Thursday, May 30, 2013
Ted Cruz Takes Center Stage, Media Increases Attacks
Red State ^ | 5/29/2013 | Breeanne Howe
With news Wednesday morning that Michelle Bachmann won’t be running for re-election in 2014, the left has turned their sights quickly to another target: Ted Cruz. Not that they weren’t already focused on him. The left has been foaming at the mouth over Cruz since he boldly stepped on the scene and refused to play by their crooked rules. Bachmann’s exit, however, has introduced a new fervor on the left against Cruz and they’ve taken no time to come at him from every angle.
Seemingly within minutes of Bachmann’s announcement, Washington Bureau Chief of the Houston Chronicle Richard Dunham posted a piece questioning the legality of Ted Cruz running for president. If that doesn’t reveal how scared the left is of Cruz, I’m not sure what does. Calling it “Birther 2.0,” Dunham stated:
Five years after celebrity billionaire Donald Trump and a motley assortment of conservatives raised questions about a liberal Democratic candidate’s American birthplace, the shoe is on the other foot.
Now which liberal Democrat might Dunham be referring to? Well it certainly will be interesting watching the left lose their minds over Ted Cruz’s eligibility after years of them bashing birthers on the right for the same thing. Of course many on the right have consistently argued against the birthers on our side, at RedState they are banned along with those who talk of secession from the union. Yet, I have a feeling that, not only will the left highlight with pride their birthers, they won’t remember our attempts to move on to more important issues.
Even Dunham couldn’t escape the truth in the midst of trying to stir up the controversy:
But there is a wide range of jurisprudence on the issue _ which overwhelmingly favors the notion that Cruz is eligible to serve as president.
Thanks for playing Dunham, let’s see what’s next!
I’d have to say Chris Matthews summed up the left’s argument against Cruz pretty well on Friday when he referred to Cruz as, “the unsmiling contemptuous face of the wild, nasty hard right fringe…” Matthews also accused Cruz of being a “political bomb thrower,” while he spent a full minute throwing political bombs at him. Careful Chris, I think you have a little foam showing…
Matthews’ argument seeking to paint Cruz as a crazy right-winger, however, is ultimately the one of which we’ll be seeing more. Twitter was abuzz with transferring their Bachmann hate to Cruz Tuesday evening and, of course, Morning Joe took up the torch first thing Wednesday morning. After explaining that Bachmann made “inflammatory statements” because it “raised a lot of money” (not because she actually believed what she was saying!), Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough predicted wild man Cruz would be the next fading flower.
Well Joe, I have a prediction of my own. Ted Cruz won’t be fading away, instead he’ll continue to take a stand for conservatives across the country. As he continues his rise to the top, Cruz will have an army of conservatives behind him who’ve waited far too long for a leader who doesn’t compromise on the issues we hold dear. And watching liberals seethe in the background? Well, that’ll just make the ride that much more fun.
With news Wednesday morning that Michelle Bachmann won’t be running for re-election in 2014, the left has turned their sights quickly to another target: Ted Cruz. Not that they weren’t already focused on him. The left has been foaming at the mouth over Cruz since he boldly stepped on the scene and refused to play by their crooked rules. Bachmann’s exit, however, has introduced a new fervor on the left against Cruz and they’ve taken no time to come at him from every angle.
Seemingly within minutes of Bachmann’s announcement, Washington Bureau Chief of the Houston Chronicle Richard Dunham posted a piece questioning the legality of Ted Cruz running for president. If that doesn’t reveal how scared the left is of Cruz, I’m not sure what does. Calling it “Birther 2.0,” Dunham stated:
Five years after celebrity billionaire Donald Trump and a motley assortment of conservatives raised questions about a liberal Democratic candidate’s American birthplace, the shoe is on the other foot.
Now which liberal Democrat might Dunham be referring to? Well it certainly will be interesting watching the left lose their minds over Ted Cruz’s eligibility after years of them bashing birthers on the right for the same thing. Of course many on the right have consistently argued against the birthers on our side, at RedState they are banned along with those who talk of secession from the union. Yet, I have a feeling that, not only will the left highlight with pride their birthers, they won’t remember our attempts to move on to more important issues.
Even Dunham couldn’t escape the truth in the midst of trying to stir up the controversy:
But there is a wide range of jurisprudence on the issue _ which overwhelmingly favors the notion that Cruz is eligible to serve as president.
Thanks for playing Dunham, let’s see what’s next!
