Insulting, hostile, sounds like Democrats to me

Obama in Strangely Humorless “Funny or Die” Video to Promote Healthcare

It’s not funny but it’s on “Funny or Die.” President Barack Obama appears in a “Funny or Die” video with Zack Galifiankis for the comedian’s “Between Two Ferns” satirical talk show. The pair strident, antagonistic trade barbs that don’t work– they come off as hostile and satirical. Then there’s a pitch for Obamacare and its impending March 31st deadline. This is supposed to appeal to young people. But basically the two just insult each other. The whole comes off as less presidential than Richard Nixon saying “Sock it to me” on “Laugh In.” Obama should not quit his day job.
Galifiankis: “What is it like to be the last black president?”
Oy vey.

Here's the how the compassionate help themselves to tax breaks

Lady Gaga Foundation Spends More on Lawyers, Publicity and Consultants than on Charity

EXCLUSIVE Don’t get me wrong: I like Lady Gaga and her parents. But celebrities probably shouldn’t start charitable foundations. Now the latest federal tax report is in for Lady Gaga’s Born this Way Foundation, and it’s not good news. Despite spending $348,000 in 2012 on their outreach bus tour, the Born this Way Foundation otherwise managed to fritter away around $1.5 million on legal fees, publicity, and a website.

The foundation, which lists Gaga’s lovely mom, Cynthia Germanotta, as president, had a lot of expenses in 2012 that had nothing to do with helping anyone. They spent $300,000 on “Strategic Consulting (web, digital),” $62,836 on “Stage Productions (Harvard, LA, UN),” $50,000 on “Social Media,” and another almost $50,000 on “Event Coordination.”

What?

Born this Way also spent: $808,661 on “other”; $406,552 on “Legal”; $150,000 on “Philanthropic Consulting”; $60,000 on “research”; 58,768 on “Publicity fees”; $78,000 on “travel”. They spent $72,000 on salaries– presumably for running the Born this Way bus, although that episode had its own expense line.

Under ‘grants to organizations or individuals”: $ 5000. Five thousand dollars.

They claimed net assets of $2.1 million. Donations came to $2.6 million, up from $1.4 million in 2011. But there’s no detailed listing of contributors or donations. I suspect most of the money came from Lady Gaga’s earnings.  Where it went, and why it went there, is a mystery still.

On top of that, it looks like Lady Gaga loaned Born this Way over $10,000 to pay expenses.

Meantime, it’s unclear that anyone was really helped by the Born this Way Foundation other than lawyers, consultants, publicists and travel agents.

Gaga would have been better served just writing a check to the Elton John AIDS Foundation. It would have done more good, and quickly.

Like an addicted gambler he can't stop doubling down.

ObamaCare's Secret Mandate Exemption

HHS quietly repeals the individual purchase rule for two more years.

ObamaCare's implementers continue to roam the battlefield and shoot their own wounded, and the latest casualty is the core of the Affordable Care Act—the individual mandate. To wit, last week the Administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay a tax penalty.

This latest political reconstruction has received zero media notice, and the Health and Human Services Department didn't think the details were worth discussing in a conference call, press materials or fact sheet. Instead, the mandate suspension was buried in an unrelated rule that was meant to preserve some health plans that don't comply with ObamaCare benefit and redistribution mandates. Our sources only noticed the change this week.

That seven-page technical bulletin includes a paragraph and footnote that casually mention that a rule in a separate December 2013 bulletin would be extended for two more years, until 2016. Lo and behold, it turns out this second rule, which was supposed to last for only a year, allows Americans whose coverage was cancelled to opt out of the mandate altogether.

In 2013, HHS decided that ObamaCare's wave of policy terminations qualified as a "hardship" that entitled people to a special type of coverage designed for people under age 30 or a mandate exemption. HHS originally defined and reserved hardship exemptions for the truly down and out such as battered women, the evicted and bankrupts.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you "believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy" or "you consider other available policies unaffordable."

This lax standard—no formula or hard test beyond a person's belief—at least ostensibly requires proof such as an insurer termination notice. But people can also qualify for hardships for the unspecified nonreason that "you experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance," which only requires "documentation if possible." And yet another waiver is available to those who say they are merely unable to afford coverage, regardless of their prior insurance. In a word, these shifting legal benchmarks offer an exemption to everyone who conceivably wants one.

Keep in mind that the White House argued at the Supreme Court that the individual mandate to buy insurance was indispensable to the law's success, and President Obama continues to say he'd veto the bipartisan bills that would delay or repeal it. So why are ObamaCare liberals silently gutting their own creation now?

