Defensive Medicine: How To Survive ObamaCare

November 20, 2012

Richard Amerling, M.D.

By Richard Amerling, M.D. - http://Twitter.com/DrAmerling

It’s been a horrible year for individual liberty. First, John Roberts re-writes the Obamacare legislation in order to side with the four liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Then Mitt Romney, a moderate technocrat, failed to make the case to change course with the electorate, in my view largely because he was unable to effectively challenge Obamacare. The federal noose is tightening inexorably around our collective neck! How can we, as individuals, defend our families and ourselves? These are desperate times and require desperate measures. Allow me to suggest a few.

There is simply no way that greatly expanded federal control over medicine will be anything but a disaster. Central planners will tighten their grip using price controls and other heavy-handed means of “cost control” that will inevitably mean shortages and rationing. To understand how this happens, look no further than hours-long lines to get gasoline in New York and New Jersey. These are a direct result, not of Hurricane Sandy, but of the strict “anti-gouging” laws in these states that prevent retailers from raising prices in response to scarcity. Higher prices will signal suppliers to overcome barriers to delivering more supply. Gas lines would vanish overnight with suspension of price controls. In medicine, price controls on doctors and hospitals will mean shortages of both.

To assure continued access to a personal physician, concerned Americans should immediately seek out and contract with a direct-pay or concierge doctor. This is even more important if you have significant medical problems. You will not get the care you need in Medicaid, or an “Accountable Care Organization,” the latest version of managed care.

Doctors should strongly consider opting out of Medicare and other major third-party payers, as our practices will increasingly be under their direct control. If a critical mass of physicians opt out, it will be difficult for the federal government to compel participation.

Under your doctor’s guidance, wean yourselves off expensive drugs by adopting a healthy lifestyle. Don’t take illicit drugs or tobacco, and limit alcohol. Avoid processed carbohydrates and high-fructose corn syrup. Exercise regularly and maintain ideal body weight. Most medications for hypertension, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and osteoporosis are toxic, and don’t address the underlying problem.

To pay for care, consider setting up a Health Savings Account, which somehow survived Obamacare, albeit with some restrictions. The HSA can be used to pay for routine care, such as office visits and tests. Get used to the idea of paying directly for your routine care. An HSA should be coupled with a catastrophic insurance policy with a high deductible. These too are still available. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has information on all of the above, and frequently sends updates on Twitter.

This leads to my final recommendation: If you live in a blue state, consider relocating to a red state, particularly one that is not complying with Obamacare. According to Twila Brase, we can add Montana, Alabama, and Wyoming to the list of states refusing to set up the Obamacare state insurance “exchanges.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government couldn’t force states to expand Medicaid, or set up exchanges. States that opt out effectively defend their citizens from some of the more objectionable aspects of Obamacare.

There are other major advantages for conservatives who move from a blue to a red state. Your vote will suddenly count, and over time, the Electoral College and Congress will shift to favor red states. You will also enjoy lower taxes and cost of living, and if moving from the northeast, a better climate! Many of the blue states, such as California, New York, Illinois, and Michigan, are in dire financial straits due to high taxes, public sector unionism, and overspending on welfare programs, including Medicaid. If millions of productive conservatives (i.e., taxpayers) bail out, the fiscal picture worsens considerably and these states will either collapse or reform. Long term, this is the only way to win the non-shooting civil war that is raging between those who favor expanding the welfare state and those who desire a return to our founding principles of a limited federal government and max imal personal freedom.


source: AAPS

Richard Amerling, MD is a nephrologist practicing in New York City. He is an Associate Professor of clinical medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and the Director of Outpatient Dialysis at the Beth Israel Medical Center. Dr. Amerling studied medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, graduating cum laude in 1981. He completed a medical residency at the New York Hospital Queens and a nephrology fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He has written and lectured extensively on health care issues and is a Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Amerling is the author of the Physicians' Declaration of Independence. Follow Dr. Amerling on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dramerling

Obama in Burma: 'I Wish I Could... Impose My Will on Congress'

November 20, 2012

by Ben Shapiro 
Breitbart.com

(Big Peace) - Today, President Obama spoke in Burma – or as he termed it, Myanmar, despite official US practice to call the country Burma – and repeatedly botched the name of the country’s famed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, instead calling her Aung YAN Suu Kyi. Then he called President Thein Sein “President Sein,” which was a diplomatic snafu, since the president of Burma is to be called by his full name.

His speech was just as bad. After getting through the basics – acting as though his doctrine, not President Bush’s multiple actions on behalf of democracy in Burma, had created more freedom in Burma -- Obama cited Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “four fundamental freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.”

When it came to freedom of speech, Obama said all the right things – after all, he was not talking about an anti-Islam YouTube video in Burma. But he then followed up that glowing language with this bombshell: “Now, on other hand, as President, I cannot just impose my will on Congress -- the Congress of the United States -- even though sometimes I wish I could.” Yes, he does. And he does everything in his power to exceed his constitutional bounds. And he said this in Burma, a military dictatorship for decades, shortly after calling it Myanmar, the name for the country used by the military dictatorship. Talk about undermining America on the world stage.



Obama moved on to freedom from want, which he said was accomplished through private property which could be seized by government. Really. Here was his take on how economics makes peoples prosperous:

When ordinary people have a say in their own future, then your land can’t just be taken away from you. And that's why reforms must ensure that the people of this nation can have that most fundamental of possessions -- the right to own the title to the land on which you live and on which you work. When your talents are unleashed, then opportunity will be created for all people …. as more wealth flows into your borders, we hope and expect that it will lift up more people. It can't just help folks at the top. It has to help everybody. And that kind of economic growth, where everybody has opportunity -- if you work hard, you can succeed -- that's what gets a nation moving rapidly when it comes to develop.

So property ownership is good, except that it promotes inequality, so it must be redistributed. Got it.

When Obama moved on to freedom of worship, he moved back into his “red states and blue states” nonsense from the campaign. Instead of taking religious differences seriously and recommending a separation of church and state, Obama talked happy talk about culture:

My own country and my own life have taught me the power of diversity. The United States of America is a nation of Christians and Jews, and Muslims and Buddhists, and Hindus and non-believers. Our story is shaped by every language; it’s enriched by every culture. We have people from every corners of the world. We’ve tasted the bitterness of civil war and segregation, but our history shows us that hatred in the human heart can recede; that the lines between races and tribes fade away. And what’s left is a simple truth: e pluribus unum -- that’s what we say in America. Out of many, we are one nation and we are one people. And that truth has, time and again, made our union stronger. It has made our country stronger. It’s part of what has made America great.

Well, e pluribus unum, until such time as Obama needs to win an election. Then he divides us by race, religion, ethnicity, age, and gender.

Finally, Obama addressed freedom from fear. He didn’t talk about the need to discard tyrannical societies. Instead, he talked in vague terms about xenophobia, fear of change, and the like. Some more typical Obama happy talk:

In many ways, fear is the force that stands between human beings and their dreams. Fear of conflict and the weapons of war. Fear of a future that is different from the past. Fear of changes that are reordering our societies and economy. Fear of people who look different, or come from a different place, or worship in a different way. In some of her darkest moments, when Aung San Suu Kyi was imprisoned, she wrote an essay about freedom from fear. She said fear of losing corrupts those who wield it -- “Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” That's the fear that you can leave behind. We see that chance in leaders who are beginning to understand that power comes from appealing to people’s hopes, not people's fears. We see it in citizens who insist that this time must be different, that this time change will come and will continue. As Aung San Suu Kyi wrote: “Fear is not the natural state of civilized man.” I believe that.

