Biden Slams House Conservatives as 'Neanderthals'

Vice President Joe Biden Thursday blamed conservative Republicans in the House for slowing down the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, calling them a "Neanderthal crowd" out of touch with the problems and realities that women have to confront in today's world.

"I'm going to say something outrageous," Biden said. "I think I understand the Senate better than any man or woman who's ever served in there, and I think I understand the House . . . I was surprised this last time . . . the idea we still had to fight? We had to fight to reauthorize?"

"Did you ever think we'd be fighting over, you know, 17, 18 years later to reauthorize this?" he asked an audience at an event celebrating the 19th anniversary of the original law passed in 1994. "Well, you know what? The thing they didn't like, they said we like it the way it is."

According to Politico, Biden applauded the new version of the bill passed in March, which added protections for Native American women, members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community, and immigrants.

The Huffington Post also reported that he told his audience he was "stunned" that House Republicans, whom he described as "this sort of Neanderthal crowd," had fought so hard against the reauthorization. He credited the work of women in the Senate for finally getting it through.

"It makes a difference with women in the Senate," he said to applause. "It does. It does, man . . . Because they go and look all the rest of those guys in the eye and say, 'Look. This is important to me.'"

"Nothing, nothing, nothing I've ever been engaged in matters to me more than what you've made real," he added.

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Emails show IRS official Lerner involved in Tea Party screening

May 22, 2013: IRS official Lois Lerner is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington.AP

Embattled IRS official Lois Lerner appeared to be deeply involved in scrutinizing the applications of Tea Party groups for tax-exempt status, according to newly released emails that further challenge the claim the targeting was the work of rogue Ohio-based employees.
One curious February 2011 email from Lerner said, "Tea Party Matter very dangerous" -- before going on to warn that the "matter" could be used to go to court to test campaign spending limits.
Much of the email, released along with others by the House Ways and Means Committee, is redacted, so the full context is not clear.
But the same email warned that "Cincy" -- presumably a reference to the Cincinnati IRS office -- should "probably NOT have these cases." That and other emails show Lerner and other Washington, D.C., officials playing a big role in dealing with Tea Party cases.
The emails could raise more questions for Lerner, who refused to testify before Congress earlier this year in the Tea Party targeting scandal. While the case seemed to hit the backburner as Congress went on recess, and then returned to take up the debate over Syria, investigations are still ongoing.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said there are "mountains of documents to go through."
"There is increasing and overwhelming evidence that Lois Lerner and high-level IRS employees in Washington were abusing their power to prevent conservative groups from organizing and carrying out their missions," he said in a statement. "It is clear the IRS is out of control and there will be consequences."
The emails show several D.C. officials involved in the screening process, despite early claims after the scandal broke that the Cincinnati office was to blame.
Another February 2011 email from IRS official Holly Paz said "no decisions are going out of Cincy" until the D.C. office goes through the process. Lerner wrote back giving further guidance.
More than a year later, Lerner was alerted via email that the inspector general's office was looking into how they were dealing with applications for tax-exempt status, and that they were taking a "skeptical tone."
"It is what it is," Lerner wrote back, while claiming that management tried to "change the process" and "better educate our staff" to get applications moving.
"We will get dinged, but we took steps before the 'dinging' to make things better," she wrote.
Another email from July 2012 also raises questions about Lerner's political leanings. After being forwarded an article about Democrats claiming anonymous donors were financing attack ads against them, Lerner wrote: "Perhaps the (Federal Election Commission) will save the day."
IRS officials, though, have said the screening program was not politically motivated. The inspector general's office has said it has no evidence to support such claims either.
The IRS said in a statement this week that while it cannot comment on "individual employee matters," newly appointed Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel "made a commitment to transparency and getting the facts out to Congress as well as fixing the underlying mismanagement in the IRS tax-exempt area."
The statement said the IRS is cooperating with Congress while taking "corrective actions," and supports a "complete review of these documents."
Lerner was put on administrative leave after the inspector general's office issued a scathing report claiming the IRS had subjected conservative groups to additional scrutiny as they applied for tax-exempt status. Lerner got ahead of the report's release and confirmed the practice during a Washington event.
While Congress investigates, Tea Party groups are still registering complaints. A Washington Times report said more than 50 applications were still pending or had been pulled as of July.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/13/emails-show-irs-official-lerner-involved-in-tea-party-screening/#ixzz2ep9buKXk

