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.

Latest ObamaCare surprise: Most won't be able to buy health insurance until end of year

There is yet another ObamaCare surprise waiting for consumers: from now until the next open enrollment at the end of this year, most people will simply not be able to buy any health insurance at all, even outside the exchanges.
"It's all closed down. You cannot buy a policy that is a qualified policy for the purpose of the ACA (the Affordable Care Act) until next year on January 1," says John DiVito, president of Flexbenefit which has 2,500 brokers.
John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas adds, "People are not going to be able to buy individual and family policies, and that's part of ObamaCare. And what makes it so surprising is the whole point of ObamaCare was to encourage people to get insurance, and now the market has been completely closed down for the next seven months."
That means that with few exceptions, tens of millions of people will be locked out of the health insurance market for the rest of this year.
Only about one in four subsidy-eligible people signed up for health insurance," says Robert Laszewski of Health Policy Associates. "That means about 13 million subsidy-eligible people have not yet signed up for health insurance."
Add to that millions more who waited, or thought the policies under ObamaCare were too expensive and decided just to pay the tax penalty.
Although those who failed to buy insurance during the enrollment period could face a government penalty, most will not have to pay that penalty until they do their taxes next year.
“In all likelihood," says Laszewski, "we've only signed up somewhere between one in five and one in seven people who were uninsured prior to the start of ObamaCare."
That means millions are left outside the health insurance market. There is short term insurance, but anyone with a pre-existing condition can be turned down.
The reason sales of health insurance were crammed into short enrollment periods was so insurance companies would have some certainty about who would be in the risk pool, allowing them to set their rates accordingly.
Goodman explains, "they fear that the only people who will try to buy are people who are sick, and they are going to be expensive. So it’s built into the screwy logic of the whole ObamaCare system."
DiVito puts it this way: "So can you imagine that on July 1, an indvidual's walking down the street, they get hit by a car, the ambulance comes and picks them up and inside that ambulance is an insurance salesman selling them a policy. That is exactly what the insurance industry was trying to avoid."
There is one way consumers can still sign up, but only under limited circumstances.
"If you have a qualifying event, a life qualifying event, which means you get married, you get divorced, you get fired from your job" says Goodman. Or you have a child, or lose a spouse or have a change in income.
"It has to be one of those kinds of events,” he adds. “And if you don’t have that, you're not going to be able to buy insurance."
Barring any of those so-called life events, tens of millions will remain uninsured and won't be able to buy health insurance, no matter how hard they try.

Ukraine

Brandeis University withdraws planned honorary degree for Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali

(Bailey) I'm guessing now that Muslims control the American Schools?
Brandeis University in Massachusetts announced Tuesday that it had withdrawn the planned awarding of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a staunch critic of Islam and its treatment of women, after protests from students and faculty. 
The university said in a statement posted online that the decision had been made after a discussion between Ali and university President Frederick Lawrence. 
"She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women's rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world," said the university's statement. "That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University's core values."
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.
"This is a real slap in the face to Muslim students," said senior Sarah Fahmy, a member of the Muslim Student Association who created the petition said before the university withdrew the honor.
"But it's not just the Muslim community that is upset but students and faculty of all religious beliefs," she said. "A university that prides itself on social justice and equality should not hold up someone who is an outright Islamophobic."
Thomas Doherty, chairman of American studies, refused to sign the faculty letter. He said it would have been great for the university to honor "such a courageous fighter for human freedom and women's rights, who has put her life at risk for those values."
Bernard Macy, a 1979 Brandeis graduate, sent an email this week to university President Frederick Lawrence and several members of the faculty saying, "Thank you for recognizing Ayaan Hirsi Ali for defending Muslim women against Islamist honor violence."
But Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group, said, "It is unconscionable that such a prestigious university would honor someone with such openly hateful views."
The organization sent a letter to university President Frederick Lawrence on Tuesday requesting that it drop plans to honor Ali.
"This makes Muslim students feel very uneasy," Joseph Lumbard, chairman of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, said in an interview. "They feel unwelcome here."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Pro-life teen called 'domestic terrorist' in petition supporting professor of feminism

(Bailey) Instead of this professor pushing her own political agenda, why doesn't  she do what she is paid to do and that is to teach? A supposedly grown woman against a 16 year old, really?

