Tails News Complaints topic

[Tails82]

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/16/Obama-Saving-Fearful-Democrats-While-Fearful-Parents-Trying-To-Save-Their-Sick-Children

Obama's Priority: Save Democrats, Not the Sick

The work Barack Obama and his minions are doing now is saving their own political hides. Regardless of the number of unilateral “tweaks” and temporary waivers they “grant,” their recklessness and arrogance are creating fear in the hearts of millions of Americans with sick children and family members because, as Limbaugh said, their health care decisions are “not up to them anymore.”

The ObamaCare disaster, and the insurers’ hopes to benefit from it, are blatant signs that Americans need to be in charge of their own health care, making their own decisions without someone else telling them how much money can be spent on their health care and when and where to have it provided. Meanwhile, Obama will not be calming Americans’ fears – he is too busy saving himself and his party.

www.truthrevolt.org/news/dem-senator-we-all-knew-president-was-lying

Dem Senator: 'We All Knew' President was Lying

New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand admitted Sunday to knowing the promises President Obama made about his signature health care plan were false.

www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2013/11/woodward-obamacare-not-watergate-but-it-is-going-to-177680.html?hp=l7

Woodward: Obamacare not Watergate, but it 'is going to get worse'

“When you go down the road, it’s going to get worse,” he said. “It’s going to blow a hole in the budget when you go two or three months from now… All of a sudden this is going to come on the table and people are going to say, ‘My God it’s going to cost much more money than we thought before. How you disentangle this is now on Obama’s head.”

washingtonexaminer.com/four-years-ago-gop-showed-exactly-what-was-false-about-obamas-keep-your-coverage-promise/article/2539266

Four years ago, GOP showed exactly what was false about Obama's keep-your-coverage promise

It is now painfully evident to millions of Americans that President Obama's promise that they could keep their current health coverage under Obamacare wasn't true. But what has received less attention in the current uproar is that back in 2009, when Obamacare was under debate and Obama was making the promise, some Republicans saw precisely what was wrong with it, and said so. And when those Republicans challenged the White House, the White House had nothing to say.

Go back to June 23, 2009. The House Education and Labor Committee, chaired by Democratic Rep. George Miller, held a hearing on a draft of Obamacare. Christina Romer, then chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, testified. Among the Republicans who questioned Romer was Rep. Tom Price, who is also a doctor. Price pressed Romer to cite a basis for the president's promise, and in the process predicted much of what would happen more than four years later, in late 2013. Obama's promise fell apart right there in the hearing room. Here is the Price-Romer exchange:

REP. PRICE: You also mentioned, as other folks have, that the president's goal -- and it's reiterated over and over and over -- that if you like your current plan or if you like your current doctor, you can keep them. Do you know where that is in the bill?

MS. ROMER: Absolutely. And things like the employer mandate is part of making sure that large employers that today -- the vast majority of them do provide health insurance. One of the things that's --

REP. PRICE: I'm asking about if an individual likes their current plan and maybe they don't get it through their employer and maybe in fact their plan doesn't comply with every parameter of the current draft bill, how are they going to be able to keep that?

MS. ROMER: So the president is fundamentally talking about maintaining what's good about the system that we have. And --

REP. PRICE: That's not my question.

MS. ROMER: One of the things that he has been saying is, for example, you may like your plan and one of the things we may do is slow the growth rate of the cost of your plan, right? So that's something that is not only --

REP. PRICE: The question is whether or not patients are going to be able to keep their plan if they like it. What if, for example, there's an employer out there -- and you've said that if the employers that already provide health insurance, health coverage for their employees, that they'll be just fine, right? What if the policy that those employees and that employer like and provide for their employees doesn't comply with the specifics of the bill? Will they be able to keep that one?

MS. ROMER: So certainly my understanding -- and I won't pretend to be an expert in the bill -- but certainly I think what's being planned is, for example, for plans in the exchange to have a minimum level of benefits.

REP. PRICE: So if I were to tell you that in the bill it says that if a plan doesn't comply with the specifics that are outlined in the bill that that employer's going to have to move to the -- to a different plan within five years -- would you -- would that be unusual, or would that seem outrageous to you?

MS. ROMER: I think the crucial thing is, what kind of changes are we talking about? The president was saying he wanted the American people to know that fundamentally if you like what you have it will still be there.

REP. PRICE: What if you like what you have, Dr. Romer, though, and it doesn't fit with the definition in the bill? My reading of the bill is that you can't keep that.

MS. ROMER: I think the crucial thing -- the bill is talking about setting a minimum standard of what can count --

REP. PRICE: So it's possible that you may like what you have, but you may not be able to keep it? Right?

MS. ROMER: We'd have -- I'd have to look at the specifics.

