Obama economy flatlines
By Neil MunroPresident Barack Obama’s economy wheezed to halt in the first quarter of 2014, with a growth rate of just 0.1 percent.
That barely-alive growth was one-tenth of the forecasted growth of around 1.2 percent, and was far below the growth of 2.6 percent in the last quarter of 2013.
The comatose economy is expected to worsen Democratic prospects in the fall elections, and to push the president’s poll rating further downwards.
This afternoon, Obama ha schedule a media event to tout his call for a rise in the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. GOP leaders will likely point to studies showing that an increase will eliminate jobs.
Overall economic growth in 2013 was 1.9 percent, after a spike of 2.8 percent in 2012.
Stock-market experts remained optimistic for the second quarter of 2014, and blamed the first-quarter stall on the weather.
The slowdown was caused by sharp drops in investment in equipment and housing, and in the exports of goods.
First-quarter personal consumption rose by 3.0 percent, and services grew by 4.4 percent.
Lois Lerner, IRS Sued for Alleged Illegal Disclosures
By Mark J Fitzgibbons
Citing
“unconstitutional scrutiny” and “illegal release” of its application
for tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code,
Texas-based nonprofit organization Freedom Path has sued Lois Lerner, unknown IRS officials, and the IRS.
....Freedom
Path also seeks statutory damages including attorney fees under section
7431 of the tax code, which provides remedies for the intentional
disclosure of confidential tax information. Freedom Path’s complaint
alleges that its application for tax-exempt status was released in 2012
to ProPublica, the George Soros-funded leftwing nonprofit organization that acts as a news feeder to for-profit media outlets.
ProPublica
published an article in January 2013 entitled “Controversial Dark Money
Group Among Five That Told IRS They Would Stay Out of Politics, Then
Didn’t,” which was reposted by The Washington Post and The Salt Lake Tribune.
....Section 7413 also includes criminal penalties for the willful disclosure of, or access to, confidential tax information. Eric Holder’s Justice Department, however, has refused to prosecute
any IRS officials despite a report by J. Russell George, the Internal
Revenue Service’s inspector general, citing grounds for prosecution.
Not missing a beat in its narrative, The Salt Lake Tribune reported the Freedom Path lawsuit beginning this way: “A secretive conservative group that helped Sen. Orrin Hatch win re-election in 2012 is suing the Internal Revenue Service, claiming government bureaucrats targeted it based on its political views.”
Not missing a beat in its narrative, The Salt Lake Tribune reported the Freedom Path lawsuit beginning this way: “A secretive conservative group that helped Sen. Orrin Hatch win re-election in 2012 is suing the Internal Revenue Service, claiming government bureaucrats targeted it based on its political views.”
Meanwhile,
the Obama administration keeps on breaking the law, and the Holder
Justice Department keeps on failing to prosecute lawbreaking by
government. We need more and stronger private remedies statutes.
Sources: Sebelius Now Refusing To Testify Before Senate Panel
By Caroline MayOutgoing Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius is now refusing to testify before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, a Senate aide told The Daily Caller Tuesday.
Sebelius had originally been set to testify before the subcommittee about the department’s 2015 $70 billion budget request on April 2.
According to another aide, however, several weeks after confirming the hearing date, she requested a date switch with the National Institutes of Health budget hearing on May 7. The committee accommodated her request.
Now, after announcing her resignation on April 11, she is refusing to testify according to the two aides, even though she is still the sitting secretary — remaining at the post until her successor, OMB Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell is confirmed.
“It appears that Sec. Sebelius has unilaterally decided that she is no longer accountable to Congress,” the first aide said.
The other aide explained that HHS has not given the committee any reason for her refusal and that Sebelius has not suggested anyone to testify in her place.
Ben Rhodes at center of plan to whitewash White House on Benghazi
By Ed Lasky.....Ben Rhodes, Obama’s speechwriter turned into Deputy National Security Adviser, likely played a key role in trying to convey a lie. He had a history of creating false narratives, as covered in “Ben Rhodes: Obama’s Fixer Behind the Benghazi Cover-up”.