Dueling petitions involving a pro-life teen and a professor charged with attacking her are circulating at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the student body is backing the teacher.
Students at the University of California at Santa Barbara are circulating the petitions, one in support of feminism Prof. Mireille Miller-Young, and another backing Thrin Short, the 16-year-old pro-lifer whose March 4 demonstration was allegedly broken up by Miller-Young. The one backing the professor, who has been charged with battery and vandalism, has more than 2,000 signatures, while the one in support of Short has 150, according to The College Fix.

“They talk about prioritizing the safety of our campus involving activists, yet it’s our professor that attacks somebody.”- Katie Devlin, UCSB student

“The last thing we need are these people invading our community,” UCSB sophomore Katherine Wehler, a theater and feminist studies major, told the site.
She said pro-lifers with graphic images of aborted fetuses such as Short and her sister carried are like “domestic terrorists.”
However, another petition making its way around the student body calls for Miller-Young’s termination.
“This is about someone who violated the law in several ways, disregarded the idea of freedom of speech, and tarnished the image of the UCSB,” it reads, before emphasizing that it is not a petition in support of the pro-life movement, but one advocating freedom of speech.
“They talk about prioritizing the safety of our campus involving activists, yet it’s our professor that attacks somebody,” UCSB student Katie Devlin told The College Fix. “I think it’s just the contrast that she is a feminist professor and stands for protecting women, yet she attacks a young girl.”
Thrin told FoxNews.com that she and her older sister Joan, 21, were holding signs and demonstrating in a free speech zone on the UCSB campus with other pro-life activists when the feminist studies professor -- who teaches one course on campus titled “Black Women in Pornography” -- approached the group.
“Before she grabbed the sign, she was mocking me and talking over me in front of the students, saying that she was twice as old as me and had three degrees, so they should listen to her and not me,” Thrin Short wrote in an email to FoxNews.com earlier this month. “Then she started the chant with the students about ‘tear down the sign.’ When that died out, she grabbed the sign.”
The professor snatched the sign and then allegedly walked through two campus buildings as Short, her sister and two UCSB students followed her. Short said Miller-Young pushed her at least three times as she tried to stop the elevator door from closing and get back her sign.
Miller-Young was charged last month by the Santa Barbara County district attorney's office with misdemeanor counts of theft, battery and vandalism. She pleaded not guilty last week.

Mozilla

Boehner: Lawmakers to weigh criminal case against Lerner for 'misleading the Congress'