What does any of this mean? Even Obama would be hard-pressed to explain.

Americans Ask For The Rich To Pay A Greater Fair Share

Nov. 20, 2012

Americans Ask For The Rich To Pay A Greater Fair Share
But let’s call it a middle-class tax cut…

Please enjoy these three clips examples of the benefits of mislabeling concepts for political gain


Tiffany’s husband is out of work, so she needs help to pay for her child’s summer camp, better tasting dinners and ice cream truck treats.
 




Ron feels that privileged Americans need to contribute back a greater fair share then the rest of us because we have given them so much.





Dalia feels we should not fight about those things we disagree on. But we all agree on extending tax cuts only for the middle class.



source: free republic chat

California gets face scanners to spy on everyone at once

Nov. 20, 2012
Russia Today

A news story about big brother, by big brother...

Facial recognition technology is expected to soon be the norm among law enforcement

In a single second, law enforcement agents can match a suspect against millions upon millions of profiles in vast detailed databases stored on the cloud. It’s all done using facial recognition, and in Southern California it’s already occurring.

Imagine the police taking a picture: any picture of a person, anywhere, and matching it on the spot in less than a second to a personalized profile, scanning millions upon millions of entries from within vast, intricate databases stored on the cloud.

It’s done with state of the art facial recognition technology, and in Southern California it’s already happening.

At least one law enforcement agency in San Diego is currently using software developed by FaceFirst, a division of nearby Camarillo, California’s Airborne Biometrics Group. It can positively identify anyone, as long as physical data about a person’s facial features is stored somewhere the police can access. Though that pool of potential matches could include millions, the company says that by using the “best available facial recognition algorithms” they can scour that data set in a fraction of a second in order to send authorities all known intelligence about anyone who enters a camera’s field of vision.

“Live high definition video enables FaceFirst to track and isolate the face of every person on every camera simultaneously,” the company claims on their website.

“Up to 4 million comparisons per second, per clustered server” — that’s how many matches a single computer wired to the FaceFirst system can consider in a single breath as images captured by cameras, cell phones and surveillance devices from as far as 100 feet away are fed into algorithms designed to pick out terrorists and persons of interest. In a single setting, an unlimited amount of cameras can record the movements of a crowd at 30-frames-per-second, pick out each and every face and then feed it into an equation that, ideally, finds the bad guys.

"I realized that with the right technology, we could have saved lives,” Joseph Rosenkrantz, president and CEO of FaceFirst, tells the Los Angeles Times. He says he dreamed up the project after the attacks of September 11, 2001 and has since invested years into perfecting it. Not yet mastered, however, is how to make sure innocent bystanders and anyone who wishes to stay anonymous is left alone as he expands an Orwellian infrastructure that allows anyone with the right credentials to comb through a crowd and learn facts and figures of any individual within the scope of a surveillance cam.

Speaking to reporters with Find Biometrics in August, Rosenkrantz said that the system is already in place in Panama, where computers there process nearly 20 million comparisons per second “using a FaceFirst matching cluster with a large number of live surveillance cameras on a scale beyond any other system ever implemented.”

“Within just a couple of seconds whoever needs to know receives an email containing all the evidence and stats about the person identified along with the video clip of them passing the camera so they may be approached then and there,” he says.

Earlier this year, RT broke the story of TrapWire, a surveillance system marketed by global intelligence firm Stratfor to law enforcement agencies across the world. Through investigation of TrapWire and its parent companies, it became apparent that surveillance devices linked to the system could be monitored from remote fusion centers with access to an endless array of cameras and databases. According to FaceFirst’s developers, their technology doesn’t need a second person to scour video feeds to find suspected terrorists. Complex algorithms instead make finding a match the job of a computer and positive IDs can be returned in under a second.

"It doesn't do me any good if I'm able to look at a face with a camera and five minutes later, there's a match," says Paul Benne, a security consultant who tells the Los Angeles Times that he recommended his clients use FaceFirst in high-security areas. "By then, the person's gone."

Rosenkrantz admits in his interview to the use of the technology at Panama’s Tocumen airport, as well as other border crossings along the perimeter of the country. The deployment of FaceFirst in the United States still begs questions concerning the relationship between security and privacy, though, and is likely to remain an issue of contention until agencies in San Diego and elsewhere explain what exactly they’re up to.

According to a report in Southern California’s News 10 published this week, an unnamed law enforcement agency in San Diego County has been testing a handheld version of FacecFirst for about five months now. On the record, though, no agency in the US has been forthcoming with why it’s using those specific facial scanners or even confirming it’s in their arsenal of ever expanding surveillance tools.

"If they spot someone who doesn't have identification, they can take their picture with their phone and immediately get a result," Joseph Saad, business development director for FaceFirst, tells News 10.

Saad says his company predicts that "facial recognition will be in every day society” soon, perhaps before many Americans want to admit. According to filings available online, Airborne Biometrics was already cleared by the Government Services Administration (GSA) last year to have FaceFirst sold to any federal agency in the country.

“The ability to apply our technology for the advancement of our country has always been my number one goal,” Rosenkrantz said in April 2011 when Airborne was awarded an IT 70 Schedule contract for FaceFirst by the GSA. Because that contact has since been signed with Uncle Sam, Rosenfratz and company can see that goal through, at least until its up for renewal in 2017, through a deal that lets them sell FaceFirst to “all federal agencies and other specified activities and agencies.”

In a demonstration video on the FaceFirst website, the company touts their product as being a great addition to any acquisition device, specifically suggesting that clients consider integrating the software with tactical robots, mobile phones and surveillance drones. Coincidently, just last month the sheriff of Alameda County, California asked the US Homeland Security department for as much as $100,000 in order to have an unmanned aerial vehicles — a drone — in his agency’s arsenal for the sake of protecting the security of his citizens.

Weeks earlier, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told congressional lawmakers that she endorses the idea of sending drones to California to aid with law enforcement efforts. Pleads like the one out of Alameda have been occurring across the country in a rate considered alarming by privacy advocates, but rarely has that opposition brought into the spotlight the scary surveillance capabilities that any police agency may soon have in their hands. While the issues of Fourth Amendment erosions and privacy violations have indeed emerged, the actual abilities of surveillance devices — snagging faces from large crowds in milliseconds and sending info to the authorities — have not.

“Facial characteristics become biometric templates compared against multiple watch lists created from customer photos or massive criminal databases,” the promo explains. Those lists can be custom created by law enforcement agencies to track a ‘most-wanted’ roster of suspected criminals but can pull from databases where any biometric information is already available or can be inputted on the fly.

Discovery of San Diego’s use of FaceFirst comes just two months after the FBI announced it had already rolled out a program to upgrade its current Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) that keeps track of citizens with criminal records across the country with one that relies on face recognition. The FBI expects the Next Generation Identification (NGI) program will include as many as 14 million photographs by the time the project is in full swing in just two years, relying on digital images already stored on federal databases, such as the ones managed by state motor vehicle departments. In the state of New Jersey, the DMV has recently told drivers that they are not allowed to smile for driver’s license photos because it could cause complications in terms of logging biometric data in their own facial recognition system.

