Month: October 2015

Budget buster: Senate passes debt and spending hike in dead of night – 144-page bill amounts to $558 million in new spending per page

Senate Republicans managed to wrangle enough of their troops to overcome a filibuster early Friday morning and pass the new budget deal, granting President Obama yet another debt holiday, busting the budget caps and boosting spending some $80 billion over the next two years. Democrats, who are far more thrilled with the deal, did the heavy lifting, providing most of the votes as they won some $40 billion in new domestic spending in 2016 and 2017. They also forced the GOP to retreat on the hard-fought 2011 budget agreement that had helped bring deficits back under control. Conservative Republicans were irate at their leaders and at defense hawks within the GOP who forced the deal by saying it was worth busting the caps in order to get the Pentagon more money at a time when the U.S. is fighting the war on terror. “This deal represents the worst of Washington culture,” said Rep. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and presidential candidate who’d vowed to lead the filibuster, but who saw his efforts fall short to what he called an “unholy compromise between right and left.” The bill cleared on a 64-35 vote, with just 18 Republicans joining all Democrats in backing the bill. President Obama said the deal will “break the cycle of shutdowns and manufactured crises” that he and Congress have been through the last few years. “This agreement will strengthen the middle class by investing in education, job training and basic research. It will keep us safe by investing in our national security,” he said. Mr. Obama also said those hikes came without any major cuts to entitlement programs, which Republicans had sought. The debt deal had already cleared the House on Wednesday, as part of a rush by Republican leaders to get it done as quickly as possible, leaving little time for scrutiny. The 144-page deal was written late Monday, and the final Senate vote came at 3 a.m. Friday, meaning it was sped through in less than 100 hours. That works out to more than $1 billion in new spending for every hour the bill was available, or some $558 million a page. The debt increase, meanwhile, amounts to far more. Judging by recent borrowing, the 16-month debt holiday would work out to more than $1 trillion in new borrowing — or $13 billion for each hour Congress considered the bill. Friday morning’s votes split the Republican presidential candidates, with Mr. Paul and Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz opposing it and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a prominent war hawk, backing it. Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent who’s running for Democrats’ nomination, also voted for it. After the vote, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the GOP candidates who opposed the debt hike had shown they weren’t up to winning the White House. “Raising the debt limit and passing a budget are non-negotiable responsibilities of our leadership,” she said. “Our constituents elect us to be their voice and their vote, not to play politics for political gain. There is nothing presidential about failing to pay your bills and jeopardizing our standing in the world economy.

So… Let’s do a headcount here.. Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT-I), an admitted socialist, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), the current head of the DNC, and Obama, are FOR this disaster… That alone should tell you just had dreadful this is! So, shame on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and every other Republican who voted for this in the dead of night. These federally elected legislators let us down yet again. We should have seen MAJOR cuts in entitlements, which is killing our economy. The defense portion is itty-bitty by comparison, and actually a constitutionally-directed function of the federal government! But, the EPA, HUD, Dept of Ed, and on and on.. THEY need to done away with once and for all.