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/15/Al-Jazeera-and-Corruption-in-California

One-Party Rule Leads to Corruption in California

Paul Krugman, the liberal Nobel Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times, thinks California is making an economic comeback...But the results of Brown’s most recent tax increases are hardly relieving economic pressures on the nearly two million Californians that remain unemployed in the Democrat-dominated state, whose numbers are growing, not declining.

The truth is that the Democrats, who totally control policies in the state by virtue of "supermajorities" in both houses of the State Legislature, are making California increasingly poorer; the Census Bureau announced last week that California has the highest poverty rate in the nation for the second year in a row. Yet despite California's dreary economic conditions, some of California's Democratic lawmakers are making themselves or their campaign committees richer in a personal sort of "economic comeback," and, in some cases, they are doing so by breaking the law.

One recent investigation into payoffs in the State Capitol has been breathtaking. Powerful liberal Democratic State Senator Ron Calderon recently had his office in the state capitol building raided by the FBI’s Public Corruption Squad. According to the FBI’s search warrant, which was obtained and released by the Al Jazeera American Network, probable cause for the raid included allegations that the Senator had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for legislative favors, including: $60,000 in bribes from an undercover FBI agent; another $28,000 in bribes from a hospital executive; and tens of thousands of dollars more in bribes paid to the State Senator’s brother through a nonprofit organization.

In other investigations, a Democratic Assemblyman from Watsonville was fined by the state’s campaign finance commission for illegally coordinating his successful election with an independent effort that spent tens of thousands of dollars. Another former Democratic State Senate leader faces “record fines” for misusing his campaign funds on concert tickets, fireworks, and expensive dinners.

Yet the revelations of Calderon’s alleged bribe-taking are the most serious and eye-opening. Calderon was a member of the California Film Commission, overseeing one of the state’s most important industries. Indeed, some of the alleged bribes he accepted had to do with establishing bogus tax credits for Hollywood film companies...when Adidas, a firm that had never been a big campaign donor in the state, sought legislation in 2007 to legalize the sale of kangaroo leather in its running shoes, they not so surprisingly donated $2,360 to the Democratic State Senator who authored the legalization bill; just two days after it was signed into law. Adidas contributed another $13,600 to the California Democratic Party a few months later. “Such is the way of Sacramento, enabled by politicians who control the town,” a Sacramento journalist observed. Yet no one was prosecuted when the Democrats legalized kangaroo leather shoes in California, and Adidas made their “donations.”

Cruz news

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/16/Cruz-Calls-Out-Obama-at-Federalist-Society-Convention

Cruz Calls Out Obama at Federalist Society Convention...decrying what he calls the “pattern of lawlessness” of the Obama White House.

He criticized the waivers of major parts of Obamacare given to certain big businesses and members of Congress, “both of which are illegal,” he said sharply, pointing out that the Affordable Care Act does not authorize those provisions in the statute to be waived.

This is part of a larger pattern of disregarding the law, Cruz elaborated, pointing to Obama’s cancelling deportations of vast numbers of illegal aliens, and the administration’s recent announcement that the Justice Department will stop prosecuting certain federal drug crimes. He described the administration’s approach as, “We don’t like these laws, so we are not going to enforce them.”

Cruz focused his remarks to this group of distinguished judges and lawyers on what he calls “the radical push by the Justice Department under President Obama for unchecked federal power.” And he noted how those arguments have fared in court...He mentioned five cases in particular, which happened to speak to five high priorities for different constituencies in the Republican Party. Four dealt with government surveillance, property rights, religious liberty, and state sovereignty, respectively.

The fifth case dealt with freedom of thought and speech, when Cruz discussed the 2010 Citizens United case, where Obama’s Justice Department argued that “the federal government has full constitutional authority to ban books.”

[Tails82]

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303985504579205743008770218

Marco Rubio: No Bailouts for ObamaCare

With every passing day, ObamaCare's flaws are being exposed in painful ways for the American people. What started as a broken website—and nonexistent Spanish one—is now snowballing into a full-scale disaster that makes it increasingly clear this law can't be fixed.

Under ObamaCare, people are being recklessly exposed to identity theft and fraud through the dysfunctional website and navigator network.

Under ObamaCare, President Obama's broken promise — that people could keep the health plans and doctors they were happy with — has made casualties of those plans and providers. Now people have to scramble to find new plans and doctors that often cost more than before. If they don't find them, a tax fine enforced by the Internal Revenue Service will ensue.

Under ObamaCare, abysmal enrollment numbers so far are a warning sign that this law will cost the American people more — and in more ways — than they ever imagined.

One of these ways was exposed last week after President Obama announced his unilateral action to "fix" his broken promise that Americans could keep their existing plans: a bailout of health-insurance companies.

Buried deep in the Department of Health and Human Services' press release that accompanied the president's Nov. 14 speech was this sentence: "Though this transitional policy was not anticipated by health insurance issuers when setting rates for 2014, the risk corridor program should help ameliorate unanticipated changes in premium revenue. We intend to explore ways to modify the risk corridor program final rules to provide additional assistance."