The answers are the implementation fiasco and politics. HHS revealed Tuesday that only 940,000 people signed up for an ObamaCare plan in February, bringing the total to about 4.2 million, well below the original 5.7 million projection. The predicted "surge" of young beneficiaries isn't materializing even as the end-of-March deadline approaches, and enrollment decelerated in February.

Meanwhile, a McKinsey & Company survey reports that a mere 27% of people joining the exchanges were previously uninsured through February. The survey also found that about half of people who shopped for a plan but did not enroll said premiums were too expensive, even though 80% of this group qualify for subsidies. Some substantial share of the people ObamaCare is supposed to help say it is a bad financial value. You might even call it a hardship.

HHS is also trying to pre-empt the inevitable political blowback from the nasty 2015 tax surprise of fining the uninsured for being uninsured, which could help reopen ObamaCare if voters elect a Republican Senate this November. Keeping its mandate waiver secret for now is an attempt get past November and in the meantime sign up as many people as possible for government-subsidized health care. Our sources in the insurance industry are worried the regulatory loophole sets a mandate non-enforcement precedent, and they're probably right. The longer it is not enforced, the less likely any President will enforce it.

The larger point is that there have been so many unilateral executive waivers and delays that ObamaCare must be unrecognizable to its drafters, to the extent they ever knew what the law contained.

The Democrats need a distraction

Snowden accuses Senate intelligence chair of hypocrisy over CIA disclosures

NSA whistleblower accuses Dianne Feinstein of double standards, pointing out her lack of concern about widespread surveillance of ordinary citizens

• Paul Lewis in Washington
• theguardian.com, Tuesday 11 March 2014 13.50 EDT

‘It’s clear the CIA was trying to play ‘keep away’ with documents relevant to an investigation by their overseers in Congress, and that’s a serious constitutional concern.’ Photo: AP

The whistleblower Edward Snowden accused the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee of double standards on Tuesday, pointing out that her outrage at evidence her staff were spied on by the CIA was not matched by concern about widespread surveillance of ordinary citizens.

Snowden, the former contractor whose disclosures to journalists revealed widespread surveillance by the National Security Agency, was responding to an explosive statement by Senator Dianne Feinstein about the CIA’s attempts to undermine a congressional investigation into interrogation and detention.

In a surprisingly combative statement on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Feinstein, who has been widely criticised by privacy experts for failing to hold the NSA to account, accused the CIA of conducting potentially unconstitutional and criminal searches on computers used by her staff.

The remarks put the Democratic senator on a collision course with the CIA’s director, John Brennan, who strongly denied “hacking” the committee’s computers. Feinstein described the controversy as “a defining moment for the oversight of our intelligence community”.

In a statement to NBC News, Snowden said: “It’s clear the CIA was trying to play ‘keep away’ with documents relevant to an investigation by their overseers in Congress, and that’s a serious constitutional concern.”

Snowden, who is in Russia on temporary asylum, added: “But it’s equally if not more concerning that we’re seeing another ‘Merkel effect,’ where an elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly it’s a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to them.”

Snowden’s comment referred to the German chancellor Angela Merkel, who was outraged to discover her phone calls has been monitored by the NSA. Germany has raised concerns over wider surveillance programs, but critics argue that Merkel should have gone further in condemning the NSA’s dragnet monitoring of European phone and internet communications.

Feinstein, who said she was making her statement “reluctantly”, confirmed recent reports that CIA officials had monitored computer networks used by Senate staff investigators. Going further than previously, she referred openly to recent attempts by the CIA to remove documents from the network detailing evidence of torture that would incriminate intelligence officers.

She also alleged that anonymous CIA officials were effectively conducting a smear campaign in the media to discredit and “intimidate” Senate staff by suggesting they had hacked into the agency’s computers to obtain a separate, critical internal report on the detention and interrogation program.

Feinstein’s dramatic speech on the Senate floor will reignite the debate over the adequacy of congressional oversight of the intelligence community, which was first sparked by Snowden’s NSA disclosures. Documents revealed by Snowden revealed the committee had been misled in public hearings by senior intelligence officials.

“How Congress responds [to the CIA controversy] and how this is resolved will show whether the Intelligence Committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation’s intelligence activities, or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee,” Feinstein said.

