.  Wasn't the animated Life of Julia campaign just a juvenile fairytale, targeting the youth brigades that voted en masse for Obama?  Why does the fable of the Pied Piper come to mind when considering how much harm Obama's policies have caused the youth who so yearned to believe in him?

But the chickens seem to have come home to roost, as Jeremiah Wright might trumpet.

Americans have finally seen the scandals emerge from the cocoon the media has wrapped around the White House. And his defenses are failing him.  His storytelling has run its course, or so it seems. America does not view these as "phony scandals" -- there is phoniness aplenty in Washington these days but not when it comes to the range of scandals that have finally come to light.

The IRS scandal was not the work of a few wayward Cincinnati employees but extends far higher and deeper than Obama would have us believe.  The IRS may be the most reviled part of the government and impacts many peoples' lives.  The abuse of its powers to punish people who oppose Obama or desire reform in government strikes almost all Americans as just wrong and unfair in the most elemental sense.

Benghazi is not going away -- even if the media and Democrats treat the victims' families so disgracefully by ignoring their entreaties and dismissing their grief (compare and contrast the lionization of Cindy Sheehan for the years she attacked President Bush) and try to gag witnesses. Americans do care when people serving their nation are killed through the negligence of their leaders and those same leaders try to pin the blame on some gadfly in California.

All of his promises regarding Obamacare have been proven, as we approach its implementation and the other pesky thing known as reality intrudes, false.

His storytelling skills are failing him to such an extent that he says things easily proven to be lies ("I did not set a red line"). The toll of his storytelling has shown-he has run out of material.

The NSA scandal festers -- even if it takes foreign media to cover the topic because Obama has made America allergic to more government overreach and surveillance in his quest to expand his power over America while turning us into a banana republic, as Mark Steyn has written.

Granted, Obama has had some success in sending various scandals down the memory hole.  Fast and Furious sadly seems to have vanished from the radar screens. Attorney General Eric Holder stonewalled and stalled the enquiring Republican minds in the House and ignored subpoenas.  When that tactic started failing, President Obama rushed to shield Holder and the Department of Justice by invoking, in another example of Obama overreach, executive privilege.

But there are signs that the memory hole may be filling up. Perhaps the media has been offended by years of personal mistreatment by Obama's people. The surveillance of the Associated Press scandal may have been the straw that broke their collective back. The news that the Justice Department had been snooping into their phone records made big media the victims, for a change, instead of the rest of America.  Certainly Benghazi victims and their survivors can be safely ignored but how dare the administration challenge the sanctity of journalists?

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel (or pixels by the googolplex, in the updated version) is a cliché well-known in Washington. So the media suddenly seems more receptive to covering the lame duck in the White House who has mistreated them. Duck-hunting season has begun in Washington.

However, a different dynamic is at work. Successful con men, like sharks, need to keep moving They can move to an area, find and score against the marks and suckers, and move on to find a new group of innocent victims. But Obama has now been on the national stage for 7 years now; there is nowhere left to hide, no new suckers to find.  Reality is there for all to see.

The media has taken note that Obama has been unable to move the needle on a range of issues (the nomination of Larry Summers, immigration, Syria, gun control, ObamaCare, the environment). Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote recently in Politico that "Barack Obama has still never really sold the American people on anything but himself."  He did this by telling stories about himself and his plans -- stories peddled to the naïve and besotted ones.  But Obama also has a history of fulfilling one of his promises -- that when others bring a knife to a fight to a political fight, he brings a gun. Character assassination of all his political opponents is a recurring motif.   Was Romney really a felon, a tax cheat and murderer?  Are Republicans all members of the Flat-Earth Society, birthers, greedy miscreants, racists and warriors against women?  Yet he can deliver an error-ridden paean to the glories of Islam in Cairo, characterize terrorism as "man-made disasters," depict the Fort Hood massacre as "workplace violence" and use foggy language and euphemisms to fudge facts when it comes to dealing with America's adversaries.

He and Democrats have been flooding the airwaves and YouTube networks with this nonsense for years. Good stories need villains.

After 5-plus years of this invective, repeated ad nauseum, more and more people are tired of him. They no longer flock to their TVs to see him or crowd auditoriums to watch him. He should be glad he will not be running for election ever again. People are tuning him out.

So how has he responded? He has been hiring more storytellers and mythmakers to serve as his spinners.

One way he has reacted is by reaching out to the media and co-opting them by hiring an unprecedented number of the most well-connected to work for the White House (officially!). Recently, Richard Stengel, the top editor at Time for seven years, landed a new job at the State Department. He was at least the 15^th major journalist to join Team Obama.  They join siblings of the Presidents of ABC News and CBS News who work at the White House, including Ben Rhodes, who may have played a key role in the Benghazi cover-up.

Will this ploy work? How can Republicans respond?

Unfortunately, the GOP lacks good storytellers. John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Michael McConnell and others on the right might be fine men but can Americans relate to them as they did the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan?

Reverence for the office of the President should not shield this president from criticism. He certainly dishes it out, so why not let him have it as well?  Obama has shown himself to be  is unusually sensitive to criticism, whimpering that his opponents "talk about me like a dog."  Even leaving aside the implied charge of racism in allegedly being treated as nonhuman, what President has ever whined in such a way?

When a bully has a glass jaw, doesn't that present a tempting target?

 http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/obama_the_storyteller.html#ixzz2fplyPvit

‘Dictatorship 101′: Beck’s Chilling Break-Down of What Parent Arrested After Questioning Common Core Means for America

Glenn Beck told his audience on Monday that the arrest of a Maryland father who was asking questions about Common Core is frightening evidence of the country moving further along the path that he says goes from “nudge,” to “shove,” to “shoot.”

For those unfamiliar with the terms, Beck explained that “it’s how every Marxist utopian dream begins.”

“You start simple, with just a little ‘nudge,’” he said.  “It’s Cash for Clunkers. It is trying to figure out a way to make energy prices ‘necessarily skyrocket,’ to nudge you into hybrids.”

(Photo: TheBlaze TV)

But when that doesn’t work, the government starts to “shove,” Beck continued. “That’s when they use the IRS to shut down opposing voices. They use the NSA to monitor and track American citizens…Then they start using regulation and they start arresting people to scare everybody.”

If that also fails to produce the results the government seeks, Beck said, historically, they start to shoot, or send people to re-education or internment camps.

“So where are we in the scale?” Beck asked the audience.  “Are we at nudge, shove, or shoot?”

Beck said after he saw the video of what happened in Towson, Maryland, he couldn’t sleep for two hours because he believes “it is a very important piece that moves us further towards shoot.”

...

During a public forum on Common Core, Robert Small stood up because he had a question (it should be noted that the flyer for the event encourages, “your chance to get answers to your Common Core questions” but parents were asked to submit their questions on paper).

