Thursday, March 28, 2013

AARP really sucks!

AMAC vs. AARP – Battling for the Hearts and Minds of Seniors
The Conservative Alternative - Join AMAC Today - Click Here If you haven't chosen AMAC over AARP yet, here's why you should.

During the first debate, President Obama touted the support of AARP for ObamaCare several times, clearly tying them together.

Further proof that they were working in concert can be found in recently released emails between the White House and AARP operatives. As the emails show, AARP threw their tremendous power behind the legislation despite the fact they were getting calls overwhelmingly against it.
In fact, on September 20, 2012, Kimberley A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal wrote:
"Thanks to just-released emails from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we now know that AARP worked through 2009-2010 as an extension of a Democratic White House, toiling daily to pass a health bill that slashes $716 billion from Medicare, strips seniors of choice, and sets the stage for rationing. We know that despite AARP's awareness that its seniors overwhelmingly opposed the bill, the ‘nonpartisan membership organization' chose to serve the president's agenda.
The 71 pages of emails show an AARP management taking orders from the White House, scripting the president's talking points, working to keep its board ‘in line,' and pledging fealty to ‘the cause.' Seniors deserve to know all this, as AARP seeks to present itself as neutral in this presidential election."
AARP refuses to take a formal position on the Independent Payment Advisory Board ("rationing board") portion of ObamaCare and even defends some aspects of the board. Given the negative impact that the IPAB will have on seniors, this is unbelievable (but sadly, not unexpected).
AMAC is against the harsh provisions in ObamaCare that give the Federal government complete control of our healthcare. It destroys the best healthcare system in the world, takes 716 billion dollars out of Medicare, and has the power to restrict and ration our medical treatment.
AMAC is fighting to keep our right to receive treatment from our doctors without the interference of Federal bureaucrats.
Big government experiments like the "stimulus" and ObamaCare have only increased the uncertainty and instability, and are core reasons for the persistently high unemployment rate and why the household incomes of Mature Americans have declined so much. Still, your government continues its spending spree.
AMAC, The Association of Mature American Citizens, believes we can do much better. As a steadily growing alternative to groups like AARP, and with an expanding influence in the nation's capital, we aim to champion the interests of Mature Americans, seniors, and prospective retirees. We believe in religious freedom, free enterprise, and we support common sense solutions to our nation's largest challenges.
Bottom line – Our livelihoods, our families' future prosperity and our standards of living should not be threatened by bad policies emanating from Washington, DC.
Join AMAC Today - Click Here
AMAC Fights for You!

Monday, March 25, 2013

Administration moves $500M in Palestinian aid, as agencies scramble to delay furloughs

As federal agencies scramble to avert or delay sequester-tied furloughs, the Obama administration continues to spend millions of dollars on foreign aid to the Palestinians – and seek millions more, despite past efforts by Congress to freeze the money.
The State Department confirmed this month the administration has moved forward with $500 million in aid, and is trying to secure another $200 million from Congress. Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland says the aid is important, because an “economically viable Palestinian Authority” would help regional peace and security.
The administration confirmed the transfers as President Obama, along with Secretary of State John Kerry, toured the Middle East last week. Obama met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as top Israeli officials.
But lawmakers have heavily scrutinized a number of foreign aid transactions, given the fiscal crunch facing Washington. The capital was awash last week with memos and updates from federal agencies scrambling to manage sequester cuts and cushion their staff from the impact of furloughs.
After initial warnings that furlough notices would start to go out for thousands of civilian employees at the Pentagon last Thursday, the Defense Department announced it would delay those notices for about two weeks while it continues to analyze the situation.
Attorney General Eric Holder also said in a memo that he was using his “limited authorities” to shift around funds and give the Bureau of Prisons $150 million to avoid furloughing correctional workers at federal prisons. This, he said, would have created “serious threats to the lives and safety of our staff, inmates and the public.”
But he said he was still “evaluating” whether his department can avoid other furloughs.
Foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority alone, though, easily eclipses the amount Holder used to spare the correctional workers division.
Nuland explained that the U.S. has moved forward with $295.7 million in fiscal 2012 funds, part of which is for economic development and humanitarian assistance, and part of which is for law enforcement aid.
Another $200 million falls under fiscal 2013 assistance.
Further, the administration notified Congress in February that it wants another $200 million for programs under the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Despite suggestions that the administration had “quietly” released the money, Nuland on Friday stressed that she had publicly announced the aid at a March 15 briefing.
Congress in 2011 voted to freeze part of the U.S. aid package to the Palestinians in response to their push for statehood before the U.N.
But President Obama last year signed a waiver removing those restrictions on national security grounds. He reportedly moved to unfreeze hundreds of millions of dollars in aid last month.
The International Monetary Fund this month warned that the Palestinians were facing serious fiscal shortfalls, in part because of dwindling international aid packages.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Stupid out of control government.