Republicans move to halt ObamaCare 'bailout' for angry unions

Capitol Hill Republicans are trying to stop the Obama administration from offering labor unions a sweetheart deal on ObamaCare, as the White House tries to quell a simmering rebellion from Big Labor over the health care law. 
President Obama and White House officials reportedly have called union leaders to try and persuade them to tone down their complaints, pledging an accommodation. The AFL-CIO, though, on Wednesday approved a resolution anyway calling the law "highly disruptive" to union plans.
But reports have surfaced on a plan that would give union workers -- and only union workers -- subsidies to help pay for health insurance even if they're covered through their job. The purported "carve-out" could soothe the simmering discontent within Big Labor. The loyal Democratic supporters and early champions of ObamaCare say they have been slighted by the act’s final regulations, which they say is pushing some employees into part-time work and threatens their health insurance plans.
At least three congressional Republicans are trying to stop any effort to give the unions special treatment, which could cost $200 billion over 10 years.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., on Monday introduced the "Union Bailout Prevention Act," which would stop the granting of subsidies to offset premium costs for the multi-employer plans held by many union members. Separately, the House voted on Thursday to stop all subsidies until the administration launches a system to verify recipients are eligible.
Big Labor argues that workers without additional subsidies will switch to less-expensive, major-insurer plans, creating a withering effect on the so-called Taft-Hartley plans.
Thune and others argue the plans are already government-subsidized and the workers’ contributions are already tax-exempt.
“A deal such as this by the administration for the union would be illegal,” Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Michigan Rep. Dave Camp said in a letter Tuesday to the Treasury Department. “Giving union workers exchange subsidies in addition to the income-tax exclusion would be double dipping.”
News reports about the plan have been circulating for days, including an early one by the Inside Washington news service. The Health and Human Services Department did not return calls or emails from FoxNews.com asking about the veracity of those reports.
Labor unions launched a multi-targeted attack this summer to force changes to ObamaCare, including one on the mandate for employers to offer insurance to full-time employees, which they say has resulted in more part-time jobs. Though that provision has been delayed, the concern is that employers are shaving the number of full-time employees in order to stay under the law's threshold for when they have to start offering coverage.
“Unless you and the Obama administration enact an equitable fix, the (Affordable Care Act) will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week,” union leaders wrote in a letter this summer to congressional Democratic leaders.
The letter, co-signed by the Teamsters union, was sent to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada, and followed a resolution by a Nevada chapter of the AFL-CIO hammering on the same issues.
“The unintended consequences of the ACA will lead to the destruction of the 40-hour work week … and force union members onto more costly plans,” the resolution stated.
Labor unions also feel slighted because low-income Americans are eligible for subsidies to help them purchase insurance through exchanges or marketplaces created by ObamaCare, when enrollment begins Oct. 1.
“Other stakeholders have repeatedly received successful interpretations for their respective grievances,” the unions told Pelosi and Reid in the July letter.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/12/hill-republicans-launch-pre-emptive-strike-on-union-subsidies-for-obamacare/#ixzz2elNxVGVZ

Putin

School Tells Child She Can’t Write About God

By Todd Starnes
A Tennessee mom is looking for answers after her daughter’s teacher refused to let the child write about God for a school assignment.
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Erin Shead, a 10-year-old student at Lucy Elementary School in Millington, was assigned to write about someone she idolized. The girl, who is a Christian, decided to write about God.
“I look up to God,” she wrote. “I love him and Jesus, and Jesus is His earthly son. I also love Jesus.”
The youngster also said that God would “always be the #1 person I look up to.”

From WREG

“It was so cute and innocent,” Erica Shead told television station WREG. “She talked about how God created the Earth.”
But Shead said her daughter’s teacher objected to the choice and told her she could not use God as an idol for the assignment.
Erin told her mom that it had something to do with religion  - that God could not be her idol. The teacher then allegedly told the child that she had to take the paper about God home – because it could not remain on school property.
“How can you tell this baby – that’s a Christian – what she can say and what she can’t say?” Shead asked.
The teacher approved of Erin’s second choice — Michael Jackson.
Shead told WREG she met with the principal and still has questions about what happened.
“I told the principal this morning, would it be better if she wrote about Ellen Degeneres?” she said. “Of course there was no comment.”
Christian Ross, a spokesman for Shelby County Schools, told Fox News ”teachers are prohibited from promoting religious beliefs in the classroom.”
However he said the district does not have a policy that prohibits a student from expressing religious beliefs in class assignments.
If that’s the case, why was Erin Shead not allowed to write about God?
Ross did not provide an answer.
“This incident has been addressed at the school-level, and the principal has contacted parents of the student regarding their concerns,” he said. “Out of respect for and in order to protect the privacy of individual  students and staff, the district is not commenting further on this matter.”