“He wasn’t merely arrested,” Beck said.  “He was removed with excessive force, and today he faces 10 years in prison…Did he look at all out of control? …This is the way it used to happen in mother Russia, not America.”

Small was charged with second degree assault of a police officer, faced a $2,500 fine, and up to ten years in prison, but it was announced shortly after Beck’s program concluded that all charges have been dropped.

But that wasn’t all that shocked Beck.

“Where were the teachers as he was being removed?  You know, the ones who always teach about how it’s wrong to bully people?” he asked.  “Did not one person have the decency to stay stop, up there on the board?”

“We have seen in the past few months teachers stand up for a colleague who raped an 8th grade student, but the teachers don’t stand up against this?” he added.

As Small was being pushed out of the room, he expressed shock at how the crowd was sitting there like “cattle,” urging them to “question these people.”

Beck agreed: “Time to get out of the herd, because you’re being led to slaughter.  Perhaps people were afraid to speak because they were afraid of being dragged off by a police officer…And when nobody is there to stand up for you, it’s because you weren’t there to stand there for everybody else that was dragged off.”

Beck told his viewers to mark the day in their journals, and that it really doesn’t matter if Small goes to jail or not, the damage has been done.

“Did people learn their lesson?” he asked.  “It’s dictatorship 101 — make someone an example, and the rest will stay in line.”

He said thousands should show up at the area’s next Common Core meeting, though he doubts that will happen.

Beck brought in two local activists who were at the event in Maryland where Small was arrested, Ann Miller — who took the video — and Cindy Sharretts, who was sitting a few seats behind Small.

The two remarked that nothing was taken out of context — Small was not making a disturbance before the video began, for instance, and that they think many likely regretted not having stood up.

“Everybody has those moments where you think, in hindsight, I should have done this, I should have said that,” Miller said. “I think a lot of us had a learning moment that evening.”

They added, however, that they didn’t know at the time that the man was being arrested; they just thought he was being escorted out of the room.

“Parents really need to understand how political our school system is,” Miller urged. “We think that we’re working together, parents and teachers…[but] it’s a top-down power structure, and then you throw in money, which is Common Core.”

“In Maryland, we received a quarter of a [billion] dollars when we adopted Common Core three years ago,” she said. “Now in that time, we’ve had an information blackout.  We didn’t even know we adopted it…”

Beck noted that if a private company treated people in such a way, “you’d sell your stock and get out.” But you can’t when it’s the government. More than that, you turn your kids over to them for the majority of the day.

Kyle Olson of the the Education Action Group, who joined later in the program, told Beck: “This moment right now is a call to arms against Common Core, against this thug bureaucracy that we’re seeing right now, and it’s critical that people stand up and fight back.”

Miller and Sharretts urged people to join or look at the Facebook group, Don’t be Cattle! Fight Common Core!, to stay updated on the latest.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/23/dictatorship-101-becks-chilling-break-down-of-what-parent-arrested-after-questioning-common-core-means-for-america/

The Hypocrisy Of Congress's Gold-Plated Health Care

Special subsidies for Hill workers trample on the Founders' code of equal application of the law.

As close observers of history and human nature, James Madison and the other Founders of the U.S. Constitution knew that the equal and unbiased application of the law to all people, especially elected officials, is essential to freedom and justice and one of the primary safeguards from authoritarianism and oppression by a ruling class.

And so, referring to the members of Congress, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 57: "[T]hey can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society." 

Today, elected officials need to be reminded of these truths. Under pressure from Congress, the White House has carved out a special exemption for Congress and its staffers from ObamaCare—the law it recently deemed necessary for the entire country. No Republicans voted for ObamaCare. Yet it appears that some of them support the exemption President Obama approved on his own—so they would not have to go on record with a vote for or against it.

This is the height of hypocrisy, and worse, a trampling of the Founders' code of equal application of the law. Having forced a health law on the American people, the White House and Democrats now seek to insulate themselves from the noxious portions of the law, and from the implementation struggles, indecision and uncertainty that many other Americans face today. 

In other words, Congress's health-care premiums will not rise, but yours may. Members of Congress will be able to afford to keep their health-insurance plan, but you may be kicked off yours. They will be able to afford to keep their doctors, but you may have to find a new one.

Rep. Ron DeSantis, a Republican from Florida, recently put forward legislation—aptly named the James Madison Congressional Accountability Act—which would end the special exemption. In the Senate, Republicans David Vitter of Louisiana and Mike Enzi of Wyoming have also introduced legislation to end the exemption. 

In response, several Democratic senators have reacted by drafting legislation that would punish anyone who votes for Sen. Vitter's plan by permanently blocking an exemption from them and their staff, even if Mr. Vitter's law doesn't pass. It doesn't get more vindictive and petty than that.

All this began when Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010. It compelled Congress and its staff to participate in ObamaCare and its insurance exchanges like other Americans who don't have employer-provided plans. But in their haste and confusion over legislation so long that few even read it all, some members of Congress voted for the law without realizing that the final bill had no mention of the very generous premium contributions the government makes to federal employees as part of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

Imagine the horror when these elected officials, who make $174,000 a year, realized that not only must they and their staffers be subject to inferior-quality health exchanges like the millions of ordinary Americans, but they might also have to shell out thousands of dollars for increased premiums if they exceed the subsidy income cutoff. 

The White House, under heat from Congress, directed the Office of Personnel Management to carve out special rules so that the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program can continue to contribute to the health plans used by Congress and congressional staff. 

Congress complains that without its special subsidies the Hill will suffer a "brain drain" as staffers leave their jobs because of increasing out-of-pocket insurance costs. Heaven forbid Congress suffer the same fate as private companies like UPS, which recently had to cut health-care benefits entirely for employees' spouses; or labor unions, like the 40,000 International Longshore and Warehouse Union workers who recently left the AFL-CIO citing as one factor ObamaCare's tax on their "Cadillac" health-care plans. 

You'd think that the authors of ObamaCare would have been prepared to cope with its effects. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, has already put money aside in his budget to help supplement his staff's health-care costs in anticipation of the new law. Other congressmen should have done the same.
Regardless of whether or not they support ObamaCare, members of Congress should refuse the special exemption. The law they enacted should apply to them.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324665604579080921594857770.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop 

The 'law of the land' does not apply to all of the land

There are many things about ObamaCare that we can criticize:

1) First, it is not really affordable, as people will find out.  The AHCA never addressed costs or structural problems such as lawsuit reform; and

2) It depends on what the meaning of universal is.  We will still have millions of uninsured in the US, according to James C Capretta.

Beyond costs and universality, my biggest objection is that the law is unfair.  It does not apply to everyone, such as members of Congress, and about 729 companies and other concerns exempted.

