A Purposeful Assault on Order
By Jeffery T BrownThat system has been eroded over the last century by the inexplicable attraction of socialism to those too narcissistic to allow others to freely prosper, though it was not until the administration of our current chief executive that we understood the determination of the left to fully destabilize the country by attacking its fundamental order. That is where fundamental transformation actually happens....
President Obama’s shameful death-benefit theater
But the outrage should remain.
On Wednesday, CNN reported that on Sept. 27, days before the shutdown
began, the Pentagon was already telling reporters it planned to suspend
death benefits.
So for two
weeks, the Obama administration has been anticipating this nightmare
would come to pass — and did nothing to pre-empt it. Only when the
Pentagon began denying death benefits and the backlash began did the
White House realize this ploy was a political misstep and seek a fix.
It
is an appalling commentary on the president and his administration that
they chose to bully the families of dead American soldiers for
perceived political gain.
Shame on Barack Obama.
National Park Service: Wolves in Service Dog Harness
...That
changed abruptly last week when stories about barricades around open
air monuments like the World War II memorial broke. It was as if the
neighbor's golden retriever, given snacks or petted for years, suddenly
snarled and sank its fangs into a person's calf muscle. After what they
saw the NPS do over the last week a great many people may never going
to look at government in the same trusting way again. The friendliest
dog in the kennel of federal agencies turned out to be a wolf and the
thing about wolves is they can never really be tamed. When a so-called
tame wolf senses it is stronger than a human it will assert physical
dominance. There is a new thought now simmering in the minds of many
Americans: might other federal agencies also be wolves in service dog
harness...
... I see Mark Steyn has called for abolishing the IRS and the NPS. There
is a sickness in the regulatory bureaucracy that Americans should be
ashamed of. The NPS, like the IRS, is corrupt and should be abolished --
and the government's parks (they're clearly not the people's) returned
to the states.That may be the only solution. All current personnel may have to go to change the culture back to what is appropriate among civil servants.
Is Obama's Shutdown War on Private Business Illegal Racketeering?
Obama -- once editor of the Harvard Law Review and a constitutional law teacher -- is committing a huge legal error. In real estate law, a tenant has legal "possession" and control of land under a lease. When private businesses lease federal land, the U.S. government has no authority to interfere with "quiet enjoyment."The legal meaning of a lease is that the owner gives up occupancy, possession, and control of land for money. As long as a tenant pays rent and complies with the agreement, a landlord has no legal right to suspend the tenant's use of property...
...Clearly, this is blackmail. This is a naked shakedown. Individuals within the administration, acting "under the color of law," are causing unnecessary economic harm, damage, and pain and are intentionally and maliciously harassing and interfering with businesses, tenants, and the general public. The purpose is to obtain taxpayer money from Congress by extortion for Obama's favored projects and people.
U.S. Supreme Court precedents are clear: a RICO violation includes any type of threats of economic harm in order to gain by coercion money or any financial advantage or benefit. A RICO violation occurs when an "enterprise" operates, through a pattern of two or more predicate acts, to gain any type of benefit, money, or advantage.
The Nuclear Option–Both Parties Agree: Taxpayers Foot Bill for Vacationing Bureaucrats
By Charles Hurt
...Over the weekend, the House held a vote and agreed—without a single
exception—that when this government shutdown is all over, all these
"non-essential" government bureaucrats who have been loafing around at
home all this time will all be given back pay for work they did not
perform.So instead of getting a little taste of the furloughs, layoffs, and firings private American workers have been suffering for years in this nasty economy, these federal bureaucrats would be granted extended paid vacations.
Amber Alert: Our Country is Missing
By Wayne Allyn Root
Let’s start with a few actions that happened long before the
government shutdown. Obama shut down White House tours. He released
illegal alien felons from prison. He closed pools on military bases –
thereby hurting the kids of our heroes away at war, defending America.
He cancelled July 4th fireworks displays at military bases. He cancelled
Top Gun flight training school for our best Navy fighter pilots. He
cancelled “flyovers” at graduation ceremonies for our Annapolis, West
Point, and Air Force Academy grads.
Is this normal behavior for a patriot?
