"Under this bill [denying taxpayer funded abortions], when the Republicans vote for this bill today," Nancy Pelosi announced, "They will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and health care providers don't have to intervene if this bill is passed. It's just appalling." [Isn't this the same Nancy Pelosi, weeping, who said that harsh words can promote violence, and the Republicans should stop doing it?]
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AP writes: The Obama administration Friday pulled the plug on a major program in the president's signature health overhaul law - a long-term care insurance plan dogged from the beginning by doubts over its financial solvency.
Targeted by congressional Republicans for repeal, the long-term care plan became the first casualty in the political and policy wars over the health care law. The program had been expected to launch in 2013. Said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., spearheading opposition in the Senate: "The administration is finally admitting (the long-term care plan) is unsustainable and cannot be implemented." [Unstated here is the fact that this one program was the one which would "save" between 40-50% of cost of health insurance in Obamacare.] http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_LONG_TERM_CARE_PROGRAM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-14-15-24-47
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Fox News reports: The U.S. is abandoning plans to keep troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, according to The Associated Press, but Obama administration officials insist to Fox News that discussions with Iraqi leaders are "ongoing."
For months, U.S. officials have been debating whether to stick to a Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline that was set in 2008 or negotiate a new security agreement to ensure that gains made and more than 4,400 American military lives lost since March 2003 do not go to waste. [Our President needs them at other kinetic actions spots in African countries - without the vote of Congress.]
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Expose Obama reports: A parade of Treasury Department officials testified on Friday that they had never before seen a government loan restructured as the one with Solyndra had been. The testimony came as the Republican-controlled House investigated whether the Obama administration had committed a crime in its handling of the politically connected solar energy firm.
Months after the Obama administration granted the $535 million loan to the firm with which it had such close ties, it allowed investors who sank in an additional $75 million to recoup their funds before taxpayers in the event of bankruptcy.
On Friday, Gary Burner and Gary Grippo, high-ranking Treasury Department employees, told the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee that never in their memory had private investment funds been prioritized ahead of taxpayer dollars.
There is a good reason for that:House Republicans contend it is illegal. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 clearly states that all government loan guarantees “shall be subject to the condition that the obligation is not subordinate to other financing.” http://www.exposeobama.com/2011/10/14/house-investigates-if-solyndra-was-a-crime/
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Politico writes: The Obama administration is appealing a judge's ruling that Secret Service records of visitors to the White House complex are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Justice Department filed a formal notice of appeal Friday afternoon regarding U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell's August ruling rejecting arguments that the so-called WAVES records belong to the White House even though they are maintained and used by the Secret Service.
The decision to appeal the ruling to the D.C. Circuit would appear to be in tension with Obama's repeated pledges to operate the most transparent administration in history. The White House announced in Sept. 2009 that it was voluntarily releasing the names of most White House visitors from Sept. 15 forward. However, the conservative group Judicial Watch sought information on visits before that date.
The position taken by the Obama Justice Department, namely that White House visitor records are presidential records and not agency records, is essentially the same one that the department took under President George W. Bush. [Enough of those old Bush rules! This will be the most transparent Administration ever!] http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/1011/Obama_administration_appeals_ruling_on_White_House_visitor_logs.html
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CNS News writes: A U.S. House committee Thursday approved a bill linking U.S. contributions to the United Nations to significant financial and other reforms, one day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned she would recommend that President Obama veto the measure if it reaches his desk.
Deeply divided along party lines, the House Foreign Relations Committee voted 23-15 for the U.N. Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act (H.R. 2829), whose most radical provision aims to force the U.N. to change its funding mechanism from the current system of “assessed” contributions to voluntary ones.
Proponents say this would allow the U.S. – and other member states – to fund only those activities and agencies it regards as being efficiently managed, and in the national interest. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/republicans-advance-bill-targeting-us-funding-un-what-are-we-paying
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Roll Call reports: Congressional leaders met this week with two of the most important people in Washington: the co-chairmen of the Joint Committee for Deficit Reduction. There was only one problem: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t even know the meeting was taking place. http://www.rollcall.com/news/Nancy-Pelosi-Left-Out-of-Leaders-Meeting-on-Super-Committee-209492-1.html
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American Spectator writes: a "proposed rule", if permitted to stand, requires insurance companies to submit detailed health information about their patients to the HHS mother ship. And the "information collection requirements" (ICRs) set forth in this Byzantine edict will not be limited to federal programs like Medicare, or even to carriers involved in Obamacare's insurance exchanges. As the rule matter-of-factly phrases it, ICRs will apply to "all health insurance issuers both inside and outside of the exchanges" and affect carriers "in the individual and small group markets." The new regulation includes several alternatives for gathering and reporting your health data, but opting out is not among the choices offered.
