You can talk about “social justice” all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get reelected. That is not social justice or any other kind of justice.— Thomas Sowell
Designated terrorist group Hamas has warned President Obama against visiting the holy Temple Mount site in Jerusalem when he visits Israel next month, saying the action would be “a diplomatic catastrophe.”
Mr. Obama hasn’t confirmed a visit to the Temple Mount. But Muslim leaders have heard rumors and have issued a blunt statement nonetheless, The Times of Israel reports.
Hamas said a visit by Mr. Obama to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is located just on the southern side of the Mount, would be “an imminent danger which the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem have never faced,” according to The Times of Israel. Hamas — which has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department since 1997 — also called any visit by Mr. Obama to the site of “the Zionist occupation” an act of danger.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/1/hamas-warns-obama-dont-visit-temple-mount/#ixzz2MJjlizEw
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A study to learn whether or not a fish called the golden shiner
can teach us about “collective action”: $5 million.
A project to design beef jerky that rolls up: $1.5 million.
A seminar in which a topic was, “Did Jesus die for Klingons, too?”
(This is a question, I can assure you, that will not be answered by any sane
person): $100,000.
These examples of absurd government spending become even more
absurd when you realize these items were all part of the budget for the Department
of Defense.
The Department
of Defense also spent more than $700 million on clean-energy research. It spent
$6 billion on nondefense research and $15 billion on education. The department
educates 19,000 students within its own school system at a cost of $50,000 per
student, while the national average is $11,000.
Defense spends $9 billion running grocery stores. It also operates
liquor stores and co-sponsored a cooking show.
Do you feel safer now?
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/1/sequestration-doesnt-cut-nearly-enough/#ixzz2MNxC1wVW
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As the map above makes clear–taken
from this 2010
report–DOD [the Department of Defense] plans to have drones all over the
country by 2015.
Many police departments are also
using drones to spy on us. As the Hill reported:
At least 13 state and local
police agencies around the country have used drones in the field or in
training, according to the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems
International, an industry trade group. The Federal Aviation Administration has
predicted that by the end of the decade, 30,000 commercial and government
drones could be flying over U.S. skies.
Even without drones, Americans
are the most spied
on people in world history:
The American government is
collecting and storing virtually every phone
call, purchases, email, text message, internet searches, social
media communications, health
information, employment history, travel and student records, and
virtually all other information of every American. [Do you suppose they
might be able to find Barack Hussein Obama's college transcripts? Or how
about his travel Visa to Pakistan when travel there was forbidden by our
government.] http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/10/the-same-secret-government-agency-which-spies-on-all-americans-also-decides-who-gets-assassinated-by-drones.html
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“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (‘ObamaCare’) remains broadly unpopular across America,” the letter to Boehner and Cantor reads. “More and more Americans are now feeling its impact--from job losses and part-time downgrades, to insurance policy changes and violations of religious liberties, to state budget strains from Medicaid expansions. And Americans don’t like these impacts. Most Americans still believe that healthcare should be controlled by patients and doctors, not by the government.”In the letter, the conservatives note that while they plan to “re-start efforts to repeal ObamaCare in its entirety this year, next year and until we are successful,” that “in the meantime, there is more we can do in Congress.”
The upcoming continuing resolution, which funds the government, is one such place. House Republicans have the power, should they choose to use it, to shut down Obamacare through the appropriations process--the power of the purse laid out in the United States Constitution.
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A source told CBS News that FBI transcripts of interviews with Benghazi survivors were turned over to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. Along with the transcripts, were other documents relating to the deadly September 11 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi. Members of the committee have not examined the material yet.Senator Lindsey Graham (R - S.C.) initially called for the FBI transcripts of Benghazi survivors back in December. Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R - UT) told Breitbart Newsthat the State Department was not allowing members of Congress to see those who survived the attack.
The documents that came from the White House is the second set to be sent to Congress. The initial set of documents related to the attack were considered “insufficient” due tomassive redactions:
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Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday that the United States would provide food rations and medical supplies to the Free Syrian Army, the military wing of the opposition that is fighting to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.The assistance represents the first time that the United States has publicly committed itself to sending nonlethal support for armed factions that are battling the Assad government in the two-year-old uprising.
But the supplies Mr. Kerry announced fell well short of the weapons and equipment Syrian rebels have requested. And it remained unclear how such modest support might change Mr. Assad’s calculations about his ability to retain power, which Mr. Kerry has repeatedly said is Mr. Assad’s goal.
In addition to the nonlethal aid, the United States is providing $60 million in assistance to help the political wing of the Syrian anti-Assad coalition improve the delivery of basic services like sanitation and education in areas it has already wrested from the government’s control.
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President Obama reiterated his commitment to green energy during his State of the Union address, promising more investments to help the economy grow.But this is entirely the wrong approach for America’s energy future, an expert declared.
“Green energy might create some jobs — the Labor Department counted 3.1 million green jobs in the U.S. economy last year — but it makes energy more expensive, raising utility costs for consumers,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of “Regulating to Disaster: How Green Jobs Policies Are Damaging America’s Economy.”
“Instead, for economic growth, the president should focus on oil and natural gas.”
Electricity produced from natural gas is significantly less expensive than from alternative sources, and the United States — thanks to new fracking technology — has a 200-year supply of natural gas.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average cost for electricity from natural gas-fired plants entering service in 2017 will be $66 per megawatt hour, compared to $153 per megawatt hour for solar-powered plants, $96 for wind power, and $115 for biomass.