This is why I don't buy this "law of the land argument" that we hear from Democrats

Yes, Obama Care passed Congress and was signed by President Obama.  It was even blessed by The Supreme Court.

However, we are not implementing the law that Congress passed or what Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts gave his OK to.

The law has been changed, often by executive decree, about 15 times:

"President Obama has already signed 14 laws that amend, rescind or otherwise change parts of his health care law, and he's taken five independent steps to delay the Affordable Care Act on his own, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service, released Wednesday."

The Congress should have been involved in these changes.  They should have been forced to vote on changes or waivers.  

Obama Care is not the law of the land, as long as we have people "exempted" or living with waivers.  There is a very un-American characteristic to a law that does not apply equally to all. 

 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/09/the_law_of_the_land_does_not_apply_to_all_of_the_land.html#ixzz2fpcop1EO

The Obvious Way Out of a Shutdown over Obamacare

Here's a win-win. Ted Cruz proposes a delay in Obamacare's individual mandate until 2015--the same delay that employers received. That delay takes the form of no funding to enforce the mandate. It also mirrors a condition Republicans have tied to a debt ceiling increase; in return, Cruz says, they'll drop other demands.

That deal would allow Cruz to claim a victory of sorts. It would also allow Obama to say he's preserved his signature legislation (until the next, post-midterm crisis, à la 2012's fiscal cliff) while refusing to negotiate on the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. (he will have done so, but not on overall spending levels). Whew, for now.

A delay would also give Obama and the Democrats time to sort out the absolute mess that is the state exchange system, and which is undermining what little national support there is for the legislation (including among the unions). Hillary Clinton would have time to invent Obamacare fixes by 2016, the better to court moderates.

Voilà, win-win, crisis averted, back to bickering rather than brinkmanship, and perhaps a long-overdue focus on a foreign policy crisis in the Middle East that is not going away. There are also some pressing scandals that require attention, not least of which is the IRS scandal, ever more scandalous. Win-win. Therefore unlikely.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/23/The-Obvious-Way-Out-of-a-Shutdown-over-Obamacare

Defunding ObamaCare Debate a Win for GOP, Tea Party

 Most of Washington has decided that the ObamaCare defunding debate, led by Sens. Cruz and Lee, is a disaster for the Republican party. It is unlikely to succeed, they argue, and risks a government shutdown, which will be blamed on the GOP and hurt their chances in 2014. The argument is plausible, but very short-sighted. Two important things have happened as a result of this debate which benefit the GOP.

First, all anyone in politics or the press is talking about right now is ObamaCare and the Republican push to defund it. Against this backdrop have been countless stories about the problems coming to light as ObamaCare nears implementation. One company after another are dropping or scaling back health coverage. Even governments are making moves to move their employees or retirees onto ObamaCare exchanges. 

Premiums are increasing more than expected for many people. Those with the most affordable coverage will have limited choices of doctors and providers. Most of the health exchanges scheduled to open next week aren't ready or will have serious bugs to work out. 

How is it bad for the GOP to have a big national debate on getting rid of ObamaCare on the eve of its implementation, just as the public is again paying attention to the issue? It benefits the party to remind voters that Republicans will go to almost any length to defund a law who's unpopularity is likely to grow. It also benefits the party to remind voters that Democrats will go to almost any length to preserve the law. 

Second, while the political world is consumed with ObamaCare funding, it isn't debating spending levels in the Continuing Resolution. The House-passed measure assumes the sequester cuts and sets discretionary spending at $967 billion, a level not seen since before Obama took office. While the sequester has numerous flaws, especially as it relates to the military, that is a significant and real spending cut. 

Without the ObamaCare debate, Democrats and the media would be brow-beating Republicans to increase spending or even restore the cuts that have already been made to the budget. The Senate budget called for a big spike in discretionary spending. Harry Reid, however, is expected to agree to the lower level of spending in the House CR as an inducement for the House to pass a Senate version restoring ObamaCare. 

Personally, I was never really a fan of the ObamaCare defunding fight. Over 70% of ObamaCare is funded by mandatory spending and can't be defunded through congressional appropriations. Most of the law would march on, even if Congress defunded it. 

Politically, though, it is looking more like a winner for conservative Republicans and the Tea Party. Democrats may come to regret that they fought so hard to preserve funding and defend ObamaCare. 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/24/Defunding-ObamaCare-Debate-a-Win-for-GOP

5 Reasons Defunding Obamacare Is Smart Politics

Defunding Obamacare is a great idea and I'm not just saying that because I was the first one to promote the concept in March of 2010. Back then, the GOP Leadership agreed with me with no arm twisting required. John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Cathy McMorris Rodgers all vowed to defund Obamacare if the GOP took back the House. Today, it's finally going to happen, but only because Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have forced the GOP to stand up and fight. 

That being said, it is admittedly unlikely that Barack Obama will agree to defund Obamacare. To make that happen, we'd need a unified GOP caucus and leaders with skill at messaging who could keep the public on our side for months after Obama shuts down the government. We don't have that, which means we probably can't achieve our ultimate goal. However, that doesn't mean that there is nothing to be gained or that the GOP is doomed to take a beating on the issue. 

1) We're nearly on even ground with Obama at the moment: According to the latest Gallup poll, if there was a government shutdown, 39% of the public would blame the GOP, 36% would blame Obama and 17% would blame both sides. Those are not bad numbers and when Obama is shouting from the rooftops that he won't compromise under any circumstances, there's no reason the polls have to dramatically tilt against the Republican Party if Democrats insist on shutting the government down. If people assume your side is holding up a deal when the other side is telling everyone that it won't compromise, then maybe it's time to start questioning whether your leaders are effective enough at messaging to continue to lead.

2) The GOP has to prove it's willing to stand up and fight: Jonah Goldberg once said, “(J)ust to clarify: If you go into every situation saying there’s absolutely nothing worth fighting over, you will inevitably end up on a cot sleeping next to a guy named Tiny, bringing him breakfast in his cell every morning, and spending your afternoons ironing his boxers. Or, in the case of the French, you might spend your afternoon rounding up Jews to send to Germany, but you get the point.”
 
The problem with the D.C. Republicans is that they've become that guy sleeping on the cot. They're ultimately not willing to go to the mat over anything and so the Democrats never see a need to compromise because they assume they'll win every even fight in a walk. As a general rule, they're right about that and if it wasn't for the conservative base applying pressure to the GOP, we'd NEVER win an even fight with the Democrats. That needs to change. 