The federal government is ready to pay people $45,900 to attend an annual snowmobile competition in Michigan for the next two years.
They're also ready to shell out $516,000 for scientists to develop an ecoATM that will give out cash in exchange for old cell phones and other electronics. And why not drop another $349,862 for a study that looks at the effects of meditation and self-reflection for math, science and engineering majors?
These are just a few of the 164 grants the National Science Foundation approved two weeks ago. Yet around the same time, the administration was warning that the sequester would cut into critical research on chronic diseases.
While some of the less critical grant ideas were scrapped as the NSF looked for ways to scale back and prioritize, the number of allegedly frivolous grants still in play is not sitting well with Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
The GOP senator has been on a campaign to call out what he sees as pockets of wasteful government spending. Since the sequestration took effect March 1, he's sent 11 letters to various department heads highlighting places where they can fiscally trim down.
In a letter to NSF director Subra Suresh, Coburn suggested cutting the grants above along with nine others, including a $515,468 grant used, in part, to study how a shrimp running on a treadmill responds to alterations in oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.
"These may be interesting questions to ponder or explore, but just because each is currently being supported by NSF should not mean guaranteed future funding if new applications with greater merit or potential are submitted," Coburn wrote in his March 12 letter. "I appreciate your agency's commitment to continuing grants, but ensuring the most promising new research can be supported next year may require ending or reducing spending on lower priority grants now being funded. Robo-squirrel may have survived its encounters with the rattlesnake but it may have met its match in sequestration if we hope to provide support for more promising scientific projects."
"Robo-squirrel" has long been criticized by Coburn as a big government boondoggle. Researchers at San Diego State University used funds from a $325,000 grant provided by the government-bankrolled NSF to invent a robotic squirrel used for researchers. Coburn has used robo-squirrel as an example multiple times as a government program that needs to be cut.
NSF spokeswoman Dana Topousis told FoxNews.com Friday that they receive 40,000 to 50,000 proposals a year. Of those, 10,000 to 11,000 get funded. Topousis says decisions are based on two criteria – “intellectual merit” and the “broader impacts”, which addresses the benefits of the proposed study to society.
She also says Coburn shouldn’t get caught up with the quirky names of the projects but try to see beyond it.  One of the most successful projects the NSF has had a hand in was one in 1996 called “BackRub,” a search engine research project by Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
“BackRub sounds ridiculous but if we didn’t take a chance on it things would be a lot different today,” she said.
In 1997, BackRub changed its name to Google.
Still, others argue that a few success stories don't make it ok for the NSF to spend taxpayer money. Shortly before the sequester took effect, the administration warned that up to 12,000 scientists and students could be impacted by the cuts due to reduced NSF research grants. The administration also warned about cutbacks at the National Institutes of Health, which "would delay progress on the prevention of debilitating chronic conditions ... and delay development of more effective treatments for common and rare diseases affecting millions of Americans."
But Coburn, among those who say the administration is taking unnecessary measures to comply with the sequester, says there are plenty of other ways to save.
Another program Coburn calls out is "Snooki" -- a robot bird that impersonates a female sage grouse to examine the importance of courtship tactics of males.
"Every dollar spent on projects such as these could have instead supported research to design a next-generation robotic limb to treat injured war heroes or a life-saving hurricane detection system," Coburn writes in his letter.
Coburn said the number of new research grants could be reduced by as many as 1,000.
Through audits and investigations, the NSF Inspector General identified more than $309 million in questionable and poorly spent funds in just the second half of fiscal year 2012.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

This Is The Real Reason Obama Won!