The Judicial Watch report confirms that well-founded suspicion:
The Rhodes email was sent on sent on Friday, September 14, 2012, at 8:09 p.m. with the subject line: “RE: PREP CALL with Susan, Saturday at 4:00 pm ET.” The documents show that the “prep” was for Amb. Rice’s Sunday news show appearances to discuss the Benghazi attack.The document lists as a “Goal”: “To underscore that these protests are rooted in and Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.”.....Among the top administration PR personnel who received the Rhodes memo were White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest, then-White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, then-White House Deputy Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri, then-National Security Council Director of Communications Erin Pelton, Special Assistant to the Press Secretary Howli Ledbetter, and then-White House Senior Advisor and political strategist Davie Plouffe.The Rhodes communications strategy email also instructs recipients to portray Obama as “steady and statesmanlike” throughout the crisis. Another of the “Goals” of the PR offensive, Rhodes says, is “[T]o reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.” He later includes as a PR “Top-line” talking point:"I think that people have come to trust that President Obama provides leadership that is steady and statesmanlike. There are always going to be challenges that emerge around the world, and time and again, he has shown that we can meet them."
For years I have wondered why Rhodes had achieved such influence with Obama-given a clear lack of qualification
to serve any role in the upper reaches of government. Now we know it is
not sycophancy alone that worked for him. Nor is it just the fact that
his brother heads CBS News (which recently parted company with Sharyl
Attkisson following her persistent investigative reporting on Benghazi).
It goes beyond those factors: he will do his boss’s bidding, hiding
information, manipulating the facts, distract people: the truth and the
American people be damned.
Undoubtedly he shared Hillary Clinton’s view: what difference, at this point, does it make?
By Bryan Preston
...The “goal,” therefore, was to lie convincingly enough to get the president re-elected. It takes a special coldness to tell that lie with the bodies of the dead in coffins behind you. Hillary Clinton managed that without a trace of a conscience to slow her down.
...It’s well to remember at this point who Ben Rhodes is. According to the White House, he is assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and speechwriting. That sounds nice, but he has no career in the military or intelligence. Rhodes is a career partisan Democrat and Obama loyalist who was put on the National Security Council because he is a loyalist to the man. Not the nation. Or the facts on the ground in Libya or anywhere else. Rhodes’ loyalty belongs to Barack Obama.
He needs to be compelled to testify under oath about all this.
The Pentagon had determined early on that Benghazi was a pre-meditated and planned terrorist attack. They told administration officials that. They were overruled by Barack Obama’s loyalist political officer, and administration officials from the president down lied to the American people and assaulted our freedom of speech so that Obama might win re-election and Hillary could succeed him.
Ben Rhodes the speechwriter coldly orchestrated a cover-up...
Inhofe: ‘Possibility of electioneering is deeply troubling’
The agency pushed back publishing the rule for two months, allowing vulnerable Senate Democrats to avoid a vote on the measure six weeks before voters go to the polls.
President Obama directed the EPA to issue a proposal requiring new power plants to reduce their carbon pollution by “no later than” Sep. 20, 2013. The EPA posted the proposal on its website that day, but did not submit the rule to the Federal Register until Nov. 25, 2013. The rule was then published in the Federal Register on Jan. 8.
Once a rule is published in the Federal Register, agencies are required to finalize it within one year. As a result, the EPA does not have to finish the regulation until Jan. 8, 2015, instead of this September, just weeks before the midterms.
...McCarthy had testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee in January that as soon as the proposal was released online in September 2013, “we had submitted it to the Federal Register office.”
“The delay was solely the backup in the Federal Register office,” McCarthy said.
However, Inhofe’s office contacted the Federal Register, which revealed that they did not receive the regulation until Nov. 25.
The regulation would require new gas-fired and coal-fired power plants to emit fewer than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour.
...Inhofe is now asking the EPA to answer how they made the decision on when to submit the rule to the Federal Register, and if the White House played any role.
Senate Democrats plan vote to reverse Citizens United decision
By Alexander BoltonSenate Democrats will schedule a vote this year on a constitutional amendment to reform campaign finance as they face tens of millions of dollars worth of attack ads from conservative groups.
The Senate will vote on an amendment sponsored by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) that would overturn two recent court cases that have given
corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals free rein to spend
freely on federal races.