I’d have to say Chris Matthews summed up the left’s argument against Cruz pretty well on Friday when he referred to Cruz as, “the unsmiling contemptuous face of the wild, nasty hard right fringe…” Matthews also accused Cruz of being a “political bomb thrower,” while he spent a full minute throwing political bombs at him. Careful Chris, I think you have a little foam showing…
Matthews’ argument seeking to paint Cruz as a crazy right-winger, however, is ultimately the one of which we’ll be seeing more. Twitter was abuzz with transferring their Bachmann hate to Cruz Tuesday evening and, of course, Morning Joe took up the torch first thing Wednesday morning. After explaining that Bachmann made “inflammatory statements” because it “raised a lot of money” (not because she actually believed what she was saying!), Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough predicted wild man Cruz would be the next fading flower.
Well Joe, I have a prediction of my own. Ted Cruz won’t be fading away, instead he’ll continue to take a stand for conservatives across the country. As he continues his rise to the top, Cruz will have an army of conservatives behind him who’ve waited far too long for a leader who doesn’t compromise on the issues we hold dear. And watching liberals seethe in the background? Well, that’ll just make the ride that much more fun.
Obama's Mental Disorder
Written by Michael A. Haberman, M.D.
Dr. Vaknin States "I must confess I was impressed by Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident, a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history. Never a politician in this land had such quasi "religious" impact on so many people.
The fact that Obama is a total incognito with Zero accomplishment, makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming. Obama is not an ordinary man. He is not a genius. In fact he is quite ignorant on most important subjects."
Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of the Malignant Self Love believes "Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist." Vaknin is a world authority on narcissism. He understands narcissism and describes the inner mind of a narcissist like no other person. When he talks about narcissism everyone listens.
Vaknin says that Obama's language, posture and demeanor, and the testimonies of his closest, dearest friends suggest that the man is either a narcissist or he may have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).
Narcissists project a grandiose but false image of themselves. Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of People's Temple, the man who led over 900 of his followers to cheerfully commit mass suicide and even murder their own children was also a narcissist. David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, Shoko Asahara, Stalin, Saddam, Mao,Kim Jong Ill and Adolph Hitler are a few examples of narcissists of our time. All these men had a tremendous influence over their fanciers. They created a personality cult around themselves and with their blazing speeches elevated their admirers, filled their hearts with enthusiasm and instilled in their minds a new zest for life. They gave them hope! They promised them the moon, but alas, invariably they brought them to their doom.
When you are a victim of a cult of personality, you don't know it until it is too late. One determining factor in the development of NPD is childhood abuse "Obama's early life was decidedly chaotic and replete with traumatic and mentally bruising dislocations, "says Vaknin. "Mixed-race marriages were even less common then. His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant two years old. Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident. Then his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia , a foreign land with a radically foreign culture, to be raised by a step-father. At the age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white) grandparents. He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then she vanished from his life in 1979. "She died of cancer in 1995."
One must never underestimate the manipulative genius of pathological narcissists. They project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those around them. Charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay in his hands. They cheerfully do his bidding and delight to be at his service. The narcissist shapes the world around himself and reduces others in his own inverted image. He creates a cult of personality. His admirers become his co-dependents. Narcissists have no interest in things that do not help them to reach their personal objective.They are focused on one thing alone and that is power. All other issues are meaningless to them and they do not want to waste their precious time on trivialities. Anything that does not help them is beneath them and does not deserve their attention.
If an issue raised in the Senate does not help Obama in one way or another, he has no interest in it. The "present" vote is a safe vote. No one can criticize him if things go wrong. Those issues are unworthy by their very nature because they are not about him.
Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations. The University of Chicago Law School provided him a lot longer than expected and at the end it evolved into, guess what? His own autobiography! Instead of writing a scholarly paper focusing on race relations, for which he had been paid, Obama could not resist writing about his most sublime self. He entitled the book Dreams from My Father.
Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler also wrote his own autobiography when he was still a nobody. So did Stalin. For a narcissist no subject is as important as his own self. Why would he waste his precious time and genius writing about insignificant things when he can write about such an august being as himself?
Narcissists are often callous and even ruthless. As the norm, they lack conscience. This is evident from Obama's lack of interest in his own brother who lives on only one dollar per month. A man who lives in luxury, who takes a private jet to vacation in Hawaii, and who raised nearly half a billion dollars for his campaign (something unprecedented in history) has no interest in the plight of his own brother. Why? Because, his brother cannot be used for his ascent to power. A narcissist cares for no one but himself.
This election was like no other in the history of America . The issues were insignificant compared to what is at stake. What can be more dangerous than having a man bereft of conscience, a serial liar, and one who cannot distinguish his fantasies from reality as the leader of the free world?
I hate to sound alarmist, but one is a fool if one is not alarmed. Many politicians are narcissists. They pose no threat to others. They are simply self serving and selfish. Obama evidences symptoms of pathological narcissism, which is different from the run-of-the-mill narcissism of a Richard Nixon or a Bill Clinton for example. To him reality and fantasy
are intertwined.