The FBI said that, by rolling out NGI, they “will be able to provide services to enhance interoperability between stakeholders at all levels of government, including local, state, federal and international partners.” The unnamed San Diego law enforcement agency already with the ability to match millions of faces in a single moment may be relying right now on that connectedness to keep track of anyone they wish.

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times last week, 70 percent of biometrics spending comes from law enforcement, the military and the government. The private sector is scooping up that scanning power too, though, with FaceFirst having already cut deals with Samsung to provide them with technology for use in closed-circuit surveillance cameras marketed to businesses. But while the Federal Trade Commission has informed companies and corporations that they need to be more transparent about how personally identifiable information is stored on their servers, the Times notes that no guidelines like that exist for law enforcement agencies, who may very well sit on mounds of intelligence without good reason.

"You don't need a warrant to use this technology on someone," Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) said last year during a congressional hearing about the use of expanding surveillance technology. "You might not even need to have a reasonable suspicion that they're involved in a crime."

Aside from FaceFirst, law enforcement is using that excuse to pull data on persons — of interest and otherwise — even when their faces are protected. As RT reported recently, an ever-growing number of police departments are investing in license plate scanners that let officers identify as many as 10,000 vehicles and their registered owners in a single shift. Much like how FaceFirst can pick out dozens of suspects from a single photograph and send data to custom servers, those license plate readers can pick up the precise location of persons never suspected of a crime, making rampant invasion of privacy just collateral damage as the surveillance monster state grows larger

“The cameras will catch things you didn’t see, cars you wouldn’t have run, and the beauty of it is that it runs everything,” Lieutenant Christopher Morgon of the Long Beach, California Police Department says in promotional material for an automated license plate recognition device manufactured by PIPS Technology.

The Federal Trade Commission has offered the security industry best practice suggestions about how long to hold onto data picked up by surveillance cameras, but safeguards for law enforcement agencies are largely absent. In the case of the scanners used to find license plates on the streets of Southern California, Jon Campbell of LA Weekly writes, “The location and photo information is uploaded to a central database, then retained for years — in case it's needed for a subsequent investigation.”

Rosenkrantz says FaceFirst is experiencing triple digit growth in 2012 and expects sustainable expansion to continue throughout the next five years. By 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration expects that as many as 30,000 drones will be operating in US airspace.

Petition To Congress To impeach President Obama.

Nov. 20, 2012

Too little, too late...


8,711 Letters and Emails Sent So Far


http://www.petition2congress.com/2349/petition-to-remove-barack-obama-as-president-united-states-americ/

According to the Constitution of the United States of America, Article 2, Section 1, "No Person except a "Natural Born Citizen", or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the signing of this Constitution, shall be eligible to hold the Office of President." 

Whereas, The Second Session of the First Continental Congress, back in March of 1790, defined "Natural Born Citizen" to mean a child born of two parents who must both be American Citizens”;and

Whereas, The wording of the definition of “Natural Born Citizen” as established by our First Continental Congress in 1790 states:

"And the children of "citizens" of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States shall be considered as natural born citizens; Provided, that theright of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States."

Whereas, Our Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the written will and authority of We the People; and

Whereas, We the People contend that Barack H. Obama, AKA Barry Soetoro, has failed to meet the requirement necessary to hold the office of President of the United States of America; and Whereas, Mr. Barack H. Obama, AKA Barry Soetoro, failed to disclose his Indonesian citizenship and hid the fact that he had previously renounced his U.S. citizenship; and

Whereas, The law requires that such persons who want to regain their U.S. citizenship, upon reaching the age of 18, must go before the appropriate US State Department and apply for re-instatement of citizenship, and swear allegiance to the United States of America; and

Whereas, Mr. Barack H. Obama, AKA Barry Soetoro failed to confirm his allegiance to the United States of America upon his 18th birthday as prescribed by law; and

Whereas, Mr. Barack H. Obama, AKA Barry Soetoro was still using his Indonesian citizenship to gain entry into Pakistan in 1981; and

Whereas, Mr. Barack H. Obama, AKA Barry Soetoro, did not disclose his Indonesian citizenship, and has failed to affirm his allegiance to the United States of America and has withheld that from the American public; and

Whereas, The House and Senate has failed to act on this matter and abide by and honor the Constitution of the United States of America and failed to honor their pledge to defend our Constitution; and

Therefore, We the People demand that the House Judiciary Committee take immediate action to remove the usurper, Mr. Barack H. Obama, AKA Barry Soetoro, from unlawfully and unconstitutionally holding the office of President of the United States of America.

Be it further resolved that, the House Judiciary Committee start an immediate investigation into Mr. Barack H. Obama, AKA Barry Soetoro to determine his true citizenship, and this investigation be followed by removing said usurper Mr. Barack H. Obama, AKA Barry Soetoro, from the Office of President of the United States of America.

Another Sell Out Comes "FORWARD"

November 20, 2012

Gov. Rick Scott, Other Florida Officials Re-Thinking Opposition to 'Obamacare'

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — What a difference an election can make.

Just a week after the re-election of Barack Obama ended all Republican hopes of overturning the new health care law known as " Obamacare," Gov. Rick Scott and other Florida leaders who have steadfastly rejected the idea are now willing to at least talk about implementing it for the state's 3.8 million uninsured.

" Mitt Romney did not win the election," Scott told reporters Friday in Washington D.C., hours before he released a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking for a meeting to discuss implementing the law. "So it's not an option to repeal Obamacare. So my goal now is: focus on what's good for our citizens."

He added: "The official response is going to be: 'I want to sit down with you. I want to see how we can work together to lower health care costs for Floridians.'"

But it will be some time before Florida decides on how to implement crucial elements of the Affordable Care Act: setting up an insurance "exchange" and adding lower-income Floridians to the Medicaid program.

Incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford and Senate President Don Gaetz wrote Sebelius Thursday night saying they could not yet make a call on whether to start an exchange — essentially, a state-run health insurance marketplace for small businesses and individuals.

The law says that if a state refuses to set up an exchange, the federal government will do it. So far, 13 states — mostly Democratic — and the District of Columbia have officially said they will run their own exchanges.

Weatherford and Gaetz wrote that 100 rules and regulations are still being developed by the Obama administration, including guidelines on minimum coverage and benefits. And in his letter Friday, Scott said startup costs "are projected at $92.3 million" through next year, and annual operating costs to the state – based on experience in Illinois -- could range from $57.4 million to $88.6 million by 2016.

"We should be looking out for our consumers and we should be looking out for our state and doing what's best for them," said Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel. "The problem is there are hundreds of unanswered questions that are out there with regard to the implementation to the Affordable Health Care Act. Until we have the answers to those questions, we don't know which plan gives our consumers the most choices."

Insurers are researching and trying to develop plans that work with the new requirements, but they too have a lot of questions, said Michael Garner, executive director of the Florida Association of Health Plans, a trade association for health insurers. They haven't even figured out if it's better for the federal government or the state to run the exchanges, or some sort of partnership.

"Until we get more information, it's too difficult to stipulate which direction is best," Garner said.