“The only way to undo the damage the court has done is to pass Senator Udall’s amendment to the Constitution, and Senate Democrats are going to try to do that,” he said.
Schumer said the vote would take place by year’s end and called on Republican colleagues to join Democrats to ensure “the wealthy can’t drown out middle-class voices in our Democracy.”
The amendment has little chance of becoming a part of the Constitution anytime soon because Republicans generally support the high court’s decisions in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and McCutcheon v. FEC.
The 2010 Citizens United ruling struck down restrictions on corporations and unions from spending money to support or oppose candidates. In McCutcheon, five justices struck down the aggregate limits on individual contributions to candidates and parties.
Udall’s amendment would specifically authorize Congress and the states to regulate and limit fundraising and spending for federal candidates.
It would grant authority to regulate and limit independent expenditures from outside groups such as super PACs.
It also would protect future campaign finance legislation passed by Congress from reversal by the Supreme Court.
The amendment needs to be passed by two-thirds of the Senate and the House and be ratified by three quarters of the states.
Why Would a Racist Vote Democrat?
By Walter Hudson Considering recent allegations of racism leveled at Clippers owner Donald Sterling, why does he support the Democrat Party?
...If you think blacks a lower form of man than whites, but still like to think of yourself as a “good person,” it makes sense that you would support public policy which segregates “those people” for special treatment. They need your beneficent help, after all. They can’t possibly make it on their own. Indeed, if you’re being completely honest with yourself, the idea that blacks might lay full claim to their own achievements bothers you. You need them to be lesser so you can feel greater. You need them to need you.
That’s why racists would, and I believe do, vote Democrat. At some point during the civil rights movement, the racists within the Democrat Party who opposed equal treatment under the law resigned themselves to a new form of unequal treatment.
Malcolm X saw that for what it was. He said:
The white liberal differs from the white conservative only in one way. The liberal is more deceitful than the conservative. The liberal is more hypocritical than the conservative. Both want power, but the white liberal is the one who has perfected the art of posing as the Negro’s friend and benefactor, and by winning the friendship and support of the Negro, the white liberal is able to use the Negro as a pawn or tool in this political football game. Politically the American Negro is nothing but a football, and the white liberals control this mentally dead ball. Through tricks of tokenism and false promises, and they have the willing cooperation of Negro leaders. These leaders sell out our people for just a few crumbs of token recognition and token gainsWhile X proved racist in his own right, he correctly observed that liberal prescriptions for beneficent public policy served only to empower an ambitious establishment. Indeed, his sentiments in the clip above prove as applicable today as when first stated. How many more elections do blacks need to hand to Democrats before results are delivered? How long can false promises go unfulfilled before more blacks realize they have been manipulated by racist white liberals like Donald Sterling?
Amnesty and Common Core: Two Sides of the Same Coin - Part I
By Dr. Susan BerryIs there any wonder why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and scores of elites from both political parties are ardent champions of both amnesty for illegal immigrants and the Common Core centralized educational standards?
Both issues are related, have been enmeshed for years in the progressive agenda that includes labor and education, and could be close to being fully realized were it not for grassroots groups of Americans joining together against the status quo of government, corporate, and education elites.
.....The relationship between Common Core and amnesty could readily be seen in the economic justice goals of Common Core as presented by David Coleman, both the “architect” of Common Core and the current College Board president.
As Breitbart News reported on February 3rd, Coleman announced last May that he would be bringing into the student data collection effort, for Common Core and the College Board, members of Barack Obama’s Organizing for Action (OFA) team, including Dan Wagner and Jeremy Bird, to reach out to low-income and Latino students, whom Coleman referred to as “low-hanging fruit.”
Connecting to the popular Common Core supporter claim that the centralized standards are “rigorous,” Coleman’s social engineering project at the College Board, “Access to Rigor,” is aimed at profiling low-income and Latino K-12 students, and then mobilizing them--the same tactics used by the OFA team to successfully re-elect Obama in 2012.
It is the student data collection aspect of Common Core, in fact, that is the basis of the relationship between Common Core and amnesty, and it is a relationship that took solid shape in the 1990’s.
Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) was involved in the early stages of what would become Common Core and proposed his agenda to Hillary Clinton immediately following Bill Clinton’s election to the presidency in November of 1992. In his now well-known “letter to Hillary Clinton,” Tucker wrote:
I still cannot believe you won. But utter delight that you did pervades all the circles in which I move…Tucker continued with a description of his “vision of the kind of national – not federal – human resources development system the nation could have.”
The subject we were discussing was what you and Bill should do now about education, training and labor market policy…
Our purpose in these meetings was to propose concrete actions that the Clinton administration could take — between now and the inauguration, in the first 100 days and beyond. The result, from where I sit, was really exciting. We took a very large leap forward in terms of how to advance the agenda on which you and we have all been working — a practical plan for putting all the major components of the system in place within four years, by the time Bill has to run again.
We think the great opportunity you have is to remold the entire American system for human resources development, almost all of the current components of which were put in place before World War II. The danger is that each of the ideas that Bill advanced in the campaign in the area of education and training could be translated individually in the ordinary course of governing into a legislative proposal and enacted as a program. This is the plan of least resistance. But it will lead to these programs being grafted onto the present system, not to a new system, and the opportunity will have been lost. If this sense of time and place is correct, it is essential that the administration’s efforts be guided by a consistent vision of what it wants to accomplish in the field of human resource development, with respect both to choice of key officials and the program.
He wrote:
This is interwoven with a new approach to governing that should inform that vision. What is essential is that we create a seamless web of opportunities, to develop one’s skills that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone — young and old, poor and rich, worker and full-time student. It needs to be a system driven by client needs (not agency regulations or the needs of the organization providing the services), guided by clear standards that define the stages of the system for the people who progress through it, and regulated on the basis of outcomes that providers produce for their clients, not inputs into the system.As the Eagle Forum observes, Tucker's plan was implemented in three laws passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1994: the Goals 2000 Act, the School-to-Work Act, and the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act. These new laws established the following mechanisms to restructure the public schools:
- Bypass all elected officials on school boards and in state legislatures by making federal funds flow to the Governor and his appointees on workforce development boards.
- Use a computer database, a.k.a. "a labor market information system," into which school personnel would scan all information about every schoolchild and his family, identified by the child's social security number: academic, medical, mental, psychological, behavioral, and interrogations by counselors. The computerized data would be available to the school, the government, and future employers.
- Use "national standards" and "national testing" to cement national control of tests, assessments, school honors and rewards, financial aid, and the Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM), which is designed to replace the high school diploma.
Big Government GOP's Common Core Rebrand Hustle
By Michelle Malkin.....(Governor) Pence's friend Republican Utah Gov. Gary Herbert also inadvertently spilled the beans on the Rename That Common Core Tune game. "I've talked to Gov. Pence about what they're doing there," he told a local reporter. "In essence, they're creating what's called the Indiana Core. It's not the Common Core. It's the Indiana Core, but their standards are almost mirroring exactly what's commonly referred to as the Common Core standards. So they're just doing it in a different way, which is what we've already been doing in Utah."
GOP Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer pulled a similar move, issuing an executive order last fall to whitewash "Common Core" from state government documents. She replaced the name with "Arizona's College and Career Ready Standards." But the old racket is still in place. And Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded lobbyists from Achieve Inc. and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers are still in the driver's seat.
This retreat-and-rebrand strategy was explicitly championed by Fed Ed advocate and former Arkansas GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee told his allies at the Gates Foundation-funded Council of Chief State School Officers earlier this year that since Common Core had become "toxic," the group needed to "rebrand it, refocus it, but don't retreat."
While disingenuous Republican governors tout their "withdrawals" from Common Core, it's more of the same old, same old: Diluted standards, tied to testing/textbook/technology cash cows, manufactured a top-down cadre of big-government D.C. education lobbyists and big-business interests, in violation of local control and state sovereignty.
The Constitution or Good Ideas?
By Walter E WilliamsLet me run through a few good ideas. I think it's a good idea for children to eat healthful, wholesome foods. In the raising of our daughter, before-dinner treats were fresh vegetables, and after-dinner treats were mostly fruits.