This is a mental health issue, not just a character flaw. Pathological narcissists are dangerous because they look normal and even intelligent. It is this disguise that makes them treacherous. Today the Democrats have placed all their hopes in Obama. But this man could put an end to their party. The great majority of blacks voted for Obama. Only a fool
does not know that their support for him is racially driven. This is racism, pure and simple.
The downside of this is that if Obama turns out to be the disaster I predict, he will cause widespread resentment among the whites. The blacks are unlikely to give up their support of their man. Cultic mentality is pernicious and unrelenting. They will dig their heads deeper in the sand and blame Obama's detractors of racism. This will cause a backlash among the whites.. The white supremacists will take advantage of the discontent and they will receive widespread support. I predict that in less than four years, racial tensions will increase to levels never seen since the turbulent 1960's.
Obama will set the clock back decades. America is the bastion of freedom. The peace of the world depends on the strength of America , and its weakness translates into the triumph of terrorism and victory of rogue nations. It is no wonder that Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, the Castrists, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the lawyers of the Guantanamo terrorists, and virtually all sworn enemies of America are so thrilled by the prospect of their man in the White House.
America is on the verge of destruction. There is no insanity greater than electing a pathological narcissist as president.
Michael A. Haberman, M.D.
Dr. Vaknin States "I must confess I was impressed by Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident, a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history. Never a politician in this land had such quasi "religious" impact on so many people.
The fact that Obama is a total incognito with Zero accomplishment, makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming. Obama is not an ordinary man. He is not a genius. In fact he is quite ignorant on most important subjects."
Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of the Malignant Self Love believes "Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist." Vaknin is a world authority on narcissism. He understands narcissism and describes the inner mind of a narcissist like no other person. When he talks about narcissism everyone listens.
Vaknin says that Obama's language, posture and demeanor, and the testimonies of his closest, dearest friends suggest that the man is either a narcissist or he may have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).
Narcissists project a grandiose but false image of themselves. Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of People's Temple, the man who led over 900 of his followers to cheerfully commit mass suicide and even murder their own children was also a narcissist. David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, Shoko Asahara, Stalin, Saddam, Mao,Kim Jong Ill and Adolph Hitler are a few examples of narcissists of our time. All these men had a tremendous influence over their fanciers. They created a personality cult around themselves and with their blazing speeches elevated their admirers, filled their hearts with enthusiasm and instilled in their minds a new zest for life. They gave them hope! They promised them the moon, but alas, invariably they brought them to their doom.
When you are a victim of a cult of personality, you don't know it until it is too late. One determining factor in the development of NPD is childhood abuse "Obama's early life was decidedly chaotic and replete with traumatic and mentally bruising dislocations, "says Vaknin. "Mixed-race marriages were even less common then. His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant two years old. Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident. Then his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia , a foreign land with a radically foreign culture, to be raised by a step-father. At the age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white) grandparents. He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then she vanished from his life in 1979. "She died of cancer in 1995."
One must never underestimate the manipulative genius of pathological narcissists. They project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those around them. Charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay in his hands. They cheerfully do his bidding and delight to be at his service. The narcissist shapes the world around himself and reduces others in his own inverted image. He creates a cult of personality. His admirers become his co-dependents. Narcissists have no interest in things that do not help them to reach their personal objective.They are focused on one thing alone and that is power. All other issues are meaningless to them and they do not want to waste their precious time on trivialities. Anything that does not help them is beneath them and does not deserve their attention.
If an issue raised in the Senate does not help Obama in one way or another, he has no interest in it. The "present" vote is a safe vote. No one can criticize him if things go wrong. Those issues are unworthy by their very nature because they are not about him.
Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations. The University of Chicago Law School provided him a lot longer than expected and at the end it evolved into, guess what? His own autobiography! Instead of writing a scholarly paper focusing on race relations, for which he had been paid, Obama could not resist writing about his most sublime self. He entitled the book Dreams from My Father.
Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler also wrote his own autobiography when he was still a nobody. So did Stalin. For a narcissist no subject is as important as his own self. Why would he waste his precious time and genius writing about insignificant things when he can write about such an august being as himself?
Narcissists are often callous and even ruthless. As the norm, they lack conscience. This is evident from Obama's lack of interest in his own brother who lives on only one dollar per month. A man who lives in luxury, who takes a private jet to vacation in Hawaii, and who raised nearly half a billion dollars for his campaign (something unprecedented in history) has no interest in the plight of his own brother. Why? Because, his brother cannot be used for his ascent to power. A narcissist cares for no one but himself.
This election was like no other in the history of America . The issues were insignificant compared to what is at stake. What can be more dangerous than having a man bereft of conscience, a serial liar, and one who cannot distinguish his fantasies from reality as the leader of the free world?