Risk corridors are generally used to mitigate an insurer's pricing risk. Under ObamaCare, risk corridors were established for the law's first three years as a safety-net for insurers who experience financial losses. While risk corridors can protect taxpayers when they are budget-neutral, ObamaCare's risk corridors are designed in such an open-ended manner that the president's action now exposes taxpayers to a bailout of the health-insurance industry if and when the law fails.

Subsequent regulatory rulings have made clear that the administration views this risk-corridor authority as a blank check, requiring no further consultation or approval by Congress...On Nov. 14, the American Academy of Actuaries issued a press release saying that President Obama's plan to reverse health-insurance cancellations "could lead to negative consequences for consumers, health insurers, and the federal government." More specifically, the academy said, "Costs to the federal government could increase as higher-than-expected average medical claims are more likely to trigger risk corridor payments."

It is a damning indictment of ObamaCare's viability when the president's only response to people losing their health insurance plans entails putting them on the hook for bailing out insurance companies. The American people are already being directly hurt by ObamaCare's early failures, and it is unconscionable that they be expected to bail out companies when more failures emerge...When ObamaCare was debated and passed in 2009 and 2010, none of its proponents, including the president, told the American people that the law granted the federal government the authority to bail out insurance companies at the expense of taxpayers. But now their dirty little secret is out, and it should be wiped out from the law.

Americans are sick and tired of Washington politicians picking winners and losers—and nowhere is this practice more grotesquely evident than taxpayer-funded bailouts, which assault the economic values of our free enterprise system in favor of those who are politically connected and whose lobbyists know the right people to call and levers to pull. ObamaCare is a living monument to this culture, and no one loses more than the average American.

www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/18/feds-gave-4b-to-states-to-start-obamacare-sites/

The Obama administration gave states roughly $4.4 billion in taxpayer dollars to set up their own ObamaCare websites, according to a new analysis, in the latest revelation about the faucet of federal spending switched on by the 2010 passage of the health care law.

Some of the states even took federal money, then decided to let the federal site handle enrollment...A FoxNews.com analysis of the report shows 24 states received money, then decided to instead send residents to the federal HealthCare.gov site.

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303914304579193652675971392

Sanctions on Iran Won't Be Cranked Back Up

Arms control in action: The bad guys cheat, and democracies do nothing.

President Obama wants Iran to suspend parts of its nuclear program in return for easing international economic sanctions. Critics contend that if the West strikes a deal along these lines, Iran could cheat far more easily than the rest of the world could reinstate tough sanctions. But Mr. Obama insists that relaxing sanctions is reversible: If the Iranians are "not following through," he recently told NBC News, "We can crank that dial back up."

Peace and arms-control agreements have a long history that warns against such assurances. Democratic countries have time and again failed to get what they bargained for with their undemocratic antagonists—and then found themselves unable or unwilling to enforce the bargain.

After World War I, the Versailles and Locarno Treaties subjected Germany to arms-control measures, including demilitarization of the Rhineland. When Germany's Nazi regime boldly remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936, neither Britain, France nor any other treaty party took enforcement action.

This and other 20th-century incidents led U.S. strategist Fred Iklé to write a prescient 1961 "Foreign Affairs" article titled "After Detection—What?" He argued: "In entering into an arms-control agreement, we must know not only that we are technically capable of detecting a violation but also that we or the rest of the world will be politically, legally and militarily in a position to react effectively if a violation is discovered." Iklé foresaw that the Soviets would violate their agreements, and that U.S. presidents would find it difficult or impossible to remedy the violations.

Nevertheless, the U.S. made a series of arms-control treaties with the Soviets. When the predicted violations occurred, no enforcement actions were even attempted.

During the Reagan administration, U.S. officials detected a huge radar in the Soviet city of Krasnoyarsk that violated the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Despite his reputation as an arms-control skeptic and anti-Soviet hard-liner, Reagan concluded he had no good options other than to complain...Another democracy that has failed to enforce agreements is Israel. When Israel signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was asked what Israel would do if the agreement were violated. He declared it was "reversible," assuring skeptics that if the PLO broke its peace pledges, Israel would not only stop territorial withdrawals, but retake the land already traded.

The PLO promptly violated Oslo in various ways, most egregiously by launching the Second Intifada in 2000. But no Israeli government—on the left or right—ever terminated the Accords, let alone reversed any withdrawals.

What typically happens with such agreements is the following: On the democratic side, political leaders hype the agreement to their voters as a proud diplomatic achievement. The nondemocratic side — typically an aggressive, dishonest party — cheats.