She admitted voting twice in the presidential election last November, and now, Obama supporter Melowese Richardson has been indicted for allegedly voting at least six times. She also is charged with illegal voting in 2008 and 2011.
The 58-year-old veteran Cincinnati poll worker, indicted Monday, faces eight counts of voter fraud. Two others, one of whom is a nun, have been charged separately.
Richardson had admitted on camera to a local TV station, "Yes, I voted twice," claiming she was concerned that her vote would not count. She also said there "was no intent on my part to commit any voter fraud."
"I'll fight it for Mr. Obama and Mr. Obama's right to sit as president of the United States," she proclaimed in the interview.
Officials charged that she voted in her own name by absentee ballot and also in person at the polls, but Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney Joseph Deters said she also is charged with voting in the name of five other people in various elections.
"This is not North Korea," Deters said in a statement announcing the indictments. "Elections are a serious business and the foundation of our democracy. In the scheme of things, individual votes may not seem important, but this could not be further from the truth. Every vote is important and every voter and candidate needs to have faith in our system. The charges today should let people know that we take this seriously."
Richardson made national headlines when the Hamilton County Board of Elections announced that it was investigating whether she voted up to half a dozen times, including on behalf of her granddaughter, India Richardson.
India told Fox News that her grandmother did indeed vote in her name, telling us that "it wasn't a big deal."
But voting twice or in another person's name is illegal.
Prosecutors say the five other people for whom Richardson cast ballots are all relatives.
Sister Marguerite Kloos also faces one count of illegal voting, for allegedly submitting an absentee ballot in the name of a fellow nun, Sister Rose Marie Hewitt, who had died before absentee ballots were sent out. She is accused of opening Sister Hewitt’s ballot, forging her signature and mailing it to the Board of Elections as a vote.
The 54-year-old Kloos has resigned as the dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, where she still serves as an associate professor of religious and pastoral studies.
Kloos was not indicted but faces what is known as an information, because her lawyer contacted prosecutors and she agreed to cooperate and plead guilty.
"As a valued member of the Mount community, our thoughts are with her during this difficult time," the college said in a written statement. "We respect her privacy and will not comment further on this matter at this time."
Russell Glassop, 75, also is charged with illegal voting.  He is accused of voting on behalf of his wife, who died before election day.
But it was Richardson's case, and the possibility of repeated votes, that shocked many. She faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted. Efforts to contact her and her lawyer have been unsuccessful.
The Hamilton County Board of Elections recently held hearings on cases of possible double voting and voter fraud, part of a statewide review ordered by Secretary of State John Husted. He called on all 88 counties to review complaints of fraud, as well as voter disenfranchisement.
“Every voter must play by the rules, and if they don’t they will be held accountable,” Husted, a Republican, said in a written statement. “For voters to have confidence in our elections, we must prosecute every case of voter fraud in Ohio.”
Last month, Husted told Fox News that Richardson's case was especially troubling, because "it appears she not only attempted to vote more than once, but was actually successful at it and having those additional votes counted."
"Most attempts are caught by the system. But there are cases that do slip through, as this one does, and we need to make sure that we really send a strong message, that if you do this, you are going to be held accountable,” Husted said. “It might mean fines, it might mean jail time."

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Like a unwanted guest that just want leave!




U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice is the leading contender to become the White House’s new national security adviser, following a failed bid to become secretary of state, a senior Obama administration official told Fox News this weekend.
President Obama could appoint Rice without the Senate confirmation needed for a Cabinet post. Rice withdrew herself from consideration for the secretary of state post in the face of withering criticism by congressional Republicans and others for her handling of the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012, Libya terror attacks.
Five days after the attacks that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans at a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, Rice said the attacks appeared spontaneous and sparked by an anti-Islamic video.             (Bailey comment: Bullshit.)
Rice, 48, later said she gave an incorrect account, based on intelligence reports at the time. However, subsequent meetings with leading Senate Republicans appeared only to increase her lack of support for the Cabinet post.
This weekend, the administration official told Fox a Rice appointment is not imminent because the president still has to find an ambassadorship or another post for current National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon.
Fox first reported last year, shortly after the outcome of the November elections, that Rice might get the NSA post –- under the assumption Donilon might become the new White House chief of staff.
Donilon did not get the job so the president must first find a new post for him before moving Rice.
Rice_Susan2.jpg

MYTHS, LIES, AND COMPLETE STUPIDITY

What you think you know... is often wrong. Sunday I look at seven MYTHS... LIES... AND COMPLETE STUPIDITIES:
• FOOD... MYTH: Government should help people make healthy choices for themselves. TRUTH: The nanny state reduces your freedom while accomplishing little.
• MAIL... MYTH: The post office should deliver the mail. TRUTH: The private sector does it better.
• FRACKING... MYTH: Fracking is dangerous. TRUTH: Fracking is dangerous but can easily be safely managed, and fracking has done more to help the environment than all the "green" energy sources combined (it replaces dirtier gasoline and coal.)
• LAWSUITS... MYTH: Lawsuits protect consumers. TRUTH: Lawsuits make valuable products cost more.
• HEALTHCARE... MYTH: Obamacare is good for business. TRUTH: Government intervention kills innovation. Kills jobs too.
• INFRASTRUCTURE... MYTH: Government must build infrastructure. TRUTH: Business builds it better.
• IMPERIAL WASHINGTON... MYTH: Washington D.C. is about serving the public. TRUTH: DC is about empire building.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