I hate to sound alarmist, but one is a fool if one is not alarmed. Many politicians are narcissists. They pose no threat to others. They are simply self serving and selfish. Obama evidences symptoms of pathological narcissism, which is different from the run-of-the-mill narcissism of a Richard Nixon or a Bill Clinton for example. To him reality and fantasy
are intertwined.
This is a mental health issue, not just a character flaw. Pathological narcissists are dangerous because they look normal and even intelligent. It is this disguise that makes them treacherous. Today the Democrats have placed all their hopes in Obama. But this man could put an end to their party. The great majority of blacks voted for Obama. Only a fool
does not know that their support for him is racially driven. This is racism, pure and simple.
The downside of this is that if Obama turns out to be the disaster I predict, he will cause widespread resentment among the whites. The blacks are unlikely to give up their support of their man. Cultic mentality is pernicious and unrelenting. They will dig their heads deeper in the sand and blame Obama's detractors of racism. This will cause a backlash among the whites.. The white supremacists will take advantage of the discontent and they will receive widespread support. I predict that in less than four years, racial tensions will increase to levels never seen since the turbulent 1960's.
Obama will set the clock back decades. America is the bastion of freedom. The peace of the world depends on the strength of America , and its weakness translates into the triumph of terrorism and victory of rogue nations. It is no wonder that Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, the Castrists, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the lawyers of the Guantanamo terrorists, and virtually all sworn enemies of America are so thrilled by the prospect of their man in the White House.
America is on the verge of destruction. There is no insanity greater than electing a pathological narcissist as president.
Michael A. Haberman, M.D.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Obama Surrenders the War on Terror (lies about the continuing Islamic war on America)
FrontPageMag.com ^ | May 28, 2013 | Alan W. Dowd
“Don’t be afraid to see what you see,” President Reagan counseled in his farewell address. We would do well to heed his advice as President Obama attempts to lead America backwards, to September 10. Make no mistake: That was the not-so-subtle message he sent last week during his speech at the National Defense University—a speech that was so full of inaccuracies that one is left to conclude the president is either living in an alternate universe or willfully disregarding the facts. Just consider some of the statements he made.
1. “There have been no large-scale attacks on the United States, and our homeland is more secure.”
In fact, Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and injured 32 others during his shooting rampage at Ft. Hood in November 2009—an attack authorized by al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen (AQAP). Since the U.S. Army—no doubt following orders far up the chain of command—refuses to classify the Ft. Hood shooting as a terrorist attack, the survivors’ injuries and acts of bravery cannot be categorized as “combat related.”
In addition, the Boston Marathon bombing was a large-scale attack carried out by individuals who were radicalized to jihad and trained by jihadist elements in Russia.
Moreover, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, inspired and trained by AQAP, almost took down a passenger plane in December 2009; and Faisal Shahzad, trained by jihadists in Pakistan, deployed an IED in Times Square in 2010. Just as catching a thief in the act doesn’t mean he hasn’t committed a crime, the fact that these attacks failed does not mean they were not attacks.
2. “The core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on the path to defeat…They did not direct the attacks in Benghazi or Boston.”
Like a five-year-old, the president seems to believe that if he says something often enough
“Don’t be afraid to see what you see,” President Reagan counseled in his farewell address. We would do well to heed his advice as President Obama attempts to lead America backwards, to September 10. Make no mistake: That was the not-so-subtle message he sent last week during his speech at the National Defense University—a speech that was so full of inaccuracies that one is left to conclude the president is either living in an alternate universe or willfully disregarding the facts. Just consider some of the statements he made.
1. “There have been no large-scale attacks on the United States, and our homeland is more secure.”
In fact, Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and injured 32 others during his shooting rampage at Ft. Hood in November 2009—an attack authorized by al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen (AQAP). Since the U.S. Army—no doubt following orders far up the chain of command—refuses to classify the Ft. Hood shooting as a terrorist attack, the survivors’ injuries and acts of bravery cannot be categorized as “combat related.”
In addition, the Boston Marathon bombing was a large-scale attack carried out by individuals who were radicalized to jihad and trained by jihadist elements in Russia.
Moreover, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, inspired and trained by AQAP, almost took down a passenger plane in December 2009; and Faisal Shahzad, trained by jihadists in Pakistan, deployed an IED in Times Square in 2010. Just as catching a thief in the act doesn’t mean he hasn’t committed a crime, the fact that these attacks failed does not mean they were not attacks.
2. “The core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on the path to defeat…They did not direct the attacks in Benghazi or Boston.”
Like a five-year-old, the president seems to believe that if he says something often enough
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
Only Nixon Harmed a Free Press More than Obama!
