Apprehended more than Bush? Well, that's a crock, but let's say we buy that. It's pretty much a disqualification if you catch-and-release back into America! And some of the most violent criminals among them at that...
TheHill: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials last year released 68,000 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions, undercutting Democratic claims that President Obama has strictly enforced immigration laws.
An internal Department of Homeland Security document compiling statistics on arrests and deportations in 2013 showed that ICE agents encountered 193,357 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions but issued charging documents for only 125,478. More than 67,800 were released.
The data came from an end-of-year “Weekly Departures and Detention Report.”
The Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that favors stricter enforcement of immigration laws, estimates ICE agents released more than a third of illegal immigrants with criminal records they detained.
“ICE released 68,000 criminal aliens in 2013, or 35 percent of the criminal aliens encountered by officers. The vast majority of these releases occurred because of the Obama administration’s prosecutorial discretion policies,” Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, wrote in a memo summarizing the DHS document.
ICE classifies illegal immigrants as criminal if they have been convicted of a crime, not including traffic offense, Vaughn noted.
Here's a few more details left out of The Hill's report:
TheDC: The Obama administration is threatening public safety by deliberately hampering immigration law and releasing aliens with criminal records, according to a new review of internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.
A Center for Immigration Studies report to be released Monday and obtained in advance by The Daily Caller, found that last year ICE reported nearly 722,000 encounters with illegal or criminal immigrants. But ICE officers filed immigration charges against less than 195,000 aliens.
“According to ICE personnel, the vast gap between the number of encounters reported and the number of aliens put on the path to removal exists because officers are not permitted to file charges against aliens who do not fall into the administration’s narrowly defined criteria for enforcement, regardless of the criminal charges or the circumstances in which the alien was identified,” the report, authored by CIS director of policy studies Jessica Vaughan, reads.
Other key findings included in the review:
- In 2013, ICE charged only 195,000, or 25 percent, out of 722,000 potentially deportable aliens they encountered. Most of these aliens came to ICE’s attention after incarceration for a local arrest.
- ICE released 68,000 criminal aliens in 2013, or 35 percent of the criminal aliens encountered by officers. The vast majority of these releases occurred because of the Obama administration’s prosecutorial discretion policies, not because the aliens were not deportable.
- ICE targeted 28 percent fewer aliens for deportation from the interior in 2013 than in 2012, despite sustained high numbers of encounters in the Criminal Alien and Secure Communities programs.
- Every ICE field office but one reported a decline in interior enforcement activity.
- ICE reports that there are more than 870,000 aliens on its docket who have been ordered removed, but who remain in defiance of the law.
- Under current policies, an alien’s family relationships, political considerations, attention from advocacy groups, and other factors not related to public safety can trump even serious criminal convictions and result in the termination of a deportation case.
- Less than 2 percent of ICE’s caseload was in detention at the end of fiscal year 2013. About three-fourths of the aliens ICE detained in 2013 had criminal and/or immigration convictions so serious that the detention was required by statute.
Sweetness&Light summarized this perfectly: "In another time this one issue alone would be enough to get a President removed from office. But it’s not even considered to be one of Obama’s top ten scandals."
Related links: 68,000 illegal aliens with criminal records caught and released
Study Finds Nearly 70,000 Criminal Illegal Aliens Released Back Into the U.S.
Report: ICE Releasing Criminal Aliens if Activists Hold 'Vigils,' Create Petitions
"If you are looking for a biblical movie, this is definitely not it."
From Rock People to Noah being conflicted about killing his own family...do HUH?! Sounds like a floater alright...Aronofsky probably should've gone lighter on the pork sandwich...
After this:
And this:
"It is a complete reversal of what the Biblical narrative is in terms of sin."
Yeah, don't think I'll be wasting my money on Darren Aronofsky's latest piece of crap irreverently entitled Noah, which apparently has little to do with the actual story of Noah other than the title. Go figure.
Related links: Atheist ‘Noah’ director brags film is least biblical Bible movie ever
Movie Noah trades redemption for destruction
Another lawless dictate, no doubt installed so that more individual Americans won't experience a liberty tax on April 15th! But let's go through the laundry list of failures: No way of enforcing the penalty, no way of knowing who's paid, not even Sebelius knows, phony enrollment numbers, and now all you have to do to get a no-questions-asked extension from Obamacare via the regime is check a box which says you tried to enroll but couldn’t. Geniuses...
FoxNews: The Obama administration will grant extra time to Americans who say they are unable to enroll in health care plans through the federal insurance marketplace by the March 31 deadline, in a decision that swiftly drew Republican ridicule.
All consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on HealthCare.gov, but who do not finish by Monday, will now have until about mid-April to ask for an extension.
"We are experiencing a surge in demand and are making sure that we will be ready to help consumers who may be in line by the deadline to complete enrollment -- either online or over the phone," Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Joanne Peters told Fox News.
