Rush on Colbert Pick: 'CBS Declared War on Heartland of America'

       Rush Limbaugh did not join the line of people congratulating Stephen Colbert on being tabbed to replace David Letterman as host of "The Late Show" after he retires next year.
On his radio program Thursday, Limbaugh said that by choosing the 49-year-old Colbert,
"CBS has just declared war on the heartland of America."

Limbaugh said that with a Colbert-hosted Late Show "no longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American values, conservatism. Now it's just wide out in the open. What this hire means is a redefinition of what is funny, and a redefinition of what is comedy." Limbaugh called the hiring of Colbert, who made his mark satirizing political conservatives on "The Colbert Report" on cable television's Comedy Central channel, blatantly counters the values traditional America has sought in their television programming.

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"They're blowing up the 11:30 format under the guise that the world is changing and people don't want the kind of comedy that [Johnny] Carson gave us, or even Letterman," Limbaugh said. "They don't want that anymore. It's the media planting a flag here. Maybe not the media's last stand, but it's definitely a declaration."

Limbaugh added that by hiring Colbert, CBS showed no interest in selecting a host that appealed to both sides of the political aisle.

"They hired a partisan, so-called comedian, to run a comedy show," Limbaugh said. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uYDGGInfykA

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Contempt of Congress

Republicans renew fight against ObamaCare as Sebelius resigns

Republicans responded to news of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' resignation from the Obama administration on Thursday with fresh calls to repeal the president's health care law. 
Sebelius leaves the administration after the tumultuous launch of the Affordable Care Act exchanges last fall. Despite calls for her ouster from Republicans at the time, she stayed on until the enrollment period ended at the end of March. 
A White House official said President Obama will formally make the announcement on Friday, and nominate White House budget office director Sylvia Matthews Burwell to replace the outgoing secretary. The Senate would have to confirm Burwell to the position. 
Republicans quickly made clear that Sebelius' departure will not temper their criticisms of ObamaCare.
"Virtually everyone who has come into contact with this law has had new reason to worry about what it means for the government to control their health care," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. "Secretary Sebelius may be leaving, but the problems with this law and the impact it’s having on our constituents aren’t. ObamaCare has to go, too." 
Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch said Sebelius "had one of the toughest jobs in Washington" because she had to implement the law, which he said is "flawed" and continues to fall short.
"While we haven’t always agreed, Secretary Sebelius did the best she could during the tumultuous and volatile rollout of the law," Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Sebelius' resignation will not fix problems with ObamaCare.
 "The next HHS Secretary will inherit a mess -- Americans facing rising costs, families losing their doctors, and an economy weighed down by intrusive regulations, "Priebus said in a statement. "No matter who is in charge of HHS, ObamaCare will continue to be a disaster and will continue to hurt hardworking Americans."  
The administration touted the surge in enrollment in the last few weeks, with Sebelius saying Thursday that 7.5 million American have now signed up for coverage under the law. 
But the technical difficulties surrounding the launch, as well as ongoing concerns about the implementation of the law, hung over her. She leaves just one week after the enrollment period ended, and as a tough midterm election cycle expected to focus heavily on ObamaCare begins.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi praised Sebelius' leadership during the rollout, saying she had "been forceful, effective, and essential."
"Her legacy will be found in the 7.5 million Americans signed up on the marketplaces so far, the 3.1 million people covered on their parents' plans, and the millions more gaining coverage through the expansion of Medicaid," Pelosi, D-Calif., said.
The White House official said Sebelius notified Obama of her decision to leave in early March.
"At that time, Secretary Sebelius told the president that she felt confident in the trajectory for enrollment and implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and that she believed that once open enrollment ended it would be the right time to transition the department to new leadership," the official said, adding the president "is deeply grateful for her service."
West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin praised the nomination of Burwell, a fellow West Virginia native, in a statement Thursday.
"I am confident that her leadership will ensure that we enact commonsense fixes to the Affordable Care Act to help improve the lives of millions of Americans," Manchin said.
Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who is running to fill the seat vacated by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, said in a statement that Sebelius' resignation "has been a long time coming—but it’s too little, too late."
"While Secretary Sebelius' resignation is a good start, it's not enough—we need to repeal ObamaCare before further harm comes to Montana families, and replace it with Montana-driven reforms that put the patient and their doctor—not government bureaucrats—in charge of health care decisions," Daines said.   
Sebelius, having served five years with the president, was among the longest-serving Cabinet secretaries in the administration. 
But Sebelius' relationship with the White House frayed during last fall's rollout of the insurance exchanges that are at the center of the sweeping overhaul. The president and his top advisers said they were frustrated by what they considered to be a lack of information from HHS over the extent of the website troubles.
The White House sent management expert Jeffrey Zients to oversee a rescue operation that turned things around by the end of November. 
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cliven Bundy