Most Illegal Immigrant Families Collect Welfare

Surprise, surprise; Census Bureau data reveals that most U.S. families headed by illegal immigrants use taxpayer-funded welfare programs on behalf of their American-born anchor babies.Even before the recession, immigrant households with children used welfare programs at consistently higher rates than natives, according to the extensive census data collected and analyzed by a nonpartisan Washington D.C. group dedicated to researching legal and illegal immigration in the U.S. The results, published this month in a lengthy report, are hardly surprising.Basically, the majority of households across the country benefiting from publicly-funded welfare programs are headed by immigrants, both legal and illegal. States where immigrant households with children have the highest welfare use rates are Arizona (62%), Texas, California and New York with 61% each and Pennsylvania(59%).The study focused on eight major welfare programs that cost the government $517 billion the year they were examined. They include Supplemental Security Income (SIS) for the disabled, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), a nutritional program known as Women, Infants and Children (WIC), food stamps, free/reduced school lunch, public housing and health insurance for the poor (Medicaid).Food assistance and Medicaid are the programs most commonly used by illegal immigrants, mainly on behalf of their American-born children who get automatic citizenship. On the other hand, legal immigrant households take advantage of every available welfare program, according to the study, which attributes it to low education level and resulting low income.The highest rate of welfare recipients come from the Dominican Republic (82 %), Mexico and Guatemala (75%) and Ecuador (70%), according to the report, which says welfare use tends to be high for both new arrivals and established residents.

Flip Flop

Colorado state senators recalled over gun control support

Two Democratic lawmakers in Colorado, including the president of the state senate, were recalled Tuesday in elections brought about by their support for tougher gun control laws. 
According to unofficial results, voters in Colorado Springs favored recalling state Sen. John Morse, the body's president, by 51 percent to 49 percent. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, state Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo was defeated in her recall election, 56 percent to 44 percent.  
The Colorado Republican Party called the vote results "a loud and clear message to out-of-touch Democrats across the nation" in a statement released late Tuesday. Colorado's Democratic governor, John Hickenlooper, said he was "disappointed by the outcome of the recall elections" before calling on state residents to "refocus again on what unites Coloradans -- creating jobs, educating our children, creating a healthier state -- and on finding ways to keep Colorado moving forward."
"We as the Democratic party will continue to fight," Morse told supporters in Colorado Springs as he conceded the race. Republican Bernie Herpin, a former Colorado Springs city councilman, will replace him. Giron will be replaced by Republican George Rivera, a former deputy police chief in Pueblo.
"We will win in the end because we are on the right side," Giron said in her concession speech.
The votes marked the first time in Colorado history that a state lawmaker faced a recall effort and the biggest backlash in states that passed tougher gun-control laws following two mass shootings last year – at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater and a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.
Democratic-leaning Connecticut, Maryland, and New York also passed tougher gun laws without a recall effort making a state ballot.
The states’ effort came after President Obama’s unsuccessful attempt to get Congress to pass stricter federal laws – including tighter background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines.
In Colorado Springs, the majority of registered voters are Democrats, but many are conservative-leaning. 23 percent of them, in fact, signed the petition to recall Morse, according to The Denver Post.
The National Rifle Association and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lined up on opposite sides of the recall effort, led by gun-rights advocates upset over the legislation and how the hearings were conducted.
Both state legislators voted for 15-round limits on ammunition magazines and for expanded background checks on private gun sales.
The legislation passed Colorado's Democrat-led legislature without any Republican support and was signed into law by Hickenlooper, who had initially rejected calls for stronger gun control laws.
Morse, a former police chief in suburban Colorado Springs, said Colorado's gun laws were commonsense ideas to reduce fatalities in mass shootings. He was first elected to the Colorado Senate in 2006.
Reported contributions to Morse and Giron totaled about $3 million, dwarfing the reported amount raised by gun activists who petitioned for the recall, though some independent groups didn't have to report spending. Both the NRA and Bloomberg contributed more than $300,000 to the pro- and anti-recall campaigns.
In addition, dozens of elected county sheriffs have sued to block the gun laws.
One of the Morse recall organizers, Timothy Knight, said supporters are upset that lawmakers limited debate on the gun legislation and seemed more inclined to take cues from the White House than their constituents.
"If the people had been listened to, these recalls wouldn't be happening," Knight said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/10/colorado-dems-face-historic-recall-over-gun-votes/?intcmp=HPBucket#ixzz2eZhXU6vg