The Washington Post first reported that users will have a chance to check a box on the website indicating they tried to enroll before the deadline, though the government will not try to determine whether the person actually made an effort to sign up.
I purposefully cut out the feigned outrage from Boehner and Priebus...hope you don't mind. And you can be assured there's no surge. However, there is yet another delay...need I remind you when Sebelius told Congress there wouldn’t be anymore of those...
...and yet, Americans keep looking to the government to fix something else Washington's screwed up! Come on, guys...use your noggin...
Related links: Brutal: Just one in 10 uninsured who qualify for ObamaCare exchange plans has signed up
Eight Ways To Opt Out Of Obamacare
Las Vegans find inventive ways to get around Obamacare - the law of the land
Opt-Out Obamacare Penalty Can't Be Enforced -- Unless You Get a Tax Refund
Heartbreaking! Rush: Millions Are Losing Their Health Insurance
Health Care Expert: Obamacare not signing up enough people to make insurance pool sustainable
H/t: tRS
"This isn't Nazi Germany, this is modern day Britain!" ~ Mark Levin
Call the Midwife might put a glossy finish on Britain's NHS, but it's hard to find words to describe this uncivilized EVIL...
Telegraph: The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.
Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.
Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’
At least 15,500 foetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered.
The programme, which will air tonight, found that parents who lose children in early pregnancy were often treated without compassion and were not consulted about what they wanted to happen to the remains.
One of the country’s leading hospitals, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks gestation at their own ‘waste to energy’ plant. The mothers were told the remains had been ‘cremated.’
Another ‘waste to energy’ facility at Ipswich Hospital, operated by a private contractor, incinerated 1,101 foetal remains between 2011 and 2013.
They were brought in from another hospital before being burned, generating energy for the hospital site. Ipswich Hospital itself disposes of remains by cremation.
Makes one ask the question, 'What of America's discarded?' But the establishment moderates, the consultant class, the appeasers among us say we shouldn't discuss any of this. We need to drop it. It's divisive. It's too much of a single issue.
I don't think it can be said anymore, 'they know not what they do,' because it seems to me, they know precisely what they're doing. It is WRONG and it is EVIL...to do and to ignore.
This is the level of depravity that occurs in a society when we forget that what’s growing inside a woman is a life created by God Almighty and deserves a chance to live and breath just as we were given that chance. ~ tRS
Wow. The White House and their lapdog media don't even realize that the small business opt-out penalty is already here...or maybe they were hoping you wouldn't realize it!
WT: Left leaning media outlets criticized Internet news mogul Matt Drudge’s tweets on Friday, but the backlash stemmed from a misunderstanding of how Obamacare will affect small businesses.
On Friday, Matt Drudge tweeted, “Just paid the Obamacare penalty for not ‘getting covered’… I’M CALLING IT A LIBERTY TAX!”
A few minutes later, Jason Lee, the Director of Progressive Media at the White House, tweeted a response, saying Mr. Drudge’s tweet was a, “flat lie, no fee for previous year. Scary how much influence he once had.”
From there, the tweets came rolling in, attacking Mr. Drudge via social media and liberal news outlets, Breitbart reported.
What each critical tweeter and pundit failed to realize was that Mr. Drudge, as the self-employed proprietor of The Drudge Report, files taxes as a small business on a quarterly basis.
The IRS requires self-employed business owners to file annual returns and pay estimated quarterly taxes. When entrepreneurs like Mr. Drudge file their 2014 first quarter taxes, they have to pay the individual health care mandate if they are not getting Obamacare coverage.
The IRS form also allows adding the mandate to the section labeled “other taxes,” hence Mr. Drudge’s chosen name “Liberty tax.”
A Senate Budget Committee aide told Breitbart News, “It is true that thousands of small businesses will be forces to pay Obamacare taxes quarterly in 2014.”
Hear that media? Despite the shielding of criticism towards both the man and his namesake, small businesses WILL be paying Obama's 'liberty tax' this year. And by piling on Drudge for abiding by the law, the media have displayed not only their ignorance of the law, but also their blind allegiance to this left-wing administration.
Rush also discussed the topic this morning, as he will also be affected by this tax on liberty...
Related links: Liberals Outraged After Obamacare Opt-Out Penalty Deemed “Liberty Tax”
White House and left wing media lie about ObamaCare penalty
Yes, I said Medicare. Sorry to leave this to a Friday post, but we've gotta move past Flight 370 for a moment to help unobscure a disaster that affects every single American...
WashingtonTimes: President Obama promised that we could keep our health care plans and our doctors, but he knew that was a lie. He pretended Obamacare was the endgame. That was also false.
Mr. Obama’s objective has always been to entrench the doomed law into our lives so that it would lead to a government takeover of the whole health care system. This maniacal plan is working.
In advance of the March 31 deadline for individuals to enroll, the White House touted this week that 5 million people had signed up for Obamacare.
That sounds somewhat impressive until Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, was unable to answer reporters’ questions about how many of those people had actually paid premiums.