New York Times ^ | James C. Goodale
The search warrant filed to investigate the Fox News reporter James Rosen proved as many had suspected: President Obama wants to make it a crime for a reporter to talk to a leaker. It is a further example of how President Obama will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom.
The government's subpoena of The Associated Press's phone records was bad enough. But the disclosure of the search warrant in the Rosen case shows President Obama has delved into territory never before reached by previous presidents.
The Justice Department obtained Rosen’s e-mail by using a search warrant in which it alleged that Rosen was a co-conspirator with a government adviser named Stephen Kim.
SNIP
Until President Obama came into office, no one thought talking or e-mailing was not protected by the First Amendment.
SNIP
The search warrant filed to investigate the Fox News reporter James Rosen proved as many had suspected: President Obama wants to make it a crime for a reporter to talk to a leaker. It is a further example of how President Obama will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom.
The government's subpoena of The Associated Press's phone records was bad enough. But the disclosure of the search warrant in the Rosen case shows President Obama has delved into territory never before reached by previous presidents.
The Justice Department obtained Rosen’s e-mail by using a search warrant in which it alleged that Rosen was a co-conspirator with a government adviser named Stephen Kim.
SNIP
Until President Obama came into office, no one thought talking or e-mailing was not protected by the First Amendment.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Obamacare "Navigators": Another Sebelius Snitch Brigade?
Townhall.com ^ | May 29, 2013 | Michelle Malkin
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius controls a $54 million slush fund to hire thousands of "navigators," "in-person assisters" and counselors who will propagandize and enroll Obamacare recipients in government-run health insurance exchanges. This nanny-state navigator corps is the Mother of all Community Organizing Boondoggles. It's also yet another Obama threat to Americans' privacy.
A reminder about Secretary Sebelius' sordid snooping history is in order here. In August 2009, HHS and the White House Office of Health Reform called on their ground troops to report on fellow citizens who dared to criticize their federal health care takeover. Team Obama issued an all-points bulletin on the taxpayer-funded White House website soliciting informant emails. Remember?
"If you get an email or see something on the Web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov," the Obamacare overlords urged. The feds even singled out conservative Internet powerhouse Matt Drudge because he had featured a video compilation of Obama and other Democrats -- in their own words -- exposing the "public option" as a Trojan Horse for government-run health care and the elimination of private industry.
Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn protested at the time that "these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program." The flagging operation was shut down, but a plethora of federal disclosure exemptions protect the Obama administration from revealing what was collected, who was targeted and what was done with the database information.
White House lapdogs dismissed the concerns of conservatives as paranoid delusions. Now, fast-forward three years. In light of the draconian IRS witch hunt against tea party groups and the Justice Department's plundering of journalists' phone records and email accounts, every tax-subsidized Obama "outreach" initiative warrants heightened scrutiny.
Obamacare navigators will have access to highly personal data from potential "customers" to assess their "needs." That means income levels, birthdates, addresses, eligibility for government assistance, Social Security numbers and sensitive medical information. They'll be targeting both individuals and small businesses. Anyone they can lay their grubby hands on. Who's getting the navigator grants and training? "Community groups" in 33 states that naturally include socialized medicine-supporting unions and Saul Alinsky-steeped activist outfits.
On Capitol Hill last week, a top Obamacare official told GOP lawmakers that navigators will not be required to undergo background checks. Criminal records are not automatically disqualifying -- and that includes identity theft. The federal rule-makers will require online training of a measly 20 hours. Health care regulations watchdog Betsy McCaughey adds that navigators "don't have to know math or insurance, but rules announced April 5 specify you have to match the race, ethnicity and language preferences of the neighborhood that will be targeted."
The Obamacare navigator corps smacks of ACORN redux, stocked with demographically tailored Democratic Party recruitment operatives, not objective, informed insurance experts.
Sebelius and her enforcers promise strict neutrality and clean conduct. The bureaucrats say there will be severe consequences for violating citizens' privacy or breaking any other laws. Pffft. The Office of Special Counsel determined that Secretary Sebelius herself violated the federal Hatch Act prohibition on exploiting her HHS leadership position for partisan activity last fall. She then tried to cover up her breach after the fact by classifying the event in which she electioneered for Obama as a "personal" appearance.
Consequences? What consequences?
Sebelius has zero credibility when it comes to reining in overzealous partisans. But she's darned good at unleashing them. During the White House pressure campaign for Obamacare, Sebelius goaded her "brothers and sisters" from the brass-knuckled SEIU. SEIU goon Dennis Rivera joined her on a White House conference call in which he lambasted tea party activists as the "radical fringe" of "right-wingers" whose protests amounted to "terrorist tactics."