The federal government counters that states have been offered help in getting the process started, and the deadline to decide on who should run the exchange has been extended from last week to Dec. 14. HHS has provided a blueprint of what a state exchange should look like and offered grants to pay design costs. Florida applied for the money in 2010 under Gov. Charlie Crist, but Scott ordered the state to return the $1 million check.

The exchanges are a crucial key to the health care overhaul, which by 2014 will require all adults to either purchase health insurance, enroll in a federally subsidized plan — or pay a tax.

Large employers will be required to provide health coverage to employees or pay a fine. Smaller companies, of up to 100 employees, and individuals not covered by an employer would find insurance using the exchange, and lower-income purchasers would qualify for federal subsidies. Plans offered by the exchanges would provide a minimum level of benefits, with limited co-payments and out-of-pocket expenses.

The exchanges must begin enrolling users by October 2013 and be fully operational by Jan. 1, 2014.

Both Weatherford and Gaetz have said they want the Legislature to decide whether the state or federal government should run the insurance exchange, and whether Florida should expand its Medicaid program to cover an estimated 800,000 to 1.3 million low-income individuals who currently earn too much to qualify. In upholding the law in June, the U.S. Supreme Court said states could not be compelled to expand Medicaid eligibility.

Though the feds will pay 100 percent of the cost of the new enrollees, that will drop to 90 percent by 2020. Scott has said the state can't afford the expansion of Medicaid, which state analysts have pegged at about $1 billion but which Scott insists is likely to be higher.

Scott also is seeking federal approval to put the state's existing Medicaid patients into managed care — like HMOs — under a cost-cutting proposal passed by the 2011 Legislature. "Statewide Medicaid managed care is one way we can act immediately to encourage more competition in health care which would drive down costs and increase outcomes and services,'' he wrote in his letter to Sebelius.

Gaetz said he and Weatherford have asked legislative staff to engage with HHS staffers about what their options are.

"It's a law, and it's a constitutional law," Gaetz said. "There's a ruling on the question. It is my constitutional duty to implement the law, and I will do it."

One option the Florida Legislature will look at is converting Florida Healthy Choices or Florida Healthy Kids into an insurance exchange that meets the health care act's requirements.

Florida Healthy Kids, which was created in 1990, has covered more than 1 million low-income children from families who don't qualify for Medicaid. Most families pay nothing for the insurance.

Florida Health Choices, created by the Legislature in 2008, is an online marketplace of insurance plans that will function like an exchange — but without the minimum benefit requirement. Rose Naff, chief executive officer of the group, said she hopes to be fully operational this spring.

When its website opens, Florida Health Choices will allow employers to enter where the company is based, the number of employees and the birth dates of all its employees. The site will generate a list of available insurance plans, showing monthly premiums as well as deductibles, copays and other benefits.


source: wptv

Why is Identity Politics Evil?

Nov. 20, 2012
PJMedia: Lifestyles


Maureen Dowd: "Mitt Romney is the president of white male America."


It is understandable that those of us who voted against Barack Obama, the Community Disorganizer, should be upset over his triumph. Like Joe Biden reading an Umberto Eco novel, we cannot help but feel rather listless and disoriented these days. Feelings of vulnerability can very easily transmogrify into anger, so one must never lose one’s sense of humor; apropos, I draw your attention to the New York Times of November 10, in which Maureen Dowd reflects on Mitt Romney’s loss:

“Team Romney has every reason to be shellshocked. Its candidate, after all, resoundingly won the election of the country he was wooing.

Mitt Romney is the president of white male America.

Maybe the group can retreat to a man cave in a Whiter House, with mahogany paneling, brown leather Chesterfields, a moose head over the fireplace, an elevator for the presidential limo, and one of those men’s club signs on the phone that reads: “Telephone Tips: ‘Just Left,’ 25 cents; ‘On His Way,’ 50 cents; ‘Not here,’ $1; ‘Who?’ $5.”

In its delusional death spiral, the white male patriarchy was so hard core, so redolent of country clubs and Cadillacs, it made little effort not to alienate women. The election had the largest gender gap in the history of the Gallup poll, with Obama winning the vote of single women by 36 percentage points.”

Forgive the lengthy quote; writing like that is harder to swallow than grape Dimetapp. Note, for instance, the cliches attempting to pass for edgy turns of phrase: white guys in mahogany rooms with moose heads over the fireplaces. (Aren’t Bentleys more suitable to these images than Cadillacs?) Dowd really knows how to squat over the page and deliver nuggets of wisdom. And isn’t that just like an intellectual: her only knowledge of millions of Americans (whom she slanders but whose tax money she craves and craves) comes from Edith Wharton stereotypes and episodes of Mad Men.



As a writer, an effective way to tell whether you’re full of crap is to imagine yourself face-to-face with the person or group you’re criticizing and to ask yourself whether you would then have the guts to say out loud what you’ve written for your fawning readers. Oh, I can picture it: Ms. Dowd in front of the the unemployed white blue-collar workers in Michigan and New Jersey. “You’re just white patriarchs,” she might say. “Your days in power are over.”

Here’s Ms. Dowd in front of a crowd of white middle-class men in Long Beach, New York, fishing what’s left of their belongings out of modest houses flooded by Hurricane Sandy: “It’s about time men like you put away your cigars and brandy and stepped outside your mahogany country clubs!” And here’s Ms. Dowd in front of the white Marines in the 2nd Battalion in Afghanistan: “All you who voted for Romney represent the dead-enders of white male domination.” (Note: “dead enders of white male domination” actually appears in Dowd’s column.)

I suppose we can’t hold Dowd to such high standards of integrity. After all, she is the author of the following sentences:

“When the first African-American president was elected, his supporters expected dramatic changes. But Obama feared that he was such a huge change for the country to digest, it was better if other things remained status quo.”

I have searched in vain for any trace of humor or irony in that passage. Since she is serious and thus believes herself to be speaking the truth, Dowd has the responsibility to tell us how she knows the inner thoughts of our president. This is especially important since, if Dowd’s narrative is true, it would mean the president deliberately did not do all he could to ameliorate unemployment and fiscal disaster: the idiotic white masses had simply expended all their brain power on coping with the election of a black president; their exertions left them emotionally incapable of dealing with any more “dramatic changes.” Anyone who can write that and still have the will to resist retiring out of pure shame must also be capable of the following:

“The president’s record-high rate of deporting illegal immigrants infuriated Latinos. Now, on issues from loosening immigration laws to taxing the rich to gay rights to climate change to legalizing pot, the country has leapt ahead, pulling the sometimes listless and ruminating president by the hand, urging him to hurry up.

More women voted than men. Five women were newly elected to the Senate, and the number of women in the House will increase by at least three. New Hampshire will be the first state to send an all-female delegation to Congress. Live Pink or Dye.”

Reading Dowd’s column, it is clear that she has a fairly impressive vocabulary. The only word that’s missing is “American,” unless it’s appended to a racial modifier or a special-interest group. Therein lies the problem, though Dowd and her audience of “gender studies” poseurs are unaware of it: One of the contradictions of anti-white identity politics is, ironically, its unintended encouragement of white identity politics. I quote the British columnist Nick Cohen, writing here of racial tribalism in the U.K.: “If polite society stuffs British citizens into hermetically sealed boxes and labels them as the blacks or the Muslims, it is not so strange that people should decide to be the whites and vote accordingly.”