We also don’t know which of these enrollees are among the millions who were insured last year but were dropped from their plans that didn’t measure up the new mandates. Nor do we know how many of those who signed up are the young, healthy people needed to keep the system afloat.
Alright, now here's the kicker...and you know it's bad when even a turncoat like Rubio can see it coming. The so-called single-payer solution is to dump everyone on Medicare!
Anyway, Mr. Obama and his cohort in Congress are secretly dancing a jig because the convoluted program was intended to fail. They believe that Uncle Sam makes better health care decisions than Dr. Smith.
“From the very beginning, they wanted a single-payer system of health care,” Sen. Marco Rubio told me on the “Shooting Straight with Emily Miller” radio show. “They obviously didn’t think they could get that far, so they went with Obamacare.”
The Florida Republican said the current trajectory will lead to insurance companies in the exchanges making up their losses from this year with much higher premiums next year, which is when the left will pounce.
“What they want to do is go to the public and say, ‘Look, these exchanges prove these insurance companies are greedy. Thats why it’s unaffordable. That’s why we need the government to be the single health insurance company for the whole country. Let’s put everyone on Medicare,’” Mr. Rubio explained about Mr. Obama’s strategy.
Most in the know understand that because Democrats, even with across-the-board majorities, were unable to foist a single-payer health care system onto Americans, they settled instead for Obamacare as a stepping stone towards those ends. However, now as clarity begins to reveal that projection, so too shines the strategy to get there:
- Hike the rates.
- Blame the 'greedy' insurance companies.
- Claim the government needs to be the sole carrier of health insurance in America, vis-Ã -vis everyone on Medicare.
But there's one catch to that last maneuver. Medicare's 375,000 case appeals backlog!
Politico: REP. WORRIED ABOUT MEDICARE APPEALS BACKLOG — Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) is sounding the alarm this morning about a massive backlog within the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals. The 357,000-appeal clog delays providers from having their cases heard for longer than two years, McDermott noted in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “ “The agencies must review their administrative procedures and act now to protect seniors who are struggling to get Medicare payment appeals addressed,” he wrote. He argued that problems with recovery auditors have been identified as the leading cause of the backlog. http://1.usa.gov/1nCaTGC
So these geniuses, these masterminds, with Obama at the helm, will have effectively transitioned America from a private health care system that, despite the complaints, worked, to a broken public system (both in itself & what it's doing to the private market), and then ultimately to a Medicare system that's been hemorrhaging and busted for decades. And that's just the practicalities of the process without even mentioning the infringements on our liberties and the utter unconstitutionality of it all.
Related links: Get ready for #obamacare premium increases. Or possibly ‘brace for impact.’
It’s come to this: Lefty groups now offering young people cash prizes to enroll in Obamacare
Another big week for Obamacare in the courts
Obamacare: Destruction By Design
Bankrupting America
Was wondering when this push would begin...and not only before this year's midterms, but two years before the presidential election. Perfect timing!
RedState: When Republicans run for the White House as conservatives, we win. When they run as moderates, we lose. Yet every four years, the party bosses and political consultants tell us that conservatives are unelectable and that we must support their big-government candidates.
I’m convinced that if we want to win the White House in 2016, we must nominate a consistent, full-spectrum conservative. We need a candidate who stands for something and won’t back down when the liberals launch their attacks.
That is why I am launching a new political action committee to draft Ted Cruz for President. With your help, we will draft, nominate, and elect Ted Cruz as the 45th President of the United States. ...
In his first year in the Senate, Ted Cruz went toe-to-toe with the most powerful people in the country. He was attacked by Democrats as well as Republicans, but he didn’t back down.
When Republicans were ready to cave on gun control in early 2013, Ted Cruz was one of the few who fought to stop it. When Republicans were ready to roll over on Obamacare, Ted Cruz refused. And when Republicans tried to deceive their constituents on the debt limit, Ted Cruz refused to go along and fought for us.
Americans are frustrated with Washington because politicians in both parties aren’t listening. They’re sick of politicians who say one thing on the campaign trail, but then do something else once they’re elected.
Ted Cruz is different.
Ted Cruz made explicit promises to the people of Texas on the campaign trail and then did something completely foreign to Washington: he kept his word.
It’s why he is hated by Washington insiders, but loved by so many Americans. Ted Cruz doesn’t just make promises. He delivers. ...
Ted Cruz is the people’s candidate and we need to be the ones driving the effort to elect him.
So if you’re ready to be proud of your vote again and you agree that Ted Cruz should run for president, please do three things:
1. Go to RunTedRun.com and sign the official Draft Ted Cruz for President petition.
2. Urge your friends and family to join you.
3. Donate whatever you can to help us spread the word and build support.
Making DC listen won’t be easy. It’s going to take millions of Americans standing together to draft, nominate, and elect Ted Cruz as president, and we need your help today.