House Speaker John Boehner confirmed to Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Monday that lawmakers plan to press the Justice Department to consider a criminal case against ex-IRS official Lois Lerner for “misleading the Congress.”
Boehner also said if Lerner does not cooperate soon by providing information on the IRS targeting scandal, the House would hold her in contempt of Congress.
“Somebody at the IRS violated the law,” Boehner said on “The Kelly File.”
“Whether it was Lois Lerner or not, we’ll find out.”
A meeting of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to consider contempt is set for Thursday.
But before that, the House Ways and Means Committee will meet Wednesday to prepare a letter to the Justice Department citing possible criminal activity by Lerner.Formal notice was given Monday night by the committee to Attorney General Eric Holder about the referral for possible criminal prosecution of Lerner “based on evidence the Committee has uncovered in the course of investigation of IRS abuses.”
Fox News has learned the letter will argue Lerner violated the constitutional rights of citizens, gave misleading information to investigators and inappropriately released private taxpayer information.
The accusations generally relate to the scandal over the agency's practice of singling out conservative groups seeking non-profit status for extra scrutiny.
Boehner told Kelly that any criminal case against Lerner would be for “misleading the Congress.”
He said at the Ways and Means Committee’s Wednesday session, “they will go over this letter that they have put together outlining names of taxpayers who’ve been harmed and aggrieved and lay out a case for how Ms. Lerner misled the committee.”
He said he also expected that after Easter recess, Congress would take up a contempt resolution against Lerner. He added, “if she’s not going to tell us the truth, we are going to hold her in contempt. The House will vote. The House will hold her in contempt.”
Republicans argue that Lerner played a key role in the agency's practice of singling out conservative groups seeking non-profit status for extra scrutiny as head of the Exempt Organizations Division.
Criminal referrals from Congress to the Justice Department are rare -- and the Justice Department is under no obligation to pursue such a case.
The last major effort of this sort was in 2008, when the leaders of the House oversight committee sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department after they claimed baseball star Roger Clemens failed to tell the truth during a hearing about performance-enhancing drugs.
In that case, the department accepted the referral and prosecuted Clemens. He was eventually exonerated in court.
Asked for comment Monday on the latest pending referral, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said: "They're doing what they think is right, and I'm sure the Department of Justice is doing what they think is right."
Lerner, speaking before the House oversight committee last year, defended herself against the allegations in the IRS case.
"I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations," she said.
Lerner, though, refused to answer questions from the committee, and did so again last month.
In his interview with Fox News, Boehner also said House Republicans had not expanded ObamaCare last week with a voice vote to expand coverage choices for small businesses -- a departure from their strategy to try to dismantle or repeal the 2010 health care law.
Asked by Kelly about 2014 midterm election prospects, Boehner said he thought the GOP had a “a real good opportunity” to take the Senate and also to pick up seats in the House.
Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

OBAMACARE

Gallup survey suggests sign-ups under ObamaCare not as high as White House says

A major new Gallup survey suggests the ObamaCare sign-up numbers are not as soaring as the White House claims. 
The massive survey, released on Monday, shows the number of uninsured indeed has fallen to its lowest level in years, likely thanks to the Affordable Care Act. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index measured the share of adults without health insurance. That shrank from 17.1 percent at the end of last year to 15.6 percent for the first three months of 2014. 
The decline of 1.5 percentage points would translate roughly to more than 3.5 million people gaining coverage. 
But the numbers, released a week after the close of the health law's first enrollment season, also suggest a far more modest impact on coverage than statistics cited by the Obama administration. 
The administration says 7.1 million have signed up for subsidized private plans through new insurance markets, while 3 million previously uninsured people gained coverage through the law's Medicaid expansion. 
Why the huge difference? For starters, the administration's numbers include people who switched or were dropped from their previous coverage, as well as people who have not paid their first month's premium, and who would therefore still be uninsured. 
The administration is also counting sign-ups dating back to October, though enrollment in the first few months was relatively low. 
According to Gallup, the number of uninsured has fallen by a greater amount since the start of open enrollment on Oct. 1. Gallup shows the percentage spiked to 18 percent at the end of the third quarter. But the spike could be attributed in part to people being kicked off their prior coverage, due to changes in the health care law. A look back at mid-2013 shows the percentage of uninsured, before the run-up to open enrollment, was also at 17.1 percent. So the number of people gaining coverage since then would still be roughly 3.5 million. 
Still, it's not quite an apples-to-apples comparison. Gallup is counting just adults, while the administration figures include children as well. 
It may take much of the rest of the year to get a true bottom line of the health care law's impact on coverage. The Gallup survey noted that those signing up for coverage during an extended enrollment period could further drive down the number -- though some enrollees will ultimately choose not to pay their premiums, which would drive the number up. 
But Gallup's numbers do show an improving trend. The share of Americans without coverage is at its lowest since late 2008, before Obama took office, the survey found. 
That's independent validation for the White House, and shows the country at least is not suffering from a net loss of insurance coverage due to cancellations. 
Some feared the cancellations of more than 4.7 million policies that didn't measure up to the law's standards would actually swell the ranks of uninsured people. That created huge political problems for Obama, who had promised Americans they could keep their insurance if they liked it. 
About half the states authorized extensions belatedly granted by the White House. 
Gallup found the biggest insurance gains were among lower-income people and among African-Americans. 
Among people with household incomes of less than $36,000 a year, the share of uninsured shrank by 3.2 percentage points from levels at the end of 2013.
African-Americans saw their uninsured rate drop by 3.3 percentage points. 
Although the proportion of Hispanics without coverage fell by 1.7 percentage points, Latinos remained more likely than any racial or ethnic group to lack access, with 37 percent uninsured. 
Gallup found gains in coverage among all age groups, but not much evidence of a late surge of younger people that the administration had hoped for to help keep premiums in check. 
Results were based on telephone interviews conducted Jan. 2 -March 31 with a random sample of 43,562 adults 18 and older living in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1 percentage point at the 95 percent confidence level. 
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Huckabee