The democratic leaders have no desire to detect the violation because they don't want to admit that they oversold the agreement or, for other reasons, they don't want to disrupt relations with the other side. If they can't ignore the violation, they will claim the evidence is inconclusive. But if it is conclusive, they will belittle the significance of the offense. Officials on the democratic side sometimes even act as de facto defense attorneys for the cheaters...An agreement that actually dismantled the Iranian nuclear program would be a formidable accomplishment. But if Mr. Obama can justify his deal with Iran only by promising to "crank up" the relaxed sanctions if and when the Iranian regime cheats, no one should buy it. History teaches that we should expect the cheating, but not effective enforcement.

www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/11/judge-wont-allow-holder-appeal-now-in-contempt-case-177796.html?hp=l8

Judge won't allow Holder appeal now in contempt case

In a ruling Monday afternoon, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said her September 30 ruling rejecting Holder's request to dismiss the lawsuit was not such a close call that it deserved immediate review from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Jackson's latest ruling means it is likely the Justice Department will have to produce a detailed log of what was withheld from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and why. Rounds of protracted litigation over the legitimacy of the withholdings seem all but certain, unless the sides come to an agreement which has heretofore eluded them.

washingtonexaminer.com/secretary-of-state-john-kerry-calls-climate-change-the-worlds-biggest-threat/article/2539294

Secretary of State John Kerry calls climate change the world's biggest threat

washingtonexaminer.com/george-w.-bush-on-keystone-xl-build-the-damn-thing/article/2539338

George W. Bush on Keystone XL: 'Build the damn thing'

Former President George W. Bush said building the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline is a "no-brainer" for economic growth.

"I think the goal of the country ought to be, 'How do we grow the private sector?' " Bush said at a Pittsburgh luncheon with energy executives, according to DeSmog Blog.

"If private-sector growth is the goal and Keystone pipeline creates 20,000 new private-sector jobs, build the damn thing," Bush said.

[Chromeo]

GWB in supporting big corporations and fossil fuels shocker.

[Tails82]

www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/11/19/healthcaregov-already-compromised-security-expert-says/

Healthcare.gov ‘may already have been compromised,’ security expert says

One key problem facing Healthcare.gov is that security wasn’t built into the site from the very beginning, he said -- an opinion shared by both Kennedy and Fred Chang, the distinguished chair in cyber security at Southern Methodist University.

“There’s not a lot of security built into the site, at least that’s what we can see from a 10,000 foot view,” Kennedy told the committee. And although the site doesn’t house medical records, it integrates deeply with other sites, includes ecommerce information, and houses a vast array of data that presents a very salient target.

“It’s not only social security numbers … it’s one of the largest collections of personal data, social security and everything else, that we’ve ever seen,” Kennedy said.

Rubin called for a security review of the site, but stopped short of calling for a complete tear down and rebuild of the healthcare.gov site. Others were less cautious.

“You can bolt a metal door on to make a house better, but if the foundation is bad…” Kennedy said.

All four cyber security experts unanimously concurred that, given the security issues, Americans should not use the site at present.

blog.heritage.org/2013/11/19/map-obamacare-exchanges-reduced-insurance-competition-nationally/

Obamacare Exchanges Have Reduced Insurance Competition Nationally

www.politico.com/story/2013/11/jessica-sanford-obamacare-100046.html?hp=l4

A woman who President Barack Obama cited in remarks last month as an example of what Obamacare “is all about” says she is now facing repeated problems with her own enrollment.

“Wow. You guys really screwed me over,” Sanford wrote on a Facebook post about the Washington state exchange website. “Now I have been priced out and will not be able to afford the plans you offer. But, I get to pay $95 and up for not having health insurance. I am so incredibly disappointed and saddened. You majorly screwed up.”

“It was a huge disappointment, and especially since my story had been shared by the president,” Sanford said in an interview that aired Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day.” “I just felt really embarrassed.”

When Obama praises anything it's like the kiss of death...

washingtonexaminer.com/congress-will-investigate-report-of-faked-pre-election-jobs-data/article/2539413

Congress will investigate report of faked pre-election jobs data

"The allegation that data gathered by the Census Bureau is being manipulated for any reason is extremely serious," the GOP aide told the Examiner. "The Oversight Committee has jurisdiction over the Census Bureau and will be thoroughly investigating these claims."

The Census Bureau is part of the Commerce, but in 2009 the Obama administration altered the chain of command so that the Census Bureau director now reports to the White House as well as the department secretary. Republicans protested the change, saying that it undercuts the independence and trustworthiness of the Census.

The Post said Buckmon faked the survey results for the September 2012 jobs report, which was released on October 5, 2012 — a month before the presidential election — and showed a sharp drop from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent even though only 114,000 jobs were added in September.

Obama touted the shrinking jobless numbers in campaign stump speeches, citing it as a reason voters should give him a second term.

washingtonexaminer.com/justice-department-drops-lawsuit-over-louisiana-school-vouchers/article/2539407

Justice Department drops lawsuit over Louisiana school vouchers

The Obama administration had argued that the Louisiana Scholarship Program, which gives low-income families vouchers to send their children to private schools, might lead to the re-segregation of state schools.