Now, the SEIU is on the board of directors of Enroll America, the left-wing, Obamacare advocacy nonprofit for whom shakedown artist Sebelius has been soliciting funds.
Sebelius' corruptocracy runs deep. While she was governor of Kansas, an independent inspector general reported that her appointed health policy board had "applied pressure to alter an audit report, restricted access to legal advice and threatened to fire her for meeting independently with legislators," according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
Team Sebelius was also embroiled in a ruthless vendetta and obstruction campaign against then-GOP Attorney General Phill Kline, who unearthed damning evidence that the Sebelius administration had shredded key documents related to felony charges against Sebelius' abortion racketeering friends at Planned Parenthood.
Sebelius notoriously threatened private companies and insurers who increased rates to cope with Obamacare coverage mandates. She bullied private companies to meet discriminatory and arbitrary disclosure demands. And she lashed out at newspapers that dared to report on the true costs of the Obamacare regulatory leviathan.
You can't trust sleazy Sebelius to navigate anything with her broken ethical compass. This is worse than the fox guarding the henhouse. She has unfettered authority and a bottomless budget to weaponize legions more foxes who will serve as Obamacare's eyes and ears on the ground. The snitch brigade lives.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius controls a $54 million slush fund to hire thousands of "navigators," "in-person assisters" and counselors who will propagandize and enroll Obamacare recipients in government-run health insurance exchanges. This nanny-state navigator corps is the Mother of all Community Organizing Boondoggles. It's also yet another Obama threat to Americans' privacy.
A reminder about Secretary Sebelius' sordid snooping history is in order here. In August 2009, HHS and the White House Office of Health Reform called on their ground troops to report on fellow citizens who dared to criticize their federal health care takeover. Team Obama issued an all-points bulletin on the taxpayer-funded White House website soliciting informant emails. Remember?
"If you get an email or see something on the Web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov," the Obamacare overlords urged. The feds even singled out conservative Internet powerhouse Matt Drudge because he had featured a video compilation of Obama and other Democrats -- in their own words -- exposing the "public option" as a Trojan Horse for government-run health care and the elimination of private industry.
Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn protested at the time that "these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program." The flagging operation was shut down, but a plethora of federal disclosure exemptions protect the Obama administration from revealing what was collected, who was targeted and what was done with the database information.
White House lapdogs dismissed the concerns of conservatives as paranoid delusions. Now, fast-forward three years. In light of the draconian IRS witch hunt against tea party groups and the Justice Department's plundering of journalists' phone records and email accounts, every tax-subsidized Obama "outreach" initiative warrants heightened scrutiny.
Obamacare navigators will have access to highly personal data from potential "customers" to assess their "needs." That means income levels, birthdates, addresses, eligibility for government assistance, Social Security numbers and sensitive medical information. They'll be targeting both individuals and small businesses. Anyone they can lay their grubby hands on. Who's getting the navigator grants and training? "Community groups" in 33 states that naturally include socialized medicine-supporting unions and Saul Alinsky-steeped activist outfits.
On Capitol Hill last week, a top Obamacare official told GOP lawmakers that navigators will not be required to undergo background checks. Criminal records are not automatically disqualifying -- and that includes identity theft. The federal rule-makers will require online training of a measly 20 hours. Health care regulations watchdog Betsy McCaughey adds that navigators "don't have to know math or insurance, but rules announced April 5 specify you have to match the race, ethnicity and language preferences of the neighborhood that will be targeted."
The Obamacare navigator corps smacks of ACORN redux, stocked with demographically tailored Democratic Party recruitment operatives, not objective, informed insurance experts.
Sebelius and her enforcers promise strict neutrality and clean conduct. The bureaucrats say there will be severe consequences for violating citizens' privacy or breaking any other laws. Pffft. The Office of Special Counsel determined that Secretary Sebelius herself violated the federal Hatch Act prohibition on exploiting her HHS leadership position for partisan activity last fall. She then tried to cover up her breach after the fact by classifying the event in which she electioneered for Obama as a "personal" appearance.
Consequences? What consequences?
Sebelius has zero credibility when it comes to reining in overzealous partisans. But she's darned good at unleashing them. During the White House pressure campaign for Obamacare, Sebelius goaded her "brothers and sisters" from the brass-knuckled SEIU. SEIU goon Dennis Rivera joined her on a White House conference call in which he lambasted tea party activists as the "radical fringe" of "right-wingers" whose protests amounted to "terrorist tactics."
Now, the SEIU is on the board of directors of Enroll America, the left-wing, Obamacare advocacy nonprofit for whom shakedown artist Sebelius has been soliciting funds.