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With the sequester officially in place, and the world still perfectly intact, there is still a possibility that many federal workers could still be furloughed. Remember how Obama kept threatening that all these people would lose their jobs, airplanes wouldn’t fly, and illegal immigrants would be crossing the border without a problem?
Do you also remember how all the reporters were going crazy last week about how the President went golfing with Tiger Woods? Well as everything Obama does, it cost quite a bit in taxpayer dollars. Over $1 million to be more accurate. Many are furious that the President has the nerve to ask lawmakers to make these concessions, where he is not willing to do the same. How can he make these fear inducing claims that many people will lose their jobs, when he is out golfing with a famous womanizer, spending enough money that could have saved 341 jobs from the furlough?
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Yes, we all want what the president wants: a better job market, a better economy, a stronger middle class, a better educational system. In short a better, fairer way to a robust system in which we all get our just deserts. Yes, we want the American way to be the fair-shot-fair-share way. Boilerplate stuff Obama can make sound like profound insights, gussied up in the patois of left-wing university-speak.
But make no mistake about it. The president is a man with a mission. He is the champion of social justice. This is hardly a secret. Obama has proclaimed as much many times. For example, in his recent Townhall article (3/2/13), Bill O'Reilly writes:
Above all, the president is a social justice man... It must be hard for the president to cozy up to people who spend $20,000 on a weekend vacation after his experience in the South Side of Chicago. True compassion for the underprivileged must extend further than celebrity fundraisers at Spago, and the president knows it... He has seized [ upon the greed and excesses of capitalism] to fund his dream of a level playing field by demanding the wealthy pay "their fair share." The president is going to take as much money from the affluent as he can before he leaves office.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/robin_from_the_hood.html#ixzz2MZRHaDiL
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
But make no mistake about it. The president is a man with a mission. He is the champion of social justice. This is hardly a secret. Obama has proclaimed as much many times. For example, in his recent Townhall article (3/2/13), Bill O'Reilly writes:
Above all, the president is a social justice man... It must be hard for the president to cozy up to people who spend $20,000 on a weekend vacation after his experience in the South Side of Chicago. True compassion for the underprivileged must extend further than celebrity fundraisers at Spago, and the president knows it... He has seized [ upon the greed and excesses of capitalism] to fund his dream of a level playing field by demanding the wealthy pay "their fair share." The president is going to take as much money from the affluent as he can before he leaves office.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/robin_from_the_hood.html#ixzz2MZRHaDiL
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
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President Obama has engaged in a two-pronged attack during the recent budget battles -- which, given the failure of sequester negotiations, will continue with our next budget crisis on March 27th when the Continuing Resolution funding the federal government expires. On the one hand the president uses scare tactics to make the point that cutting any government spending will cause pain. On the other hand, he praises himself for his enormous ongoing deficit-cutting efforts.
We read about this latter strategy on a recent post at whitehouse.gov:
The President has already reduced the deficit by over $2.5 trillion, cutting spending by over $1.4 trillion, bringing domestic discretionary spending to its lowest level as a share of the economy since the Eisenhower era. As a result of these savings, together with a strengthening economy, the deficit is coming down at the fastest pace of anytime in American history other than the demobilization from World War II.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/obamas_mythical_spending_cuts.html#ixzz2MZRwow53
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Last week, the Partnership for a Secure America (PSA), led by former Democratic representative Lee Hamilton and former Republican senator Warren Rudman, released a letter signed by 36 other formerly important people insisting that the United States must take action on climate change for national-security reasons. The letter begins:
The effect of climate change in the world’s most vulnerable regions present[s] a serious threat to American national security interests. As a matter of risk management, the United States must work with international partners, public and private, to address this impending crisis. . . . Both the Department of Defense and the State Department have identified climate change as a serious risk to American security and an agent of instability . . . Climate change impacts could spur mass migrations, influence civil conflict and ultimately lead to a more unpredictable world. . . . Protecting U.S. interests under these conditions would progressively exhaust American military, diplomatic, and development resources . . .
Etc., etc.
That is, global warming doesn’t just threaten the polar bears but is also endangering our troops. So if you care about our brave young men and women in uniform, our national defense, and world peace, get in line and support cap-and-trade.
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“Unconstitutional? Absolutely. It’s like dropping a Ford Pinto engine into a totaled Ferrari body, patching it up and then selling it to some unsuspecting dupe as a “brand new Ferrari.”
“But Republican governors are folding like cheap lawn chairs,” you say. “And political eunuchs in the GOP establishment are bowing to Obama like he bows to foreign dictators. Any hope of repeal is long dead, and besides, Chief Justice John Roberts put the final nail in the judicial coffin last summer, didn’t he? Any chance of killing the Obamacare zombie is gone, right?”
Wrong.
Not surprisingly, the mainstream media paid it little attention, but back in November the U.S. Supreme Court shocked many in the legal community by granting Liberty Counsel’s motion for a rehearing on its multi-pronged challenge to Obamacare. The high court ordered the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear arguments. This is extremely rare and means, almost certainly, that Chief Justice Roberts will get another bite at the rotten apple – this time, with a whole new quiver of legal arrows.
Following the Supreme Court’s directive, Liberty Counsel recently filed its brief in the case of Liberty University v. Geithner. The Christian civil rights firm represents Liberty University and two private individuals in this case. While there are other legal challenges to the employer contraceptive/abortifacient mandate, Liberty Counsel’s is the most comprehensive case pending in the country.
The lawsuit challenges 1) the employer mandate for all employers; 2) the abortion mandate for religious employers; 3) the abortion mandate for individuals; and 4) the entire law because tax bills must originate in the House and Obamacare originated in the Senate.
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