The Pulse- of Colorado Farm Bureau
Senator Jim DeMint took to the pages of the Washington Post this morning to raise the alarm about a planned, 10 million acre Western land grab by the Obama administration.
A secret
administration memo has surfaced revealing plans for the federal
government to seize more than 10 million acres from Montana to New
Mexico, halting job- creating activities like ranching, forestry, mining
and energy development. Worse, this land grab would dry up tax revenue
that’s essential for funding schools, firehouses and community centers.
President
Obama could enact the plans in this memo with just the stroke of a pen,
without any input from the communities affected by it.
The leaked document lists 17 sites in 11 states that could be designated as national monuments through the federal Antiquities Act. Over 380,000 acres in Colorado are designated in the memo under the heading “Prospective Conservation Designation.”
The memo was leaked by a Department of Interior official to Utah Congressman Bob Bishop.
According to the memo, around 380,000 acres of BLM and private land in Colorado would be subject to a “conservation designation” under the National Monument designation of the 1906 Antiquities Act. The Vermillion Basin, northwest of Craig, and the Alpine Triangle near Ouray are listed in the memo. This designation would close the areas off to multi-use activities including, mining, hunting, grazing, oil and gas development and other recreational activities.
The Vermillion Basin in Northwest Colorado may be closed to multiple use activities and oil and gas development.
The memo shows that the goal of the designations is to limit multiple use activities and the potential development from oil and gas companies. It says all kinds of animals would be better off under the designation, like the coyotes, badgers, prairie dogs, elk, deer and pronghorn.
“”Deer and elk populations are thriving and we in Colorado don’t need help from the federal government in order to manage them effectively,” added Foutz.
Solar companies take govt. to court over not getting enough grant money or something
Generally, when we hear stories about the federal government ripping off the businessman, we tend to think of tales of tax increases or burdensome regulations. But a different type of story crosses our desk this weekend, as a solar power consortium – who already received a quarter billion in grants and tax incentives – takes Uncle Sam to the courthouse because they feel they should have gotten millions more.Federal investigators will spend the next year going through the books of two solar-energy companies tied to billionaire Elon Musk in an effort to show the businesses overvalued sales contracts in order to claim millions in federal assistance.This one may lead to an example of the Law of Unintended Consequences if there’s any sort of honest work going on here. The feds will now be combing through 4,204 of SolarCity’s grant applications filed in recent years and examining the amounts of money received and how it was used. One of the questions already being asked in Washington is whether or not SolarCity intentionally and artificially inflated costs to drive up the amounts of money they could cash in on from the taxpayer.
The government action comes in response to a lawsuit brought by the two companies, subsidiaries of Musk’s San Mateo, California-based Solar City.
SolarCity builds and leases solar-energy systems, and already has received more than $244 million in federal tax incentives. In its lawsuit, the companies say the feds shortchanged them $14.6 million.
“The Treasury has failed to pay Plaintiffs cash grants in the amounts that they are entitled to, thereby materially frustrating congressional intent (of solar grants),” the complaint said.
Amazingly, even with all of that sweet government cash flowing in, as of the end of last year SolarCity reported that they were more than $160M in debt. Clearly, like any good business entity, the only thing to do at that point was to try to pry some more cash out of the government. This, of course, leads to another question… is this a private company which is intended to show a profit in the marketplace or a non-profit charity which is only expected to live off the teat of the taxpayer? Well, okay… the “non-profit” part is probably pretty obvious.
Shakedown: Treasury now seizing tax refunds from adult children to pay parents’ decades-old Social Security debts
When I say “debts,” I don’t mean loans that the parents willingly sought from SSA. It would be bad enough to hold a kid responsible for that (since when are children responsible for their parents’ obligations?), but at least it would have been voluntarily incurred by mom/dad. The “debts” here are overpayments of Social Security benefits, the product of SSA’s own errors. The parents who received them might not have even realized they were getting money they weren’t supposed to have. And now, somehow, it’s junior’s problem.
But wait. It gets worse.
When [Mary] Grice was 4, back in 1960, her father died, leaving her mother with five children to raise. Until the kids turned 18, Sadie Grice got survivor benefits from Social Security to help feed and clothe them.SSA insists that they did send notice — to a P.O. Box that Grice hasn’t owned for 35 years, even though they have her current address.