Unable to put forward concrete proof for the claim, the Justice Department abandoned its lawsuit, United States District Court Judge Ivan Lemelle said Friday. However, the Obama administration is still calling for the district court to grant a federal review of the program — with a hearing for that request scheduled for Friday in New Orleans.

Jindal...vowed to resist the push for a federal review of the vouchers program.

“We will continue to fight, at every step, the Department of Justice’s new Washington strategy to red tape and regulate the program to death,” he said.

www.politico.com/story/2013/11/joe-biden-defense-shotgun-fire-100071.html?hp=r7

A Washington state man who fired a shotgun in the air to scare off car prowlers has refused a plea deal and says he's sticking with what's become known as the "Joe Biden defense."

Jeffrey C. Barton of Vancouver told The Columbian he will not admit any wrongdoing for the incident last July because he was protecting his family, within his Second Amendment right, and following advice from the vice president.

www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/19/ill-county-employees-strike-over-paltry-145-percent-pay-raise-offer/

Taxpayers in Will County, Ill. have offered its public employees a hefty pay raise and are willing to pick up 90 percent of the cost for their health insurance, but that’s not good enough for members of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 1028.

Its 1,300 members went on strike Monday, decrying a “paltry” offer from the county that would have given workers a 14.5 percent pay hike and have taxpayers pay for the overwhelming majority of their health insurance costs.

“That gives an indication of just how out of touch government workers are,” Steve Stanek, a research fellow at the Heartland Institute, told Illinois Watchdog. “I think they’ve become more radicalized and more out of touch as they have become more unionized.”

Stanek is quick to point to numbers that show labor unions are growing only in the public sector.

Cruz news

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuFG2lXKoe8

[Pyro ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ✔]

www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/9422033/Mongrel-Mob-member-seeks-shorter-sentence-for-being-Maori

First of all his time is not enough, but 2nd of all they should double it for even suggesting such a thing.

[kode54]

wonkette.com/480310/will-this-republican-state-senate-candidate-beat-his-opponent-from-jail-probably-it-is-oklahoma#more-480310

[Tails82]

www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/20/second-wave-health-plan-cancellations-looms/

Second wave of health plan cancellations looms...right before the mid-term elections.

The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shake-up in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader.

An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be cancelled next year.

Under the health care law, businesses with fewer than 50 workers do not have to provide health coverage. But if they do, the policies will still have to meet the benefit standards set by ObamaCare...some businesses got around this by renewing their policies before the end of 2013. But the relief is temporary, and they are expected to have to offer in-compliance plans for 2015. According to Gottlieb, that means beginning in October 2014 the cancellation notices will start to go out.

The International Franchise Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have studied the impact and say the president's health care law has resulted in higher costs and fewer full-time positions.

A survey showed 31 percent of franchise businesses, and 12 percent of non-franchise businesses, have already reduced worker hours. It also showed 27 percent of franchise businesses, and 12 percent of non-franchise businesses, have replaced full-time workers with part-time employees.

blog.heritage.org/2013/11/20/obamacare-will-try-control-eat/

How Obamacare Will Try to Control What You Eat

Did you know there are 34 million different ways to make a Domino’s pizza?

Mary Lynne Carraway can’t fit that on a menu board. But that’s what Obamacare says she has to do: Put up a menu board in each of her 60 Domino’s stores that tells people the calorie count of every possible combination. Of course, all the information is already available online.

What would it mean for each of her stores to have to install such a menu board? A cost of about $5,000 per store — and that hits the managers and employees of each store.

Heritage expert Daren Bakst has explained that Obamacare’s menu labeling regulation will be costly and time-consuming for businesses and that the government has no evidence that it would have any benefits. On top of those negatives, why is Obamacare trying to regulate what people are eating?

“The FDA tries to justify the rule by claiming that consumers make misinformed decisions at restaurants,” Bakst wrote. As usual, Obamacare assumes that big government knows best. In fact, Bakst says the FDA is using the rule as a power grab to regulate grocery stores, convenience stores, and other businesses that have little to do with restaurants.

blog.heritage.org/2013/11/20/healthcare-gov-crashes-sebelius-promotional-event/

HealthCare.gov Crashes on Sebelius at Promotional Event

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304439804579208252051892842

Enabling Bashar

To 'disarm' Syria, President Obama makes a partner of the Assad regime.

The polls have not been kind to Barack Obama lately, but the President seems to think he's pulled off at least one improbable policy triumph this fall: disarming Syria's Bashar Assad of his chemical weapons. It's an overstated victory that comes at an underappreciated price.