Rush: Hack Media Meme: Trump Fading

RUSH: So I checked the e-mail during the break, and there was a fairly decent point. “Rush, you’re ripping into Jeb’s campaign people. But don’t you realize, if it weren’t for Trump, Jeb would probably be the guy with 20 points right now and this thing would be over?” Well, there that word is again: “If.” Yeah, well, “if” a lot of things, then things would be different. But that actually kind of buttresses my point. You say, “If it weren’t for Trump…” Well, it is for Trump. Trump is there. You’d better be able to adapt to it and you better be able to figure out why Trump is doing well. And if the only ammo you’ve got with Trump is, “He’s gonna blow it, he’s gonna fade, he’s gonna step in it, he’s not gonna last, he doesn’t really mean it, he’s gonna get out,” and that’s all you can do, then you’re not doing your job. It’s not hard to explain Trump’s success. It’s really rather easy. That’s why when I see The Politico story, “The Incredible Shrinking Trump.” In their dreams. They haven’t the slightest idea what they’re talking about. “The Incredible Shrinking Trump — The usual blustery billionaire offered a downright demure performance at the third GOP debate.” If these hacks in the media were not Democrat Party activists, this story could just as easily be written as, “Donald Trump Shows More Maturity as Campaign Evolves.” But, no, because the Democrat media does not see Republicans and conservatives in any way anywhere near a favorable, fair, even almost human way. It’s not possible for them. Trump is a cartoon character to all of them, not just Harwood. He is a cartoon character to all of who they hate. I got an e-mail question last night during the debate. “Okay, Becky Quick and whatever other women have been moderating: Why do they hate these guys so much?” I said, “Are you kidding? Abortion! What do you mean, ‘Why do these female Democrat hacks hate Republican candidates?’ The answer is easy. And in most cases it’s one word: ‘Abortion.’ Or, another word: ‘Republicans.’ They’re hated.” These people have their minds made up. They’re not interested in having their minds changed. They’re not interested in learning if they’re even right, because, in their minds, it’s inconceivable that they’re wrong. So Trump, who many people might say was behaving a little bit more serious. Less bombast, less personal assault and attack last night. They might say Trump is becoming more serious. Trump is becoming more mature, whatever. But, if you’re not inclined to note anything positive or synonymous with what you would say is growth in a human being or candidate, if all you can see is somebody’s a cartoon character and a buffoon, and if you think the Republican electorate is so stupid — which they do… Remember, you people are a bunch of mind-numbed robots to the Drive-By Media. You are incapable of thinking on your own. Your public opinions are nothing but the result of whoever it is influencing you. Me, Fox News, whoever. You’re incapable of independent thought, critical thought, what have you. You put these two things together and Trump’s where he is precisely because he’s a cartoon character, and you people are so shallow and so dense that that’s what you want in a president. You want reality TV. You want low-rent scum as your leaders. You want this kind of thing, and that’s who you’re supporting, and then when those people, when the buffoons stop acting buffoonish and when the cartoon characters don’t act cartoonish, uh-oh, they’re in trouble. And we get a headline, “The Incredible Shrinking Trump.” They haven’t the slightest idea what they’re talking about. They think Trump is fading. They think Trump may be losing support because he was quieter last night, because less bombastic, ’cause he was less Trump. All this does is show how these hacks fail to understand the bond that exists between a candidate and his audience or voters. Let me give you one little hint, media. Donald Trump cannot be hurt by something he does not say. Donald Trump, nor any other candidate, cannot be hurt by something he does not do. Last night, Trump didn’t do a bunch of stuff. “Wow, he’s fading away!” Wrongo. For you people in the media and in the Republican establishment to boot… For you people waiting for Trump to blow it, waiting for Trump to step in it, whatever you think is gonna happen, it’s typical and traditional from people who think their job is to take people out, and that’s what the media thinks their job with us is, is to take us out. Trump was so low-key, nearly invisible, didn’t light it up. Typical of this way of thinking. The only way Trump’s gonna be taken out is if somebody comes along and is better. The media didn’t make Trump. So, little hint, you media people: You can’t take him out.

Well said, El Rushbo!  To read the rest of Rush’s monologue from his radio show today, click on the text above.

NOAA Attempts To Hide The Pause In Global Warming: The Most Disgraceful Cover-Up Since Climategate

