Friday, February 7, 2014

IRS hearings: ‘This scandal is not over. The lying has not stopped.’

Human Events
IRS hearings: 'This scandal is not over. The lying has not stopped.'
 
... “ 'I want to make three primary points here today,” said Mitchell.  ”First, the IRS scandal is real. It’s not pretend, it’s real.  Number two, the IRS scandal is not just a bone-headed bunch of bureaucrats in some remote office contrary to what the President of the United States told the American People on Sunday.  And, number 3, the IRS scandal is not over.  It is continuing to this day.  And the Department of Justice Investigation is a sham.  It is a nonexistent investigation.”

"Her one-sentence summary of the scandal was powerful stuff: “The IRS, at the direction of some political elites in Washington - not in Cincinnati, but Washington – took what had been, for decades, a process of reviewing applications for exempt status that, for 501(c)(4) organizations, could be expected to take three to four weeks, and they converted that process into one that took three to four years, and in some cases is still not over.' ” ...

 

The IRS and Obamacare: keep these in mind through 2014 to 2016.

IRS Bonus Cartoon
 
"The Daily Caller is reporting that an email obtained by the House Ways and Means Committee shows how the IRS is broadly tightening the definition of "political activity" in order to deny non-profit status to Tea Party and other conservative groups.

"In essence, the proposed new rules would make just about everything that used to be considered legal activity, illegal."
Bill Henck: Inside the IRS   "As noted at the top, William Henck has worked inside the IRS Office of the General Counsel as an attorney for over 26 years. Although it goes over some old ground, we submit the following personal account by Mr. Henck for the consideration of readers in the context of current controversies without further comment. He writes:"

... "I do not personally know whether the IRS has targeted conservative groups or individuals, but I do know that the environment within the agency is ripe for such activity and there is nothing to prevent it from occurring. As stated in more detail below, I have personally witnessed improper giveaways of billions of dollars to taxpayers with inside access at the agency, bullying of elderly taxpayers, the cover-up of managerial embezzlement and misappropriation of thousands of dollars in government funds, and a retaliatory audit. I have also heard credible accounts of, among other things, further improper giveaways, blatant sexual harassment, and anti-Semitism. All of these matters have been swept under the rug." ...

IRS hearings: ‘This scandal is not over. The lying has not stopped.’ 
Political Cartoons by Eric Allie

Obamacare discourages some from working, and that’s OK

 
..., "For instance, consider a single mom with one child. If she earns $23,419 a year, 150% of the poverty rate, she’d get a subsidy of $3,198 for health insurance. But if she makes one dollar more, her subsidy would be reduced by a dollar. Together with payroll taxes and income taxes she’d owe, that’s more than a 100% marginal tax rate on that extra dollar of earnings."   Page 2 here.

Freedom for the Job-Locked   Dems’ desperate defense of Obamacare-induced unemployment  "Democrats insist this is a boon. Indeed, many are talking about it as an act of liberation (which reminds me of an eleven-year-old headline from the Onion: “IBM Emancipates 8,000 Wage Slaves”)."

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Why did the chicken cross the Jordan?

PETA Wants Giant Tombstone Erected In Memory Of Chickens Killed In Truck Wreck
GainesvilleChickenMemorial
 
"Wackadoos. See more wacky PETA fun here. and here."

Wackiest of all is this PETA effort to change the name of fish to sea kittens.
 
Lest we think this is a parody, WZ links to this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.

CBO Director: Obamacare ‘Creates a Disincentive for People to Work’

CBO Director: Obamacare ‘Creates a Disincentive for People to Work’
“ '[B]y providing heavily subsidized health insurance to people with very low income and then withdrawing those subsidies as income rises, the act creates a disincentive for people to work—relative to what would have been the case in the absence of that act.”

"Elmendorf, a Democrat, tried to claim that these people who would “have less of an incentive to work” would be “better off,” but Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan was having none of it."


LA Times likes the CBO report   "We've previously identified this GOP position as the most cynical attack on the ACA of all — the Republicans choose to call it a "bailout" of insurers; actually, it's a way of keeping premiums for some plans from getting out of hand, until the industry has more experience dealing with its new clientele. Unsurprisingly, the GOP is doubling down on this dishonesty by talking about eliminating the risk corridors as a condition for raising the federal debt limit."

Pelosi: Fighting “Job Lock” Lets Americans “Follow Their Passion” – Like Leaving the Workforce   “ 'Liberty to pursue their happiness”! But Pelosi has this all wrong. The CBO projections aren’t finding that people will “follow their passion” and become self-employed, or start a business. The CBO projects that people will simply stop working."

Remember When Dems Said ObamaCare Would Create Jobs?    "When Democrats like Nancy Pelosi defended ObamaCare back in 2010 by claiming it would immediately create 400,000 new jobs, anyone with an ounce of common sense knew the claim was completely false…" 

Wasteful High Jinks at the Labor Department

NRO
 
"President Obama’s Department of Labor appointees have shaken things up at the Department, but probably not in ways you would expect. An investigation of DOL practices reveals that Obama appointees are wasting time and resources with public-relations busy work, weird morale-boosting exercises, and many other activities that have nothing to do with helping U.S. workers."
....
"And posters celebrating “LGBT Pride” featured San Francisco administrator Harvey Milk and civil-rights advocate (and onetime Communist-party member) Bayard Rustin."  Full article.

Government-run projects: the Sochi Olympics and Obamacare. What could go wrong?