Since Dowd obviously believes it is rational and desirable for women, blacks, “Hispanics,” gays, and all other assorted subalterns to band together, she must at least expect the enemy to do the same. Identity politics, you see, is a self-fulfilling prophecy: fearing some monolithic conspiracy against them, demagogues urge all sorts of groups to merge and fight the power. The alleged oppressors, tired of being slandered, gravitate toward political candidates who eschew the opinions of the identicrats. The identicrats see this as further evidence of the conspiracy against them. The full circle of idiocy is complete.



One method of repudiating white voters (but not their tax money) has been to play the old eugenic game of guilt by phenotype. Some people, ex-journalist Andrew Sullivan being prime among them, have taken to concocting pseudo-historical parallels between Romney’s winning a large share of white male voters and America’s past racial problems. The phony syllogism goes something like this: Romney was very popular with white male voters; many white male voters in America’s past were racist and supported racist candidates; therefore, Romney and/or the white male voters today are racist.

Of course, nobody who thinks this is brave enough to come right out and conclude something so obviously illiterate — which is why the authors of such probing scholarship usually just write the first two propositions and leave the third one to the reader’s imagination as a kind of tacit innuendo. The scholar then responds to critics by shrugging his shoulders and retorting with something like “I’m just saying” when taken to task. (When George Will called Sullivan out on his slander, the latter retreated into the “I’m just pointing out the fact…” defense.) The corollary to their logic is that winning over white voters is a priori a morally suspect thing (always and everywhere attributable to racism), and that winning over minority voters, who are somehow more “authentic,” is a priori a morally righteous thing. Again, no one states this outright; it is, as it were, “coded” in the musings of certain opinion journalists. But ask yourself whether you’d want to be governed by people who think in such a manner, then reflect on who among the two presidential candidates represented those who hold such odious opinions. Since we are all tribalists now, we can indeed shout hail to the chief.

Muslim Brotherhood now targeting Jordan

Nov. 19, 2012

Ruthless rioting threatens king after radical uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria

Jordan’s anti-government riots aimed ultimately at removing King Abdullah from power are so severe that the government has turned 10,000 of its soldiers into riot police.

Religious Freedom Coalition President and Founder William Murray said the ruthlessness of the rioting prompted the move.


“The king has given police uniforms to 10,000 soldiers to try to maintain order,” he said.

Those soldiers-turned-police are not the only ones guarding the king. Terrorism analyst and Act for America President Brigitte Gabriel said there are U.S. troops on the ground in Jordan.

“We have actually positioned troops in Jordan to protect King Abdullah,” she said. “We’ve said that the Americans in Jordan are just there in case something happens in Syria so we can be close.”

Gabriel also said the situation has grown more intense: “The reality is, we have placed troops in Jordan so we can protect the royal family in case of an uprising which we are now witnessing before our own eyes.”

Murray reported that aid workers with his organization in Jordan have come astonishingly close to the action.

“The riots in Jordan are about one mile from our warehouse,” he said. “The Muslim Brotherhood has cut all roads between Jordan’s cities.”

Gabriel, who is a native of Lebanon, said the violence is no surprise, and “the Muslim Brotherhood is rising in Jordan.”

She warned that the king’s position is in danger.

“King Abdullah is hanging by a thread,” she said. “He has 20 percent approval in the country. The Muslim Brotherhood sees this as their opportunity to rise up after what they saw happen in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and now Syria.”

However, the king’s decline in approval is a recent development. As WND reported, as recently as October, the king remained popular.

International Christian Concern Middle East analyst Aidan Clay said most Jordanians support the king.

“The king remains fairly popular and the king is still a seasoned politician who may be able to offer concessions that the Muslim Brotherhood accepts,” he said. “However, it is also true that every Jordanian is fed up with the widespread corruption within the government.

“Moreover, the economy is quickly declining, unemployment is rising, and there is a great rift between the rich and poor. The MB is highlighting these widespread concerns in their pursuit of ‘democratic reform,’ which resonates with nearly all Jordanians – whether they are MB sympathizers or not.”

Clay said the cover for many of the “Arab Spring” movements was the call for democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood’s use of the “democracy” line, he said, could tip the balance in their favor.

“Of most concern is that the MB is among the primary groups calling for political reform,” he explained. “If that continues to be the case, then many Jordanians may decide to back the MB, whether or not they agree with the Muslim Brotherhood’s religious ideology. Free elections, ending corruption, higher wages, and other claims all sound great, no matter who’s leading the campaign – whether it’s the MB or liberals.

“Many Jordanians just want change and some are willing to join whatever movement promises political reform.”

Gabriel said the uprising in Jordan is the product of America’s previous actions in Egypt and Libya.

“We are seeing a reawakening of radical Islam all over the Middle East empowered by the weakening American perception throughout the Muslim world,” she explained, adding that another factor intensifying the protests is the perception that King Abdullah is a Western pawn.

“King Abdullah is perceived by the radicals as too secular and a puppet of Western powers. They loathe him also because of the peace treaty with Israel,” Gabriel said. “Most Jordanians are Palestinians who favor Hamas-style leadership instead of Abbas’ negotiating with Israel and trying to be a friend of America.”

She added that the rebels are learning from recent radical movements.

“They are learning that what produces results are powerful organizations like Hamas dedicated to jihad and bringing pride and strength back to the Palestinians through Islamic warfare instead of a mamby-pamby let’s sit together and have coffee while we talk about the problem in Abbas and King Abdullah style,” Gabriel said.

WND also reported that the momentum from the Arab Spring has prompted the radicals to shift their attention to Jordan.

Following successful campaigns in Egypt, Libya and other Middle East and North African nations, the Muslim Brotherhood now is trying to destabilize and possibly overthrow Jordan’s government, according to reports.

The Saudi-owned news channel Al-Arabiya, citing leaked files, reported the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies have sought to destabilize neighboring Jordan by manipulating peaceful demonstrations there and turning them into deadly violence.

Jordan is the latest target in the gun sights of the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical jihadist elements. WND reported in December that the Arab Spring was a front for the expansion of jihadist regimes.

Center for Security Policy analyst Clare Lopez said those suggesting the world is seeing the rise of Shariah in that region are “obviously onto the reality of the disaster that’s unfolding in front of us in the Middle East.”

Lopez said the chain of events was a coordinated effort: “The so-called ‘Arab Spring,’ long planned and well-executed by jihadist forces, with deliberate and knowing assistance from the current national security leadership of the [U.S.], is nothing more than the implementation by Islamic powers of Phase 5 of the plan for global domination.”

Lopez referred to a document introduced as evidence in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror funding trial.

“Although, unquestionably, there were both naive and spontaneous elements to uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya,” Lopez said, “the actual course of those revolutions and especially now, their aftermaths, were and are being managed carefully and professionally by the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida allies.”

Lopez said there is a traceable timeline leading to the present results in Tunisia and Egypt: “In July 2010, al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula published its first issue of the online magazine, ‘Inspire.’ In it, al-Qaida explicitly called on the Muslim world – and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular – to rise up in jihad and turn the page ‘from Mecca to Medina.’”

source: WND

Obama Warns Israel Not to Go After Hamas

Nov. 19, 2012

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- President Barack Obama is in Cambodia on the final leg of his three-country tour of Southeast Asia.

