Palin Calls for Civil Disobedience at the WWII Memorial “Barrycades”

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picture - palin-outsideFormer Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has called on Obama administration employees to engage in civil disobedience and allow veterans to access Washington’s World War II memorial during the federal government’s ongoing partial shutdown.

Palin wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday that it is “beyond shameful to see Barack Obama disrespect and mistreat our World War II veterans so blatantly,” charging that he sent more guards to bar World War II heroes from seeing their memorial after the government shut down than he sent to Benghazi to protect Americans under assault by terrorists.

“Obama’s political stunt to ‘shut down’ their memorial by barricade is to elicit an angry response,” she asserted, “to generate bad publicity for people the president uses in his continual blame game.”

To make her point, Palin linked to a photo of a singular barricade at the World War I memorial. “The difference is obvious. There aren’t any World War I veterans alive today to mistreat in a shameful political stunt,” she wrote. “He’s deployed more guards to bar our World War II heroes from their memorial than he sent to Benghazi when our consulate was under attack.”

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Iran Military Official: Obama has Surrendered

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

President Obama’s statement to the United Nations last week that America is not seeking regime change in Iran is not merely a kind remark, but a recognition of U.S. inability to bring change to Iran, the head of Iran’s Quds Forces, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, said.

Joining in that view, an outlet of the Quds cyber forces officers posted an image of a surrendering Obama in military uniform under the title “In a not too distant future.”

The image has Soleimani on top overlooking the defeat of America with a note at the bottom: “One Qasem Soleimani is enough for all the enemies of this country (Iran).”

That claim was underscored this week by Seyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, a member of Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, who said that while “Iran complies with the Non-Proliferation Treaty rules and regulations and cooperates within that framework, it will never accept the Additional Protocol.”

That protocol allows the IAEA to verify whether countries are complying with nuclear regulations.

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No Go: Boehner says Obama Still Won’t Negotiate on Government Funding

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Photo Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta

Photo Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta

Congressional leaders emerged Wednesday night from a meeting with President Obama at the White House reporting little progress as all sides struggle for a solution to the government shutdown, which began Tuesday and showed no signs of breaking.

At the Capitol, the House continued to try to chip away at the problem by passing bills to fund high-profile programs such as national parks and the National Institutes of Health. But Mr. Obama has vowed to veto those bills, saying he won’t fund the government piece by piece.

Instead, Democrats held firm on their insistence that Republicans pass the Senate’s version of a spending bill that would fund the entire government at last year’s levels, and would preserve Mr. Obama’s health care law.

“They will not negotiate,” House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, told reporters after the meeting.

Although both sides said they didn’t want a shutdown, congressional aides were predicting that the fight could last for weeks. Mr. Obama canceled part of a trip to Asia, scheduled to begin this weekend, to keep working on the issue.

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NSA Admits Tracking Locations of Cellphones in the United States

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Photo credit: from_ko

Photo credit: from_ko

The director of the National Security Agency revealed Wednesday that the government collected Americans’ cellphone location data in bulk as part of a secret pilot program in 2010 and 2011.

The program tracked the locations of an unknown number of people in the United States who were under no suspicion of wrongdoing.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander said the agency “received samples in order to test its systems” but that the cellphone location data was not used for any intelligence analysis.

He said the NSA is no longer collecting the information under Section 215 of the Patriot Act and promised that the agency would notify Congress before it resumes the program.

“This may be something that would be a future requirement for the country, but it is not right now because when we identify a number, we can give that to the FBI,” Alexander said. “When they get their probable cause, they can get the location data they need.”

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Parents Warned about Porn in School

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

President Obama already has declared June to be homosexual “Pride” month, but “gay” activists now are designating October “LGBT History Month.”

The move has prompted a pro-family organization in California to issue a warning to parents across the United States about the possibility their children would be confronted with explicit pornography in their public schools this month.

Teachers, they explain, could introduce material that promotes homosexuality.

The homosexual-rights group Equality Forum, which is promoting LGBT History Month, is profiling various homosexuals and lesbians for each day of the month, including some whose work can accurately be described as triple-X rated.

Many schools plan to incorporate LGBT History Month into lessons.

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Help Kids with Cancer? Reid Asks: ‘Why Would We Want to do That?’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is blaming Republicans for the National Institutes of Health turning away cancer patients. But when asked why the Senate wouldn’t try to help “one child who has cancer” by approving a mini-spending bill, he shot back: “Why would we want to do that?”

The tense exchange occurred Wednesday, as Senate Democrats tried to lambaste Republicans ahead of a vote where the House ultimately approved funding the NIH and other agencies — a bid to ease the pain amid the budget stand-off.

Reid has opposed the measures, saying that if Republicans want to end the government suspension they’ll have to simply approve a “clean” budget bill — devoid of any provision that would hurt ObamaCare.

But Reid was challenged at a Democratic press conference by CNN’s Dana Bash about why the Senate wouldn’t consider the NIH bill.

“If you can help one child who has cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?” she asked.