3) We elevate the issue: If we could pick one issue that should decide the 2014 and 2016 elections, Obamacare would be it. The roll-out has been a disaster. People are losing their jobs, being cut back to part time, and losing their health insurance. Premiums are set to skyrocket across the nation. Obamacare is killing the middle class in this country and we should want every last American to know that the GOP is fighting like hell to stop this law while the Democrats are responsible for every last problem Americans have with their health care from now on. If this fight helps cement that message in and becomes a crucial defining difference between the two parties, that's a good thing for the Republican Party. 

4) We make it known we're going to kill the bill by any legal means necessary: Since the GOP has voted against Obamacare many times and most GOP governors have declined to sign up for the exchanges, this is the next logical step in attempting to kill the bill. If the GOP manages to take back the Senate and the perception is that the Democrats lost because of Obamacare, it could dramatically curtail support for the law on the Left. Beyond that, we should expect any GOP nominee in 2016 to pledge to unilaterally dismantle Obamacare using the precedent set by Barack Obama. If we have an opportunity to do something, but fail to act, the politicians like John McCain, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham will declare the fight over and encourage everyone to just learn to live with Obamacare. 

5) Think of the proposals we can send the Democrats: Too many people think of this as an all or nothing exercise. Either we defund Obamacare or we've failed. But, what if the House Republicans compromise by agreeing to fund the government, while implementing the whole law "as is" with no delays? What if they agree to fund the government, but demand that the IRS, Congress, and their aides are covered by Obamacare? What if they vote to fund the government, but with a two year Obamacare delay? Let's turn this into THE ISSUE OF 2014 and then let the whole country see that Democrats would rather shut the government down than give up their special carve-outs for the IRS, themselves, and their cronies. If the GOP leadership can't wring concessions worth having out of the Democrats under those circumstances, then the problem isn't the fight; it's the people we have in charge of the Republican Party. 

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2013/09/23/5-reasons-defunding-obamacare-is-smart-politics-n1707970/page/full 

A Cruz Missile Launch, Like a Light, Shows the Cockroaches Scurrying

A curious moment happened on Fox News Sunday. Chris Wallace told Karl Rove that a number of Republicans in Congress had sent him opposition research on Ted Cruz once Fox announced Cruz would be on. 

Rove responded. He said this was all happening because Cruz and Mike Lee had not worked out strategy in the regular Senate Republican Conference lunches on Thursdays. Rove said that was what was supposed to happen. Except that for a year now, Senate Republicans have routinely leaked the proceedings of those meetings to the New York Times and Washington Post in ways designed to harm Cruz, Lee, and others who side with them.

In fact, as one Senator noted in last week’s meeting, this would not be happening but for John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell choosing not to lead. Had Lee and Cruz approached their Senate colleagues, they would have been dismissed. I can say this confidently because it has happened repeatedly and since their election to the Senate their Republican colleagues have routinely taken to “on background” leaks assailing them.

I doubt Rove is that tuned out. He simply disagrees with their strategy and has been very vocal about how terrible he thinks it is. But the strategy is actually quite marvelous and Rove has to be smart enough to what is actually going on. Now it is time for everyone else to see the bigger picture.

Let’s be clear here — absent the American people lending a loud, clear voice for Cruz and Lee, the Republicans will cave. They will not stand with Cruz and Lee unless dragged kicking and screaming against their will. I hope they will. I hope a collection of House conservatives will stand strong and force the issue. But the majority of them will betray Cruz and Lee. In fact, Senate Republican Leaders have built up so much irrational hatred of Cruz, they want him to fail just so they can say they beat him — damn the Obamacare implications. Their pride comes before the nation.

Cruz only needs a few dozen Republicans in the House to stand firm to be successful. He might get that. But the bulk of the GOP in the House will try to cut a deal with the Democrats and move on.
That, in and of itself, is the brilliance of this strategy. 

For several years now the Republican rhetoric against Obamacare has been vicious and savage. As more stories come in about the harmful effects the legislation will have on our economy, we learn that the Affordable Care Act is anything but and more Americans are losing full time jobs to it. Each news story causes Republican rhetoric to amp up and Republican fundraising petitions to start up. The GOP has made a mint off opposition to Obamacare and, ironically, now attack conservatives as being in this fight for the money. Takes one to know one, except these groups are not stopping. It is dawning on Republican leaders these groups actually, really believe in this fight.

Like a light switch flipping on, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are casting light on the scurrying of Republican roaches in and out of the Capitol. Republican congressmen and Senators are now openly attacking Cruz and Lee. Outside groups like Americans for Tax Reform and outside media interests like the Wall Street Journal are amplifying attacks made by the establishment GOP against conservatives. Lobbyists are up in arms. 

Mike Lee and Ted Cruz are showing the leadership skills others have claimed for themselves and conservatives now see just how badly they’ve been played by their so called leaders and many outside groups that have hung for too long on the conservative label while really being affiliates of the Republican Party itself. Because of Lee and Cruz, polling against Obamacare is up and the GOP’s favorability is up.
Even more importantly, the Republican base’s willingness to get back in the game has gone up too in the aftermath of a bitterly depressing 2012 election that saw a good bit of disengagement by the base.

 Conservatives may see their leaders now as the pathetic lot they are, but they have also seen real leadership in Cruz and Lee. They’ve also found real voices on the outside like Heritage Action for America and the Senate Conservatives Fund with which they can engage for education and motivation.

John Cornyn sent out an email that he would be voting against any amendment to fund Obamacare. But his voters in Texas now understand Cornyn is playing them — voting to ensure Obamacare gets funded while voting against it. The base has learned the game and the base is sick of the game.

All the shots at Cruz from inside and outside Congress only strengthen his relationship with the grassroots.
But more importantly, and this is the bit the GOP and its media allies simply have not understood — the Cruz strategy would never work in and of itself. It required stronger, braver souls than the GOP currently has to offer. It does, however, throw such a light on these Republicans that it will make it both easier to challenge them in primaries and, more importantly, make it much, much harder for them to cooperate with the Democrats on Obamacare fixes. Win or lose, Cruz and Lee have boxed in both the Democrats and the Republicans into positions that will make it more difficult for them to nuance their way out of.

In short, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have, whether they can muster the support or not in this round, ensured the GOP cannot begin collaborating with the Democrats to fix what the voters want repealed. And you can be sure that they would be working to fix it, despite all their rhetoric otherwise. You can be sure of that because Ted Cruz’s fight has proven just how empty their rhetoric really is.

Republican base voters have, for quite a while, distrusted their leaders. Now, thanks to Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, they know why and they know who, on the inside, they should be listening too.

http://www.redstate.com/2013/09/24/a-cruz-missile-launch-like-a-light-shows-the-cockroaches-scurrying/

We’re Breaking Up

Dear GOP,

I’m breaking up with you.  It’s not like we didn’t see this coming.  We’ve had our ups and downs.  The Tea Party years were tough enough, but I truly thought we could make it when we elected (who we thought were) more principled leaders to replace at least some of the old guard.  Unfortunately, the old guard and their old ways just won’t go away and you seem to be more in tune with them.