The trip marks the first time a U.S. president has visited Cambodia, which is hosting the East Asia Summit.

Obama was scheduled to meet Monday evening with Cambodia's longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen. The White House says Obama will raise U.S. concerns about Cambodia's human rights record during the meeting.

The president also will attend a dinner with regional leaders in Cambodia for the summit.

Obama's Asia tour, his first foreign trip following his re-election, also included stops in Thailand and Myanmar.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

In a historic breakthrough, President Barack Obama on Monday stepped onto the soil of long-shunned Myanmar and into the flag-waving embrace of its once repressed people. "You gave us hope," he declared, the first U.S. president to visit what not long ago had been an international outcast.

Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets to welcome Obama to a place still learning its basic freedoms.

Speaking to a national audience from the University of Yangon, Obama offered a "hand of friendship" and a lasting U.S. commitment, yet a warning as well. He said the new civilian government must nurture democracy or watch it, and U.S. support, disappear.

The visit to Myanmar was the centerpiece of a four-day trip to Southeast Asia that began in Bangkok and will end Tuesday in Cambodia, where Obama will attend an East Asia Summit.

Obama seemed to revel in the history of what he was witnessing in Myanmar - a nation shedding years of military rule, and a relationship between two nations changing fast.

"This remarkable journey has just begun," he said.

In a notable detour from U.S. government policy, the president referred to the nation as Myanmar, the preferred name of the former military regime and the new government, rather than Burma, the old name and the one favored by democracy advocates and the United States government.

On his first trip abroad since his re-election earlier this month, Obama got a warm welcome in Myanmar, hugging long-time opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and lauding her as a personal inspiration. Crowds swelled at every intersection, yelling affectionately for Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"You are the legend hero of our world," one banner read.

Obama acknowledged Myanmar's many democratic shortcomings but said: "The United States of America is with you."

Obama spoke at a university that was once the center of government opposition, and his message was as much a call for Myanmar to continue in its promising steps as it was a tribute to democracy in general. He held up the United States as an example of its triumph and its imperfections.

Coinciding with the president's visit, the government of Myanmar announced further human rights steps to review prisoner cases and de-escalate conflicts in ethnic regions of the country.

But Obama urged even more, calling for a government where, as he put it, "those in power must accept constraints."

"The flickers of progress that we have seen must not be extinguished," Obama said in an address televised to the nation.

Obama paid a personal call to the revered democracy advocate, Suu Kyi, at the lakeside 2-acre compound where she spent much of the last two decades under house arrest. The house, a colonial-style, grey stucco home, has become synonymous with the movement that brought about democratization reforms.

Suu Kyi echoed Obama's tone with an admonition of her own, one that could have been directed at her own ruling party as much as to the United States:

"The most difficult time in any transition is when we think that success is in sight," she said. "Then we have to be very careful that we're not lured by the mirage of success."

Earlier, with President Thein Sein at his side, Obama said the journey was just starting. "But," Obama said, "we think a process of democratic and economic reform here in Myanmar that has been begun by the president is one that can lead to incredible development opportunities."

In a first-ever scene, Air Force One flew over Myanmar's lush countryside, which was dotted with gold-spired temples, rice patties and fish farms. As the plane approached Yangon, the landscape became more crowded with homes, including many clusters of shacks.

Obama walked down the steps of his aircraft with Clinton, a shared image done in recognition of their last trip together. Clinton plans to leave the diplomatic post soon.

In an extraordinary scene for Myanmar, huge crowds of people lined the streets of Yangon to watch Obama's motorcade pass, including hundreds of students wearing matching school uniforms of white shirts and dark green sarongs. Many held up iPads and smart phones to take photos of the speeding motorcade.

Obama has rewarded Myanmar's rapid adoption of democratic reforms by lifting some economic penalties. The president has appointed a permanent ambassador to the country, and pledged greater investment if Myanmar continues to progress following a half-century of military rule.

The trip to Myanmar came against a backdrop of criticism from human rights groups that say Myanmar's government, which continues to hold hundreds of political prisoners and is struggling to contain ethnic violence, hasn't done enough to earn a personal visit from Obama.

The president's response: Progress this dramatic deserves a global spotlight.

"When I took office as president, I sent a message to those governments who ruled by fear: We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your first," Obama said. "... So today, I have come to keep my promise, and extend the hand of friendship."

300 MILLION SLAVES

Nov. 19, 2012
JeremiahFilms





The United States is plagued with economic, political, geo-political, and social problems. As a nation, we are morally bankrupt and at risk of losing the battle for our culture. We need to wake up before it is too late! 300 MILLION SLAVES discusses the root causes of how the United States got to this point and the implications of inaction as well as provides a solution that will equip, empower, and challenge viewers to engage their community.

First They Came For The Cupcakes, And I Did Not Speak Out

Nov. 19, 2012
By TMH

From LaborUnionReport.com

Please pardon me for borrowing the opening line from pastor Martin Niemöller’s condemnation of standing mute.

His quote is only tangentially related… and yet… germane. Allow me to expand.

On Friday, an American icon in the baked goods industry, famous for breads, cakes, pies and assorted snacks, was pushed over the financial cliff, leaving only the carcass and the name, embodied as closed factories and orphaned brands.

Over the last two days, a couple of themes have emerged in the reportage of this event: 1) that it was all Capitalism’s fault, despite repeated investments from and attempts by capital management firms to save it, and 2) they deserved it; that’s right, they had somehow earned extinction.

Yes, the killing of Hostess was righteous. And why was it righteous? Because, well, they were evil… or something. Well, at the very least, Michelle Obama had an axe to grind with them (or was that a guillotine?), because they were the cause of food deserts or something. And so they got their just desserts.

Now, stay with me here, the elimination of a corporation — a purveyor of American snacks and staples for more than eighty years — and the 18,500 jobs that went with it, was acceptable because people who arrogated unto themselves the authority to tell you what you may eat, and how much had deemed them undesirable.

Undesirable. It doesn’t matter what you and I might have desired. Your government parents deemed it so.

In Terresa’s earlier post, Going Galt and the Neo-Comms, the point was made that people are not property:

Remember, though: people are not property. When Ayn Rand shared the vision of Galt, that was the theme and spirit of it. You may take what I have, but you don’t own me. I am not a slave.

And a beleaguered Hostess, after years of struggling under the yoke of parasitic Neo-Comm manipulation, despite the investment of millions by “evil greedy capitalist bastards” trying to keep it alive, has finally said, “you may take what I’ve built, but you don’t own me.” That’s the essence of going Galt.

People are not property.

Much is implied by that. If I am not property then some other person or body or persons does not own me. If I am not owned then, absent my consent, the product of my labors is not an obligation and is mine to keep, sell or give away. And if I commission the labor to be done as work for hire and pay for it as agreed, the product and all that derives from it are also mine; I owe them to no one. If my work belongs to someone else without my consent, I am a slave.

But if one is to believe the philosophy of envy perpetrated by an impoverished, but angry, business and life failure — an epic loser who died in 1883 — all that is required to achieve entitlement to someone else’s work product, and whatever they have built, is the simple desire to own it. That’s all. It is sufficient to deem that you should have it, and until you then possess it, whatever situation obtains that prevents your having it is, by definition, unfair. You drive a nicer car than I do. I want the nice one that you have, not the junker that is all I can afford. Therefore, justice can only be served when either I obtain your car, or at least you are reduced to owning something as miserable as what I have. Equality of misery is fair.