With your support, we will gather over 1 million petitions this year and assemble an army of activists who will make the calls, walk the precincts, and donate the money needed to elect Ted Cruz as the 45th President of the United States.
Please join your fellow Americans in this fight for our nation’s future. President Obama has done serious and lasting damage to our country, and now is our time to make it right.
Already signed, spreading the word now, and I'm ready to hit the streets!
Related link: Can America move past sequels and reboots in 2016?
...and all in under a couple of days no less...
theRightScoop: John Bolton has been saying for weeks that the assets Obama has been threatening to put sanctions on just aren’t going to sit there and wait for sanctions. He said the other day ‘do you think they are still there?’
Well fast forward to [yesterday], after the Crimea ‘referendum’ that happened over the weekend, Obama announced sanctions on several people in the Kremlin, freezing their assets abroad and preventing travel into the US or the EU.
Apparently that didn’t matter so much to one of them, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who openly mocked “Comrade Obama” on twitter saying the sanctions were written by some joker...
Related link: Putin Signs Treaty to Annex Crimea; Russia's Deputy PM Laughs at Obama's Sanctions
Dmitry wasn't alone. Not only did the Russian markets scoff at the inaction, Vlad joined in with the Kremlin mockingly imposing sanctions on the Obama administration and US Senators! To be perfectly honest, it's quite difficult to argue against either not being a joke these days.
DailyBeast: Putin is set to respond to Obama’s sanctions of Russian officials with his own list. Several U.S. Senators and officials will be banned from visiting Russia, including Sen. Dick Durbin.
U.S. senators, congressmen and top Obama administration officials are sure to be on Vladimir Putin’s sanctions list; a response to the Obama Administration’s announcement on Monday that 7 Russian officials and 4 Ukrainian officials would be barred from holding assets or traveling to the United States.
Putin is expected to release his retaliation list as early as Tuesday and while the final list is still being crafted, it will include top Obama administration officials and high profile U.S. senators, in an effort to roughly mirror the U.S. sanctions against Russian officials and lawmakers, according to diplomatic sources. At the top of the list in Congress is Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who recently co-authored a resolution criticizing Russia’s invasion of Crimea.
Related link: MARK LEVIN: Obama is Vladimir Putin’s DREAM president while he’s our NIGHTMARE president
Then today rolls around, and Putin has followed through with the annexation of Crimea...
NYTimes: A defiant President Vladimir V. Putin claimed Crimea as a part of Russia on Tuesday, reversing what he described as a historic mistake made by the Soviet Union 60 years ago and brushing aside international condemnation that could leave Russia isolated for years to come.
Within minutes of delivering a passionate speech to Russia’s political elite, Mr. Putin cemented his pledge by signing a draft treaty with Crimean leaders to make the strategic Black Sea peninsula part of Russia. The events unfolded two days after Crimeans voted in a disputed referendum to break away from Ukraine. While the treaty signed Tuesday still needs parliamentary approval, that is regarded as a formality.
Pressing the point, Rush says the Russians are openly laughing at Obama: 'at his face, to his face, and in his face!'
"We said last week that this Ukraine situation was a showdown between ACORN and the KGB. If you will recall, that is one of the ways I characterized it. But in view of the mocking that Obama is getting from the Russians, folks, they are openly laughing at our president. They are openly mocking Barack Obama! This was not supposed to happen, if you recall the campaign of 2008. In view of the mocking that Obama is getting from the Russians, this is also looking like the prankster versus the gangster. ‘Cause Putin’s calling Obama a prankster with his sanctions. Obama’s gonna sanction some individual Russians, so the Russians came and said, “Okay, well, we’ll sanction you!” And they’re mocking him.
Now, one thing that you have to admit: They did not laugh at George W. Bush. You know, it’s funny, folks, our news media claimed for years that the world viewed George Bush as a cowboy, a renegade, an out-of-control hayseed that did not have the respect of any nation around the world and we were being laughed at and joked about and made fun of. Well, they never laughed at George W. Bush. They never mocked George W. Bush. They may have wished he was dead, but they are laughing at Barack Obama, and they’re laughing both at his face, to his face, and in his face."
Related links: RUSH: Obama Should Kick Russia Out Of The IMF And The G8 To Punish Putin
RUSH: Putin Is Going To Have To ‘Amp It Up’ To Get Media Focused On Him
Is this just the beginning? Ukraine seems to think so, as it's Prime Minister announces that this conflict with Russia is entering the ‘military stage’...
YahooNews: Ukraine's Western-backed prime minister said on Tuesday that his country's conflict with Russia was entering a "military stage" following claims by Kiev that one of its officers was shot and wounded in Crimea.
"The conflict is shifting from a political to a military stage," Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told an emergency government meeting. "Russian soldiers have started shooting at Ukrainian military servicemen, and that is a war crime."
Related link: Putin annexes Crimea; Lt. Col. Ralph Peters says this is just the beginning, Putin will take MORE of Ukraine
And this may be but a mere glimpse of what's in store on the world stage as long as America's superpower status is shrunk among the allied world under a weak, appeasing administration with a likewise foreign policy.
