Thursday, June 6, 2013

Susan Rice

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

What’s the Penalty If You Don’t Buy Health Insurance? What does Obama do to you?

To buy or pay the penalty?

That is the question that will confront many U.S. residents in the coming months, when open enrollment season begins for health insurance coverage, under the terms of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare.

ACA will be fully implemented on January 1, 2014, when most legal U.S. residents will be required to have “minimum essential health coverage” or make a “shared responsibility payment,” as the Congressional Budget Office puts it in regulations it rolled out last fall. That’s code for penalty.

The penalty “is enforced through a (Internal Revenue Service) tax code,” noted Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, D.C.

So when you file your 2014 tax returns, you will have to let Uncle Sam know what kind of health insurance coverage you have and what, if any, tax credit you are eligible for, unless you can claim you are exempt from buying health insurance.

Non-financial exclusions include:

• You are between jobs and without insurance for up to three months.
• It contradicts your religious beliefs.
• You are an undocumented immigrant.
• You are a member of an Indian tribe.
• You are in jail.

The financial exclusions for not having health insurance include having a family income so low that you don’t have to file an income-tax return, Pollitz said. Or your minimum essential coverage exceeds a certain percentage of your household income for the most recent taxable year. In 2014, that is 8 percent.

Coverage could take many forms. It could be a government-sponsored plan like Medicaid or Medicare, an employer-sponsored plan or a plan purchased on the individual market.

Applicable penalty

The individual one-time penalty under ACA in 2014 will be $95 per adult, or one percent of your income, whichever is greater. So say your annual income is $50,000, you’d pay $500. For every uninsured child, the penalty is $47.50. The family maximum is $285.
“Coverage is assessed on a monthly basis,” said Pollitz. “So if you were uninsured for six months, you’d owe half the otherwise applicable penalty.”

She said that the government has given a wide window – from Oct. 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014 – for enrollment this time, but from next year on there will only be a three-month window to sign up.

Will people take the gamble and skip coverage, hoping that their youth or good health will protect them?

If the state of Massachusetts, which passed a landmark health care law in 2006, which became the blueprint for the 2010 ACA, is any indication the number of people who will refuse to get some form of coverage will be low, Pollitz surmised.

In Massachusetts, she observed, “there’s a culture of coverage. Most people want to comply with the law.”

Indeed, within a year and a half after the law passed there, the majority of people signed up for coverage.

But when it comes to the ACA, an estimated 6 million people, who cannot claim legitimate exclusions, will likely take the gamble and remain uninsured in 2016, the government predicts.

Pollitz said there are no criminal penalties to those who violate the law, just a civil one. That could mean seizing your refund.

http://newamericamedia.org/2013/05/whats-the-penalty-if-you-dont-buy-health-insurance.php

Monday, June 3, 2013

Wife of former IRS chief a top adviser to left-leaning DC group

Published June 03, 2013

| FoxNews.com

The former IRS commissioner who ran the agency when it was singling out conservative groups is married to a senior adviser for a prominent left-leaning political organization focused largely on campaign finance reform.
Ex-Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who faced a tough round of questioning by Congress last month on the IRS scandal, has denied knowing that the agency targeted Tea Party groups between 2010 and 2012. But he faced new questions following a report that he visited the White House, or the adjacent executive office buildings, at least 157 times during the Obama administration.
Amid the scrutiny, it turns out his wife, Susan L. Anderson, is a senior program adviser for the Washington-based group Public Campaign.
The group bills itself as nonpartisan, and states it is working with “a broad range of organizations” to reform campaign-finance rules.
However, the group receives much of its funding from such liberal groups as the Ford Foundation, Barbra Streisand’s The Streisand Foundation and Health Care for America NOW, a coalition of labor unions supporting ObamaCare that includes the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, according to the Public Campaign website.
In addition, Public Campaign appeared in 2011 to leave little to the imagination about its views on campaign finance – that the wealthiest Americans, specifically the top 1 percent, are trying to buy or influence elections by secretly donating to political groups.
The group produced a “holiday card” video in which one person said: “Sure my kids might get asthma because Congress keeps doing dirty energy’s bidding, but the Koch brothers need their third home.”
David and Charles Koch, successful businessmen aligned with conservative and libertarian causes, have such nonprofit groups as the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation and support Tea Party-tied heavyweights like FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity.
When the scandal over the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups broke, Public Campaign also appeared to defend the tax agency.
Nick Nyhart, chief executive for Public Campaign, suggested to ABC News that the misdeeds of a “few bad apples” within the agency will “make it harder for those questions to be asked without claims of bias.”
Anderson has also been a supporter and apparent participant in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
She participated in Occupy DC events and tweeted such messages as “DC, good morning! Come down to the (National) Mall and tell your 99 percent story.”
Shulman and Anderson met as students at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Shulman was appointed commissioner by former President George W. Bush.
He reportedly logged more than 100 visits to the White House under Obama, a claim he did not deny during congressional testimony last month on the IRS scandal. That number refers to the number of times Shulman was cleared to visit.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Fracking Out

A state legislator accused of using fake names to attack supporters of fracking says he's sorry.
An investigation by Pittsburgh TV station KDKA concluded that Pennsylvania Democratic Representative Jesse White used several different names to post harsh comments about supporters of natural gas drilling.
The comments targeted two specific supporters -- calling them "trolls," "moles", and "dumber than a box of rocks."
The posts even identified one opponent's farm and encouraged people to boycott his products.
The website where the posts were made traced all the names back to White's legislative e-mail address.
Yesterday, White posted a statement on his Facebook page apologizing for what he calls an error in judgment.

Bailey Comment: It seems to me a Democrat that gets caught doing or saying something wrong can not be held accountable for it as long as they say I'm sorry.

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-report-bret-baier/2013/05/31/grapevine-legislator-uses-fake-names-attack-constituents

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Judge orders Google to turn over customer data to FBI

Demo. Barbara Boxer is best Buds with this Judge, and she was nominated by Pres. Bill Clinton for the position. Does this clarify why she would rule this way?

Judge orders Google to turn over customer data to FBI

Published June 01, 2013

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge has ruled that Google Inc. must comply with the FBI's warrantless demands for customer data, rejecting the company's argument that the government's practice of issuing so-called national security letters to telecommunication companies, Internet service providers, banks and others was unconstitutional and unnecessary.
FBI counter-terrorism agents began issuing the secret letters, which don't require a judge's approval, after Congress passed the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The letters are used to collect unlimited kinds of sensitive, private information, such as financial and phone records and have prompted complaints of government privacy violations in the name of national security. Many of Google's services, including its dominant search engine and the popular Gmail application, have become daily habits for millions of people.
In a ruling written May 20 and obtained Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston ordered Google to comply with the FBI's demands.
But she put her ruling on hold until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could decide the matter. Until then, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company must comply with the letters unless it shows the FBI didn't follow proper procedures in making its demands for customer data in the 19 letters Google is challenging, she said.
After receiving sworn statements from two top-ranking FBI officials, Illston said she was satisfied that 17 of the 19 letters were issued properly. She wanted more information on two other letters.
It was unclear from the judge's ruling what type of information the government sought to obtain with the letters. It was also unclear who the government was targeting.
The decision from the San Francisco-based Illston comes several months after she ruled in a separate case brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation over the letters. She ruled in March that the FBI's demand that recipients refrain from telling anyone — including customers — that they had received the letters was a violation of free speech rights.
Kurt Opsah, an attorney with the foundation, said it could be many more months before the appeals court rules on the constitutionality of the letters in the Google case.
"We are disappointed that the same judge who declared these letters unconstitutional is now requiring compliance with them," Opsah said on Friday.
Illston's May 20 order omits any mention of Google or that the proceedings have been closed to the public. But the judge said "the petitioner" was involved in a similar case filed on April 22 in New York federal court.
Public records show that on that same day, the federal government filed a "petition to enforce National Security Letter" against Google after the company declined to cooperate with government demands.
Google can still appeal Illston's decision. The company declined comment Friday.
In 2007, the Justice Department's inspector general found widespread violations in the FBI's use of the letters, including demands without proper authorization and information obtained in non-emergency circumstances. The FBI has tightened oversight of the system.
The FBI made 16,511 national security letter requests for information regarding 7,201 people in 2011, the latest data available.

Bagdad Bob?

ObamaCare criticism is not about race, it’s about facts

State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, the head of the Louisiana Democratic Party, said on the floor of the state Senate this week that opponents of the federal health care overhaul are motivated by President Obama's race. Peterson, who is also chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, then went on to repeatedly bring up race as she railed against ObamaCare critics.
"I have talked to so many members both in the House and the Senate, and you know what? You ready? You ready? What it comes down to? It's not about how many federal dollars we can receive, it's not about that. You ready? It's about race," Peterson said. "I know nobody wants to talk about that. It's about the race of this African-American president.”
Personally, I am outraged by Peterson’s comments – and I’m sure many opponents of the health care overhaul are as well. I am an American through and through. My roots are of Latino heritage – which I happen to be very proud of – and I will not tolerate being called a racist. I have cared for and treated minority patients throughout my career as a doctor.
My criticisms of ObamaCare are based on facts. It is a poorly executed plan, the American public was not informed and the agenda that was implemented behind the passing of this legislation is not one that I agree with. That is why I criticize ObamaCare.
If race is the best argument that a Democratic leader can come up with to explain why so many people are opposed to this new law, then they’ve got a lot of work to do.
My home is a rainbow of colors. My children have been raised in a multicultural environment and I am very proud of how we have raised them to form opinions based on fact – not emotion.
Peterson did release a statement on Thursday afternoon that was intended to clarify her remarks. However, she also seemed to defend them.
"I think we should judge a policy by its content, not the person proposing it," her statement said. "To be clear, I didn't call any person 'racist.' Rather, I was simply relaying the truth about conversations I've had with my colleagues and the factors they considered on the expansion of Medicaid. While others are using this as an opportunity to take my comments out of context in order to distract from the true issue, I think it's critical that we focus on the substance of the policy because it's the right thing to do for Louisiana."
But making a statement after the fact is easy. I don’t want an apology from State Sen. Peterson, what I want is for her to look the American public in the eye and explain her remarks.