Associated Press Mysteriously Deletes 2012 Story On Collapse Of Socialized Medicine In Venezuela

Weasel Zippers  "A story which previously appeared on the Associated Press’ website and web archives from November 2012 has mysteriously vanished.

 

"The story, an expose on the failing healthcare system under then-president Hugo Chavez detailing the failings of the countries beleaguered Socialist system is strange to say the least."

 

Luckily the internet is forever: 

MARACAY, Venezuela (AP) — Evelina Gonzalez was supposed to undergo cancer surgery in July following chemotherapy but wound up shuttling from hospital to hospital in search of an available operating table. On the crest of her left breast, a mocha-colored tumor doubled in size and now bulges through her white spandex tank top. 

Gonzalez is on a list of 31 breast cancer patients waiting to have tumors removed at one of Venezuela’s biggest medical facilities, Maracay’s Central Hospital. But like legions of the sick across the country, she’s been neglected by a health care system doctors say is collapsing after years of deterioration.

Doctors at the hospital sent home 300 cancer patients last month when supply shortages and overtaxed equipment made it impossible for them to perform non-emergency surgeries.

 Full article...

More Taxes than Meet the Eye in Obama’s Budget

CATO   Here are some of the tax hikes the president is proposing:

• “Buffett tax” ($53 billion): President Obama resurrected this tax idea, which would require high-income individuals to pay at least 30 percent of their incomes in taxes.
• Limiting tax deductions ($598 billion): President Obama would limit the value of itemized deductions for high-income earners.
• Changes to the “death tax” ($131 billion): The president suggests going back to the estate tax rules of 2009, which would increase the marginal tax rate on estates and lower the exemption, subjecting more assets to taxation.
• Changes to oil and gas taxation ($44 billion): Frequently criticized by the president, these tax provisions are generally not subsidies to oil and gas companies, but instead ameliorate the tax code’s improper treatment of capital expenditures.
• Changes to international taxation ($276 billion): Instead of moving the United States to a territorial tax system like most other industrialized countries, the president moves in the opposite direction and proposes further raising taxes on corporations with overseas earnings.
• Cap on 401(k) and IRA contributions ($28 billion): This provision would prohibit individuals from contributing to retirement accounts if their balances were greater than $3 million.
• Increase in tobacco taxes ($78 billion): To pay for his universal pre-K proposal, President Obama would increase the tobacco tax from $1.10/pack to $1.95/pack.
• 

Right-Wing Mobs? Say It Isn't So, Conservatives!

Ann Coulter

 

"When I wrote a book about mobs and group-think a few years ago, I could honestly say that mob behavior existed exclusively on the left in America -- unless you count Oakland Raiders tailgate parties, which I do not. As described in Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America, the distinctive characteristics of the mob mentality include: "....

 

.... "Those are facts. Here's the counter-argument from the anti-McConnell crowd: HE'S A RINO! HE'S AN ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICAN! HE'S BEEN A TERRIBLE LEADER! MITCH LIED, KIDS DIED!

"Ladies and Gentlemen, there you have all the attributes of a mob: Slogans in lieu of logic and evidence, beliefs impenetrable by facts, emotional hatred of the "enemy" and the acceptance of wild contradictions. Isn't Paul Ryan dreamy? Let's run Ted Cruz for president! We love Reagan ... But we hate McConnell for voting with Reagan!

"Nothing good has ever been accomplished by a mob."

 

We needed to know all this; thank you, MS, Coulter. 

 

Delaying Obamacare's Individual Mandate Due to 'Hardship' -- Caused by Obamacare

http://terrellaftermath.com/

 

Heritage   "It’s getting difficult to take any part of Obamacare seriously.

"The Obama administration has altered or delayed it so many times—who can be sure what the law is at this point?

"The individual mandate stating that every American has to purchase government-approved health coverage or pay a fine is supposed to kick in on March 31. That’s the deadline to sign up for coverage, supposedly to avoid this year’s penalty.

"But Obamacare is never “settled law,” as the president and others have called it, because Health and Human Services (HHS) keeps writing more regulations." ....

 

More than 37 significant changes already have been made to ObamaCare "at least 20 that President Obama has made unilaterally, 15 that Congress has passed and the president has signed, and 2 by the Supreme Court."  Galen Institute

Benghazi and the Politicization of Intelligence

Accuracy in Media

 

"Mike Morell, then-head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC), had the task of helping to prepare talking points for then-U.S. Ambassador to the UN "Susan Rice, who was slated to appear on five Sunday morning talk shows a few days later. Morell was personally responsible for “cutting some 50 percent of the text,” including all “references to Al Qaeda” and the many earlier terror attacks against U.S. and other Western targets in Benghazi....it was clear that Morell not only had misrepresented his own role, but also had been less than forthcoming about the close oversight role played by the White House in ensuring that all references to al-Qa’eda terrorism would be scrubbed. Morell also made sure to scrub from the talking points the honest assessment that “We cannot rule out that individuals had previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.' ”

....

"This is particularly damaging because there is the appearance of a coordinated cover-up staged to ensure the re-election of a President who’d staked his campaign on the repeated assertion that al-Qa’eda had been “decimated,” or was on “the path to defeat.' ”

Is Henninger Right about the 'Carterization' of Obama?

First, Mr. Henninger's WSJ piece:

Henninger: Putin Carterizes Obama, Totally ; The Democrats are vulnerable again on handling the world.

Candidate Reagan said of President Carter, "The response from the administration in Washington" to foreign threats, said Reagan, "has been one of weakness, inconsistency, vacillation and bluff."

"Our allies are losing confidence in us, and our adversaries no longer respect us," he said. Our partners "are confused by the lack of a coherent, principled policy from the Carter administration."