To be honest, I’ve been drifting away from you for some time now.  I was getting the sense your values weren’t in line with mine and then Syria happened.  And, well, let’s just say that Syria really showed me what is important to you.

But the death knell to our relationship wasn’t Syria; although that one cut pretty deep.  Nope, it’s your treatment of Senator Ted Cruz.  You’d think he was a Democrat with all the open hostility you’ve been hurling at him.  Senator John McCain has been reported, for the whole world to see I might add, as f***ing hating Cruz.  Now you’ve sent opposition research on Cruz to a reporter, hoping the press would help you in your crusade.  No wonder so many Christians don’t vote.  On the one side, we have Democrats okay with baby murder and on the other side we have Republicans openly knifing one of their own.

I can’t take it anymore.  I don’t know what you stand for.  I can’t figure out what your strategy could possibly be.  Are we to be the party that folds in the face of any pressure and hangs out to dry anyone in the party that might actually stand for our supposed values?  No thanks.  I’ll take my vote and dollars elsewhere.
Yes I know my dollars won’t be missed.  They are a pittance compared to the money the old guard is stuffing in your pockets to act like losers.  But consider this: I’m your base.  I’m a Christian, wife and mother with conservative values.  You don’t have to like me but you should know I’m not going away.  If you want an open fight then we shall have one.  I’ll be standing with Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and the few who are brave enough to stand for me.  And I’ll be sure to let my mom friends, who mostly don’t care to keep up with your shenanigans, who stands for them.

See you at the polls.

http://www.redstate.com/2013/09/24/were-breaking-up/

Nancy Pelosi says the federal cupboard is bare, there are no more spending cuts to make

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi swung by CNN’s State of the Nation to assure America that austerity has run its course, the budget has been cut to the bone, and there isn’t a penny left to pinch from Uncle Sam’s moth-filled wallet.  ”The cupboard is bare.  There’s no more cuts to make,” Pelosi gibbered.  ”It’s really important that people understand that.  We all want to reduce the deficit.”

And since there’s not one thin dime of waste, fraud, abuse, irresponsible spending, or unconstitutional power left in Washington, you know what that means.  Time for these ridiculous Democrats to slip into their deficit-hawk costumes and begin yelling about tax increases again.  There might not be any more room for spending cuts in the federal budget, but we can always squeeze a few more bucks out of the private sector, no matter how long Barack Obama’s economy floats face-down in the sewers of flat GDP growth and high unemployment.

For people of Nancy Pelosi’s mindset, the private sector can never be small enough.  The equally unhinged Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, just went on another tear about how opponents of ObamaCare are “anarchists,” a term he deploys against anyone who thinks a multi-trillion-dollar government living thirty or forty percent beyond its means might be a wee bit too plump.  ”We’re not going to bow to Tea Party anarchists who deny the mere fact that ObamaCare is the law,” sneered Reid.  ”We will not bow to Tea Party anarchists who refuse to accept that the Supreme Court ruled that ObamaCare is constitutional.”

I guess that makes Barack Obama an “anarchist” for refusing to obey ObamaCare, having cut his anarchist teeth on refusing to respect such settled laws of the land as Bill Clinton’s Defense of Marriage Act.  ObamaCare isn’t really a “law,” because not everyone is required to obey it.  It’s an exercise of power, but it cannot be considered truly lawful until everyone is equally subject to it.  That day will never come.

But there’s no point in having a rational discussion about Reid’s outburst.  Democrats are perfectly comfortable denying the authority of laws they dislike, and fighting like the dickens to overturn them, no matter what any Supreme Court might say about it.  The Constitution is dust in the wind to them, but a three-year old, catastrophically failed health care law is written in granite… just like the deficit is the irrational obsession of cranks when Democrats want to spend money, but an urgent national priority when they want to raise taxes.

Two groups of people claim anarchy is the only alternative to tyranny: anarchists and tyrants.  For the Left, only asserting power and growing the government matters.  That’s why they don’t care about the failures of ObamaCare.  As long as it lets them hire an army of bureaucrats, get the middle class hooked on subsidy checks, and carve out special exemptions for their very special friends, it’s working.  Rising premiums, vaporized health care plans, and massacred full-time jobs are of little concern.  In fact, rising premiums and the hordes of people tumbling into those “public exchanges” are more like features than bugs.  When the cost of insurance becomes unbearable, Democrats will begin agitating for larger subsidies to “help” the Sainted Middle Class.  That will blow the deficit into orbit… at which point Nancy Pelosi will once again check the federal cupboard, find no room for spending cuts, and declare that tax increases to pay for middle-class health care benefits are urgently needed.

The day will soon come when it’s impossible for them to play that game any more, but Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama will be safely retired by then.  Part of the effective strategy for fighting back will involve a refusal to let them get away with pretending there’s no room for spending cuts.  Most people reading this would be able to rattle billions of dollars in outright government fraud off the top of their heads – lately we’ve been hearing stories about how cell-phone welfare providers were trained to help their “clients” commit fraud.  But the response from Democrats is that you’re not really talking about “spending cuts” when you bring up those outrages.  You’re talking about “good government,” and they’re all in favor of that.  Why, haven’t they been promising to crack down on waste and abuse for decades now?

Indeed they have, and they’ll promise it for another decade or so, before total fiscal collapse gets under way, and there’s no more money for the widely abused welfare and crony-capitalist programs anyway.  This business of promising reforms to bloated Big Government programs is a sucker play.  It always has been.  There are no efficient Big Government programs.  There are no honest mega-governments.  Nancy Pelosi chirping about how Uncle Sam’s belt is pulled to the tightest notch is evidence of that.  When trillions are spent by the State, billions will inevitably disappear.

One reason for this inherent corruption is the near-total absence of the pressures that lead to efficiency and accountability.  Most private-sector cost cutting sessions begin with department heads wailing that they can’t spare a dime from their budgets, too.  The difference is that they have to.  Competitive pressures compel them to make budget cuts on Friday that seemed impossible on Monday morning.

These forces are quite absent from a government that thinks it can eternally continue spending piles of money it doesn’t have.  There is no need to make trade-offs, no compulsion to trim existing programs to fund new spending initiatives, no great worry that billions of dollars are swirling down the toilets of corruption.  When red ink begins spilling off the spreadsheets and pooling on the floor, politicians can just shake down the private sector for taxes.  When people complain about failed programs that cost too much, politicians can insult them as “anarchists.”  It’s not like they can take their business elsewhere because they don’t like the management’s pissy attitude.