Sebelius' corruptocracy runs deep. While she was governor of Kansas, an independent inspector general reported that her appointed health policy board had "applied pressure to alter an audit report, restricted access to legal advice and threatened to fire her for meeting independently with legislators," according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
Team Sebelius was also embroiled in a ruthless vendetta and obstruction campaign against then-GOP Attorney General Phill Kline, who unearthed damning evidence that the Sebelius administration had shredded key documents related to felony charges against Sebelius' abortion racketeering friends at Planned Parenthood.
Sebelius notoriously threatened private companies and insurers who increased rates to cope with Obamacare coverage mandates. She bullied private companies to meet discriminatory and arbitrary disclosure demands. And she lashed out at newspapers that dared to report on the true costs of the Obamacare regulatory leviathan.
You can't trust sleazy Sebelius to navigate anything with her broken ethical compass. This is worse than the fox guarding the henhouse. She has unfettered authority and a bottomless budget to weaponize legions more foxes who will serve as Obamacare's eyes and ears on the ground. The snitch brigade lives.
Gasoline Myths
Townhall.com ^ | May 29, 2013 | John Stossel
Plan to drive more this summer? Annoyed by the price of gas? Complaining that oil companies rip you off?
I say, shut up. Even if gas costs $4 per gallon, we should thank Big Oil. Think what they have to do to bring us gas.
Oil must be sucked out of the ground, sometimes from war zones or deep beneath oceans. The drills now bend and dig sideways through as much as 7 miles of earth. What they discover must be pumped through billion-dollar pipelines and often put in monstrously expensive tankers to ship across the ocean.
Then it's refined into several types of gasoline, transported in trucks that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Finally, your local gas station must spend a fortune on safety devices to make sure we don't blow ourselves up while filling the tank.
And it still costs less per ounce than the bottled water sold at gas stations. If government sold gas, it would cost $40 per gallon. And there would be shortages!
Another myth: Big Oil makes "excess" profit. Nonsense. The oil business is fiercely competitive. If one company charges a penny too much, other companies steal its business. Apple's profit margin is about 24 percent. McDonald's makes 20 percent. Oil companies make half that.
Per gallon, ExxonMobil makes about 7 cents. Governments, by contrast, grab about 27 cents per gallon. That's the average gas tax. If anyone takes too much, it's government.
President Obama says, "Gas costs too much." So he announced: "We've put in place the toughest fuel economy standards in history. Over the life of a new car, the average family will save more than $8,000 at the pump."
Sounds good. But the magic of fuel economy standards is another myth.
Susan Dudley, who runs the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University, points out that many car buyers care more about safety, style, power, etc. than mileage.
"The problem with the government's rule is that they ignore all those other preferences ... assuming that the only thing we value is fuel economy."
Fuel economy sounds appealing when it's presented as something created at no cost. But car dealers say it will make cars cost $3,000 more.
Also, as James Taylor, an energy expert at the Heartland Institute, pointed out to me, fuel-economy regulations kill.
"In order to make cars more fuel-efficient, auto manufacturers make them smaller -- using lighter materials, they're less crash-worthy ... We're seeing thousands of people dying on the roads that shouldn't be."
You'd think automakers would strongly oppose these regulations -- but if so, why, when President Obama unveiled the regulations, did the heads of 13 car companies shake Obama's hand and smile?
"Even if it is a $60 billion cost to them," says Dudley, "if everyone has to do it, they can pass it on to consumers."
In other words, normally companies compete to do things more efficiently than rivals, in order to charge lower prices and get the lion's share of customers. But there's no need to worry about jacking up your prices when your rivals must do so, too. Regulation makes companies lazier, not more efficient.
Republicans at least talk about deregulation. But the "regulation-killing Republican" is another myth. Despite being labeled a deregulator, George W. Bush hired 90,000 new regulators. Dudley, who was their overseer, now says, "The pressure to regulate is intense."
Almost no one seems to speak up for a true free market in energy, with competition, innovation and unfettered consumer choice. People say regulation is needed to counter industry "greed."
But if anyone's greedy here, it's government -- and unlike oil companies, government doesn't have to work hard and compete to give you good service at the lowest possible price. Government just sits there, telling companies to charge less, telling car companies to make smaller and more dangerous cars, mandating and subsidizing alternative fuels like ethanol -- and then telling us that we benefit from the politicians' efforts.
The truth: We rarely benefit.
Plan to drive more this summer? Annoyed by the price of gas? Complaining that oil companies rip you off?
I say, shut up. Even if gas costs $4 per gallon, we should thank Big Oil. Think what they have to do to bring us gas.
Oil must be sucked out of the ground, sometimes from war zones or deep beneath oceans. The drills now bend and dig sideways through as much as 7 miles of earth. What they discover must be pumped through billion-dollar pipelines and often put in monstrously expensive tankers to ship across the ocean.