Success clearly isn’t fair, since it is in its very nature an unequal outcome. It matters not that I may have worked eighty hour weeks. It matters not that I may have lived for months or years on cans of beans and corn, with an occasional sausage. It matters not that I drove an old beater, lived in a run-down apartment, wore faded clothes and had a bad haircut, all while I struggled to bring something viable into being. Once I achieve some measure of success, once my efforts bring me some measure of comfort and an improved measure of quality in my life, magically this is unfair and I should permit it to be distributed among those of lesser ability, lesser initiative, lesser motivation and certainly lesser invested effort. In other words, whatever my initiative, effort and inventiveness yields, it is properly the property of a whole bunch of other people who didn’t build it; I am thus a slave to a self-appointed mob. We want what you have and there are more of us than of you, so resistance is futile; we have elected someone “official” to seize it for us.

Whatever the pie is, regardless of who baked it, we are all entitled to an equal slice, without any need of having worked for it.

And if you won’t give it to us, or give us the share to which we feel we are entitled, we will destroy you.

And then, having bled you dry, we will justify it by declaring that a) you were unfair, and b) that you were undesirable.

Yes, you were undesirable, and that is justification sufficient to erect the gibbet from which to hang you and let your corpse swing in the breeze as an example to all those others who might have similar, unfair, inclinations.

You will do our bidding, or you will wind up like them.

But … but … aren’t we safe? After all, we’re not undesirable, right? We play by all the rules. I mean, those are the rules, right? Nobody would change the rules to make us undesirable… would they?

Yeah, sure, I didn’t have anything personal against Hostess, but what the hell, it’s only a Twinkie. Who cares about a Twinkie?

Oh, I dunno, maybe some of those EIGHTEEN THOUSAND families whose Christmas this year is looking a bit bleaker than last year’s. Maybe they cared about a Twinkie.

It’s only a cupcake and an undesirable one at that. Don’t make a fuss, you’ll only attract attention and make them angry. Turn away. Maybe they’ll leave you alone.

After all, you’re not undesirable. You’re fair-minded. You play by the rules… as they are… today.

Today.

And today they came for the cupcakes.

Will you speak out?

Or will you be next?

EXCLUSIVE! Benghazi GUN-RUNNING & The Russia, China, Iran, Syria PIPELINE

November 19, 2012

by Chip Jones

(Conservative Report Online) - While the country intellectually “channel surfs” between the Petraeus Sex Scandal, the questions of voter fraud, the imminent resignations of administration officials and the ever present pall of Benghazi, let’s put on the table the yet unexplained but critical geo-political underpinnings of the burgeoning scandal behind Benghazi.

Much like everything in the Middle East, the story behind the story that’s behind the story of our “embassy” in Benghazi is one of global petrochemicals. But before we get there, we need to review a little history of our “embassy” in Benghazi.

First off, it’s not an Embassy.

The USA’s Libyan embassy is located in the capital city of Tripoli—not Benghazi. The compound at Benghazi is no more than a CIA facility set-up to arm the ‘rebels’ who ultimately overthrew Moammar Qadaffi. It is important to note, as it turns out, the Libyan ‘rebels’ were substantially Al Qaeda.

After the United States’ successful stint at “leading from behind” in the Libyan campaign, this CIA “gun store” shifted purposes. Now (or at least on Sept. 11), the CIA “gun store” was being used for a similar purpose.

Instead of arming the Libyan rebels, it was repurposed to arm ‘rebels’ in Syria who are opposing the Assad Regime. Given Assad’s jaded history of human rights violations, this, on the surface, has some appeal.

Do not view Syria through rose colored glasses, and from the focal point of a “feel good policy,” but consider the real interest at stake: Syria is the holder of one of the largest natural gas reserves on the planet. As with all large petrochemical reserves, there is a line of folks who would like to get their greedy furnaces wrapped around them.

Enter two factions:

On one side, there is the coalition comprised of Russia, China, Iran and Syria, who intends to harvest the natural gas and build a pipeline to Georgia, freeing the sale of this precious natural gas to the petrochemical guzzling giants of Russia and China.

On the other side is Turkey & Qatar, who are backing the Syrian rebels in an attempt to profit from the sale of that same natural gas via pipeline to the Mediterranean.

And in the most clandestine of ways, Israel is partnering with Turkey, Qatar & the Syrian ‘rebels’ forming the most unholy of unholy alliances. They are throwing their lot in because the devil of the unknown Syrian is better than the devil of the known Iran, who would undoubtedly use the proceeds of this pipeline to complete its nuclear program.

Israel’s role has been confined to simply amassing a troop buildup on the Golan Heights that border Syria. This coupled with a bellicose Turkey on its other border leaves Assad’s Syria strapped militarily, necessitated by facing the two threats on its opposing borders, and leaving them vulnerable to the Syrian rebels who can slowly pick their bones.

What is interesting, but certainly not a coincidence, is that this very plan for the destabilization of Syria was developed at the Brookings Institute, the DC think tank.

Now, let’s “fast forward” to Benghazi and the American role in this geo-political chess game, other than just the Brookings strategy.

It is well known that President Obama’s only true personal friend on the world stage is the Prime Minister of Turkey. So, we need to look carefully at who the direct-link is, arming the Syrian rebels, and that is Turkey.

Does Turkey have advanced-weapon manufacturers? No, of course not. Does Turkey even have a wealthy central government? No.

In steps the Prime Minister of Turkey’s good buddy, President Obama. Paraphrasing and shortening, I assume words of this kind passed between the PM of Turkey & Barack Obama, “Mr. Prime Minister, I happen to have this CIA ‘gun store’ in Benghazi….”

The CIA compound in Benghazi was collecting weapons from Libyan’s, who were once loyal to Qadaffi. The CIA was then rendering the weapons ‘as outdated, in disrepair, or inoperable’—thus creating a constant stream of seized-weapons to satisfy NATO, and shipping the “operable weapons” to Syria via Turkey, through clandestine channels.

Ladies and Gentlemen, here’s the rub. Take a quick guess who the Syrian rebels are?

Those of you who answered: “Al Qaeda,” would be correct. So, what we have here is the second instance where the CIA facility in Benghazi was used to arm Al Qaeda.

And by the textbook definition, the act of arming your enemies is called Treason.

Parents charged for teen's crime

Nov. 19, 2012

Prosecutors charge parents of teen whose high-speed LI crash killed four of his friends

Long Island prosecutors took the extraordinary step of holding a mom and dad responsible for their teen son’s high-speed car wreck that killed four of his friends.

Aaditia and Patricia Beer of Queens allowed their son Joseph, 17, to drive their 2012 Subaru on Oct. 8 even though he only had a learner’s permit, prosecutors said.

Joseph (pictured, in court yesterday) was high on marijuana and going more than 110 mph on the Southern State Parkway when he lost control on a section called “Dead Man’s Curve” at around 4 a.m. and skidded into the woods, prosecutors said.

Beer was the only survivor.

His parents were charged with unlicensed operation of a vehicle and face up to 15 days in jail and a $300 fine.