The American people should have long ago imposed Constitutional spending caps, tax limits, and a balanced budget requirement on Congress.  Just think how much less idiocy we’d have to tolerate from people like Pelosi and Reid if they were forced to live within their means, like the rest of us.  It’s amazing what Pelosi would find in that cupboard if she was legally compelled to keep looking, or explain to her favorite constituents why the cookie jar is empty.

http://www.redstate.com/2013/09/23/nancy-pelosi-says-the-federal-cupboard-is-bare-there-are-no-more-spending-cuts-to-make/

GOP Food Stamp Bill Includes $125 Million to Fight Food Deserts

Bill also orders agriculture secretary to examine health benefits of white potatoes

The House Republican bill to reduce food stamp spending also creates a $125 million program to combat food deserts and orders the agriculture secretary to “review the public health benefits of white potatoes.”
H.R. 3102, which narrowly passed 217-210 on Thursday, was the subject of scorn from Democrats due to $3.9 billion in cuts per year over the next ten years to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps.  The cuts to a program that now spends $88.6 billion annually.
All but 15 Republicans voted for the bill, and Democrats were unanimously opposed.

Tucked into the bill are several provisions that increase spending, including $125 million to reduce food deserts and over $60 million to expand a farmers’ market program.

Section 307 creates a “Healthy Food Financing” initiative, which will pay for the expansion of food retailers in low-income areas.

“The purpose of this section is to enhance the authorities of the Secretary to support efforts to provide access to healthy food by establishing an initiative to improve access to healthy foods in underserved areas,” the bill states.

The section allocates $125 million in loans and grants to encourage groceries and markets to open in low-income communities.  The bill says the program will “create and preserve quality jobs.”

Priority will be given to “women or minority-owned businesses,” and retailers will be required to accept food stamp benefits.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food deserts as “urban neighborhoods and rural towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food.”

“Instead of supermarkets and grocery stores, these communities may have no food access or are served only by fast food restaurants and convenience stores that offer few healthy, affordable food options,” the USDA said.

The provision arose out of an amendment offered by two Democrats, Reps. Allyson Schwartz (Pa.) and Marcia Fudge (Ohio), which passed during committee mark up of the bill.  Schwartz touted the initiative as expanding investment in “food deserts.”

Rep. David Schweikert (R., Ariz.) attempted to have the program stripped from the bill, but his amendment failed on a 194-232 vote.  Thirty-seven Republicans voted to keep the measure.

The bill also maintains funding for a “Farmers’ Market Nutrition” program, totaling $61.8 million over three years.

Section 301 amends a USDA program for seniors, which gives coupons to be used at farmers’ markets, to include low-income families who are deemed “at nutritional risk.”  $20.6 million will be awarded in each fiscal year from 2014 to 2016.

Another clause orders the study of the health benefits of white potatoes.

“The Secretary shall conduct a review of the economic and public health benefits of white potatoes on low-income families who are determined to be at nutritional risk,” Section 306 states.  This provision also originated as an amendment, offered by Rep. Reid Ribble (R., Wis.).

The final section of the bill seeks to increase the purchase of Kosher and Halal food in the emergency food assistance program.

http://freebeacon.com/gop-food-stamp-bill-includes-125-million-to-fight-food-deserts/

Nancy Pelosi Confuses Constitution With Declaration of Independence

Speaking last Wednesday at the Center for American Progress (CAP), Democratic Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi became a little confused at one point, stumbling over her words and flipping through her notes while referencing one of the founding documents of the United States.  Rep. Pelosi was recalling an early women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York 165 years ago.

The full video is posted on CAP's website, but here is a clip of her remarks:

"And so, it was 165 years ago, 165 years ago.  Imagine the courage it took for those women to go to Seneca Falls and do what they did there, to even leave home without their husband’s permission, or father’s, or whoever  it was.  To go to Seneca Falls, and to paraphrase what our founders said in the Constitution of the United States: they said the truths that are self-evident, that every man and woman, that men and women were created equal and that we must go forward in recognition of that."

It is of course the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution that contains the reference to self-evident truths:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/nancy-pelosi-confuses-constitution-declaration-independence_757106.html

Lois Lerner's $50,000 Pension

It's good to be a government employee. 

Anyone willing to be honest with him- or (her-) self pretty well knows by now that, if what has been reported is true, Lois Lerner has violated the trust placed in her as a top official at the IRS -- to put it mildly. To put it somewhat less mildly, she has been credibly accused of acts that are wrong, and likely illegal. Even the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Elijah Cummings, has called for her termination.
 
You and I, American taxpayers, have been paying her salary for the last few months as she has sat home on paid administrative leave. 

Now, she has resigned. And she is set to keep a very generous pension. Notwithstanding any wrongdoing and every breach of trust, according to calculations performed by the UK Daily Mail, she's set to collect more than $50,000 yearly:

The Office of Personnel Management provides 1.1 per cent of a retiree's salary for every year worked, provided he or she is a 20-year veteran who is at least 62.

Lerner's base pension would be be calculated based on what she earned, on average, during the past 36 months.

According to the Federal Election Commission, Lerner joined its General Counsel’s Office in 1981, and was appointed in 1986 to head the agency's Enforcement Division.

'Prior to joining the FEC, she was a staff attorney in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice,' the FEC said in a 2000 news release.

It's not clear when she first came to work at the DOJ, or what her annual salary was.

But if she were in the middle of the senioer-level 'GS-15' earning scale and worked just one year in the DOJ as a staff attorney before joining the FEC, she would collect 1.1 per cent of $140,259 for each of 33 years -- for a total of more than $50,900 per year in taxpayer dollars.

If Lerner's position as a top IRS enforcer were to place her in a special 'law enforcement officer' retirement category, that amount would jump to over $61,700.

In 2010 the U.S. median personal income was just over $29,000.

Lerner will receive 50 percent credit for any unused sick leave she has accrued, according to an attorney at the Office of Personnel Management.

She could also seek other full-time employment in a law firm or an advocacy group, and still keep her government pension as a secondary source of income.

One needn't be a small-government conservative to find this abuse of the taxpayer -- heaped on the other alleged abuses Lerner committed of law-abiding conservative taxpayers -- infuriating.

Lois Lerner should be fired and stripped of her pension. Any other outcome shows that the administration couldn't care less about the deliberate, systematic mistreatment of Americans who simply disagreed with the Obama White House. 

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/carolplattliebau/2013/09/24/lois-lerners-50000-pension-n1708280

What Do The Tea Party and the Socialist Workers Party Have in Common?

Why is the Federal Election Commission giving the Socialist Workers Party an exemption from campaign finance requirements that apply to every other American individual and organization?

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) first allowed the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) to bypass disclosing its contributors’ identities in 1990, and their exemption was again renewed earlier this year. The reason: Since SWP donors are subject to “harassment” from donor publication, the party is relieved of the requirement to inform the public about who contributes.