Overstated, because even as Damascus makes a show of handing over its entire chemical arsenal for destruction, U.S. intelligence believes the regime continues to hide weapons from international inspectors. Even if Assad is handing over the entire arsenal, he can always purchase new stocks of these weapons from North Korea, which maintains a robust chemical weapons complex. All he needs to do is hold on to power.

He's succeeding. With the help of Hezbollah and Iran, Assad's forces have recaptured two towns and a military base near Aleppo, Syria's commercial capital, along with key suburbs of Damascus that had long been in rebel hands. The tide of battle has shifted before in this war and may shift again, but the chances of Assad falling from power are increasingly remote.

Especially now that the Administration is invested in Assad's survival. So long as the goal of American policy in Syria is to divest the regime of its chemical weapons—rather than to divest the country of its regime—it will need Assad to remain in power to hand those weapons over. That gives Assad an incentive to prolong the "disarmament" process as long as he can while his forces make gains against the rebels.

Though it won't say it publicly, the Administration thinks that's not such a bad thing, on the view that Assad's survival may not be the worst scenario for Syria. More than a few Republicans agree. But as we've noted from the start of this war, Assad's victory would also be Iran's, and it is Tehran that is our major adversary in the region. A credible U.S. policy would aim to inflict a strategic defeat on the mullahs, not that credibility is this Administration's strong suit.

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303985504579208253578086052

With Tuesday's $13 billion settlement with J.P. Morgan over the sale of mortgage-backed securities, the Justice Department has finally solved the mystery of the financial crisis. Turns out that the bankers did it — to each other, and even to themselves.

We've been critical of this government plundering of a bank that did not need a bailout in 2008, but we defy anyone to follow the logic of Tuesday's Morgan agreement.

The government claims that Morgan ripped off other financial institutions when it sold them bundles of mortgages. But the alleged victims include institutions where the government has separately accused managers of their own mortgage misdeeds.

Another problem with this settlement is that even though the government says that institutional investors were the victims, much of the $13 billion is going elsewhere.

For example, Morgan will pay a $2 billion fine to Justice, apparently for harming itself. Justice hasn't said exactly how it arrived at this figure, but prosecutors seem to be employing a trendy legal interpretation of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act. Government lawyers claim that under the "self-affecting doctrine," Morgan can be guilty of harming Morgan through its alleged misdeeds. One wonders why Morgan doesn't therefore deserve at least some compensation from Morgan.

There's also the detail that close to 80% of the securities at issue weren't even sold by Morgan, but by two failing firms it bought at the government's request, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual.

There's an old joke that no good deed goes unpunished. That's now Obama Administration policy...The only thing clear from this settlement is there will be no willing buyers during the next crisis.

www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/20/pleading-distress-calls-made-from-us-consulate-on-night-benghazi-attack/?intcmp=latestnews

State Department employees at the Benghazi compound knew they were in a death trap and made a series of radio distress calls to the CIA annex during the terror assault last year, according to congressional sources familiar with recent testimony on the attack from five CIA personnel.

Sources told Fox News that the radio calls, which were described in closed testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, were characterized as almost frantic, with State Department employees who knew they could not defend themselves "pleading" for their lives.

When the CIA team arrived from the annex about a mile away, they found the State Department employees without guns that could adequately protect them; one of the agents was found hiding in the consulate, apparently in a closet. The testimony lends more weight to repeated claims, in the wake of the attack, that the consulate was not adequately protected despite being located in a volatile and violent area prone to attack.

When the CIA personnel were asked for their reaction to the administration's initial explanation that an anti-Islam video and a demonstration gone awry were to blame for the attack, Fox News is told they were seething with anger because everything on the ground -- from their perspective -- showed it was a premeditated attack.

At least three of the five -- who were all in Benghazi -- responded to the scene that night. The witnesses testified that five mortars rained down on the annex in less than a minute. They pointed to those details as more evidence of a professionally trained team, describing the attack on the annex as akin to a professional hit on the operation in order to drive it out of Benghazi.

Congressional sources say the testimony seems to further conflict with and undercut the briefing three days after the attack by then-CIA Director David Petraeus, who likened the attack to a flash mob. When pressed on the number and precision of the mortars, Petraeus offered that Benghazi was flooded with mortars, and played down their accuracy by suggesting they could have been fired from the back of a pick-up truck.

When Petraeus appeared on the Hill in November, following his resignation from the CIA over his admitted affair, he tried to claim that he knew it was a terrorist attack all along and insisted that he did not put the emphasis on the anti-Islam film.

[Tails82]

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303653004579210172838389630

Worse Than ObamaCare: Obama's biggest failure is that he hobbled the U.S. economy.

He wouldn't consider this a failure. He wants it this way.

The ObamaCare train wreck is plowing through the White House in super slow-mo on screens everywhere, splintering reputations and presidential approval ratings. Audiences watch popeyed as Democrats in distress like Senators Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor decide whether to cling to the driverless train or jump toward the tall weeds...This is the most amazing spectacle of mayhem and meltdown anyone has seen in politics since Watergate.