....

"...And in truth, Mr. Carter's team included sterner ballast in Defense Secretary Harold Brown and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Nothing similar exists today in the Obama administration. " (Emphasis added, TD)

....

"A realistic hope for peace, Reagan said, is possible only if the U.S. maintains "the vital margin of safety." The margin of safety wasn't about public threats of war. It is about the marginal advantage gained when an adversary negotiating with a strong U.S. believed we might act militarily. If friends and foes conclude no one in the U.S. believes this in 2014, the margin of safety is gone."

American Thinker  ... "In fact this theme, that Obama is as awful a president as Jimmy Carter, has been a thread woven through the narrative of many conservative writers (including yours truly) ever since BHO assumed the presidency.  And indeed, I believe that history will record these two naïve and unexpected presidents as among the absolutely most horrible of our chief executives. Moreover, that assessment will pertain to domestic as well as foreign policy."

Krauthammer: Arrogant Obama 'Semi-Delusional,' 'Radically Unaware' of His 'Failed Foreign Policy'    “ 'I think it’s a kind of arrogance,” Krauthammer said. “He thinks he has a good foreign policy. I think he is semi-delusional about the results of these five years. There is not a spot in the world you -- can go from Syria to Libya to Iran to China, to Russia to Ukraine where the United States is not worse off, less regarded, considered weak than it was five years ago. This is a completely failed foreign policy. And he seems radically unaware of that.' ” Via Lucianne

Video 

Another major Democrat sides with teachers unions against charter schools

 

Mona Charen; Mayor de Blasio: The defender of the powerless or of the teachers’ unions?   "Just try to envision the scene: A newly elected Republican mayor of a large American city takes steps to close down some of the best schools serving an almost exclusively minority population. You know how it would go. We’d be hearing that Republicans “hate” the poor. The words “cruel,” “vicious,” and “racist” would circle the new mayor like sharks."...

 

"It is, of course, the new Democratic mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, who is shutting down a number of highly successful public charter schools (his son attends a magnet school). Charters are public schools run by parents or others and are not constrained by the usual public-school rules, hours, or curricula." ...

 

"...it betrays the cold brutality of some Democrats who claim to speak for the poor."

 

De Blasio turning on friends in charter school, pre-K battles ... "The clarity extends to something else, too. There is no reason to believe de Blasio will limit his carpet-bombing approach to charters. New Yorkers are seeing how he intends to govern. It’s going to be a long four years." ...

UPDATED: Buildings Collapse After Explosion, Fire In East Harlem

UPDATE, 10:53 am, CDT:  Two dead and at least 17 injured in Manhattan apartment building explosion after residents reported smelling gas

 

CBS NY  "Two buildings have collapsed after an explosion Wednesday morning in East Harlem.

It happened around 9 a.m. on Park Avenue on 116th Street, the FDNY said. One of the buildings that collapsed had a piano repair shop with apartments above. The second building housed a church.

"It’s unclear if anyone was inside the buildings at the time of the explosion. Officials believe the buildings were both 5 stories tall.

Video from the scene shows heavy smoke rising from the area as hundreds of firefighters battle the blaze, which has been upgraded to five-alarms. Debris and rubble could be seen scattered all over the area."

 

Terrorists? Maybe, but why would they attack someplace other that a conspicuous major area?

This Story Is Guaranteed To Make Your Day: Patriotism Is Alive And Well In Texas

IJ Review  "This moving photo was captured during the pledge of allegiance and moment of silence that opened Friday’s school day at Cy-Fair High School. Groundskeeper Clayton Allen Jr. set aside his equipment to honor the moment and a teacher took a picture of him doing it.

You will need to scroll down a bit to pause Diane Feinstein's video to hear this one. The both begin playing together.

The Lurking Peril of Ignorance

THE DRYER REPORT  "On this the day that 68 years ago Churchill first proclaimed and coined the phrase “Iron Curtain”…we can see today the prophetic words he spoke that day.  Churchill warned ….

 

From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness. For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength. Last time I saw it all coming and I cried aloud to my own fellow countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken her and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind. There never was a war in history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented, in my belief, without the firing of a single shot, and Germany might be powerful, prosperous and honored today; but no one would listen and one by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool. We must not let it happen again.

 

Park Service Knew World War II Veterans Would Be Locked Out

National Review Online

"Internal e-mails reveal Interior feared being blamed, bent rules for its own staff."

 

 

"The Department of the Interior knew beforehand that two groups of aging veterans would be visiting the World War II Memorial as the partial government shutdown began on Oct. 1 but decided to barricade the site anyway, according to e-mails obtained by National Review Online.

 

"The newly released public records also show National Park Service employees busily monitoring the news for any bad publicity and making shutdown exceptions for their co-workers."

....

"Tom Buttry, a legislative correspondent in Harkin’s office, wrote on Sept. 30:

While I understand that these memorials have remained accessible to the public during past shutdowns (I’d imagine with the mall being so open, it’d probably [be] more manpower intensive to try to completely close them), I wanted to do my due diligence and make 100 percent sure that people could visit the outdoor memorials on the National Mall in the event of a shutdown.

"The Department of the Interior and National Park Service decided instead to fully shut down the site, e-mails show:"  Full article

The President will protect us from the IRS

http://terrellaftermath.com/

UPDATE: New Oversight report claims Lois Lerner misled Congress on IRS targeting

"A GOP-led House panel Tuesday released an extensive report that attempts to show former top Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner lied to Congress about her involvement in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax exempt status.

 

"Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the 141-page report “offers detailed evidence about steps she took to crack down on organizations that exercised their Constitutional rights to free political speech.' ”