The Tea Party Leadership Fund is routinely harassed, too. To prove it, the Fund has provided the FEC 1,438 pages of harassment documentation, and is asking the federal election authorities for an Advisory Opinion to determine whether they qualify for the same exemption.

Why should Fund contributors be open to harassment anymore than donors to a fringe – very fringe – political party?

Considering that the Internal Revenue Service has already publicly disclosed to Congress that tea party groups have been profiled and clearly “harassed” by the agency, and no less than the President of the United States has described tea parties in pejorative terms, such is pretty clear evidence of admission that donors have been, and could be again, subject to undue treatment at the hands of a hostile, politically-motivated bureaucracy.

The Blaze’s Becket Adams covers breaking developments in the ongoing congressional investigation of the IRS abuses.

Dan Backer, the Tea Party Leadership Fund’s attorney spearheading the group’s inquiry, made the following observation to Politico, which first covered the story:

“…as we very thoroughly document at almost three times the length of the socialist request, tea party supporters are subject to an unprecedented level of harassment and abuse.” Mr. Backer went on to say that, “this will be the beginning of a conversation about the burdens and the perils of disclosure.”

There’s more to activism than simply engaging in constructive activity to achieve a specific goal. Pro-active intelligence is also necessary for success. The brain trust behind the Tea Party Leadership Fund, a registered federal political action committee, just combined both attributes with its FEC petition.

The Federal Election Commission was created in 1975 as part of the Watergate-era Federal Election Campaign Act. The body consists of six commissioners, three Democrats and three Republicans. All decisions and rulings must obtain four votes, ensuring agreement from at least one member of the opposing political party. The members are appointed in pairs – one Democrat and one Republican – by the president and are confirmed by the Senate.

Though it seems obvious that the FEC should write an Advisory Opinion in favor of Fund’s petition, such might not be the case. Because of Commission vacancies, it is likely that all four of the remaining members, including two Democrats, would unanimously have to agree upon the decision and that rarely happens.

Even if the FEC’s decides against the Fund, the organization can and should continue to make the argument for fair treatment. Far too often, conservatives aren’t willing to keep pushing government to play fair. Using past FEC rulings that favor fringy and left-wing groups is a key to sound conservative activism. It’s time to turn the tables on the left and an all-too compliant Washington bureaucracy, and the Tea Party Leadership Fund is making the first charge.

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/what-do-the-tea-party-and-the-socialist-workers-party-have-in-common/

Media Imbalance on the Nairobi & Peshawar Massacres

On a weekend in which 75 Christians were killed by jihadists outside a Church in Pakistan, you may wonder why the main news (by far!) was the killing of 68 people in Nairobi (Kenya) -- also by jihadists. (The UK's 'Islamophobic' Daily Mail hasn't featured it all so far and the 'right wing' Telegraph only featured it in its 'World' section.)
There must be reasons for this very large imbalance. So I will suggest a few.
In terms of the British media, it may have something to do with the fact that Britain is home to at the very least 1.2 million Pakistani Muslims. The other reason is that the plight of Pakistani Christians is largely overlooked by our mainstream media -- both tabloid and 'serious'. As for the British government, the plight of Christians in Pakistan is almost literally completely ignored.
As for the focus on Nairobi rather than Pakistan, there must be reasons for this too.
One: acts of terrorism and jihadist violence are everyday occurrences in Pakistan -- not so in Kenya (despite it having its own problems and its bordering Somalia). The other possible -- if rather perverse -- reason may be that the victims in Kenya were shoppers in a shopping center, whereas the Christian victims in Pakistan were coming out of a church. Again, attacks against churches and Christians in Pakistan are commonplace, whereas attacks on shopping centers are infrequent if altogether unknown.
In the case of Pakistan, two bombs went off outside a church in Peshawar. Seventy-five people were killed and 120 wounded. The massacre was a result of two suicide bombers blowing themselves up as the Christian worshipers came out of a church (All Saints) after Sunday Mass.
The relatives of the victims protested at the scene at the government's failure -- or unwillingness -- to protect Christians in Pakistan. (Interfaith is not very strong in Pakistan. It is in the UK.) Christians have also held demonstrations in other Pakistani cities. In Karachi, for example, the police fired tear gas and bullets into the air in order to disperse hundreds of protestors.
Peshawar is on the border of Afghanistan. The Pakistani Muslims of Peshawar are indistinguishable -- in terms of tribe and religion -- from their brothers across the border in Afghanistan. (Geographically, historically, and ethnically, the border is highly artificial.) The Muslims in Peshawar are largely Pashtun, as are the Afghans over the border.
Over 99% of Peshawar's population is Muslim, mostly Sunni. Despite that, previously -- as has also been the case in so many other places in the Muslim world -- Peshawar was once home to many other communities, including Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, and Zoroastrians. Clearly this was yet another attempt to drive Christians out of the city; as the Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians had been driven out previously. In that sense, Peshawar's Muslims -- or at least some of them -- are attempting to go one step beyond apartheid by actually driving out all non-Muslims from the city; rather than by giving them the traditional status of dhimmi under Islam's apartheid system.
One can only presume that Islamic al-Shabaab was attempting to do something similar to what happened in Peshawar. After all, it is common knowledge that Osama bin Laden's chief aim was most certainly not the 'liberation of Palestine' or even the liberation of Afghanistan. His main aim was the removal of all 'unbelievers' from The Two Holy Places (Mecca and Medina) and ultimately from the whole of Saudi Arabia. And why not? Muhammad the Prophet himself demanded that only one religion, Islam, should be allowed to exist in the Arabia of his day. Indeed he said:

"I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian peninsula [Jazirat al-'Arab] and will not leave any but Muslims.' (Quoted in Sahih Muslim)

And from that time onwards, Muhammad set out to systemically rid (or 'ethnically cleanse') Arabia of all Jews and Christians.
It's no surprise, then, that al-Shabaab singled out Muslims for life and the rest for death in this latest event in the 1,400-year-long jihad against the 'unbeliever'. Witnesses have said that the killers told all the Muslims to leave. One Kenyan survivor, a Elijah Lamau, said: "They came and said: 'If you are Muslim, stand up. We've come to rescue you'."
It has to be stated, however, that al-Shabaab claimed it was responding to Kenya's military actions in Somalia. Nonetheless, those military actions, by the Kenyans, were themselves responses to al-Shabaab's actions within Kenya. So we can ask, here, whether the chicken or the egg came first in this instance.
Three British nationals were also killed in this attack. Perhaps because of that, the British Prime Minister David Cameron said:

"These appalling terrorist attacks that take place where the perpetrators claim they do it in the name of a religion -- they don't...They don't represent Islam or Muslims in Britain or anywhere else in the world."