The US government’s main climate research agency has refused a request by House Republicans to release key documents concerning the controversial issue of whether or not there has been a “pause” in global warming. Despite being a public, taxpayer-funded institution, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) insists that it is under no obligation to provide the research papers, as demanded in a subpoena by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). Gosh. What vital information of national secrecy importance could NOAA possibly have to hide? That question is entirely rhetorical, by the way. The answer is obvious – well known to every one within the climate change research community. And the whole business stinks. When these documents are released, as eventually they surely must be, what will become evident is that this represents the most disgraceful official cover-up by the politicized science establishment since the release of the Climategate emails. At the root of the issue is the inconvenient truth that there has been no “global warming” since January 1997. This is clearly shown by the most reliable global temperature dataset – the RSS satellite records – and was even grudgingly acknowledged in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment report. While still insisting that there has been a slight warming – an increase, since 1998, of around 0.05 degrees C per decade – the IPCC had in all honesty to admit that this is smaller than the 0.1 degrees C error range for thermometer readings, and consequently statistically insignificant. But if there has been no “global warming” for nearly 19 years how can alarmist proselytisers like President Obama and John Kerry possibly hope to convince an increasingly skeptical public that this apparently non-existent problem yet remains the most pressing concern of our age?” Step forward the Obama administration’s helpful friends at NOAA. It’s not supposed to be a politicized institution: its job is to do science, not propaganda. But the memo must have been missed by NOAA scientists Thomas Karl and Thomas Peterson who, in May this year, published a “study” so favourable to the alarmist cause it might just as well have been scripted by Al Gore and Greenpeace, with a royal foreword by the Prince of Wales, and a blessing from Pope Francis. “Data show no slowdown in recent global warming” declared NOAA’s press release. “The Pause”, in other words, was just the construct of a few warped deniers’ twisted imaginations. Naturally this new “evidence” was seized on with alacrity by the usual media suspects. “No Pause in global warming” crowed Scientific American. “Global warming hasn’t paused, study finds” echoed the Guardian. But as I reported at the time – in a piece titled “‘Hide the Hiatus!’ How the Climate Alarmists Eliminated the Inconvenient ‘Pause’ in Global Warming” – there was precious little hard science in this swiftly-debunked “study”. Rather, it was a case of “getting your excuses in early before the UN climate conference in Paris in December.”

Agreed!  To read the rest of the great op/ed by James Delingpole over at Breitbart, click on the text above.

Sen. Jeff Sessions Attacks Budget Deal With ‘Bricks of Truth’

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) tore into the congressional budget deal on the Senate floor, arguing it is being jammed through without sufficient acknowledgment of its serious flaws. “Once again, a massive deal, crafted behind closed doors, is being rushed through Congress under a threat of panic,” he said. “The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 serves as a reminder that the most important and controversial legislation is still being drafted in secret, with little or no input from the members of this chamber.” Pointing to what he called “bricks of truth,” Sessions argued his opposition to the bill, calling for more time to consider the legislation and urging that it not be hastily passed. “At its core, this deal with President Obama provides what President Obama has demanded throughout,” Sessions, a former budget committee chairman, said. Namely, he pointed to the increase in federal spending caps for two years and the elimination of the current debt limit until March of 2017. “This is a covert, a clever way of raising the debt ceiling without having to engage in a real discussion of Washington’s runaway spending problem,” he said. “It ensures that no further serious conversation about our debt course or any corresponding action to alter it will take place.” Additionally, Sessions took issue with what he said is the cementing of a precedent to tether increases in defense spending with domestic spending. “How silly is this? What possible logical argument can you make for this?” he said, calling it “deeply troubling.” Sessions also took aim at the accounting “gimmicks” in the bill that he earlier decried in a joint statement with Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) Wednesday: The use of “tricks” like double-counting for savings and raiding the Social Security Trust fund to bolster the disability program. “We’re losing momentum,” he said. “Several years ago we were in serious discussions about the dangers we face financially, and that has been eroded.” The Alabamian stressed the need for more time, saying there is no need to pass the bill immediately. “There’s no crisis that requires us to pass it today,” he said. “There are a number of interim steps we could take to allow this bill to be out there for the members to actually study it, to offer amendments on it, and maybe improve it and for the American people to understand just what it is the members of Congress are doing to their Social Security and the fiscal debt of America.” Sessions pointed to the GOPs ability to negotiate spending reforms with Obama in the 2011 debt limit deal even with a smaller majority in the House and no majority in the Senate. “And now there are 54 Republicans in the chamber and the House has a huge majority. So I think we can do better and I don’t think this should be rushed through the Congress and I would object to its passage,” he concluded.

As usual, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) nails it! He is exactly right!