Huckabee: After 14 months Mass. responds to Pelletier family
Apr. 06, 2014 - 4:01 - After overwhelming response to case, parents get answers
 http://video.foxnews.com/v/3438391939001

Obama imposes his policies directly on federal contractors, in 'year of action'

President Obama is imposing his policies directly on federal contractors.
This week, he will sign an executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their pay with each other. The prohibition on the wage "gag rules" is similar to language in a Senate bill aimed at closing a pay gap between men and women. That legislation is scheduled for a vote this week, though it is not likely to pass.
In addition, Obama on Tuesday will direct the Labor Department to adopt regulations requiring federal contractors to provide compensation data based on sex and race. The president will sign the executive order and the presidential memo during an event at the White House where he will be joined Lilly Ledbetter, whose name appears on a pay discrimination law Obama signed in 2009.
This week's steps showcase Obama's efforts to take action without congressional approval and illustrate how even without legislation, the president can drive policy on a significant segment of the U.S. economy. At the same time, it also underscores the limits of his ambition when he doesn't have the backing of Congress for his initiatives.
Republicans maintain that Obama is pushing his executive powers too far and that he should do more to work with Congress. His new executive orders are sure to prompt criticism that he is placing an undue burden on companies and increasing their costs.
Federal contracting covers about one-quarter of the U.S. workforce and includes companies ranging from Boeing to small parts suppliers and service providers. As a result, presidential directives can have a wide and direct impact. Such actions also can be largely symbolic, designed to spur action in the broader economy.
"This really is about giving people access to more information both to help them make decisions at the policy level but also for individuals," said Heather Boushey, executive director and chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth who has been working with the administration to get compensation information about the nation's workforce.
"This is definitely an encouraging first step," she said.
Federal contractors, however, worry that additional compensation data could be used to fuel wage related lawsuits, said James Plunkett, director of labor policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
What's more, he said, such orders create a two-tiered system where rules apply to federal contractors but not to other employers. Those contractors, knowing that their business relies on the government, are less likely to put up a fight, he said.
"Federal contractors ultimately know that they have to play nicely to a certain extent with the federal government," he said.
Separately, on Monday, Obama will also announce the 24 schools that will share in more than $100 million in grants to redesign their schools to better prepare high school students for college or for careers. The awards are part of an executive order Obama signed last year. Money for the program comes from fees that companies pay for visas to hire foreign workers for specialized jobs.
The moves represent a return to economic issues for the president after two weeks devoted almost exclusively to diplomacy and the final deadline for health insurance coverage. A trip to Asia in two weeks is sure to change the focus once again.
Still, Obama has declared this a year of action, whether Congress supports him or not.
In February, Obama signed an executive order increasing the hourly minimum wage for federal contractors from $7.25 per to $10.10. While White House officials estimated such an increase would affect only a small percentage of federal contract workers, they said the move could encourage states or individual businesses to act on their own to increase workers' wages.
Obama has also pushed his workplace initiatives beyond just federal contractors where possible. Last month he instructed the Labor Department to come up with new workplace overtime rules for all employers, a power the administration has under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
But presidents have most direct power over the workforce that is paid with taxpayers' money.
Obama's go-it-alone strategy is hardly new. The most enduring workplace anti-discrimination laws began with an executive order signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in June 25, 1941, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, creed and national origin in the federal government and defense industries.
President John F. Kennedy broadened that in 1961 with an order that required government contractors to take affirmative action to ensure hiring "without regard to their race, creed, color or national origin."
President George W. Bush also acted on his own when he ordered federal contractors to ensure that their workers were in the country legally by requiring the use of an electronic employment-verification system.
By employing such executive actions, however, Obama has also drawn attention to areas where he has chosen not to act on his own.
The White House has resisted pressure from gay rights advocates who want have Obama to sign an anti-discrimination executive order that would protect gays and lesbians working for federal contractors. The White House wants the House to approve a Senate-passed bill extending those protections to all Americans.
On Friday, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights group, criticized the White House for saying such an executive order would be redundant if Congress were to pass a White House-supported bill. It's an argument the White House has not made when it comes to minimum wage or anti-gag rule orders imposed on federal contractors.