Then it's refined into several types of gasoline, transported in trucks that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Finally, your local gas station must spend a fortune on safety devices to make sure we don't blow ourselves up while filling the tank.
And it still costs less per ounce than the bottled water sold at gas stations. If government sold gas, it would cost $40 per gallon. And there would be shortages!
Another myth: Big Oil makes "excess" profit. Nonsense. The oil business is fiercely competitive. If one company charges a penny too much, other companies steal its business. Apple's profit margin is about 24 percent. McDonald's makes 20 percent. Oil companies make half that.
Per gallon, ExxonMobil makes about 7 cents. Governments, by contrast, grab about 27 cents per gallon. That's the average gas tax. If anyone takes too much, it's government.
President Obama says, "Gas costs too much." So he announced: "We've put in place the toughest fuel economy standards in history. Over the life of a new car, the average family will save more than $8,000 at the pump."
Sounds good. But the magic of fuel economy standards is another myth.
Susan Dudley, who runs the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University, points out that many car buyers care more about safety, style, power, etc. than mileage.
"The problem with the government's rule is that they ignore all those other preferences ... assuming that the only thing we value is fuel economy."
Fuel economy sounds appealing when it's presented as something created at no cost. But car dealers say it will make cars cost $3,000 more.
Also, as James Taylor, an energy expert at the Heartland Institute, pointed out to me, fuel-economy regulations kill.
"In order to make cars more fuel-efficient, auto manufacturers make them smaller -- using lighter materials, they're less crash-worthy ... We're seeing thousands of people dying on the roads that shouldn't be."
You'd think automakers would strongly oppose these regulations -- but if so, why, when President Obama unveiled the regulations, did the heads of 13 car companies shake Obama's hand and smile?
"Even if it is a $60 billion cost to them," says Dudley, "if everyone has to do it, they can pass it on to consumers."
In other words, normally companies compete to do things more efficiently than rivals, in order to charge lower prices and get the lion's share of customers. But there's no need to worry about jacking up your prices when your rivals must do so, too. Regulation makes companies lazier, not more efficient.
Republicans at least talk about deregulation. But the "regulation-killing Republican" is another myth. Despite being labeled a deregulator, George W. Bush hired 90,000 new regulators. Dudley, who was their overseer, now says, "The pressure to regulate is intense."
Almost no one seems to speak up for a true free market in energy, with competition, innovation and unfettered consumer choice. People say regulation is needed to counter industry "greed."
But if anyone's greedy here, it's government -- and unlike oil companies, government doesn't have to work hard and compete to give you good service at the lowest possible price. Government just sits there, telling companies to charge less, telling car companies to make smaller and more dangerous cars, mandating and subsidizing alternative fuels like ethanol -- and then telling us that we benefit from the politicians' efforts.
The truth: We rarely benefit.
IRS higher-ups requested info on conservative groups, letters show!
nbc ^ | 5/29/2013 | Lisa Myers, Rich Gardella and Talesha
Reynolds
Additional scrutiny of conservative organizations’ activities by the IRS did not solely originate in the agency’s Cincinnati office, with requests for information coming from other offices and often bearing the signatures of higher-ups at the agency, according to attorneys representing some of the targeted groups. At least one letter requesting information about one of the groups bears the signature of Lois Lerner, the suspended director of the IRS Exempt Organizations department in Washington.
Jay Sekulow, an attorney representing 27 conservative political advocacy organizations that applied to the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status, provided some of the letters to NBC News. He said the groups’ contacts with the IRS prove that the practices went beyond a few “front line” employees in the Cincinnati office, as the IRS has maintained.
“We've dealt with 15 agents, including tax law specialists -- that's lawyers -- from four different offices, including (the) Treasury (Department) in Washington, D.C.,” Sekulow said. “So the idea that this is a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati is not correct.”
Additional scrutiny of conservative organizations’ activities by the IRS did not solely originate in the agency’s Cincinnati office, with requests for information coming from other offices and often bearing the signatures of higher-ups at the agency, according to attorneys representing some of the targeted groups. At least one letter requesting information about one of the groups bears the signature of Lois Lerner, the suspended director of the IRS Exempt Organizations department in Washington.
Jay Sekulow, an attorney representing 27 conservative political advocacy organizations that applied to the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status, provided some of the letters to NBC News. He said the groups’ contacts with the IRS prove that the practices went beyond a few “front line” employees in the Cincinnati office, as the IRS has maintained.
“We've dealt with 15 agents, including tax law specialists -- that's lawyers -- from four different offices, including (the) Treasury (Department) in Washington, D.C.,” Sekulow said. “So the idea that this is a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati is not correct.”
(Excerpt) Read more at openchannel.nbcnews.com ...
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