After Russian jets buzz U.S. aircraft carrier, White House insists it wasn’t ‘threatening’

The White House said Thursday that an encounter by Russian warplanes near the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier this week was “not particularly threatening” and that U.S. fighter jets escorted them out of the area. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the U.S. forces were conducting exercises with the South Korean military in the Sea of Japan when the pair of Russian Bear Bombers advanced near the aircraft carrier. He said four F/A-18 Super Hornets were deployed, after the bombers were first intercepted by Korean military aircraft. “The U.S. Navy aircraft did escort the Russian aircraft until they departed the area,” Mr. Earnest said. “This was not a particularly threatening encounter.” Military officials said that once the Russian bomber were under U.S. escort, they skimmed the water at an altitude of 500 feet and came within one nautical mile of the USS Reagan. Russia regularly tries to test international boundaries with its warplanes. In July, Moscow sent planes near the west coast of the U.S.

Definitely something to keep an eye on…

Drunken Illegal Alien Arrested for Trying to Snatch 13-Year-Old Girl: ‘Come With Me’

Detroit police arrested 43-year-old illegal alien Elias Lopez for harassing a 13-year-old girl while intoxicated, but U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents picked him up only after outraged community members learned he had been released. According to the Detroit Free Press–which first identified the illegal alien as “man”–Lopez began yelling at the girl in Spanish from across the street, then walked over, telling her “come with me.” She said no, but Lopez tried to hand her $100, and made a grab for her arm. Terrified, the girl fled until she reached aa friend’s house, crying and “nearly hyperventilating.” Someone called 911 and police found Lopez as the victim described him. He blew a .19 on the breathalyzer, twice the legal limit for driving in Michigan, and had urinated on himself. He worked as a cook in at a local Mexican restaurant called MiZarape, but a manager said he couldn’t comment on whether it had knowingly hired an illegal alien. Police said Lopez never actually touched the girl, so they charged him for being disorderly. They notified ICE agents, who declined to pick him up, forcing them to release Lopez. “We’re actually obligated to treat [an illegal alien] same as everyone else. We can’t detain them any longer than we could detain anyone else,” said local police chief Tom Lindberg. But ICE agents returned to the town and frogmarched Lopez out of the restaurant. He now faces deportation. “I’m very proud ICE did the right thing,” Lindberg said, adding that the initial story sparked “a lot of negative comments” from the community. “I think the community will appreciate that [ICE] came out to get him. We don’t want this person lurking around Milford. I wanted him out of here.” Michigan taxpayers will pay for Lopez to be housed in a county jail while awaiting a federal hearing. Restaurants get the cheap labor; citizens pay for the real costs of importing a criminal class to work for lower wages.

California student forced to remove American flag shirt deemed ‘gang related’

A 12-year-old California honors student violated his school’s dress code for wearing a patriotic T-shirt administrators claim is “gang related,” Fox 40 reported Tuesday. Dustin Cole, a student at Yuba Gardens Intermediate school in Olivehurst, arrived home last week wearing the T-shirt his mom had bought him inside out, according to the station. Lori Carpenter said she questioned her son, who told her he received a dress code violation for wearing the shirt, which Carpenter recently bought at Kohl’s. She said she liked the shirt’s American flag design and blue color for her son. “He said he was ‘dress coded’ at school because the stars were gang related,” Carpenter told Fox 40. The shirt includes a red star in the corner with the number 31, and “California” is printed underneath the American flag design, which appears in the shape of a bear. California was admitted as the 31st state in 1850. A school official, however, said the red star on the shirt blurs the line between free speech and safety, Fox 40 reported. The star, the school said, is often associated with the Norteno gang. “Our local gang task force, they identify colors, they identify designs, they identify all of the things that we should be aware of,” Ramiro Carreon, assistant superintendent at Marysville Joint Unified School District, told the station. “That design has been associated with gangs in the past, and we cannot just turn a blind eye to that,” Carreon said. Carpenter said she thinks the school went “too far” in banning the mass-produced T-shirt. “I mean, they are trying to keep everybody safe. I understand. But it feels like it is a little too far. Especially when it is a patriotic shirt,” she said.