Fuzzy math from administration over ObamaCare?

By Jim Angle

Published April 04, 2014

FoxNews.com

Although the president and his aides trumpeted the ObamaCare enrollment figures as a success, the administration did not always see those numbers as something to brag about.
In his Rose Garden appearance this week, Obama seemed elated to proclaim "7.1 million Americans have now signed up for private insurance plans through these marketplaces."
But it remains unclear how many of those sign ups have paid premiums in order to be officially enrolled, or how many were previously uninsured.
In addition, even though officials are celebrating the 7 million mark,the White House once minimized numbers twice that large-- the 14 million people in the individual insurance market who were facing cancellations because their policies did not have all the required benefits of ObamaCare.
That created a huge political backlash, in part because the president had promised everyone could keep their plans and doctors "no matter what" -- so the president and his aides played the numbers down as just a small group.
In a news conference last November, Obama portrayed the individual market as a small portion of the insurance market, saying "Keep in mind that the individual market accounts for five percent of the population."
White House spokesman Jay Carney made the same statement repeatedly, including the next day, saying "Five percent of the country (is) in the individual insurance market, a portion of that five percent is affected by the cancellation notices."
Because of the public uproar, Obama asked state officials to allow those policies to be extended.
Twenty-one states, however, including California and New York, flatly refused. California alone had 900,000 individual policies cancelled, adding to a national total of several million.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, says "if you look at the 7 million and you shave off the 20 percent who probably haven’t paid, you've got about 5 and a half million people and that's roughly the number of people that were in the individual market and started having their policies cancelled."
That 20 percent number who don't pay has often been cited by insurance sources. Blue Cross/Blue Shield this week confirmed that up to 20 percent of those enrolled by February 1 still have not paid a premium.
As far as the potential cancellations, Carney referred to the 14 million as a "sliver" of the population, even though it's double the number of current signups.
“You need to look at the 7 million in the context of the U.S. population, and that's about 330 million people," says Dan Mendelson of Avalere Health, a non-partisan consulting and analysis firm. "So, this, this program is going to insure about two percent of the total folks who live in the United States."
So while the administration portrayed that two percent as victory, the five percent facing cancellations was minimized, leading Holtz-Eakin to observe that " it can’t be the case that, you know, five percent is no big deal and signing up two percent is a triumph, those two can’t stand simultaneously."
Some of those who were cancelled were forced into ObamCare, which added to the enrollment numbers, even though they only needed insurance because their policies had been cancelled, not because they were uninsured.
Jim Angle currently serves as chief national correspondent for Fox News Channel (FNC). He joined FNC in 1996 as a senior White House correspondent.