Congressman Denny Rehberg, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services and Education, wrote to Secretary Sebelius last Thursday asking about this: "I have been told that HHS has already procured a contractor to build a database and that this contractor has already taken steps to acquire personal health care data from a large claims database. I would like to know if these reports are, in fact, true. If so, it would represent an egregious violation of the privacy rights that the American public rightfully demands." http://spectator.org/archives/2011/10/17/wed-like-to-know-a-little-bit
Expose Obama reports: A parade of Treasury Department officials testified on Friday that they had never before seen a government loan restructured as the one with Solyndra had been. The testimony came as the Republican-controlled House investigated whether the Obama administration had committed a crime in its handling of the politically connected solar energy firm.
Months after the Obama administration granted the $535 million loan to the firm with which it had such close ties, it allowed investors who sank in an additional $75 million to recoup their funds before taxpayers in the event of bankruptcy.
On Friday, Gary Burner and Gary Grippo, high-ranking Treasury Department employees, told the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee that never in their memory had private investment funds been prioritized ahead of taxpayer dollars.
There is a good reason for that:House Republicans contend it is illegal. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 clearly states that all government loan guarantees “shall be subject to the condition that the obligation is not subordinate to other financing.” http://www.exposeobama.com/2011/10/14/house-investigates-if-solyndra-was-a-crime/
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Fox News reports: Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has offered his own $804 billion jobs plan that calls on the federal government to hire the nation’s 15 million unemployed Americans for jobs paying roughly $40,000 each, and bail out all the states and cities facing budget crises.
In an interview with the Daily Caller on Wednesday, the Illinois Democrat applauded President Obama for directing his staff to greenlight job-creating initiatives without congressional approval after his $447 billion jobs bill was defeated in the Senate this week.
“Now we’re making some progress,” Jackson said, comparing the legislative gridlock in Congress to the states that seceded from the union during the Civil War.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Politico writes: The Obama administration is appealing a judge's ruling that Secret Service records of visitors to the White House complex are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Justice Department filed a formal notice of appeal Friday afternoon regarding U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell's August ruling rejecting arguments that the so-called WAVES records belong to the White House even though they are maintained and used by the Secret Service.
The decision to appeal the ruling to the D.C. Circuit would appear to be in tension with Obama's repeated pledges to operate the most transparent administration in history. The White House announced in Sept. 2009 that it was voluntarily releasing the names of most White House visitors from Sept. 15 forward. However, the conservative group Judicial Watch sought information on visits before that date.
The position taken by the Obama Justice Department, namely that White House visitor records are presidential records and not agency records, is essentially the same one that the department took under President George W. Bush. [Enough of those old Bush rules! This will be the most transparent Administration ever!] http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/1011/Obama_administration_appeals_ruling_on_White_House_visitor_logs.html
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CNS News writes: A U.S. House committee Thursday approved a bill linking U.S. contributions to the United Nations to significant financial and other reforms, one day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned she would recommend that President Obama veto the measure if it reaches his desk.
Deeply divided along party lines, the House Foreign Relations Committee voted 23-15 for the U.N. Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act (H.R. 2829), whose most radical provision aims to force the U.N. to change its funding mechanism from the current system of “assessed” contributions to voluntary ones.
Proponents say this would allow the U.S. – and other member states – to fund only those activities and agencies it regards as being efficiently managed, and in the national interest. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/republicans-advance-bill-targeting-us-funding-un-what-are-we-paying
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Roll Call reports: Congressional leaders met this week with two of the most important people in Washington: the co-chairmen of the Joint Committee for Deficit Reduction. There was only one problem: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t even know the meeting was taking place. http://www.rollcall.com/news/Nancy-Pelosi-Left-Out-of-Leaders-Meeting-on-Super-Committee-209492-1.html
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American Spectator writes: a "proposed rule", if permitted to stand, requires insurance companies to submit detailed health information about their patients to the HHS mother ship. And the "information collection requirements" (ICRs) set forth in this Byzantine edict will not be limited to federal programs like Medicare, or even to carriers involved in Obamacare's insurance exchanges. As the rule matter-of-factly phrases it, ICRs will apply to "all health insurance issuers both inside and outside of the exchanges" and affect carriers "in the individual and small group markets." The new regulation includes several alternatives for gathering and reporting your health data, but opting out is not among the choices offered.