White House suspends public tours, but first family trips in full swing

Visitors to the nation's capital looking for a White House public tour are out of luck starting this weekend, courtesy of what the Secret Service says is its own decision to deal with the sequester cuts.
But while the agency said it needed to pull officers off the tours for more pressing assignments, the budget ax didn't swing early or deep enough to curtail a host of recent Secret Service-chaperoned trips like President Obama's much-discussed Florida golf outing with Tiger Woods and first lady Michelle Obama's high-profile multi-city media appearances.
Obama's pricey golf outings have been a particular target for Republicans who see them as examples of what they say are the administration's rather selective concerns with running up the tab of Secret Service resources. On March 5, Texas Rep. Louis Gohmert filed an amendment to a House resolution that would prohibit federal funds from being spent on Obama's golf trips until public tours of the White House resumed.
Gohmert referenced press reports pegging the cost of a recent Florida golf outing Obama took with Tiger Woods at $1 million. He also cited press reports saying 341 federal workers could have been spared furloughs if Obama had stayed home. 
"The president's travel expenses alone, for the golfing outing with Tiger Woods, would pay for a year of White House visits," Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer said Thursday. "So I suggest that perhaps he curtail the travel."
The price tag and draw on Secret Service resources involving promotional campaigns like Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative is less clear.
The Secret Service does not usually reveal how many agents and other resources are assigned to protective missions so it's not known just how much it cost taxpayers to ferry the first lady to events like her dance routine on Jimmy Fallon's show -- the highlight of a Feb. 22 media blitz in New York -- or her Feb. 27-28 visit to Mississippi, Missouri and her hometown of Chicago.
Those trips would all have involved Secret Service details traveling with the first lady, as well as advance work by teams of agents on location.
When asked by FoxNews.com if the first lady's office or schedule would be affected by the sequester, the White House issued a 100-word statement that made no mention of any specific cuts that might affect Michelle Obama's activities -- while making a generic reference to cuts affecting the "Executive Office of the President," which houses the first lady's office.
Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest, asked how the White House was cutting back, on Friday said there would be furloughs and pay cuts.
On the decision to close the tours, Press Secretary Jay Carney a day earlier said "the President and the first lady have throughout the time that they've been here made extraordinary efforts to make this the people's house, and it is extremely unfortunate that we have a situation like the sequester that compels the kinds of tradeoffs and decisions that this represents."
It's also not clear what Secret Service resources were dedicated to a recent New York visit by 14-year-old Malia Obama, who was spotted dining with a group of friends at a New York restaurant shortly after President Obama signed off on the sequester. There were Secret Service agents in the restaurant, according to reports that said they stayed behind the group.
How much overtime these types of assignments cost the Secret Service may be an area of concern. Donovan told FoxNews.com that overtime costs factored into the decision to shut down the White House tours. By taking the 30 officers involved in the tours and assigning them to high-priority security posts, officers normally on those duties can log fewer hours -- in turn saving the Secret Service money.
"It reduces overtime costs overall for us," Donovan said.
The tours will not be rescheduled and will stay frozen until further notice.
That's bad news for groups like the sixth graders at St. Paul's Lutheran School in Iowa, who had been planning to take the White House tour on March 16. Fourteen students from that group and their teacher on Thursday took their frustrations to Facebook. In a web video, they held up handmade posters and chanted, "The White House is our house."
Some Republicans in Congress expressed their displeasure with the cuts more forcefully. "Canceling all self-guided White House tours is the latest shameless political stunt by the president, who is twisting basic government efficiency into an extreme consequence," Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., said in a statement March 5.

Bet it wasn't Tiger!

Henry Payne

Tuesday, March 5, 2013


Steve Kelley

Holder: Yep, Obama could kill Americans on U.S. soil

President Barack Obama has the legal authority to unleash deadly force—such as drone strikes—against Americans on U.S. soil without first putting them on trial, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter released Tuesday.
But Holder, writing to Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, underlined that Obama “has no intention” of targeting his fellow citizens with unmanned aerial vehicles and would do so only if facing “an extraordinary circumstance.”
Paul had asked the Obama administration on Feb. 20 whether the president "has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil and without trial." On Tuesday, he denounced Holder's response as “frightening” and “an affront to the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans.”
“The U.S. government has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so,” Holder assured Paul in the March 4, 2013 letter. The attorney general also underlined that “we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat.”
Holder added: “The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no President will ever have to confront."
But "it is possible, I suppose to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States," Holder said. "For example, the President could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack” like Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
“Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the President on the scope of this authority,” said Holder.
Paul, whose office released the letter, denounced the attorney general’s comments.
"The U.S. Attorney General's refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening—it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans," the senator said in a statement.
The exchange came as the White House agreed to give Senate Intelligence Committee members access to all of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel opinions justifying Obama's expanded campaign of targeted assassination of suspected terrorists overseas, including American citizens. Some lawmakers had warned they would try to block top Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan's nomination to head the CIA unless they were able to see the memos.
A few hours after the White House agreed to share the information, the committee approved Brennan 12-3, setting the stage for a full Senate vote.
Obama's drone war—relatively popular at home, reviled across the Muslim world—has drawn fresh scrutiny ever since NBC News obtained and published a Justice Department memo that lays out the legal justification behind it. The White House has defended the policy as “necessary,” “ethical” and “wise.” But civil liberties champions have sharply criticized it.undefined

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