  The standoff is still going on at the Bundy Ranch in Clark County, Nevada.  The Bureau of Land Management is still trying to round up Cliven Bundy’s cattle and exclude him from land his family has grazed on for 150 years.
Bundy is the last rancher in Clark County.
Finally some Republicans are coming to his aid.
From the SacBee:
 A Republican U.S. senator added his voice Wednesday to critics of a federal cattle roundup fought by a Nevada rancher who claims longstanding grazing rights on remote public rangeland about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas
Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada said he told new U.S. Bureau of Land Management chief Neil Kornze in Washington, D.C., that law-abiding Nevadans shouldn't be penalized by an "overreaching" agency.
Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval pointed earlier to what he called "an atmosphere of intimidation," resulting from the roundup and said he believed constitutional rights were being trampled.
Heller said he heard from local officials, residents and the Nevada Cattlemen's Association and remained "extremely concerned about the size of this closure and disruptions with access to roads, water and electrical infrastructure."
This is a story about a powerful government that is out of control.
As mentioned in a blog earlier on Tea Party Nation, the Federal Government own 81% of the land in Nevada.  Why does the Federal Government need that much land?
The answer is, it doesn’t.
The Federal Government should be forced to put most of that land up for sale to American citizens. 
Meanwhile Americans continue to protest the government, which is trying to keep the protests in a so-called “First Amendment Zone.”
That is the problem with this government.
It believes Americans only have the rights it chooses to grant them.

IRS prepares to go after ObamaCare mandate fines

(Bailey) Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! I Guess you little gimme, gimme, gimme Dimocrats are happy now?

With the ObamaCare enrollment deadline in the rearview for most, the IRS is preparing for the next step -- tracking and penalizing those who choose not, or cannot afford, to buy approved health insurance. 
How aggressive the agency will be in pursuing those fines, though, is an open question. The IRS already is under fire over last year's political targeting scandal and talk of harsh fines on the millions who still do not have insurance is a touchy subject in an election year. 
The agency says it is still drafting final tax forms and hiring staff to carry out the task, and is offering some details about how it will collect the penalties. 
For most, the penalty will not apply until early next year. Those who failed to purchase insurance by the March 31, 2014, deadline -- and are not exempt, or did not get an extension -- must inform the government on their tax forms in early 2015. 
The IRS is using a trust-but-verify approach. 
According to the agency, the IRS plans to include a specific line on the 1040 forms for taxpayers to "self-attest" whether they purchased insurance. It will most likely include a worksheet for taxpayers to calculate how much they owe -- essentially either a flat penalty or a percentage of their income. 
But the IRS also said it will aim to detect falsely reported information in the same way it does with income reported on the 1040s -- through a third party. 
Just as employers send a copy of a worker's W-2 forms to the IRS, insurance companies will send the government information on who has purchased a policy. (This could be complicated by the fact that many businesses who originally would have been required to offer insurance to employees now have until 2016.) 
For those who do not buy insurance, the question for the IRS is how far the agency goes to extract the penalty. 
The IRS has said since Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 that it will follow the letter of law for those who fail to purchase insurance -- that is, Americans will face a fine but will not have their property or bank accounts levied. 
"Congress was very careful to make sure that there was nothing too punitive in this bill," then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said in 2010. 
He said at the time that those who fail to purchase insurance will get a letter from the IRS and could have their penalty taken from subsequent tax refunds. But he also made clear the agency "can actually do collection if need be." 
But whether Americans' wages can be garnished remains unclear. 
The penalty will start relatively small, which has led to speculation that many young and healthy people will simply choose to pay it this year as opposed to buying insurance. It starts at $95 per person or 1 percent of family income, whichever is greater. But over the next couple years, it rises to $695 per person -- while aggressively pursuing these fines could prove politically unpopular, failing to do so could also increase deficit projections. 
The IRS did not respond Wednesday to a question about how many additional employees have been hired as a result of ObamaCare. 
The IRS asked in 2012 to hire an additional 1,269 employees, at a cost of $473.4 million, to prepare for the health law's implementation, according to a budget proposal it made to the Treasury Department. 
However, most the requests were for support roles such as information technology or customer service, and few were for agents, according to the Tampa Bay Times' PolitiFact team, after examining the 159-page budget request. 
To be sure, there is already plenty of additional paperwork. 
An estimated 44 million Americans were without insurance before ObamaCare enrollment started Oct. 1, 2013. An estimated 7.5 million enrolled through the government's exchanges, though some of them were people who were kicked off their old insurance plans. 
Some of the low- and middle-income earners who enrolled will be eligible for tax credits.