No question, it's tough on Barack Obama. But what about the rest of us? For many Americans, the Obama leadership meltdown began five years ago.

Unemployed middle-aged men look in the mirror and see someone who may never work again. Young married couples who should be on the way up are living in their parents' basement. Many young black men (official unemployment rate 28%; unofficial rate off the charts) have no prospect of work.

For five years, news stories have chronicled the social and economic deterioration in America of people with no jobs or weak jobs...On Tuesday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development put out a report saying the U.S. has become a threat to global recovery. The OECD ratcheted down growth estimates almost everywhere for the rest of this year. For the euro-zone nations: -0.4%; for "emerging" India it's down to 3%; South Korea: 2.7%.

Mr. Obama has talked of the plight of "middle-class folks" from the first days of his presidency. But what has his presidency done for them? What is there to show for all the talk?

In February 2009, he got $831 billion of stimulus spending. Not even seismographs can detect the results. Every speech he outputs about "middle-class folks" offers them the same solutions: more public spending on education, on public infrastructure projects and, even now, on alternative energy. As he tirelessly repeats what remain promises, the Labor Department's monthly unemployment-rate announcement on Friday mornings has become a day of dread.

A U.S. president, faced with such devastating labor-market problems and persistently weak growth, should do anything — anything — that will give the American workplace more lift. Instead, he's willing to entertain just one idea: more federal spending.

You know the theory here: Spend a public dollar and you get $1.50 of economic output. It hasn't happened, but Barack Obama is gonna crank his old Keynesian Multiplier, created during the 1930s in the era of the Hupmobile, until it sputters to life.

Ponder, though, a partial list of the public-policy decisions that have flowed steadily out of the Obama administration and directly into a job-starved U.S. economy:

The no-decision on the Keystone XL pipeline and its union jobs; the 2,000-page regulatory law draped in 2010 across the entire financial sector; the shutdown in 2010 and then the slow-walking of offshore oil drilling; siccing the EPA on the utilities industry and the National Labor Relations Board on all industry; a 2010 FCC decision to regulate Internet growth; a significant tax increase this year; support this month for jacking up the federal minimum wage to over $10, certain to smother new jobs; the Justice Department's $13 billion looting of J.P. Morgan bank; and of course Hurricane ObamaCare.

Barack Obama has the U.S. economy on lockdown. It's the worst thing this president has done. American resilience, and elections, mean it won't stay this way forever. But for a lot of poor and middle-class folks, living with mom in the basement is getting old.

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/20/2014-100-Million-Policy-Cancellations

ObamaCare 2014: 100 Million Policy Cancellations

In a nightmare scenario for Democrats, these cancellation notices would go out to employees in October, just ahead of the November midterms. I can't imagine the GOP having a more effective get-out-the-vote program than that.

Hah, and that's what they're doing: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj2yhlNUbHM

www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/obamacare-website-under-knew-management

After spending three years of political capital on ObamaCare, the President is returning the favor by leaving his liberal flock to fend for themselves. "Here we are, we're supposed to be selling this to people, and it's all screwed up," one House office told The Hill. "This either gets fixed or this could be the demise of the Democratic Party." Asked if Barack Obama was even more unpopular among his party than George W. Bush, another liberal staffer said, "I think that's already happened."

The President, meanwhile, swore that he didn't realize the full extent of the website's problems until after its launch. "I was not informed directly that the website wasn't working the way it was supposed to." Days later, Americans are left wondering: was that just another exercise in verbal gymnastics -- or is the President really that ignorant of critical discussions taking place under his own roof? If he didn't know about the implementation of a law he staked his presidency on, what does he know? If he can't track his own website, how could he know about Iran's nuclear program -- or anything of national importance?

Just when conservatives thought nothing would surprise them, the architect of HealthCare.gov, HHS's Henry Chao, stunned leaders Tuesday with the news that almost two months into the rollout, 30-40% of the website "still needs to be constructed" -- including key components like the insurer payment system. As one CNBC expert mused, "That's like setting up an online bank without setting up a way to make deposits." With so much left to do, no one seems to know how HHS could possibly meet the President's deadline for a functioning system by November 30. Even Chao admitted the date is unrealistic.

www.truthrevolt.org/news/la-times-publishes-faulty-feel-good-story-about-obamacare-state-exchanges

Monday's Los Angeles Times reported some rare "good news" for President Obama and his signature legislation. Under the headline, "Healthcare plan enrollment surges in some states after rocky rollout," piece uses partial information from five of the fifteen independent exchanges (14 states plus DC) to imply that things are wonderful in the state Obamacare exchanges.

The piece reports second half of October enrollments in Minnesota that were three times that of the first, it neglects to mention that the Department of Heath and Human Services reports Minnesota's entire October figure was a very disappointing 1,774... Easily exceeding that low figure, as the report claims, is not something to brag about.