Inmates getting coverage under ObamaCare, as states shift cost to feds

(Bailey) No matter how they try to spin it, we the taxpayers get the bill.
WASHINGTON –  The Obama administration often touts that people with pre-existing conditions and countless others can now get covered under ObamaCare. But there's another group that's starting to benefit from the law -- prison inmates. 
Cash-strapped state and local prisons increasingly are using the Affordable Care Act to pay for their inmates' medical costs, taking advantage of a little-known provision that lets them shift some of those expenses to the federal government.
Ohio, Illinois and Iowa are among the states trying to offload the rising costs of health care – which include mental health programs – by enrolling inmates into a new expanded Medicaid program when they get sick. 
But it doesn't stop there. The states also are working to enroll them even before they're released from prison, so they have coverage when they get out.
Currently, 26 states and the District of Columbia are proceeding with a Medicaid expansion which allows them to extend medical coverage to single and childless adults. Jail operators in at least a half-dozen of those states are then, using that criteria, extending coverage to inmates. The shift means the federal government would pay some emergency costs that used to be entirely covered by the states and counties -- plus, inmates are starting to get coverage for when they leave.
Proponents of shifting prisoners into the expanded Medicaid -- in turn giving them access to health care, including mental health and rehab services, when they are released -- say this reduces recidivism. Others, though, argue that federal taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used to foot the multibillion dollar bill.
“The political element of ObamaCare is that we were helping what we called the deserving poor or what we used to call the deserving poor,” Manhattan Institute fellow Avik Roy told Fox News. “A group of people who are just down on their luck … bring them the opportunities they need to get ahead and get back on their feet. And sometimes that’s true of people who served time in prison, and sometimes it’s not.”
Former Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota who was on the Senate Finance Committee when ObamaCare passed, put his concerns bluntly in an interview with Bloomberg.
“It starts to look a little like a scheme by the states and local jurisdictions to avoid responsibilities that are really theirs,” he said.
But for cash-strapped states that have figured this out, sending inmates onto the federal rolls may be hard to pass up -- a Pew study of 44 states found that in 2008, prisoner health costs hit $6.5 billion. Further, the benefits for inmates can be significant.
Unlikely to be able to afford private health care coverage when they are released, many inmates previously were unable to get covered. Pre-ObamaCare, Medicaid, a federally funded health option, was available to five categories of people: children below a certain age, the disabled, seniors, pregnant women and parents of Medicaid-eligible children (though some states offered it to more groups).
The ObamaCare expansion extends eligibility to single and childless adults. As for when they're still in jail, while Medicaid does not cover standard health care for inmates, it does pay for hospital stays off-site lasting more than 24 hours. For example, it would pay for complicated in-patient surgeries or stays in a psychiatric facility.
Roy argues that offering health care at a local level is often more efficient and more productive than handing off the responsibility to the federal government. He calls the Medicaid system “poorly designed and poorly structured.”
But states say freeing up millions in their recession-depleted budgets is worth it.
The process begins early for prisoners in Illinois’ Cook County Jail.
Cook County, the largest single-site jail complex in the United States, has started more than 13,000 insurance applications since last April. Once prisoners there are booked, fingerprinted and assigned a cell, they meet with a worker from Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities who helps them apply for Medicaid.
More than 2,000 prisoners already have gone on to receive coverage after their release, Marleza Jentz of the sheriff’s public policy office said.
Jails in California reportedly also are looking at making this shift. And in Iowa, state correction officials and human services departments are setting up a plan to enroll inmates in their public health insurance program before they are released from prison.
Prison officials will likely help inmates complete their applications shortly before they are released. Prison administrators will then send the applications to human services officials who will complete the process and ensure inmates are covered when they are paroled or finish their sentences.
“We want success,” Department of Corrections administrator Katrina McKibbin recently told a group of reporters. “We want increased public safety.”
Iowa releases about 4,000 prisoners a year.
Under the old Medicaid plan, the federal government would pay 58 percent of the cost of care while the state and local government picked up the other 42 percent. Under the expansion of the Medicaid program under ObamaCare, the federal government would absorb 100 percent of the extra costs for the first three years which would then go down to 90 percent by the end of the decade.
Fox News' Jim Angle contributed to this report.