Pay Gape

Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks out on Brandeis decision to withdraw degree

(Bailey) She's right, everyone at Brandeis are afraid of the Muslims. In the world they out number other religions two to one which means they're the majority. I thought all Democrats in America favored the minorities, guess not!
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a staunch critic of Islam and its treatment of women who was supposed to receive an honorary degree from Brandeis University only to have it withdrawn amid criticism of her political positions, told Megyn Kelly Wednesday that she wasn't surpised by the school's decision.
"Everytime I say, 'hey, it's important that we talk about this' ... you have people like (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) who deny this," Ali said on "The Kelly File." "This should be addressed."
Ali said she wasn't surprised that the degree was rescinded, though she said she was surprised it was offered in the first place.
"I'm used to it," Ali said. "What surprised me is the decision by Brandeis, first to say we want to give you this honor, we know what you do. In the age of Google, all of this is out there, it's all public."
She went on to speculate that the decision was motivated in part by a fear of offending Muslims.
"There's always this fear that if you insult Muslims, there's going to be some kind of violent reprecussion," she said. "They're not doing their students any favors, and they're not doing their Muslim students any favors."
However, Ibrahim Cooper, a spokesman for CAIR, told Kelly on Wednesday that the organization believed Ali showed bias against Muslims in general, not just radical Islam.
"When a prestigious university like Brandeis is about to honor her and endorse her views, that's when we speak out," he said.
Ali, a member of the Dutch Parliament from 2003 to 2006, has been quoted as making comments critical of Islam. That includes a 2007 interview with Reason Magazine in which she said of the religion, "Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now. They're not interested in peace. I think that we are at war with Islam. And there's no middle ground in wars."
Ali was raised in a strict Muslim family, but after surviving a civil war, genital mutilation, beatings and an arranged marriage, she renounced the faith in her 30s. She has not commented publicly on the issue of the honorary degree.
In 2007, Ali helped establish the AHA Foundation, which works to protect and defend the rights of women in the West from oppression justified by religion and culture, according to its website. The foundation also strives to protect basic rights and freedoms of women and girls. This includes control of their own bodies, access to an education and the ability to work outside the home and control their own income, the website says.
More than 85 of about 350 faculty members at Brandeis signed a letter asking for Ali to be removed from the list of honorary degree recipients. And an online petition created Monday by students at the school of 5,800 had gathered thousands of signatures from inside and outside the university as of Tuesday afternoon.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

IRS employees accused of donning pro-Obama gear, urging callers to vote for him

IRS workers in several offices have been openly supporting President Obama, including by donning pro-Obama paraphernalia and urging callers to reelect the president in 2012, according to allegations contained in a new government watchdog report. 
A report by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, released Wednesday, cited accusations that workers at a Dallas IRS office may have violated federal law by wearing pro-Obama items like shirts, stickers and buttons. The Hatch Act forbids Executive Branch workers from engaging in partisan political activity. 
The report comes as two House committees move to take action against former IRS official Lois Lerner regarding the agency's targeting of conservative groups.
The report, further fueling allegations of bias at the agency, claimed that several accusations were made against the Dallas office claiming pro-Obama gear was “commonplace” there. Employees allegedly wore Obama shirts, buttons and stickers to work and had Obama screensavers on their IRS computers.
The report said it was unclear whether this activity happened before or after the 2012 election, but an advisory was issued to Dallas employees that such activity was prohibited.
Another example cited in the report states an IRS employee in Kentucky also violated the law by touting her political views to a taxpayer during the 2012 election. According to the report, the employee told the caller she was “for” the Democrats because “Republicans already [sic] trying to cap my pension and … they’re going to take women back 40 years.”
The employee then told the taxpayer that she was not supposed to disclose her views “so you didn’t hear me saying that.” The report says the employee admitted violating the Hatch Act and will serve a 14-day suspension.  (Bailey) Wow! 14 day suspension probably with pay.
However, the Kentucky example was not the only IRS employee found to be urging taxpayers over the phone to vote for Obama. The report cites another unnamed customer service representative, who was accused of telling multiple callers in 2012 they needed to vote for Obama.
According to the report, the employee told the callers a chant based on Obama’s last name that touted his campaign and urged them to reelect him. The report does not say where the employee was located, but says the Office of Special Counsel is seeking “significant disciplinary action” against him.
The accusations come as a House committee on Wednesday voted to formally ask the Justice Department to consider criminal prosecution against Lerner. A separate committee will vote Thursday on whether to hold her in contempt of Congress for twice refusing to testify on the targeting scandal.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is an independent government watchdog that investigates claims of wrongdoing by federal employees.