Now, Social Security claims it overpaid someone in the Grice family — it’s not sure who — in 1977. After 37 years of silence, four years after Sadie Grice died, the government is coming after her daughter. Why the feds chose to take Mary’s money, rather than her surviving siblings’, is a mystery…
“It was a shock,” said Grice, 58. “What incenses me is the way they went about this. They gave me no notice, they can’t prove that I received any overpayment, and they use intimidation tactics, threatening to report this to the credit bureaus.”…
Social Security officials told Grice that six people — Grice, her four siblings and her father’s first wife, whom she never knew — had received benefits under her father’s account. The government doesn’t look into exactly who got the overpayment; the policy is to seek compensation from the oldest sibling and work down through the family until the debt is paid.
How can they demand restitution for a mistaken payment made in the late 1970s, let alone from someone who didn’t even receive it? Because: The farm bill that passed in 2011 lifted the 10-year statute of limitations on debts owed to the feds. Treasury has collected more than $400 million since then on very old obligations, many of them below the radar of public scrutiny because the amounts are often small enough, i.e. a few hundred dollars, that the targets find it’s cheaper to pay up than to fight. It’s a shakedown, based on the flawed assumption that a child not only must have benefited from the overpayment to his parent but that he/she received the entirety of the benefit, with little proof offered that the debt even exists. (One man who was forced to pay demanded a receipt from SSA affirming that his balance was now zero. The SSA clerk told him he’d put in the request but that the man shouldn’t expect to receive anything.) The only reason you’re hearing about Grice’s case, I think, is because they went after her for thousands, not hundreds, of dollars, which was enough of a hit to make her get a lawyer. Turns out that the feds had seized and then continued to hold her federal and state refunds, an amount greater than $4,400 — even though they were only demanding $2,996 from her to pay off her father’s debt. Lo and behold, once WaPo found out and started asking questions, the $1,400 excess was promptly returned to her. Amazing how fast bureaucracy can move when someone looks behind the curtain.
The whole thing is Kafkaesque — opaque, oppressive, arbitrary, and sinister in its indifference to making sure the right person pays so long as someone does. After reading the story, it’s not obvious to me what’s stopping Treasury from demanding a payment from every taxpayer whose parents are dead. If the chief witnesses are gone and the feds don’t have to prove that a child actually received any benefits from overpayment, the only “check” on this process is SSA’s willingness to tell the truth about who owes them money and how much. You trust them, don’t you?
Branding Hillary Clinton
ByWayne Allen RootHillary Clinton just lost $6 billion of your taxpayer money. SIX BILLION. That’s billion with a "B." $6 billion is "unaccounted for" under her management at the State Department. More on that later. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/4/state-dept-misplaced-6b-under-hillary-clinton-ig-r/
First let’s look at the polls. Hillary Clinton is not only the frontrunner for President…it isn’t even close. Democrats think she's a lock to be their nominee. I'm about to prove she isn't a savior, her candidacy can be destroyed with branding.
This is the branding opportunity of a lifetime for the GOP. Hillary isn’t formidable or unbeatable. If the GOP had even a clue about branding, they'd understand that Hillary is radioactive.
This is such a great opportunity for the GOP because Hillary is the "A Team." There is no "B Team." There is no bench. It’s Hillary or bust for the Democratic Party in 2016. She has a 61-point lead- the biggest lead in Democratic presidential poll history. http://www.mediaite.com/online/hillary-clinton-has-biggest-democratic-poll-lead-in-history/
Destroy Hillary now and it’s over. What are the Democrats left with? "Crazy Joe" Biden? Elizabeth "I swear I’m an American Indian" Warren? Take Hillary down now, before she gets started and the GOP is in the drivers seat for 2016.
I travel the world lecturing about branding. I recently returned from a 16-day, 4-city tour of South Africa where I taught "Branding, American Style." I’ve sold many millions of dollars of different products on TV, radio, infomercials and web. I understand branding.
Branding works. Ask Mitt Romney about that. "Team Obama" poisened Mitt Romney’s brand early in 2012. He never recovered.