Why not cut welfare, food stamps, and stimulus spending? Why not cut
“earned income tax credits” for illegal immigrants who never paid taxes
in the first place? Why not cut spending on the advertising campaign in
Mexico that “educates” Mexicans that their relatives in America qualify
for food stamps?
Democrats to America: We Own the Government!
By Ann Coulter
...A longtime Democratic operative, Karen Finney, explained the
Democrats' intransigence on MSNBC to a delighted Joan Walsh (aka the
most easily fooled person on TV) by comparing House Republicans to a
teenager trying to borrow his mother's car. "No, I'm not negotiating!"
Mother says. "It's MY CAR!"
This wasn't a stupid slip of the tongue that other Democrats quickly rejected. Finney had used the exact same metaphor to a panel of highly agreeable MSNBC guests the day before. (MSNBC books no other kind of guest.)
The left thinks the government is their car and the people's representatives are obstreperous teenagers trying to borrow the government. Which belongs to Democrats...
...If you are in the minority of Americans not already unalterably opposed to Obamacare, keep in mind that the only reason the government is shut down right now is that Democrats refuse to fund the government if they are required to live under Obamacare.
Moody's Says Obama Is Wrong, U.S. Doesn't Risk Default
...President Obama has said that, unless Congress acts to raise the $16.7 trillion limit by next Thursday, the nation will be at risk of default.
"Not so, Moody’s says in the memo dated Oct. 7.
"'We believe the government would continue to pay
interest and principal on its debt even in the event that the debt limit
is not raised, leaving its creditworthiness intact,' the memo says.
'The debt limit restricts government expenditures to the amount of its
incoming revenues; it does not prohibit the government from servicing
its debt. There is no direct connection between the debt limit (actually
the exhaustion of the Treasury’s extraordinary measures to raise funds)
and a default.'"
Yellen May Be New Fed Chief, But Policies Won't Change
...This is no accident. Backed by the Fed, the Obama administration has made subprime lending to uncreditworthy borrowers the backbone of its "stimulus" plans. And, if the economy turns down again, we'll see the same: another wave of financially devastating defaults.Since 2008, the Fed has kept interest rates at an ultra-low 0% — while it prints money nonstop to buy up much of the government's annual $1 trillion in newly issued debt under President Obama.
This madness must stop. And at some point, Yellen, an old Fed hand, will have to do it — selling off the Fed's $3.7 trillion bond portfolio, which is likely to send interest rates soaring and the economy into a tailspin.
The Bigger Battle Behind the Shutdown
A staggering $250 billion per month, 80% of spending, runs on autopilot without congressional control.
By David Malpass
At its core, the shutdown is part of a much bigger battle to restrain
the federal government. It is spending $3.6 trillion per year without a
budget, and its expenditures are expected to increase rapidly in the
years ahead. Meanwhile, the government has piled up $17 trillion in debt and $60 trillion more in unfunded spending promises. The Federal Reserve will borrow $1.1 trillion in 2013 alone to buy bonds—and it reserves the right to borrow unlimited amounts for future bond purchases without congressional or presidential permission.
These are crisis-level problems....
...Washington's panic prior to the budget sequester that took effect earlier this year gave a glimpse of the truth: Much federal spending can't be justified. The government shutdown is giving more insight into the problem—a staggering $250 billion per month, 80% of spending, runs on autopilot without any congressional involvement or control. So much for the Constitution's bedrock principle that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law."...
...Rather than discuss restraint, the administration has increasingly turned to the Federal Reserve as a crutch. The Fed is borrowing and spending $85 billion per month on bonds, and it claims the legal authority to increase its debt at will. Wall Street is intensely focused on supporting this profligacy and profiting from it. The Fed's debt will reach $4 trillion at year-end, with at least $200 billion of it not counted properly in the national debt.
The Fed is choosing to buy long-term bonds with short-term debt. The result is a rapid shortening in the effective maturity of the national debt that benefits current politicians but puts taxpayers at risk. Like an adjustable-rate mortgage, the borrower, in this case the government, gets a lower interest rate now but will have to refinance at higher rates later.