Flood

Mozilla chief learns, if you don’t support gay marriage, you don’t deserve a job

As we enter this golden age of tolerance and diversity, the nation’s gay rights community is sending a warning message to Americans: If you don’t support gay marriage, you don’t deserve a job.
Apparently, Brendan Eich did not get that message. He’s the former chief executive officer at Mozilla, the technology group that gave us the Firefox Web browser.
Eich resigned under a firestorm of controversy after it was revealed he had donated $1,000 in support of California’s Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that protected traditional marriage.
It’s unclear who outed Eich. But that really doesn’t matter. Once his donation was revealed, supporters of gay marriage launched all-out war.

I trust there are rational and reasonable individuals within the gay rights community who understand the dangers of stifling free speech and expression. But the voices that are winning the day are those who believe gay rights trump everyone else’s rights.

The Wall Street Journal reported that OKCupid, the popular online dating website, asked its followers to stop using Firefox. The wireless company Credo Mobile gathered more than 50,000 signatures on a petition calling for Eich to resign.
OKCupid posted a letter denouncing the Mozilla CEO, The New York Times reported.
“Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame and frustration are our enemies and we wish them nothing but failure,” the letter stated.
Why not demand that those who oppose gay marriage relinquish the right to own property? Why not take away their right to vote? Why not take away their children? Why not just throw them in jail? Why not force them to work in chain gangs? Why not call for public floggings? Or better yet, let’s just strap them down on gurneys, stick a needle in their arm and rid the world of these intolerant anti-gay bigots once and for all.
Eich won’t say he was forced to resign, but based on the company’s press release, it’s safe to say his days were numbered.
“Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it,” Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker wrote in a statement. 
“We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.”
She went on to opine about freedom of speech and equality. In her estimation, one trumps the other.
“Equality is necessary for meaningful speech,” she wrote. “And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.”
No, not really, Ms. Baker. Our Founding Fathers sort of worked that out in the Bill of Rights.
I write about this very issue in my upcoming book, “God Less America.” There are pages and pages filled with stories of workers and business owners who’ve either lost their jobs or faced public floggings for their support of traditional marriage.
The left does not believe people who oppose gay marriage should be allowed to engage in the democratic process. And they have a proven track record of intimidating and bullying those who do.
Just ask Angela McCaskill, the chief diversity officer at Gallaudet University. She was suspended after she signed a petition in her church to put a gay marriage referendum on the ballot in Maryland.
Just ask Scott Eckern, the former artistic director of California Musical Theatre. He resigned under pressure after he gave money to support Prop 8. As one activist told The New York Times, “I do believe there comes a time when you cannot sit back and accept what I think is the most dangerous form of bigotry.”
Just ask our nation’s top military officials. They were called into President Obama’s office and told that if they could not support “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” they should resign their commissions.
“We were called into the Oval Office and President Obama looked at all five service chiefs in the eye and said, ‘This is what I want to do,’” said Coast Guard Adm. Robert Papp in remarks reported by Buzzfeed.
The road to political correctness is littered with the bodies of folks like Brendan Eich sideswiped by the tolerance and diversity bus.
I trust there are rational and reasonable individuals within the gay rights community who understand the dangers of stifling free speech and expression. But the voices that are winning the day are those who believe gay rights trump everyone else’s rights.
I know this may sound old-fashioned, but gainful employment should not be determined by where you put your reproductive organs.
Tolerance is a bitch, ain’t it?

GOP lawmakers push EPA to ax proposed water rule amid outcry from farmers

  (Bailey) The EPA is another part of your American Government out of control. Everyone has to eat, even the dumb asses that pass these stupid regulations.