But hey, that’s okay. All is fair in love, war and politics. That’s what branding is for. So what is the GOP waiting for? Hillary (just like Mitt) is a big fat sitting duck. Hillary is a Republican brander expert's dream.
The Democrats are facing a landslide defeat in 2014 because of Obamacare. If Hillary is defeated now, the Democrats will be out of luck in 2016 too.
What do they brand Hillary with? Karl Rove is right.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/karl-rove-rand-paul-bill-clinton-monica-lewinsky-103369.html
You don't brand her with Monica Lewinsky or old Bill Clinton scandals. That's old news. The voters don't care about what happened in the 90's.
But I know exactly how to brand Hillary.
Do you remember her Congressional hearings over the Benghazi disaster? Hillary famously said, "What difference does it make?" Make her own that brand. "What difference does it make" should become Hillary's middle name.
Run "What difference does it make" advertisements on TV and radio 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Repeat it so much that you can't say “Hillary,” without finishing the sentence with "What difference does it make?"
Start with the report by the State Department that $6 billion of your taxpayer money is unaccounted for. Almost all of that happened on Hillary’s watch. According to the U.S. Inspector General this situation “creates conditions conducive to fraud.” He says there were "no internal controls." Meaning no one cared what happened to $6 billion of your taxpayer money.
This is what Madison Ave. advertising executives call "pure gold." All the GOP has to do is run TV and radio ads 24 hours a day stating that $6 billion of your taxpayer money is missing. Who was in charge? Hillary. Who was the CEO? Hillary. Where does the buck stop? Hillary. Then show Hillary’s testimony saying, “What difference does it make?”
Next hit Hillary with a series of Benghazi-themed ads. Once again, Hillary was in charge. During the Benghazi attack the red phone rang at 2 AM, just like her 2008 Presidential campaign ads promised. The U.S. Embassy was under attack and Americans were about to die. Show Hillary saying, "What difference does it make?"
The branding campaign should ask, "Where was Hillary when the embassy desperately needed military rescue? Why did Hillary refuse to mount a rescue? Why did Hillary let those four brave heroes die?" If those boys were her sons, would she say, "What difference does it make?"
Don’t forget the cover-up. Hillary and everyone at the State Department knew it was a planned Al Qaeda attack, not a "spontaneous protest." A cover-up is a crime. Ask President Richard Nixon. The GOP ads should interview the parents of the four dead American heroes and ask them, "What difference does it make if Hillary participated in a cover-up of your son’s death?"
Then it’s time for round three. Hillary was in charge of America’s foreign policy when the world fell into chaos. Show scenes of the entire Middle East in flames. Tahrir Square burning in Cairo. Libya in flames. Syrian children laying dead in the streets. Venezuela’s leader laughing at us. North Korea negotiating with…Dennis Rodman. That all happened with Hillary as Secretary of State. Ask voters "What difference did Hillary make as Secretary of State?"
Then move on to round four- Obamacare. Millions of Americans have lost their insurance. Tens of millions have had their insurance premiums dramatically increased. The CBO predicts 2.3 million jobs will be lost. The middle class is being annihilated. Cancer patients are losing their health insurance, or their doctors, or the drugs that keep them alive. Ask, "What difference does it make?"
Ask Hillary where she stands on Obamacare? Does she support it? Does she want government to get even more intrusive? How intrusive? Like a proctologist with his finger up our…wallet? Let's ask America "What difference does it make, if government gets even more involved in healthcare under Hillary Clinton?"
Brand that all over national TV and radio now. That’s how you use branding to destroy Hillary's campaign before it even starts. That’s how you poison Hillary's brand.
Make Hillary run on her record of accomplishments- $6 billion missing on her watch; four dead American heroes; a criminal cover-up; the world in crisis, chaos and flames while she was in charge of foreign policy; the miserable failure of Obamacare- a mild version of the government takeover she proposed in the 1990’s; and the U.S. economy in severe decline under the leadership of an administration she endorsed and supported.
"What difference does it make?" Hillary is about to find out when it comes to the presidency, all the difference in the world.
PK'S NOTE: I can't recreate the graphic to be large enough to read here. Click on the link. Trust me, it's amazing.
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