Sent confidential taxpayer info, redaction indicates
...The GOP-led oversight committee said the emails show Hall Ingram and others at the IRS violated the agency’s role as an impartial administrator of the tax code by advising the White House on a politically controversial subject...
...Cause of Action, a nonprofit government watchdog group currently in litigation with the IRS over similar documents, said it would be on par with Watergate if the Obama White House illicitly obtained taxpayer information.
ObamaScare
By Nick ChaseAs the Unaffordable Care Act was originally written, indeed, the law did mandate that Americans purchase healthcare insurance or suffer a penalty (with constitutional authority coming through the Commerce Clause and/or regulation of interstate commerce). This is what the U.S. Supreme Court found unconstitutional -- the government cannot, by force of law, order you as a citizen to buy a product.
What Chief Justice John Roberts said was, "The mandate can be regarded as establishing a condition -- not owning health insurance -- that triggers a tax -- the required payment to the IRS." That's pretty clear.
That is, in Roberts's reworking, the "mandate" cannot force you to buy health insurance (which is why CVS's Q&A is wrong); that is unconstitutional. The "mandate" merely establishes your taxable status. If you buy health insurance, you avoid paying a tax. Otherwise, you pay a tax. It's that simple. You can see that the word "mandate" is a misnomer for the law's implementation.
The most important thing for people to realize is that they are not "breaking the law" by failing to purchase health insurance. Roberts's ruling means you can freely choose whether or not you want to buy health insurance, and either choice is perfectly legal.
We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404
It’s been one full week since the flagship technology portion of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) went live. And since that time, the befuddled beast that is Healthcare.gov has shutdown, crapped out, stalled, and mis-loaded so consistently that its track record for failure is challenged only by Congress.The site itself, which apparently underwent major code renovations over the weekend, still rejects user logins, fails to load drop-down menus and other crucial components for users that successfully gain entrance, and otherwise prevents uninsured Americans in the 36 states it serves from purchasing healthcare at competitive rates – Healthcare.gov’s primary purpose. The site is so busted that, as of a couple days ago, the number of people that successfully purchased healthcare through it was in the “single digits,” according to the Washington Post.
Uncovered: New Bill Could Expose Obamacare's Hidden Abortion Surcharge
Currently, insurance companies can hide whether their plans cover abortion and can charge enrollees a $1 monthly abortion surcharge. It is because of this hidden fee, which violates religious consciences across America, that Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) has introduced a bill to provide full disclosure of abortion coverage for each plan offered on the health insurance exchanges.The October 1 Brigade
Obamacare proponents ardently claimed it would be flawless — a minor event, even.
By Charles C W Cooke...The conceit that there couldn’t possibly be any substantive problems with the enterprise has led in recent days to the emergence of a new meme: Obamacare’s exchanges are not seriously flawed, they are just “glitchy.” One wonders in what world those who disseminate this view live. Asked by CBS to comment on the mess that is the Healthcare.gov website, Luke Chung, a database programmer and professed Obama supporter, admitted that “it wasn’t designed well, it wasn’t implemented well, and it looks like nobody tested it.” Chung confirmed that this had nothing to do with demand or to first-day bugs. “It’s not even close,” he suggested. “It’s not even ready for beta testing for my book. I would be ashamed and embarrassed if my organization delivered something like that.” A similarly brutal piece, from Reuters, features a web-design expert explaining that the site is a structural mess, designed so badly that the data flow between the user and the server looks “as if the system was attacking itself.”
No Doctors Found in Minnesota Obamacare Exchange, Either
Tuesday morning, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported that the doctor search feature on the Maryland Health Connection Obamacare insurance exchange was not yet operational and returned a "no doctors are found" message. A reader from Minnesota points out that MNsure, the Minnesota exchange, has not yet activated a provider search feature either, and provided a screen grab from the site:New Hampshire Elementary School Bans Tag
An elementary school in Nashua, N.H. has banned the game of tag at recess, claiming the game is unsafe in part due to “aggressive pushing.”...Personally, I find this ridiculous. Tag is mostly harmless—if a student is being far too aggressive during recess, the student should be in trouble, not the game. I managed to survive elementary school recess unscathed, and there’s no reason to enact a full-on ban of the game of tag. Let kids be kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment