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

House leadership pushes new legislative strategy to defund ObamaCare

House Republican leaders on Tuesday defended their proposal for a temporary spending bill that essentially puts the contentious issue of “defunding” ObamaCare in the hands of the Democrat-controlled Senate.
“The House has voted 40 times to defund, repeal and change ObamaCare,” House Speaker John Boehner said. “This strategy is intended not to really satisfy the House. We've already voted. It enforces the fight in the United States Senate. … Let's get the issue over there and force them to actually have a vote.”
His comments came as the House leadership proposed a legislative strategy to vote on the spending measure and defunding, then send the package to the Senate.
It follows a GOP-led cross-country, grass-roots effort to garner support to block funding to implement the Affordable Care Act before enrollment begins Oct. 1.
The strategy would essentially allow Republicans to say they voted to defund ObamaCare while keeping the government open.
Congress must agree on a temporary spending bill before Oct 1., when the government technically runs out of money, meaning there would be a temporary shutdown.
It was unclear late Tuesday whether the House gimmick would satisfy the chamber’s conservative caucus, whose members have pressed for a straight-up defund vote.
A spokesman for Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, among the chamber’s most conservative members, told FoxNews.com that the congressman is going to reserve comment until the legislation is written and amendments are filed.
However, Heritage Action for America, which sponsored this summer’s defund town hall tour, opposed the plan.
“This is a legislative gimmick designed to provide political cover to those who are unwilling to fight to defund ObamaCare,” said Michael A. Needham, the group’s chief executive officer.“Any constituent who looks at this vote will know it is intended to look like a vote to defund ObamaCare while failing to do so.”
The plan must first go through the House Rules Committee, which if approved could get a vote as early as Thursday.
Though rank-and-file House Republicans might be upset with leadership’s strategy, Boehner and his team argued Tuesday they wanted to defund the law.
“We're going to continue to do everything we can to protect Americans from this harmful health care law,” Boehner said. “This is not good for the country. It's not good for the health care system. It will bankrupt and ruin the best health care delivery system the world has ever known.”
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said: “More and more people are struggling because they don't know where the price of their health care is going, all because ObamaCare is about to become fully implemented. And we're trying to everything we can to stave that possibility off.”
He also suggested House Republicans were going to push a bill by Tennessee Rep. Diane Black that requires the Obama administration to have in place a strict income-verification system before giving tax credits to help Americans pay for health insurance under the new law.
In the Senate, Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake introduced a bill Tuesday to delay for one year all of ObamaCare’s provisions going into effect on January 1, 2014 or later.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/10/boehner-gimmick-tries-walking-fine-line-between-shutdown-and-defund/?test=latestnews#ixzz2eXHnKFjl

Transgender 6-Year-Olds in Potty Spurs California Repeal Drive

Californians jolted by the mental image of children sharing lavatories and locker rooms with opposite-sex classmates are campaigning to repeal the nation’s first law requiring schools to accommodate transgender pupils.
The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, requires all schools receiving state funds to let children choose between boys’ or girls’ bathrooms, for instance, and participate in sex- segregated sports teams based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex.
The drive to put a repeal on the ballot echoes a 2008 initiative, Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment passed by voters that banned same-sex unions. California resumed gay weddings in June following a Supreme Court ruling.
“It is just fundamentally wrong,” said Doug Boyd, a lawyer circulating petitions in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendora. “It’s against the laws of God and nature.”
Boyd, 60, said he can’t stomach the idea of his 6- and 7- year-old daughters sharing school bathrooms, showers or locker rooms with a boy who sees himself as a girl.
A coalition led by the Capitol Resource Institute, a Sacramento-based nonprofit group that promotes itself as a “watchdog for family values,” is seeking about 500,000 signatures to put a repeal on the 2014 ballot.
“This law just goes way too far,” said Karen England, executive director of the institute and a co-leader of the petition drive. “We need to protect the privacy of all students, not just some students.”
Opposite Sex
Transgender people are those who are born as one sex, yet behave and maintain an appearance consistent with the other sex. While Massachusetts, Connecticut, Washington and Colorado have policies on transgender schoolchildren, only California has incorporated them into its laws, according to Equality California, the state’s largest gay-rights group.
The law’s supporters, which include the California State PTA and Governor Jerry Brown, a 75-year-old Democrat, underestimated the public backlash, Boyd said. He said he expects to easily obtain signatures to overturn the law in his neighborhood and at his 5,000-member church, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills.
“I have a 6-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old daughter in public schools and I’ll be darned if there are boys in their bathrooms,” Boyd said. He said he’d put the girls in another school before making them share bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams with opposite-sex peers.
Accommodation Plan
Michelle Hunter, the Glendora Unified School District’s assistant superintendent for educational services, said officials at the 7,700-student system are awaiting policy guidance on the law from lobbyists for school boards in Sacramento. Hunter said she doesn’t anticipate any costs from the law, as Glendora already has some restrooms for individual students. Boyd said he’s unaware of any transgender students attending his children’s school in Glendora, about 30 miles (45 kilometers) northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Hunter said she couldn’t disclose any information on the number of such students.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, about 0.5 percent of its 153,000 high-schoolers, or about 763, self- identified as transgender in a 2011 survey, said Judy Chiasson, program coordinator for human relations, diversity and equity.
The Los Angeles and San Francisco school districts already have policies allowing students to use facilities and join sports teams based on their gender identity. Los Angeles administrators have spent “negligible” time accommodating transgender students and there has been no expense to the district, Chiasson said.
Without Incident
In San Francisco, transgender students have used opposite- sex facilities for a decade without incident or cost to the district, said a spokeswoman, Gentle Blythe.
“Most students want privacy so we work out a way they can use the bathroom discreetly if that is what he or she prefers,” Blythe said by e-mail.
Neither school system tracks the number of students who have requested special accommodations, Chiasson and Blythe said.
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, the San Francisco Democrat who wrote the law, described it as an “important victory” for the rights of transgender people and said it would help children express their true identities. He said he’s not worried by the petition drive.
“The referendum is to be expected,” he said in a statement. “I think it’s marginal, but we’ll watch it.”
The repeal effort faces long odds: Of 76 referendums that qualified for circulation in California since 1912, only 19, or one-fourth, have been passed by voters, according to Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s office.
Law Suspended
The repeal advocates have until Nov. 10 to submit their petition. If they gather enough valid signatures to qualify for the November 2014 ballot, the law would be suspended pending the outcome of the vote, according to Bowen’s office.
England said the campaign against the law stresses the loss of privacy for non-transgender students sharing restrooms, locker rooms and sports teams with peers of the opposite sex, rather than moral objections.
Opponents also are concerned that California may set a precedent for other states, she said.
“It’s going to center around the lack of privacy, the lack of safeguards and the lack of local control,” England said of the campaign. “We see this as common sense.”
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