I arrive at my gym sometime between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., at least four times a week, to lift weights and use the treadmill. During the warmer months, the treadmill is substituted by a weekly total of 40 to 60 miles on my bike. My exercise regimen is a good idea. Another good idea is to wear a bike helmet while bike riding and wear a seat belt when driving my car. Among many other good ideas is the enjoyment of two, maybe three, glasses of wine with each evening meal.
You say, "So what, Williams? What's your point?" There's no question that all of those actions, with the possible exception of the last, are indeed good ideas. As evidence that my exercise regimen is a good idea, my doctors tell me that at 78 years of age, I'm in better health and conditioning than most of their male patients many years my junior. My question to you is whether these commonly agreed-upon good ideas should become the law of the land. To be more explicit, should Congress enact a law requiring every able-bodied American to lift weights four times a week and bike 40 to 60 miles each week? Just look at all the benefits of such a law. Americans would be healthier, and that would mean lower health care costs. People would have a longer working life. Men would have the strength to protect their women and children folk from thugs. In a word, there would be no downside to the fitter population that would come from a congressional law mandating physical fitness programs. We might title such a law the "Improving American Health Act." The law would impose fines and penalties on any able-bodied person not found to be in compliance. What congressman would have the callousness to vote against such a beneficial measure?
Needless to say, there would be attacks against the Improving American Health Act, launched mostly by libertarians, conservatives and some Republicans. These people would argue that Congress has no constitutional authority to enact such a liberty-intrusive law. Their arguments would be on weak grounds. Our Constitution's Article 1, Section 8 says, "The Congress shall have Power To ... provide for the ... general Welfare of the United States." Our Constitution further empowers Congress to enact the Improving American Health Act by its Article 1, Section 3 -- sometimes referred to as the commerce clause -- which grants Congress the power "To regulate Commerce ... among the several States." After all, good health lends itself to more efficient interstate commerce and a larger gross domestic product. Sick Americans adversely affect interstate commerce and are a burden on economic activity.
I have no doubt that people who don't want to see a healthier America -- again, mostly libertarians, conservatives and Republicans -- will bring suit before the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that Congress has no such authority under either the general welfare clause or the commerce clause. Would you prefer that Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., speaking for a majority, concur by saying, "This court is guided by the U.S. Constitution, and we find no constitutional authority for the Improving American Health Act, despite Congress' nonsense claims alleging authority under the general welfare and commerce clauses"?
Or would you prefer that Justice Roberts, speaking for the majority, engage in mental contortions in which he agrees that forcing people to exercise exceeds congressional authority under both the commerce clause and the general welfare clause but says the Improving American Health Act is indeed constitutional under Congress' taxing authority?
My bottom line question is: Should we be ruled by what are seen as good ideas or by what's permissible by the U.S. Constitution?
By David P. Goldman
No amount of evidence will convince liberals that they were wrong. Evidence abounds, to be sure: Appeasement invites aggression. Handouts increase dependency. Coddling terror-states like Iran elicits megalomania. Big government stifles the economy. They don’t care. Really.
...Why don’t liberals seem to notice the catastrophic consequences of their policies, and why to they imagine imminent horrors where none exist? If you corner a liberal and point to a disaster that followed upon his policy, at very most he will say–with a tear in the eye and a quivering upper lip–”We did the right thing.”
It’s all about having done the right thing according to the dogma of the ersatz liberal religion. Liberalism has nothing whatsoever to do with policy and its real-world consequences. Instead of finding one’s salvation on the path of traditional religions, liberals look for salvation in a set of right opinions–on race, the environment, income distribution, gender, or whatever.
...Liberals don’t see failed liberal policies as “failed,” any more than people of faith think that unanswered prayers are “failed” prayers. The difference is that people of faith abnegate themselves in prayer to a wholly-other divine person, while liberal poster-children subject the world to the narcissistic demands of their own spiritual needs.
...You can’t argue with liberals. Prove to them their policy has made things worse, and they will say in effect, “Worse for whom? It sure made me feel better!” Tell them that they have foredained their own extinction because their metrosexuality doesn’t leave time for children, and they will gaze heavenward and contemplate martyrdom on behalf of the earth-goddess Gaia. There are too many people polluting the earth anyway.
Dr. Frankenstein didn’t care that he had created a monster. You can’t argue with the man; the only thing to do is to persuade the villagers to march on his castle.
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