Russian activist publishes Sochi corruption file   "Auditors found that the work of some staff members at Olympstroi, the state company in charge of Sochi construction, between 2008 and 2010 was "conducive to incurring unreasonable cost overruns.' "
They do have problems from the very top down to these issues.
View image on Twitter
 
And, well...this:  Can't flush the toilet paper
View image on Twitter
 
While here in the US, our big government-run project is Obamacare. Top New York Hospital Forced To Turn Away Stage-Four Cancer Patient Because He Has Obamacare…
 
Stage-four cancer patient Bruce Johnston seems to be the latest victim of Obamacare’s terrible rollout, as his insurance under Obamacare was recently denied at Stony Brook University Hospital.
When told the hospital did not take his insurance, Johnston was shocked. “It leaves me high and dry,” Johnston said. “I mean, this is nothing to fool around with. This is my life.”

The "Oh, Really?" Factor (Updated)

Hopen'Change
"Sunday's "Superbowl Interview" between Barack Obama and Bill O'Reilly proved to be every bit as frustrating and pointless as conservatives expected it to be. The good news is that O'Reilly actually asked some tough and legitimate questions. The bad news is that Obama not only didn't provide any meaningful answers, but dismissed the credibility of the questions themselves by suggesting that Fox News promotes the alleged "scandals" surrounding his administration for ratings."
...
"But what's hugely disappointing, albeit not at all surprising, is how the interview has been subsequently portrayed in the mainstream media. Far from pointing out the president's lies and evasiveness, many outlets have reported that the president "smacked down" O'Reilly and Fox News as serial liars."
Political Cartoons by Steve Kelley

UPDATE: You're wrong, Mr. Obama, the IRS is corrupt   "In the aftermath of an IRS targeting scandal that may have influenced the 2012 election, in the midst of criminal and congressional investigations, while civil litigation is pending in federal court, before a single deposition is taken and while the IRS clings to tens of thousands of documents, the president of the United States has spoken. His meaning is clear.

"Move along, nothing to see here." ...

Richard Sherman Says Seahawks Deciphered Peyton Manning's Hand Signals

Bleacher Report
140204-Peyton-manning-code-cracker
 
"For once, Manning wasn't able to toy with the defense. The Seahawks figured out what his hand signals meant, and they used that to their advantage.

"Their ability to solve the signal-caller gave them a huge edge in not only the biggest game of the year, but arguably the biggest game of Manning's career."

Via Chip Bok, who is in a football frame of mind:
Political Cartoons by Chip Bok

A Bridge Too Far-Fetched

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/01/13/cartoons-day-christies-bridgegate-blooms/
Ann Coulter  "New Jersey governor Chris Christie deserves to be defended.

  "The gravamen of the media's case against Christie on Bridgegate seems to be that he is a "bully" -- which I painstakingly gleaned from the fact that the governor is called a "bully" 1 million times a night on MSNBC and in hundreds of blog postings and New York Times reports.

"Christie is not a bully. If anything, he's a pansy, a man terrified of the liberal media, of Wall Street, of Silicon Valley, of Obama, of Bruce Springsteen, of Mark Zuckerberg, of Chuck Schumer. It's a good bet he's afraid of his own shadow. (In fairness, his shadow is probably pretty big and scary.) About the only thing Christie doesn't seem afraid of is the buffet at Sizzler."
...
"Taking a page from John McCain, the main targets of Christie's wrath are his fellow Republicans. This has won him the respect of his most crucial constituency, liberal journalists, who have been precisely as loyal to him as they were to McCain."

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Musab Mohamed Masmari EXCLUSIVE: Muslim Arsonist of Gay Club Was Obama State Dept Arab Cultural Ambassador! Feds: Terrorism

Debbie Schlussel  musabmasmari2"A Muslim charged with and videotaped pouring gasoline on a gay club and setting it on fire was an “Arab Cultural Ambassador” for the State Department when it hosted visiting Iraqi “journalists” in Seattle. Quick, somebody alert 50 Cent that it’s time to update “In Da Club.” In Al-Klub, Habibi."
....

 "While the left and gays are constantly harping on “the Christian Right,” they continue to turn a blind eye to the group that’s really a danger to them: Muslims. I’ve said this time and again. And so it goes with Musab Mohamed Masmari, a Muslim identified and charged with setting fire to a Seattle gay club on New Year’s Eve,"...

ACA: Will someone save us from this do-gooder government?

NY Times: Freeing Workers From the Insurance Trap  ..."In other words, the report is about the choices workers can make when they are no longer tethered to an employer because of health benefits. The cumulative effect on the labor supply is the equivalent of 2.5 million fewer full-time workers by 2024."
 
 
"Elmendorf told Ryan: “By providing heavily subsidized health insurance to people with very low incomes and withdrawing those subsidies as income rises, the act creates a disincentive for people to work relative to what would have been the case in the absence of that act.' ”

More on this from the Weekly Standard

Investors.com: Creating Killing Millions Of Jobs   "Dept. Of Corrections: Leading Democrats said ObamaCare would create 4 million jobs by cutting health costs and unleashing entrepreneurs. Now we learn the promise was off by 6.5 million — in the wrong direction.

"Here's what Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the top Democratic in the House, had to say about ObamaCare in February 2010:

" 'It will create 4 million jobs, 400,000 jobs almost immediately — jobs, again, in the health care industry but in the entrepreneurial world as well.' "
And supposedly she also said this, but it was fabricated in a satirical article. I suppose those who believed she actually said it realized that she seems capable of it.