Too bad Obama doesn't take a hands-off approach internally with our liberties! Everything is truly topsy-turvy, upside-down.
UPDATE: Is Estonia next?
HotAir: One of the excuses Russia used to move into the Crimea was its right to protect the Russian speaking minority there. It is pretty thin cover for the expansionist move, but it isn’t without precedent. Back in the late ’30s, Germany used the same excuse to expand it’s borders, eventually leading to WWII.
One assumes Russia isn’t very much concerned how thin their excuse is, since it sees no one on the horizon willing to step up and stop them, so, given some recent statements, Estonia has to wonder if it is next:
Reuters: Russia signaled concern on Wednesday at Estonia’s treatment of its large ethnic Russian minority, comparing language policy in the Baltic state with what it said was a call in Ukraine to prevent the use of Russian.
Russia has defended its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula by arguing it has the right to protect Russian-speakers outside its borders, so the reference to linguistic tensions in another former Soviet republic comes at a highly sensitive moment.
“Highly sensitive moment” is an understatement. Signalling such “concern” is a blatant warning, not necessarily just to Estonia, but to the West as well. It is issued in the face of VP Biden’s visit to Poland and with the Obama declaration we won’t go to war militarily over the Crimea still in the air.
The difference here is that Estonia is a member of NATO. Even so, I wouldn't put that acquisitional challenge out of Putin's grasp, particularly with no real kickback from any Western nations, including those in NATO.
Related links: Russia talks tough with Estonia as ‘protecting Russian speakers’ excuse wheeled out again after justifying Crimean takeover
Why Moldova, Estonia may feel uneasy about Russia’s actions
It's what we've suspected for a while now, and what's consistently being confirmed. The GOP establishment has utterly given up on principle. They'd rather remain a permanent minority, as long as they maintain some insignificant smidgen of power. The quisling leadership folds to Obama and Democratic demands at every turn, while repeatedly expressing its disdain for conservatives who want to restore our individual liberties. And when it comes to the President's oppressive namesake, Obamacare, GOP leaders and establishment operatives make it quite clear that they want to fix it, not repeal it. This is Republican defeatism rapidly embracing progressivism. In other words, if you can't beat'em, join'em. However, the debacle known as Obamacare has critically bruised Democrats, thus it's the very definition of ignorance for Republicans not to capitalize on that fact...but that's what appears to be going on.
Rush gives us the latest case of the Republican establishment ultimately snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by not only downplaying Tuesday's electoral victory in Florida, but discarding the role Obamacare's unpopularity played in it...
"We have this massive electoral victory on Tuesday in Florida, Florida 13. And I’ll be damned if the Republican establishment is not doing its best in high gear to tell everybody, “Hey, don’t think that Obamacare was the main factor here.”
It is becoming clear to me — not that it needs to be any more clear — that the Republican establishment does not want to run against Obamacare. Karl Rove has a column today. Karl Rove is on TV this morning on Fox, but there are others in the Republican establishment saying, “Hey, hey! You know, it wasn’t just about Obamacare,” and I’ve heard other members in the Republican establishment say that David Jolly did not say repeal."
"Who said anybody was gonna run "just on Obamacare," anyway? But the fact is that both parties are cautioning Republican candidates, "You better not focus on repealing Obamacare! You better focus on fixing it, and you better focus on something besides Obamacare. You can't just win by talking about Obamacare." Both parties are telling Republican candidates this.
It happens that it flies in the face of some of the most obvious logic that has ever been in politics. Obamacare is one of the biggest negatives any politician has ever been saddled with. Obamacare is one of the biggest negatives any political party has ever been saddled with. It is an absolute, utter, total failure and disaster. There isn't anybody recommending it. The Democrats can't even put together, with any credibility, a fake video of happy citizens touting the benefits of Obamacare.
They know it wouldn't be credible. That's how bad it is.
Even the best liars in the world can't come up with a fake ad campaign with fake citizens touting how great their lives are now because of Obamacare, 'cause nobody would believe it -- and in the middle of all this, we are being cautioned and warned, "Do not think you can win by simply opposing Obamacare!" Immediately after this guy did just that, they come out and tell us, "Don't think you can do it."
It's really odd, folks."
And in such defeatist warnings, House GOP leaders are going one step further and effectively handing vulnerable Democrats an Obamacare gift this coming election cycle. WHY?!
NJ: Another week in Congress, another vote to change or stop Obamacare.
While these Republican-backed measures—now up to more than 50—are opportunities for Republicans to keep up their drumbeat against a law they believe has detrimental effects, they also have another curious outcome: They can help vulnerable Democrats facing tough reelection battles.
Take Rep. Joe Garcia, a Democrat representing a swing district in Florida. He is against a full repeal of Obamacare. But the wave of House votes in recent months from Republicans to alter the health care law, such as delaying the tax penalty for not purchasing insurance, have given Garcia the opportunity to provide a more nuanced voting record when it comes to the Affordable Care Act than simply supporting it.