"Sacred mission"? Black supremacy? From a DOJ that only sees skin color

Reaction Inside DOJ to Debo Adegbile Defeat: ‘Sacred Mission’ Continues

Posted By J. Christian Adams 

What is the reaction inside DOJ to the Senate’s defeat of the Debo Adegbile nomination to head the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice? According to an email sent by Acting Assistant Attorney General Jocelyn Samuels, the “sacred mission” will continue.

Samuels, in an email late this afternoon to Division staff obtained by PJ Media, said:

I anticipate that last week’s developments will prompt a period of reflection and discussion about civil rights in this country and how we can best achieve our sacred mission. This is healthy, and I am confident that our work will emerge the stronger for it. Division staff have always demonstrated both resilience and an enduring commitment to the principles of equality of opportunity that animate everything we do.

“Sacred mission”? “Equality of opportunity”?

First, Webster has a number of theological definitions of sacred:

1 a : dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity sacred

 to the gods>

b: devoted exclusively to one service or use (as of a person or purpose) sacred

 to charity>

2

a : worthy of religious veneration : holy

b : entitled to reverence and respect

3

: of or relating to religion : not secular or profane <sacred music>

This illustrates that to some in the civil rights field, civil rights is their religion. Thus, it becomes sacred.
Regarding the Debo Adegbile nomination, one of the reasons Adegbile lost is because he did not believe in equality of opportunity. He believed in giving out benefits based on race. That’s why he fought to keep Abigail Fisher out of law school simply because she was white. Fisher was not the only victim of the NAACP’s modern-day segregationist agenda, and senators knew it.
Fifty years ago, the NAACP LDF had the moral high ground and fought inequality. In 2014, the NAACP is one of the leading champions of inequality.
So let’s have that discussion about race that Samuels and Senator Harry Reid have been agitating for. Bring it on.
After regular Americans in Peoria learn that the Civil Rights Division supports race preferences and hasn’t done a thing to combat numerous instances of racially motivated violence, I suspect it will be a discussion Samuels and Reid hope ends quickly. Once regular Americans learn about the millions of dollars used by the DOJ to block voter ID and to allocate benefits on the basis of skin color, it will be a discussion Samuels, Reid, and Obama wish had never started.
It will be a discussion that will have ramifications in races for the U.S. Senate in places like North Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas and West Virginia.
Right now leftist racialists are in the tiny minority in America. Once we start that racial discussion Reid is agitating for, you can bet the majority won’t be happy to learn what the sacred mission at the DOJ Civil Rights Division is all about.

To the Islamists everybody else is the enemy.

Hefty Ransom Reportedly Paid to Al Qaeda-Linked Rebels to Free Kidnapped Syrian Nuns

It took a reported sum of $4 million and the release of some 150 women and children held by the Syrian government to secure the freedom Monday of 13 Greek Orthodox nuns who had been held hostage since December by Al Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria.

Lebanese media reported that the ransom and swap between the Al Nusra Front and the Syrian government was negotiated by officials from Qatar, a country that has supported the Islamist rebels.

The Associated Press called the deal between the government of President Bashar Assad and those trying to overthrow him “rare,” but that it would unlikely allay the fears of Syria’s embattled Christian minority. A long-serving bishop on Sunday expressed fears that his community is in“mortal threat” of being “driven into extinction.”

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a group of nuns who were freed after being held by rebels, greet church officials at the Syrian border town of Jdeidat Yabous on Monday, March. 10, 2014. (AP/SANA)

The AP reported that a convoy of 30 vehicles drove the nuns to a town near the Lebanese border, Jdeidet Yabous.

“God did not leave us,” said Mother Superior Pelagia Sayaf who heads the Maaloula convent. “The (Nusra) Front was good to us … but we took off our crosses because we were in the wrong place to wear them.”

The unusual scene of their release unfolded in a video posted to YouTube, in which an Islamist rebel whose face was fully covered with a black mask was seen carrying a frail nun who, like the other women, was wearing a black habit. The nuns were moved into vehicles waving Al Nusra Front flags.

The nuns said that they were taken care of while being held captive and had not been mistreated.

When the women were released and rebels welcomed their freed prisoners, the Islamist militants could be heard on the video erupting in a chorus of “Allahu Akbar.”

The video also showed children who were part of the exchange deal being reunited with the rebels, including a boy who entered the car of one of the Al Qaeda-linked militants.

Image source: YouTube

Rebels nabbed the women from the Mar Takla convent in the Christian village of Maaloula three months ago. The nuns worked in the convent’s orphanage, according to the AP.