Congressman Denny Rehberg, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services and Education, wrote to Secretary Sebelius last Thursday asking about this: "I have been told that HHS has already procured a contractor to build a database and that this contractor has already taken steps to acquire personal health care data from a large claims database. I would like to know if these reports are, in fact, true. If so, it would represent an egregious violation of the privacy rights that the American public rightfully demands." http://spectator.org/archives/2011/10/17/wed-like-to-know-a-little-bit
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Washington Times reports: Officials at failed solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC refused to discuss the company’s contracts at a private meeting last month with a bankruptcy analyst for the Justice Department, fueling the push to have a trustee take over the failed company during its bankruptcy, records show.
Bankruptcy analyst Jeffrey Heck of the U.S. Office of the Trustee, an arm of the Justice Department that oversees bankruptcy cases, said that during a routine interview not long after Solyndra filed for bankruptcy last month, Solyndra officials suggested he “move on” when he asked about its contracts, according to an affidavit filed Friday by Mr. Heck in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
U.S. taxpayers stand to lose out on more than a half-billion dollars in government loans issued to Solyndra before it went bankrupt. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/16/solyndra-wont-talk-about-its-contracts/
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Breitbart reports: Stephen Gutowski: Among the most controversial of her claims and assertions were her opinions on the Tea Party movement. During her time at the podium Piven asserted at least twice that racism is, at least, one of the factors driving the Tea Party. The crowd, which included a group of Tea Partiers, was clearly unhappy with Piven calling the Tea Party racist. http://www.breitbart.tv/college-audience-shouts-down-frances-fox-piven-for-calling-tea-party-racist/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Real Clear Politics opines: "My plan says we’re going to put teachers back in the classrooms, construction workers back to work," President Obama said at a campaign event today. "Tax cuts for small businesses, tax cuts for hiring veterans, tax cuts if you give your workers a raise –- that’s my plan."
"The Republicans plan, Obama says, boils down to this: 'Dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance.'" http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/17/obama_gop_wants_dirtier_air_dirtier_water_less_people_with_health_insurance.html
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NY Post reports: Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops -- and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.
“Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment,” said Nan Terrie, 18, a kitchen and legal-team volunteer from Fort Lauderdale.
“I had my Mac stolen -- that was like $5,500. Every night, something else is gone. Last night, our entire [kitchen] budget for the day was stolen, so the first thing I had to do was . . . get the message out to our supporters that we needed food!”
For politicians, it's another story: Demonize people whose power you want to usurp. That's the typical way totalitarians gain power. They give the masses someone to hate. In 18th-century France, it was Maximilien Robespierre's promoting hatred of the aristocracy that was the key to his acquiring more dictatorial power than the aristocracy had ever had. In the 20th century, the communists gained power by promoting public hatred of the czars and capitalists. In Germany, Adolf Hitler gained power by promoting hatred of Jews and Bolsheviks. In each case, the power gained led to greater misery and bloodshed than anything the old regime could have done.
Let me be clear: I'm not equating America's liberals with Robespierre, Josef Stalin and Hitler. I am saying that promoting jealousy, fear and hate is an effective strategy for politicians and their liberal followers to control and micromanage businesses. It's not about the amount of money people earn. If it were, politicians and leftists would be promoting jealousy, fear and hate toward multimillionaire Hollywood and celebrities and sports stars, such as LeBron James ($48 million), Tiger Woods ($75 million) and Peyton Manning ($38 million). But there is no way that politicians could take over the roles of Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga and LeBron James. That means celebrities can make any amount of money they want and it matters not one iota politically.
The Occupy Wall Street crowd shouldn't focus its anger at wealthy CEOs. A far more appropriate target would be the U.S. Congress.http://www.creators.com/conservative/walter-williams.html
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LA Times, Reporting from Washington—
A Marine and a Navy medic killed by a U.S. drone airstrike were targeted when Marine commanders in Afghanistan mistook them for Taliban fighters, even though analysts watching the Predator's video feed were uncertain whether the men were part of an enemy force. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/afghanistan/la-fg-pentagon-drone-20111014,0,5628010.story-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Washington Times reports: Officials at failed solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC refused to discuss the company’s contracts at a private meeting last month with a bankruptcy analyst for the Justice Department, fueling the push to have a trustee take over the failed company during its bankruptcy, records show.