Are those opportunities helpful? "Thank you, Speaker Boehner," Garcia says.
Unbelievably boneheaded and rudderless...but that's the contemporary modus operandi of the Republican establishment.
By all accounts, the party is broken and desperately requires new leadership for any hope of repair. We know it, like the federal system on whole, won't fix itself, so will the Republican electorate come together and demand a change at the ballot box this primary season? That's what must happen to revitalize the party of Lincoln, Coolidge and Reagan.
Levin commends Gowdy and others for fighting against this soft tyranny, but ultimately, Mark says the federal system is broken and there is but one definitive recourse for the lawlessness that we're facing today...and the Constitution provides it...
On Thursday's Mark Levin Show: Mark discusses how the Constitution is the main deterrent and obstacle to the statist and their vision. They want to unravel the Constitutional order and the social compact and have the state rule over the people. The perfect example of their idea is Obamacare and how they pushed forward an unconstitutional individual mandate, changed the language and intention of it, and got it passed by 1 vote in the Supreme Court. Mark asks what do we do with a President that openly and brazenly violates the Constitution? The answer is the Article V Convention. Washington isn't going to redesign or change from within, especially since they built it this way. It needs to be changed from the outside, from a grass roots level that goes thru the states and ultimately into the federal and national level.
This entire segment is great, but if you want to get to the meat of the discussion, skip to 30:37...
Thank you, George Mason. Now WE have to promote this idea through our state legislatures and demand this recourse become a reality.
Laying down the LAW! One hell of a floor speech from Trey Gowdy addressing Obama's lawlessness...and the House leadership's complacency...
Are you listening, John Boehner? It's time for you to step aside, not for more of Obama's policies, but for actual Republican leadership against those wrong policies!
Related link: Trey Gowdy explains to Greta the purpose of the Enforce The Law act
Hiding something? Electoral desperation perhaps? Yet another dictatorial action that the pretorian press are all too happy to bury...
WSJ: ObamaCare's implementers continue to roam the battlefield and shoot their own wounded, and the latest casualty is the core of the Affordable Care Act—the individual mandate. To wit, last week the Administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay a tax penalty.
This latest political reconstruction has received zero media notice, and the Health and Human Services Department didn't think the details were worth discussing in a conference call, press materials or fact sheet. Instead, the mandate suspension was buried in an unrelated rule that was meant to preserve some health plans that don't comply with ObamaCare benefit and redistribution mandates. Our sources only noticed the change this week.
That seven-page technical bulletin includes a paragraph and footnote that casually mention that a rule in a separate December 2013 bulletin would be extended for two more years, until 2016. Lo and behold, it turns out this second rule, which was supposed to last for only a year, allows Americans whose coverage was cancelled to opt out of the mandate altogether.
Anybody else feel like our health care is being held hostage based solely on an electoral whim?
Now are folks understanding why health care shouldn't be Washington's concern nor politics? Hope something's beginning to sink in.
Related links: The Quiet Death of the Obamacare Individual Mandate
Wonkbook: Obamacare still short of its enrollment targets
UPDATE: Hold on...didn't HHS Sec. Kathleen Sibelius just tell Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) there'd be no delay in the individual mandate?
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Politico: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday that there would be no delay of Obamacare’s individual mandate, the penalty for violating it or the March 31 closing date of the enrollment period, the strongest statement yet that the administration has no plans for more major changes to the law in the final weeks of the first sign-up period.
Asked by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) at a House hearing whether the administration would change its policy for enforcing the individual mandate after all the other delays, extensions and adjustments it has made to different provisions in the law, Sebelius bluntly replied, “No, sir.”
But such is not the case when it comes to described 'hardships'...
FoxNews: In what might be the death knell for ObamaCare's most controversial component -- the individual mandate to buy insurance -- the administration has added a mega-exemption that critics say would allow virtually anybody to skirt the rule.
The most recent exemption appears to have been included last week, in an ObamaCare application document. There already had been 13 distinct exemptions, but this document added one more.
The document said that individuals can now qualify for a "hardship exemption" -- meaning they would not have to pay a penalty for not buying insurance -- if they "experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance."
The document does not define what "another hardship" means, and suggests the administration might not be a stickler when it comes to proof either. It says anyone seeking this exemption should "submit documentation if possible."
Of all the exemptions created so far, this category appears to be the broadest. Prior exemptions were created for people who are homeless, who filed for bankruptcy, who experienced a fire and who dealt with other financial emergencies. Already, the 13 exemptions previously on the books could apply to millions. One created in December would give a pass this year to many of those whose policies were canceled due to ObamaCare and who struggled to find an affordable option -- last week, the administration quietly extended that waiver through 2016.