“All of Syria is happy today (for their return),” Bishop Luka al Khoury told Reuters. “These are women who do nothing but pray … they don’t have weapons or bombs. On the contrary, they pray for people to be safe and secure.”

Some of the freed nuns attended a thanksgiving service in honor of their safe return at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross in Damascus, Reuters reported.

Image source: YouTube

A Reuters reporter saw Mother Superior Pelagia Sayyaf holding a candle and weeping as she entered the church.

Among those praising the deal was the Lebanese militant Shiite group Hezbollah, which supports the Syrian government. It issued a statement which read in part, “On this happy occasion Hezbollah congratulates the released nuns, the Orthodox Church, the Syrian leadership, and the Syrian and Lebanese people.”

Here is a video that reportedly shows the release of the nuns:

A Soros family anti gun protege.

Obama’s Surgeon General Pick Has an Interesting Take on…Gun Control

Second Amendment advocates are worried about President Barack Obama’s nominee for surgeon general, a political ally of the president and strong proponent of gun restrictions.

Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the next U.S. surgeon general, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014, before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on his nomination. (AP/Charles Dharapak

Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy is the president and founder of Doctors for America, which grew from the campaign organization that was called Doctors for Obama, started in 2008. The organization has advocated for a number of liberal initiatives, including strongly supporting the passage of Obamacare and Medicaid expansion.

The group has also been supportive of the Obama administration’s failed push for expanding gun control laws in 2013. It successfully fought a proposed Florida law that would have prevented doctors from including in a person’s medical file whether they are a gun owner. Doctors for America has referred to guns as a public health threat, and circulated a petition to pressure Congress to pass stricter gun laws.

“This is so big we are scoring it,” National Rifle Association spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen told TheBlaze regarding the vote on the surgeon general nomination. “We sent out notifications to our 5 million members asking them to contact their senator to vote against this nomination.”

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted 13-9 last month to send Murthy’s nomination to the Senate floor.

The surgeon general does not have a major policymaking role, but rather has a megaphone to speak about public health issues.

But the person in that position must be someone the public can trust, Mortensen said.

“The surgeon general has the important task of providing information to people to help them make better decisions about health care. It’s a position that requires trust and leadership,” Mortensen said. “The American people need to know they can look to that person who is independent and not with a political agenda. The American people deserve to have confidence in their surgeon general.”

NRA Executive Director Chris Cox sent a letterto members of the Senate denouncing Murthy’s long advocacy of gun control.

The NRA takes particular exception to a letter from the organization on Jan. 14, 2013 supporting licensing of guns, limits on ammunition purchase, and a mandatory 48-hour waiting period. The letter further asks for removing “provision in the Affordable Care Act and other federal policies that prohibit physicians from documenting gun ownership.”

The NRA letter also quotes a Murthy tweet from Oct. 16, 2012 that “guns are a health care issue.”

Investors Business Daily reported on Murthy’s anti-gun tweets, including, “Tired of politicians playing politics w/ guns, putting lives at risk b/c they’re scared of NRA. Guns are a health care issue,” during the 2012 presidential elections, and in December 2012 in the immediate aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre: “NRA press conference disappointing but predictable — blame everything in the world except guns for the Newtown tragedy. #wakeup.”

A Doctors for America spokesperson did not immediately respond to inquiries from TheBlaze on Monday.

Beyond his political activity, Murthy has been an attending physician and medical instructor at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital since 2006. He co-founded VISIONS Worldwide in 1995, a nonprofit organization focused on HIV/AIDS education in India and the United States, where he served as president from 1995 to 2000 and chairman of the board from 2000 to 2003.

Even before Obama began advocating for more gun control laws in early 2013, Doctors for America touted itself in its “Docs vs. Glocks Campaign” in summer 2011 in Florida, gaining 200 signatures on a petition regarding including firearms ownership in medical information.

It doesn't take long to see that he a Soros family drone:

Murthy was born to a Kannada speaking family; his parents are originally from Karnataka, India. He was born in Huddersfield, England, but his family relocated to Miami, Floridawhen he was three years old.^[4] Murthy completed his early education in Miami, graduating as valedictorian from Miami Palmetto Senior High School in 1994.^[5] He then attended college at Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in three years with a bachelors degree in Biochemical Sciences.^[5] Murthy received an MD from Yale School of Medicine and an MBA in Health Care Management from Yale School of Management in 2003, where he was a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow.^[6][7] He completed his residency in Internal Medicine in 2006 from Brigham and Women's Hospital.^[8]

Only a certain kind of investigative reporting is permitted

Sharyl Attkisson resigns from CBS News

CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson has reached an agreement to resign from CBS News ahead of contract, bringing an end to months of hard-fought negotiations, sources familiar with her departure told POLITICO on Monday.

Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network’s liberal bias, an outsize influence by the network’s corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt that her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her reporting on air.

At the same time, Attkisson’s reporting on the Obama administration, which some staffers characterized as agenda-driven, had led network executives to doubt the impartiality of her reporting. She is currently at work on a book — tentatively titled “Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth in Obama’s Washington” — that addresses the challenges of reporting critically on the administration.

Feeling increasingly stymied and marginalized at the network, Attkisson began talking to CBS News President David Rhodes as early as last April about getting out of her contract. Those negotiations intensified in recent weeks, and her request was finally honored on Monday.

Reached by phone, Attkisson described her resignation as “amicable.” She said she will now turn her attention to the book, which is being published by HarperCollins, a division of NewsCorp (and not by Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS Corp.).

Sonya McNair, senior vice president for communications for CBS News, said in a statement: “CBS News veteran Sharyl Attkisson is leaving the news division to pursue other endeavors. We appreciate her many contributions and we wish her well.”

But Attkisson had become a polarizing figure at the network, sources there said. While some championed her relentless dedication to investigations — ranging from defective Firestone tires to the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal — others saw evidence of a political agenda, particularly against President Barack Obama. (The bulk of Attkisson’s work since 2009 has focused on the failures or perceived failures of the Obama administration, including its failed green-energy investments and the attack in Benghazi, though she has reported on several Republican failures as well.)

Others have suggested that CBS News itself was politically biased: “It’s no secret that Sharyl has been unhappy about CBS’s lack of interest in investigative reporting, especially when it comes to stories about the Obama administration,” a source close to Attkisson said.

Attkisson’s frustrations aside, the network maintains a dedicated investigative unit, which produces packages that appear across CBS News programming.

Attkisson joined CBS News from CNN in 1993. She served as an overnight anchor for two years before becoming a Washington-based correspondent, a position she held until this week. She has won five Emmy awards for her reporting on Fast and Furious, the Red Cross, Republican fundraising, TARP and border patrol.

Vote fraud.

Voting Records Raise Questions After Mummified Body Found

PONTIAC (WWJ/AP) - Voting records are raising questions amid an investigation into the discovery of a woman’s mummified body in the garage of a foreclosed metro Detroit home.

The body found last Wednesday in Pontiac is that of Pia Farrenkopf — according to her sister, Paula Logan. Authorities investigating the case haven’t released her name, but they have said that the woman apparently died in 2008 at the age of 49.

According to a report in the Detroit Free Press, records show Farrenkopf as voting in the November 2010 gubernatorial election. Officials say, however, that it may represent an administrative error. Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard says the information must be checked out.

Farrenkopf’s body was found March 5 in the back seat of her Jeep Liberty, parked in the attached garage of her home in the 1600 block of Savanna, near Walton Boulevard and Silver Lake Road in Pontiac. The discovery was made just after 5 p.m. by a contractor who was working at the home, which is going through foreclosure.

According to police, the electricity was still on in the house, but there was no heat. The home also has a large amount what appears to be black mold, police said, and is a HAZMAT situation.

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the circumstances behind Farrenkopf’s death. An autopsy didn’t reveal any signs of trauma, police said, and a cause of death is pending.Investigators said the Jeep keys were in the ignition, which was in the off position – likely ruling out the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Neighbors described Farrenkopf as a German immigrant who generally kept to herself and traveled frequently for work, often for weeks at a time, so no one thought anything of her absence. Some said it was probably six years since they last saw the woman, while others just assumed she had moved.

Police say Farrenkopf lived in the home by herself and had all of her bills — including her mortgage and utilities — automatically withdrawn from her checking account. Once her account was depleted and the mortgage payments stopped, the home went into foreclosure. Mail also never piled up at the house because Farrenkopf apparently picked it up at the post office.

Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe told reporters that officers visited Farrenkopf’s home for a “wellness check” in 2007, but found “nothing out of the ordinary.” He said Farrenkopf was never reported as a missing person.

Investigators are awaiting toxicology results, which could take weeks, but are treating the woman’s death as a homicide.

An investigation is ongoing.

Let me propose a scenario. Since she traveled often and long she no doubt voted by mail. The ballot was in the hands of the Post Office and someone there knew of the mail piling up and took the opportunity to steal the ballot and vote (Democrat?).