You’re far to kind, Ma’am. To see a pic of this shirt, click on the text above. If I were this kid’s parent, I’d rip this assistant superintendent, and the entire school district, a new one. Then, I’d pull my kid out and put him in some private or alternative school environment that hasn’t fallen off the deep end. No wonder people are leaving the People’s Republic of California in droves! Unreal..

Opinion: Why Congress needs to keep probing the Clinton cash register

Now that Hillary Clinton’s much anticipated congressional testimony is in the rearview mirror, the House Select Committee on Benghazi can move toward completing its investigation and issuing a final report. It’s also an appropriate time to urge standing congressional committees on both sides of the Capitol to press new investigations into a crony capitalism network the Clintons built inside the State Department. They ran a political cash register that blurred the lines between official government business and private enrichment and left behind many unanswered ethical questions. The blueprint for this shakedown machine is laid bare in emails that the group I head, Citizens United, has been able to force into the public domain through Freedom of Information Act requests and subsequent lawsuits. Over the past several months, Citizens United has released many of these never-before-seen emails, and it prompted me to reminisce about the past. In the 1990s, I spearheaded Clinton-era investigations in Congress such as Whitewater and illegal foreign contributions to the Democratic Party and Clinton-Gore campaign, which resulted in 24 and 26 prosecutions, respectively. Much of what we’ve uncovered today mimics many of the patterns and behaviors that the Clintons and their cronies made infamous so many years ago. Remember the Lincoln bedroom and coffees for donors inside the Clinton White House? Well at the Clinton State Department, wealthy interests who ponied up with big speech fees that enriched Bill Clinton or big donations to the former president’s charity got the same kind of access and preferential treatment. The Washington Times, relying on documents obtained by Citizens United, reported last week on a troubling pattern of Bill Clinton collecting speech fees and donations in foreign countries within a few weeks of his wife making official state visits. While one might consider these coincidences, the 1990s taught us all that there are no coincidences when it comes to the Clintons and political or personal money. The possible coordination of government visits and private gain is one of many questions Congress still needs to probe. Here are some other intriguing discoveries Citizens United unearthed in State Department emails: • On two occasions over a 27-day period, the infamous private Clinton email server was experiencing enough difficulties to cause top Clinton aide Huma Abedin or individuals trying to communicate with her to use alternate email addresses. This raises critical questions about the server’s security and whether or not the system was down due to a hacking attempt. • We discovered a new Huma Abedin personal email address that was used for official business. The email itself discusses an official State Department trip to Ireland in which Ms. Abedin helped arrange a dinner for Secretary Clinton where Clinton Foundation donors and a Teneo Holdings executive were also scheduled to attend. The extent to which this additional email address was used for official business is currently unknown and should be looked into by a congressional committee. • Within one week in June 2012, Amitabh Desai with the Clinton Foundation inquired with senior State Department officials Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan, and Michael Fuchs about potential Bill Clinton paid speeches connected to interests relating to North Korea, Iran and the Congo. We also learned that would-be speech fees could be turned into donations to the Clinton Foundation depending on the political circumstances. • On Sept. 21, 2012 — 10 days after the terrorist attack in Benghazi — an email from Clinton Foundation staff to senior State Department officials and others states: “Stella O’Leary called to say she saw [Hillary Rodham Clinton] this week and that HRC ‘firmly instructed’ her to urgently form a 501c3 called Friends of the Clinton Centre ” Why the sitting secretary of state would be focusing her top staff on setting up a 501c3 organization instead of the Benghazi attack has not been established. The Benghazi Committee should address this topic in their final report since they didn’t ask Mrs. Clinton about it last week. • In July 2012, State Department Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills sent two emails to the Clinton Foundation that have since been classified. This begs the question of how often sensitive government information was forwarded to the Clinton Foundation and whether or not the FBI has contacted the Clinton Foundation about this revelation. • Ms. Abedin makes clear in a November 2012 email that she was concerned about a “conflict” when it came to discussing an issue relating to Teneo Holdings and the Rockefeller Foundation in official State Department email traffic. • A document production log indicates that several emails relating to the Benghazi attacks and the State Department’s dealings with Congress in the wake of the attacks are being withheld from the public in part or in full by the U.S. government. Citizens United intends to contest these privilege claims in court. Citizens United filed its first FOIA request with the State Department for these records in May 2014, and we will continue to file new FOIAs based on our findings in the days, weeks, and months to come. In the meantime, I hope chairmen like Chuck Grassley and Jason Chaffetz, inspectors general, and the FBI continue to investigate the questions raised in these documents. • David N. Bossie is the president of Citizens United and the former chief investigator for the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.