So, if there's no mandate, then there's no money. And if there's no money, how do you suppose they pay for this beast? Looks like we found out something they didn't want us to know...besides the fact that this entire monstrosity is unworkable.
If only English-speaking audiences heard this crap more often...although, they should be hearing plenty coming out of both sides of this President's mouth!
Breitbart: Remember when Barack Obama used to boast that Affordable Care Act plans would be cheaper than cable-TV or cell phone service? It wasn't that long ago. "For a lot of people, it will be cheaper than your cell phone bill," he said during a radio interview last August.
Well, now President Downgrade is sitting in town hall meetings and telling people to cancel their cell phones and cable TV, so they can afford his stupid health-care plan:
Next he'll be telling us to drive less, so we can divert our gas money into his health care premiums. Good for you, good for the Earth!
Republicans, there's another 2014 campaign cut to feature in the ads.
Related link: Obama: Health insurance isn’t expensive – just cancel cable and phones
Speaking of the GOP establishment...McConnell's at it yet again with a lib rag interview trashing the conservative grassroots...
NYT: This election season, Republicans led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are taking a much harder line as they sense the majority within reach. Top congressional Republicans and their allies are challenging the advocacy groups head on in an aggressive effort to undermine their credibility. The goal is to deny them any Senate primary victories, cut into their fund-raising and diminish them as a future force in Republican politics.
“I think we are going to crush them everywhere,” Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said in an interview, referring to the network of activist organizations working against him and two Republican incumbents in Kansas and Mississippi while engaging in a handful of other contests. “I don’t think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country.”
Elevating the nasty intramural brawl to a new level, Mr. McConnell on Friday began airing a radio ad in Kentucky that attacked both Matt Bevin, the businessman challenging him in the Republican primary, and the Senate Conservatives Fund, one of the groups trying to oust Mr. McConnell and a political action committee that has been a particular thorn in his side.
With this, along with a desperately bogus Kentucky primary poll out from none other than a pro-McConnell group, Levin launched into the Senate minority leader's establishment antics...
On Monday's Mark Levin Show: Sen. Mitch McConnell attacks the Tea Party in an interview with the NY Times right after CPAC. It's more important that he hold his office and stay in power than America making progress in stopping President Obama. Things will not improve with him as a leader in Washington.
Discussing the exorbitant debt and unfunded liabilities with Neil Cavuto today, Mark furthered the conservative campaign against the defeatist Republican leadership of Boehner and McConnell...
"Who lost the Senate and the House in 2006? I think the Republican Party, George Bush and Karl Rove lost the Senate and the House in 2006. Who gave them the House in 2010? I think the Tea Party. And they're holding on, the establishment, with their fingertips onto the Senate, trashing conservatives, sleeping in bed with the U.S. Chamber of Crony Capitalism, and that's why they can't win the Senate...
I've seen leaders, I've worked for leaders. And leaders change events, leaders affect the future, and they have arguments. They don't stand there talking with marbles in their mouth, trashing their own party and so forth.
We need a New Republican Party, we need new leaders. I've seen it, I've seen it with Reagan, I've seen it with Gingrich (say what you will). There are men, there are women out there, who are waiting in the wings, who can lead this party and make a case.
But I want to say that, because it happens a lot on your network, 'we need the win, we need the numbers.' You don't just win and get numbers by running for office. You have to make your case day in and day out, and explain to the American people how this affects them directly. Screw the Chamber of Commerce! This needs to be a conservative, bottom-up, grassroots party."
Right on!
Related links: Mark Levin responds to Mitch McConnell: You can’t deter us, you won’t deter us!
“Drunks,” “Bullies,” “Traitors,” “Fringe,” and Other Things Mitch McConnell Has Called Conservatives
Mark Levin goes on Cavuto to explain how Republicans went after David Jolly (R-FL)
Can't get my mind off of last week's first round of 2014 national primaries held in the great state of Texas...probably has something to do with the ever-annoying Karl Rove establishment in conjunction with the lib media!
There were winners, there were losers...and some of the winners are undoubtedly losers! Of course, the national press seized on the two entrenched establishment victors (Cornyn and Sessions) over tea party challengers. Well, at least Katrina Pierson fit that bill to the tea...and shame on GOP voters of the 32nd district for not desiring superb representation in Washington (or considering Sessions, any conservative representation at all anymore). Perhaps they'll come around in another two years. Don't give up the fight, Katrina!
However, what the media was hesitant to admit was that the first primary in the nation actually delivered something more promising on the state and local levels, as well as proved the point that tea party conservatism ain't goin' away.
NewsMax: Most of the national press pointed to the landslide primary victories of Texas Republicans Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Pete Sessions over tea party-favored challengers as evidence that the grassroots movement has run out of steam as a force in the GOP.
But a closer look at the outcome of the Tuesday primaries shows quite the opposite — the tea party is a force to be reckoned with in the Lone Star State.
In what was perhaps the most unexpected result of the night, two-term Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a business community favorite, trailed conservative state Sen. Dan Patrick by a margin of 41 percent to 28 percent. The two will now face each other in a runoff on May 27.