“They allowed their son to drive a vehicle they owned, and they knew he did not possess a driver’s license,” said Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice. “The result is four young lives being taken from their families and their friends.

“He was driving a souped-up, 305-horsepower sports car at twice the legal limit while he was high on marijuana. The consequences of his choices are unspeakable tragedy.”

Joseph Beer faces 25 years in prison for aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular manslaughter, four counts of manslaughter, driving under the influence, and unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.

Supreme Court Justice David Ayres refused to unshackle Beer during his appearance and doubled the bail requested by prosecutors, ordering $1 million cash or $2 million bond.

Beer’s somber father sat silently beside his wife, who wept openly when her son’s name was called.

His mom later ripped prosecutors for trying to pin the blame on her and her husband.

“It’s not like we give him the key and say, ‘Go kill somebody,’ ” she told The Post last night. “Nobody wants their kids to go out there in the middle of the night without your consent.”

The Richmond Hills HS student’s passengers — Chris Khan, Peter Kanhai and Darian Ramnarine, all 18, and Neal Rajapa, 17 — were killed in the crash.

All of the passengers were flung from the car. Joseph was initially hospitalized for minor injuries.

source: NY Post

GOP makes plans to squash tea party in primaries

November 19, 2012

Frustrated by recent losses, Senate Republicans plan bigger role in primaries

(Fox News) - Senate Republican leaders, frustrated by losing winnable seats, are preparing to play a more assertive role in primary races, in consultation with the Tea Party and other conservative activists.

The strategy reflects a change from the 2012 election in which they took a relatively hands-off approach to party primaries, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Now, Senate leadership is likely to back a favored candidate in certain cases, as it had done in 2010 and before, bringing activists into the conversation earlier about potential nominees.

The Tea Party has been a confounding force and a source of energy for the Republican Party, It has lifted some to the party’s stars into power, among them Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. But it has also helped nominate candidates who weren’t strong enough to survive the general election.

Strategists cite five such races in the past two election. Senate Republicans have this week named Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran to lead the effort. To read more from The Wall Street Journal, click here:

Florida county misses deadline for West recount

Nov. 18, 2012

FORT PIERCE, Fla. – Election officials missed a deadline Sunday to report results of a two-day recount in GOP Rep. Allen West's race to remain in Congress, apparently sealing unofficial results giving the win to Democrat Patrick Murphy.

St. Lucie County did not meet a noon cutoff to finish processing 37,379 ballots cast early in the District 18 congressional election. Under Florida law, previously submitted results favoring Murphy will be certified unless an emergency exemption is granted by the state.

"They did this recount because they weren't confident in the outcome," said West campaign manager Tim Edson. "Now, because they missed the deadline, we're not going to know whether they were right in their concern or not."

Edson said the incumbent's campaign was looking at what could be done to possibly extend the deadline and suggested the fight was not yet over.

"We'll continue with all legal options that are available," he said.

Angry West supporters loudly chanted "Count our votes!" as they awaited an explanation from county officials.

The task of proving there was an emergency that necessitated missing the deadline appeared difficult. State law says an election emergency "means any occurrence, or threat thereof, whether accidental, natural, or caused by human beings, in war or in peace, that results or may result in substantial injury or harm to the population or substantial damage to or loss of property to the extent it will prohibit an election officer's ability to conduct a safe and orderly election."

The Murphy campaign, which has been proclaiming the Democrat the victor since the wee hours of Election Night, said that the law was clear and that the political newcomer would be certified the winner.

"The voters have spoken, and Patrick Murphy is once again the clear winner," campaign manager Anthony Kusich. "It is beyond time to put this campaign behind us and put the interests of the people of the Treasure Coast and Palm Beaches first."

If the unofficial results, submitted last week, are certified, Murphy will win by about 1,900 votes. A spokesman for the Secretary of State's office did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

A recount of three days of early voting ballots was conducted in St. Lucie County last week, narrowing Murphy's margin a bit. The county's canvassing board ultimately agreed to retabulate all eight days of ballots after several errors were made public and West's supporters made a relentless push for a fuller recount. The campaign hoped Murphy's margin of victory would decrease enough to force a machine recount of all ballots across the entire three-county district.

The race was the country's most expensive House contests and one of the most closely watched. The two sides had raised nearly $21 million as of Oct. 17, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, and Super PACs poured in about $6.6 million.

West, 51, is a first-term tea party favorite and one of only two black Republicans in the House. He has made a string of headline-grabbing statements, from calling a majority of congressional Democrats communists to saying President Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and others should "get the hell out of the United States."

Murphy, 29, is a political newcomer who portrayed West as an extremist who has done little else in Washington than stoke partisan fires.

source: fox news

Harry Reid Won't Allow Senate to Investigate Benghazi

Nov. 18, 2012

(POLITICO) - If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid didn’t make it clear enough to Republicans that he opposes a select committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks, he said it again Friday: No way.

In letters to key Republican senators, Reid put his foot down — again — on the idea of a special panel to dig into the Sept. 11 assault that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three diplomatic aides in Libya. A select committee would need a floor vote to be created, and Reid said he wouldn’t permit it.

“I refuse to allow the Senate to be used as a venue for baseless partisan attacks,” Reid wrote in the three-page letter, released Friday evening.

Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte have led the charge for a special committee in recent days. There also is support for the idea in the House. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) fired off a similar request to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) earlier this week, but Boehner said he didn’t believe a new panel was necessary.

Proponents of the select committee say having one panel to oversee the investigation would streamline the multiple probes currently being conducted by Congress. Committees that deal with intelligence, foreign affairs, homeland security and oversight are all looking into the attacks. Furthermore, the State Department also has established a review board to examine its handling of the Sept. 11 assault.

The House and Senate Intelligence Committees were briefed by former CIA Director David Petraeus on Capitol Hill earlier Friday, where he testified that the intelligence agency viewed the attack as a work of terrorism.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and many others on Capitol Hill argue that a new committee would unnecessarily duplicate ongoing investigations, and Reid said in his letter that he was concerned that a new, Watergate-style panel would “further politicize” the fallout over the attacks.

“The elections are over,” Reid wrote. “It is time to put an end to the partisan politicization of national security and begin working together to strengthen our efforts to dismantle and destroy the terrorist networks that threaten us.”

The U.S. has a flat tax (in effect)

Nov. 18, 2012

The Congressional Budget Office has a new study of effective federal marginal tax rates for low and moderate income workers (those below 450 percent of the poverty line). The study looks at the effects of income taxes, payroll taxes, and SNAP (the program formerly known as Food Stamps). The bottom line is that the average household now faces an effective marginal tax rate of 30 percent. In 2014, after various temporary tax provisions have expired and the newly passed health insurance subsidies go into effect, the average effective marginal tax rate will rise to 35 percent.

What struck me is how close these marginal tax rates are to the marginal tax rates at the top of the income distribution. This means that we could repeal all these taxes and transfer programs, replace them with a flat tax along with a universal lump-sum grant, and achieve approximately the same overall degree of progressivity.

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Constitution Study Radio: Lesson 14, Final Amendments, 24-27

Nov. 18, 2012

Poll Taxes & Open Primaries, Line of Succession, Filling Vacancies, Voting Age, and Retifying an old proposal to battle against Congressional Corruption. Through the Constitution with Douglas V. Gibbs

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