More than a dozen Republican lawmakers are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider asserting regulatory authority over streams and wetlands amid intense backlash from farm groups over the agency's proposed water rule. 
In a letter Thursday, the GOP senators faulted the EPA for announcing a proposed rule last week before the government's peer-reviewed scientific assessment was fully complete. They are calling on the government to withdraw the rule or give the public six months to review it, rather than the three months being provided.
The senators' move puts them among several groups -- from farmers and land developers to Western governors worried about drought management -- in expressing concern about a long-running and heavily litigated environmental issue involving the Clean Water Act that has invoked economic interests, states' rights and presidential power.
The letter was led by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and signed by 14 other GOP senators.
"We believe that this proposal will negatively impact economic growth by adding an additional layer of red tape to countless activities that are already sufficiently regulated by state and local governments," the letter to EPA chief Gina McCarthy said.
Meanwhile, Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, introduced appropriations language this week aimed at blocking the rule entirely. The proposed language states that "no funds shall be appropriated to study, promote, advertise, implement or otherwise promulgate" the rule. 
“This new rule is another power grab by [President] Obama. This is a brazen attempt to impose a radical redefinition specifically rejected by Congress and the Supreme Court,” Stockman said in a statement. "Green radicals have tried for decades to pass this redefinition by law, but it was too radical to pass even a Democrat-controlled Congress." 
Alisha Johnson, the EPA's deputy associate administrator for external affairs and environmental education, said the EPA's draft scientific assessment, used to inform the proposed rule, was being reviewed and wouldn't be complete until the end of this year or early next year. The EPA rule will not be finalized until the scientific assessment is fully complete, and will take into account public comments, she said. 
The proposal would apply pollution regulations to the country's so-called "intermittent and ephemeral streams and wetlands" -- which are created during wet seasons, or simply after it rains, but are temporary.
At issue is the federal Clean Water Act, which gives the EPA authority to regulate "U.S. waters." Two Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 limited regulators' reach, but left unclear the scope of authority over small waterways that might flow intermittently. 
Landowners and developers say the government has gone too far in regulating isolated ponds or marshes with no direct connection to navigable waterways.
Some 36 states, including Pennsylvania, have legal limitations that prevent the EPA from regulating waters not covered by the Clean Water Act, according to the Environmental Law Institute.
Tile drainage systems would not be regulated and there would be no new requirements for irrigation and drainage ditches. Exemptions already granted for farming activities would continue and 53 agricultural conservation practices would be added to the list.   
But farmers who receive exemptions must also engage in an ongoing conversion practice that complies with Natural Resources Conservation Services standards, according to Stockman.
“Once the landowner completes the conservation practice or changes the use of his land, he loses his EPA exemption and must now comply with a new, and more complex, set of rules,” Stockman said. "In other words, the only way a farmer or rancher can exempt himself from the EPA rule is to adhere to a mountain of other new federal rules." 
Criticizing the proposal as a "serious threat" to farmers, the American Farm Bureau Federation said Wednesday that the rule would impose new regulatory burdens on farmers, ranchers and other landowners and give the agency veto power over a farmer’s ability to work.
"This is not just about the paperwork of getting a permit to farm, or even about having farming practices regulated. The fact is there is no legal right to a Clean Water Act permit—if farming or ranching activities need a permit, [the] EPA or the Army Corps of Engineers can deny that permit," the group said in a statement.
The proposed regulation, broadly supported by environmental groups, has become a charged political issue in a midterm election year where President Obama has pledged to use his executive power as needed to push through environmental and climate change protections.
"It's the most breathtaking power grab I've seen in a long time, and they wonder why the economy is so weak," Toomey said in a Philadelphia radio interview this week.
Still, the issue is not divided strictly along partisan lines.
The proposed rule has drawn the concern of Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, chair of the Western Governors Association. He has warned federal officials that the rule change could impinge upon state authority in water management and that states should be consulted in the EPA decision-making. In recent years, Hickenlooper has urged the Obama administration to speed approval of water projects because of a looming water supply gap in Colorado.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.