Patrick, a conservative radio and TV commentator from Houston, took a hardline stance on illegal immigration and wooed the tea party, whose statewide branches were pivotal to Dewhurst's defeat at the hands of Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate primary two years ago.
In similar results, state Sen. Ken Paxton of McKinney, the tea party favorite for nomination as attorney general, led "establishment" favorite and Dallas-area state Rep. Dan Branch by a margin of 44 percent to 33 percent. Like fellow tea party insurgent Patrick, Paxton is the favorite in the May runoff.
Races for nomination to the state Senate told a similar tale.
Even after leading the bandwagon of badmouthed pretorian mediaites, the New York Slimes inevitably had to admit the obvious...
NYT: Even if Republican stalwarts in Congress like Senator John Cornyn and Representative Pete Sessions routed insurgent challengers, the story of the Texas primaries was that anyone thinking the Tea Party had run its course should think again.
While establishment candidates in some of the top races were successful, Texas Republicans continued to tilt ever further right.
Step One: Elect more conservatives to state and local positions. Step Two: Pursue a Convention of the States to Amend the Constitution! We must beat the establishment leviathan in DC.
Related links: GOP Establishment Safe in Texas Primaries as Tea Party Falters
Texas G.O.P. Beats Back Challengers From Right
Tea Party Triumphs Down-Ballot in Texas
TEXAS REPUBLICAN PRIMARY: WHO SURVIVES?
Ted Cruz, Rand Paul top huge Tea Party poll; Chris Christie, Jeb Bush dead last
Are some in the media finally seeing Obama for the Roarke (or Tattoo, whichever Fantasy Island character you'd like to draw comparisons) that this president really is? Not quite...but some are starting to peer over those rose-colored utopian glasses, and understand just how seriously wrong Obama's foreign policy has been...
The dirty little secret lies in that degree of wrongness which applies across the board of Obama policies! It just so happens that Russia is now on the front burner, and even this heat is difficult for the pretorian media to avoid...
WaPo: FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which “the tide of war is receding” and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances — these were things of the past. Secretary of State John F. Kerry displayed this mindset on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday when he said, of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, “It’s a 19th century act in the 21st century.”
Unfortunately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not received the memo on 21st-century behavior. Neither has China’s president, Xi Jinping, who is engaging in gunboat diplomacy against Japan and the weaker nations of Southeast Asia. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is waging a very 20th-century war against his own people, sending helicopters to drop exploding barrels full of screws, nails and other shrapnel onto apartment buildings where families cower in basements. These men will not be deterred by the disapproval of their peers, the weight of world opinion or even disinvestment by Silicon Valley companies. They are concerned primarily with maintaining their holds on power.
...as long as some leaders play by what Mr. Kerry dismisses as 19th-century rules, the United States can’t pretend that the only game is in another arena altogether. Military strength, trustworthiness as an ally, staying power in difficult corners of the world such as Afghanistan — these still matter, much as we might wish they did not. While the United States has been retrenching, the tide of democracy in the world, which once seemed inexorable, has been receding. In the long run, that’s harmful to U.S. national security, too.
As Mr. Putin ponders whether to advance further — into eastern Ukraine, say — he will measure the seriousness of U.S. and allied actions, not their statements. China, pondering its next steps in the East China Sea, will do the same. Sadly, that’s the nature of the century we’re living in.
No, sadly that's the nature of the world! And as long as peace through strength subsides in 'the' superpower, a man like ex-KGB operative Vladimir Putin knows full well that he can get away with rebuilding a Soviet nation, especially when Kerry and Obama are so snowed by their own PR...
And I'm no Romney fan, but remember that last presidential debate? Even the ultra-lib Slate publication admits that Obama got Russia wrong and Romney got it right...
To peer into the conservative media and blogosphere as it covers Russa's invasion of Crimea is to risk a fatal dose of schadenfreude. There are reports about how Sarah Palin totally called that Putin would invade Ukraine (she will be on Fox News tonight to remind us), about how Mitt Romney was unfairly mocked for calling Russia the greatest "geopolitical threat" to the United States, about Hillary Clinton's "reset button" gaffe. Even the Liberal New Republic (tm) has admitted that Mitt Romney was right about the Russians and their ambitions.
And he was. Why did Barack Obama blow it?
Romney was right. Why was Obama wrong? Because, I think, he was willfully blurring the distinction between "geopolitical" and other sorts of threats. He was playing to the cheap seats. Voters do not fear Russia, or particularly care about its movements in its sad, cold sphere of influence. They do care a lot about terrorism. And Obama would use any chance he had, in 2012, to remind voters that he was president when Osama Bin Laden was killed.
So you see the politics—they reveal Obama as the player of a cheap trick.
Time and time again, that cheap trick is repeated on the low-information voter.
Related link: RUSH: Ukraine Is The ‘KGB Versus Acorn’