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How ObamaCare Wrecks the Work Ethic

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Photo Credit: Casey Mulligan

Photo Credit: Casey Mulligan

A new wave of redistribution will arrive in America on Jan. 1, primarily thanks to the Affordable Care Act. The president’s health-insurance plan forces those who hire, work and produce to pay full price for health care, while creating generous discounts for practically everyone else.

This second redistributionist wave of the Obama era will follow a first wave of tax hikes, additional unemployment benefits, food-stamp expansions, waived work requirements for welfare benefits, etc. These measures were supposed to be temporary, intended to help people cope with the recession. The recession officially ended in mid-2009, but many of the administration’s measures continue.

Regardless of whether redistribution is achieved by collecting more taxes from families with high incomes, levying employment taxes on businesses, providing more subsidies to families with low incomes, or all of the above, an essential consequence is the same: a reduction in the reward for working. In a National Bureau of Economic Research paper issued in August, I quantify the combined effect of the two redistribution waves and higher payroll taxes on the financial reward for working…

The 2009-10 peak for marginal tax rates comes from various provisions of the “stimulus” programs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the extension of unemployment benefits to 99 weeks in some states. At the end of 2012, the marginal tax rate index reached its lowest value since 2008: 43.9%. A little over a year later (January 2014), the index will be close to 50%, driven up by the expiration of the payroll tax cut and multiple provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The ACA employer penalty, delayed until 2015, adds more than a percentage point in that year alone, while other ACA provisions strengthen their disincentives for the various reasons cited above.

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IRS Collecting Money but Not Sending Tax Refunds During Shutdown

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The IRS is still collecting taxes during the government shutdown, but it isn’t sending refunds — and it also has stopped complying with a subpoena to turn over documents to members of Congress who are investigating the agency’s targeting of tea party groups.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have stopped getting documents from the Internal Revenue Service.

“The IRS has indicated to the committee that their furlough decisions will affect the agency’s responsiveness to committee requests, including the outstanding subpoena,” said Ali Ahmad, a spokesman for the oversight committee.

The government shutdown, which began Tuesday morning, has kept home an estimated 800,000 federal employees, including more than 85,000 who work for the IRS, according to the agency’s contingency plan. That leaves slightly more than 9 percent of the IRS staff on the job.

That is too few to process refunds but does not let taxpayers out of their obligations.

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Obamacare Phones Offered to Health Insurance Buyers

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Say hello to Obamacare phones.

In Tennessee, those shopping on the new health insurance co-ops could end up with more than just some health insurance. They might even walk away with a free smartphone.

The Nashville Business Journal is reporting that Community Health Alliance, Tennessee’s Obamacare health insurance co-op, is using the prospect of a free phone to encourage folks to enroll:

Community Health Alliance, Tennessee’s health insurance co-op, is running a unique promotional program to drive enrollment in its plans for sale on the exchange: health insurance in exchange for a smartphone.

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Obamacare Just Gave Me A Death Sentence

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Photo Credit: fedupusa.org

Photo Credit: fedupusa.org

Sounds like hyperbole, right? Well, depends upon your perspective after you read what I have to say.

Long time readers of FedUpUSA know me to some degree or another. I’m a real person. I’m not wealthy. I’m not special. I’m just your average person who happens to be rather opinionated and I share those opinions here on the Internets. The following is my reality after Obamacare smacked me upside the head last week. I’m prompted to share this rather personal story in the hopes that it will wake up a few more people.

I’ve had Blue-Cross/Blue-Shield of Michigan through my employer for more than 10 years. My first reality won’t really be felt until April, but it’s a doozy. With the implementation of Obamacare, my employer’s healthcare coverage is considered a ‘Cadillac’ plan. This means that I will be taxed on the net value of what my employer pays for my insurance plan. This happens to be about $12,000/year. I have been fortunate enough to pay nothing out of pocket for this premium, but it is part of the reason I took my job in the first place. However, now, instead of being taxed on my actual salary of $35,000/year*, I will be taxed on a salary of $47,000/year.

Well, guess what? That pushes me into a much higher tax bracket. So, besides paying for my co-pay ($3,000/year) I’m going to have to pay the government more than $4,000 extra per year in taxes. So, where once I was paying $3,000 annually for medical expenses, I’m now going to be paying $7,000, $4,000 of which I will have to pay even if I don’t ever receive another medical service in my life again. Yet, my actual take-home salary will remain $35,000. So, how do you think this math works out for me and my family?

Yeah, we’ll be lucky if we keep our house or we can eat….because $4,000 of my annual salary is now being redistributed to purportedly cover those who don’t have health insurance. Yet, now I can’t afford to eat!!! How many households in this country can just suddenly assume a $4,000 annual increase in expenses? Not many, according to the most recent polls that say more than 70% of Americans don’t even have savings equal to one month of expenses. Now, this is bad enough, but worse yet is the following:

Photo Credit: fedupusa.org

Photo Credit: fedupusa.org

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