Some really good work by David and his team over at Citizens United! Granted, that was a bit self-serving, and a shameless plug for his organization. And, it’s pretty nit-noid and dry. But, we’re very glad to see there are groups like his pushing Congress to do its job. The Clinton corruption is infamous. And, with Hillary leading the Dem pack for that party’s Presidential nomination, it’s imperative that we-the-people know exactly what all she and her hubby have been involved in, and exactly how unethical they are. The American voters need to know who Hillary really is; not this fictional person the dominantly liberal mainstream media, and HollyWEIRD, have created because they think she walks on water. Far from it! Hillary is a conniving, deceitful, arrogant, entitlement-minded, agenda-driven, limousine liberal who has broken God-knows how many federal laws, and put our nation’s security at risk. And, that’s just the legal part! Because of her unsecure personal server that she used while Sec of State, it’s VERY likely it was hacked. Then, there is her record as Sec. of State. Even SHE, when asked by a reporter a year ago, can’t list a single major accomplishment as Sec of State. Everything she touched was a complete failure/disaster. “Reset” with Moscow? FAIL! Libya? Epic FAIL! We could list failure after failure…but not a single major accomplishment of any value. And she’s the best the Dems can put forward? Really? Seriously?

Democratic Sen. In Hillary Clinton Ad Insults Housewives, Intelligence of American People

The Hillary Clinton campaign is showing a Buzzfeed-style photo listicle featuring female Democratic senators holding up signs with pro-female slogans on them to support Clinton. Borrowing the White House’s strategy to combat the terrorist group Boko Haram, the Clinton campaign ad and its featured sign-holders strive to be empowering, inspiring, life-affirming, or some combination thereof. But the ad just ends up insulting American homemakers. “What would a Republican president mean for women” the campaign asks, followed by a photo of Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) holding up a sign saying “Worst News Ever!” McCaskill then offers a quote beneath her picture, saying, “June Cleaver? Would people get that?” “June Cleaver,” of course, was a homemaker character on the 1950s television program Leave It To Beaver, which is not some kind of highbrow piece of literature that McCaskill – wearing blue hipster glasses in the photo – would be going over America’s heads by referencing. Neither McCaskill nor the Clinton campaign takes any time to explain why being a loving mother and homemaker is a bad thing compared to being a senator tainted by a taxpayer-funded private plane scandal. The listicle also features Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) responding to a prompt about why women make excellent leaders by holding a sign that says “Make a Difference,” and she adds, “They see the world differently” than the other forty-nine percent of the human population. “It’s like what she said in Beijing. Women’s rights are human rights. And so it’s not like women are in some little silo,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) says in the listicle, sounding more like a socialist than usual. “We are part of the human family. And the progress of any part is progress for the whole.”

I think I’m gonna vomit..

DHS Secy Johnson: Black Lives Matter ‘Airing a Point of View That Deserves To Be Heard’

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson stated that “the Black Lives Matter movement is airing a point of view that deserves to be heard” in an interview with USA Today‘s Capital Download released on Monday. Johnson said [relevant exchange begins around 4:15] “I think that the Black Lives Matter movement is airing a point of view that deserves to be heard, and a frustration that deserves to be heard. And there are lots of different ways to present a point of view, and obviously, this movement is one of them. But, they’re representing a point of view that I think deserves to be heard.”

Huh?!? THIS is what’s wrong with Obama and his minions like Sec. Jeh Johnson.. They’re breathtakingly incompetent..and using their offices to further liberal agendas (like this) that have NOTHING to do with their role/job description. Sec. Johnson is the Secretary of HOMELAND SECURITY; NOT the Sec of Domestic Race Relations. His job is NOT to endorse some