There is something hugely absurd and ridiculous about a non-Muslim British prime minister lecturing Muslims on the true nature of Islam. I could even accept such trite stuff from a non-Muslim academic or even an interfaith guru -- but from David Cameron?
I presume that al-Shabaab lives and breathes Islam. Its members will read the Koran and hadith everyday and they will also be fully acquainted with the life of Muhammad and Islamic history. Cameron, on the other hand, will know next to nothing about Islam. He will also feel he has no need to go into the details; after all, he's an immensely busy man. Any Islam he does get will be care of his advisers. He will also have received a few very short lectures -- or missives -- from 'community leaders' or professionals in the interfaith business. In other words, he will be getting his Islam with lots and lots of treacle on top of it. He will be getting what should be called Interfaith Islam. I say this because, as I said earlier, al-Shabaab has the Prophet Muhammad's own behavior and words to go on. He too wanted to rid his own Arabia of every 'unbeliever'.
Incidentally, despite what David Cameron said, there are indeed Muslims in the UK who think that al-Shabaab 'represent Islam [and] Muslims in Britain'. What's more, there will be quite a few additional Muslims who also believe this but who nonetheless don't publicly broadcast it -- at least not at interfaith meetings or to the British Prime Minister himself.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/media_imbalance_on_the_nairobi_peshawar_massacres.html#ixzz2fpkcIn2p

Suspended Student May Be Expelled for Rest of the Year for Playing With Toy Gun…in His Own Yard

A suspended seventh-grade student in Virginia Beach, Va., could be expelled for the rest of the school year for shooting an airsoft gun with a friend in his yard as they waited for the bus to come.

Khalid Caraballo, 12, and his friend, Aidan, were suspended for “possession, handling and use of a firearm” because they “shot two other friends who were with them while playing” with the airsoft guns, WAVY-TV reported.

Caraballo answered “no, sir,” when asked if he took the toy gun to the bus stop or to school.

“We were in our yard. This had nothing to do with school,” the student said.

Caraballo’s mother, Angel, said being punished for “possession, handling and use of a firearm” was “pretty harsh” for a toy that she bought for $25.

Tim Clark, Aidan’s father, told the news station that the school neglected to use common sense in the incident that occurred off school property.

“Has zero tolerance gone too far?” WAVY-TV asks.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/23/suspended-student-may-be-expelled-for-rest-of-the-year-for-playing-with-toy-gunin-his-own-yard/

PK'S NOTE: From the Washington Post of all places:

Hillary Clinton profile whitewashes Benghazi

“Clintonworld” accorded Joe Hagan a high degree of cooperation for his much-discussed story on Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York Magazine. The former secretary of state herself chatted with Hagan, conceding that she does indeed wrestle with the prospect of running for president. “I think I have a pretty good idea of the political and governmental challenges that are facing our leaders, and I’ll do whatever I can from whatever position I find myself in to advocate for the values and the policies I think are right for the country,” said Clinton.

Staff from “Clintonworld” also put Hagan in touch with her “confidants,” one of whom termed the secretary’s path to a presidential run as a “force of history.”

No such confidants are quoted in three paragraphs on Clinton’s Benghazi record, but their spirit lingers there. Here are the graphs:

Hillary might have left the State Department unsullied by controversy if not for the Benghazi episode, in which the ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other consulate staffers were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate. The NATO intervention in Libya was the most important foreign intervention of her tenure, and a seemingly successful one, but the lack of security in Benghazi and the confusion over how the incident occurred set off a heated Republican attack on Clinton’s handling of the disaster, and she was roasted on the cable-news spit for weeks. In January, she took responsibility for the deaths of the four Americans before Congress—while also questioning her inquisition, snapping at a Republican congressman, “What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.”
Benghazi will be the go-to bludgeon for Republicans if and when Clinton tries using her experience at State to run for president. It is a reminder that Clinton, despite the cool, centrist façade she has developed in the past four years, is only a misstep away from being a target of partisan rage once again.
Regardless of the facts, Republicans are liable to use Benghazi as a wedge to pry back her stately exterior, goading her into an outburst, once again revealing the polarizing figure who saw vast right-wing conspiracies and tried ginning up government health care against the political tides of Newt Gingrich.

To his credit, Hagan covers the relevant factual terrain: Clinton did indeed take responsibility, and there were security issues.

The message of this treatment, though, is that Benghazi is merely and exclusively a political matter, not one of leadership and preparation and integrity. For instance, those security problems — can they be legitimately dismissed in just a sentence fragment? Even Obama administration officials have conceded that the security failures constituted a significant breakdown. How much of the failure appropriately belongs to the State Department’s leader?

There are many more substantive questions regarding Clinton and Benghazi, including why she couldn’t be bothered to represent the administration on the Sunday talk shows on Sept. 16, instead leaving that task to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who bombed. And those conspiracy-theory-producing talking points: Clinton reportedly played little or no role in their evolution. Why?

Hagan, too, spins Clinton’s famous outburst on Capitol Hill as evidence of Republican attempts to “goad” her, rather than as an example of a public official using righteous indignation to duck a question. At issue was the administration’s initial explanation that the Benghazi attack sprung from spontaneous protests associated with an anti-Muslim video. That account wasn’t valid. In a January hearing, Sen. Ron Johnson pushed Clinton on the matter:

“We were misled that there were supposedly protests and something sprang out of that — an assault sprang out of that. And that was easily ascertained that that was not the fact, and the American people could have known that within days and they didn’t know that.”

Clinton lashed back:

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans! Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and to prevent it from ever happening again.”

For the record, it will always matter how the U.S. government accounts for the killing of our personnel overseas.

The “Clintonworld” confidants that suffuse Hagan’s extensive story will doubtless benefit from Republican overreaching on Benghazi. Those who despise Hillary Rodham Clinton have harmed their credibility by spotting misconduct in every square inch of the Benghazi public record, when in fact there are important lapses and leadership failures here and there. Dropping the entire thing into a framework of Republicans v. Hillary glosses over the real Benghazi scandal/screwup/controversy. (Choose your own term, according to your political leanings).
Instead of writing:

the lack of security in Benghazi and the confusion over how the incident occurred set off a heated Republican attack on Clinton’s handling of the disaster, and she was roasted on the cable-news spit for weeks.

Perhaps Hagan could have written:

the lack of security in Benghazi exposed a government that had failed to protect its people from terrorism on the anniversary of 9/11, of all moments.

Hagan didn’t respond right away to a question about his interactions with Clinton on Benghazi.

More from this series:
No. 1: Commentator on MSNBC: White guy can’t ‘appreciate’ Hillary Clinton’s historic-ness

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/09/23/hillary-clinton-profile-whitewashes-benghazi/