Bankruptcy analyst Jeffrey Heck of the U.S. Office of the Trustee, an arm of the Justice Department that oversees bankruptcy cases, said that during a routine interview not long after Solyndra filed for bankruptcy last month, Solyndra officials suggested he “move on” when he asked about its contracts, according to an affidavit filed Friday by Mr. Heck in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
U.S. taxpayers stand to lose out on more than a half-billion dollars in government loans issued to Solyndra before it went bankrupt. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/16/solyndra-wont-talk-about-its-contracts/
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Breitbart reports: Stephen Gutowski: Among the most controversial of her claims and assertions were her opinions on the Tea Party movement. During her time at the podium Piven asserted at least twice that racism is, at least, one of the factors driving the Tea Party. The crowd, which included a group of Tea Partiers, was clearly unhappy with Piven calling the Tea Party racist. http://www.breitbart.tv/college-audience-shouts-down-frances-fox-piven-for-calling-tea-party-racist/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Real Clear Politics opines: "My plan says we’re going to put teachers back in the classrooms, construction workers back to work," President Obama said at a campaign event today. "Tax cuts for small businesses, tax cuts for hiring veterans, tax cuts if you give your workers a raise –- that’s my plan."
"The Republicans plan, Obama says, boils down to this: 'Dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance.'" http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/17/obama_gop_wants_dirtier_air_dirtier_water_less_people_with_health_insurance.html
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NY Post reports: Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops -- and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.
“Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment,” said Nan Terrie, 18, a kitchen and legal-team volunteer from Fort Lauderdale.
“I had my Mac stolen -- that was like $5,500. Every night, something else is gone. Last night, our entire [kitchen] budget for the day was stolen, so the first thing I had to do was . . . get the message out to our supporters that we needed food!”
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American Thinker reports: Four days after the first occupiers arrived on Wall Street in September, the Harvard Crimson student newspaper offered editorial space to a Maoist fringe group called the Revolutionary Communist Party. The article by RCP spokesman Ray Lotta urged replacing the U.S. Constitution with the Constitution of the New Socialist Republic in North America, which has been published as a 91-page book with a yellow cover.
The RCP is not an underground organization. RCP Chairman Bob Avakian, the author of the Constitution, is in exile in Paris, but the RCP openly operates Revolution Bookstores in sixteen American cities, including Cambridge, Berkeley, New York, and Seattle, http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/the_revolutionary_communist_partys_little_yellow_book.html
American Thinker reports: Four days after the first occupiers arrived on Wall Street in September, the Harvard Crimson student newspaper offered editorial space to a Maoist fringe group called the Revolutionary Communist Party. The article by RCP spokesman Ray Lotta urged replacing the U.S. Constitution with the Constitution of the New Socialist Republic in North America, which has been published as a 91-page book with a yellow cover.
The RCP is not an underground organization. RCP Chairman Bob Avakian, the author of the Constitution, is in exile in Paris, but the RCP openly operates Revolution Bookstores in sixteen American cities, including Cambridge, Berkeley, New York, and Seattle, http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/the_revolutionary_communist_partys_little_yellow_book.html
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The Great Walter Williams opines: President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have led increasingly successful efforts to pit Americans against one another through the politics of hate and envy. Attacking CEO salaries, the president — last year during his Midwest tour — said, "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money." For politicians, it's another story: Demonize people whose power you want to usurp. That's the typical way totalitarians gain power. They give the masses someone to hate. In 18th-century France, it was Maximilien Robespierre's promoting hatred of the aristocracy that was the key to his acquiring more dictatorial power than the aristocracy had ever had. In the 20th century, the communists gained power by promoting public hatred of the czars and capitalists. In Germany, Adolf Hitler gained power by promoting hatred of Jews and Bolsheviks. In each case, the power gained led to greater misery and bloodshed than anything the old regime could have done.
Let me be clear: I'm not equating America's liberals with Robespierre, Josef Stalin and Hitler. I am saying that promoting jealousy, fear and hate is an effective strategy for politicians and their liberal followers to control and micromanage businesses. It's not about the amount of money people earn. If it were, politicians and leftists would be promoting jealousy, fear and hate toward multimillionaire Hollywood and celebrities and sports stars, such as LeBron James ($48 million), Tiger Woods ($75 million) and Peyton Manning ($38 million). But there is no way that politicians could take over the roles of Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga and LeBron James. That means celebrities can make any amount of money they want and it matters not one iota politically.
The Occupy Wall Street crowd shouldn't focus its anger at wealthy CEOs. A far more appropriate target would be the U.S. Congress.http://www.creators.com/conservative/walter-williams.html
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