Wooow, people were actually joking that they'd do this and say things like "it's growing exponentially!" guess they really are that desperate to spin the turd.

It would have been appropriate for the LA Times to put the California enrollment number in context. According to the the State's Insurance Commissioner, the 31,000 enrollees is approximately 969,000 less than the count of people who lost their heath insurance because of Obamacare.

The report glosses over the fact that the Oregon exchange hasn't signed up one person but points out the state has signed up 70,000 new people to Medicaid, 100% paid for by tax-payers.

The LA Times piece neglects to mention the Maryland exchange is still experiencing major problems, and as The New York Times noted last week, Hawaii’s site went down on launch day, didn’t come back online for weeks, and “users continue to report problems.” Vermont’s exchange system does not yet process individual payments for insurers, which presumably complicates enrollment.

Only a miracle will save the Democrats. Well, that or authoritarian power grabs.

www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/21/senate-nears-possible-vote-on-curbing-filibusters/

Senate Democrats bowled over Republicans on Thursday to win approval for a highly controversial rule change which would limit the GOP's ability to block nominees, in a move Republicans called a "raw power grab."

"It's a sad day in the history of the Senate," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said after the vote.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., moving quickly following days of speculation, used the so-called "nuclear option" to pass the change. Typically, major changes like this take 67 votes, but he did it with just a simple majority.

"Today we face a real crisis in the confirmation process, a crisis concocted by the Democrat majority to distract attention from the ObamaCare disaster and, in the process, consolidate more power than any majority has had in more than 200 years," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement immediately following the historic vote.

Even Democrats have supported the right to filibuster in the past. The late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said in 2010 that changing the rules would "destroy the uniqueness of this institution."

"In the hands of a tyrannical majority and leadership, that kind of emasculation of the cloture rule would mean that minority rights would cease to exist in the U.S. Senate," he said.

McConnell charged that Reid's attempt proves the Democrats are willing to "do and say just about anything" to get their way.

"We told you this would happen. We warned you."

blog.heritage.org/2013/11/21/obama-remakes-courts-harry-reid-wants-remake-senate/

"Everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster—if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate — then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse."

That Senator was Barack Obama, in 2005, when his party was in the Senate minority.

President Obama is already far outpacing President George W. Bush in judicial confirmations for his nominees during his second term. And as Slattery and Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky have pointed out, the latest push is focused on packing a crucial circuit court that often serves as a stepping stone toward the Supreme Court.

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/21/Harry-Reid-Hillary-Clinton-Barack-Obama-Joe-Biden-all-opposed-Reid-s-Senate-nuclear-option-eight-years-ago

Obama was hardly the only Democrat in the Senate to oppose such measures. Then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) said his vote against the nuclear option was the “single most significant vote” cast in his 32 years in the U.S. Senate..."This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a fundamental power grab by the majority party, propelled by its extreme right and designed to change the reading of the Constitution, particularly as it relates to individual rights and property rights. It is nothing more or nothing less."

Biden added at the time that what Reid has now done was a “naked power grab” and that he “pray(s) God when Democrats take back control [of the Senate]” they wouldn’t invoke the nuclear option.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the likely 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, spoke out against the nuclear option on May 23, 2005 in the U.S. Senate, when she said to “maintain the integrity” of the body, the Senate should not do what Reid is now doing...“We are going to remember our Founders. We are going to remember what made this country great. We are going to maintain the integrity of the U.S. Senate.”

washingtonexaminer.com/harry-reids-nuclear-option-then-and-now/article/2539587

Harry Reid then: “My Republican colleagues claim that nominees are entitled to an up-down vote. That claim ignores history, including recent history.” (floor speech, April 26, 2005)

“Some in this chamber want to throw out 214 years of Senate history in the quest for absolute power...They think they’re wiser than our founding fathers. I doubt that that’s true.” (floor speech, May 18, 2005)

The nuclear option, “simply put, would be the end of the United States Senate.” (from the book The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington, 2008)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojq-o4FQ1x0

Dirty, rotten, stinking liars.

washingtonexaminer.com/afghan-president-hamid-karzai-says-he-wont-sign-security-agreement-with-us/article/2539555

In a surprise move, Afghan President Hamid Karzai appeared to pour cold water on the chances for an immediate security deal with the U.S., saying that because of the ‘mistrust' between him and Washington, any agreement should wait until his successor is elected.

The world will love us because we elected a black dude!

Cruz news

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GFVRqpb97c

[Pyro ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ✔]

Tails show me your penis.

[Tails82]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOc_N0mYe18

[Pyro ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ✔]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyQca1cwe54

[Tails82]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LJNMn0Vsos

[Pyro ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ✔]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItkksKMPQYc

[Tails82]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmQld67v9_Y

[Pyro ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ✔]

We should talk about religion on skype