Photo Credit: Washington Examiner
In the new poll, Cruz, who made headlines for trying to dismantle Obamacare, was the pick for the most influential of 11 percent. The pope was tops at 23 percent, Obama second at 21 percent.
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Anchorage, Alaska. December 16, 2013 – Joe Miller today called on Senators Begich and Murkowski to reject the unsustainable Murray-Ryan budget, describing it as just another Washington gimmick.
“The latest budget gimmick is yet another sign that Washington is fundamentally unserious about the debt crisis facing the nation,” Miller said. “It’s simply unacceptable to continue down the road to fiscal insolvency and economic disaster with a ‘tax and spend’ deal that does absolutely nothing to address Congress’ spending addiction.”
Not only does the budget deal result in a net spending increase of $63 billion over the next two years, it will also raise taxes and cut crucial retirement benefits for military veterans.
The deal cuts pension cost of living adjustments (“COLA”) by one percentage point per year for military retirees who aren’t disabled and not yet 62 years old. The vast majority of military personnel retire after twenty to thirty years of service at half their active duty pay level. Most under the Murray-Ryan plan will see a 20 percent or more pay cut in their COLA’s, which are linked to the inflation rate, so the salary maintains the same buying power.
CNN Money reports, “The average cut in pension payouts, including compounding interest, for a retiring Army Sergeant first class, would be about $3,700 each year, according to the Military Officers Association of America. Over 20 years, the total losses could balloon to more than $80,000.”
Joe Miller concluded, “It’s just more political double-speak, and I’m sickened that Congress has so little regard for the sacrifice of our career military men and women, much less for the commitments that they’ve made. It’s classic bait-and-switch, a raw deal that should be roundly rejected by Senators Begich and Murkowski. I urge Alaskans to contact our senate delegation and tell them to reject the Murray-Ryan plan.”
Joe Miller is a husband, father, war veteran, businessman, and Constitutional conservative who believes in limited government, the Right to life, individual liberty, private property, and free markets.
Photo Credit: Reuters
Addressing questions regarding the millions of Americans struggling to access and navigate healthcare.gov, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney makes it sound so simple, telling a national audience that “you are better served by using a navigator…”
These “navigators” are on the front line of the implementation of the President’s health care plan.
You would expect that people placed in such an important position would have to undergo rigorous training to ensure the most comprehensive understanding of the Affordable Care Act, since they are the gateway to attaining care.
Unfortunately, a new report released by a Congressional Oversight Committee reveals a shocking level of mismanagement and incompetence that “induces fraudulent behavior and poses real threats to the safety of consumers’ personally identifiable information…”
In Dallas, “navigators” were caught on tape “encouraging applicants to lie on their health insurance application so the applicants could qualify for tax subsidies.”
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Photo Credit: Reuters
By Tony Lee.
The Obama administration decided that Obamacare Navigators, tasked with helping Americans enroll in a health insurance plan, would not undergo mandatory background checks. Now, in the ten weeks since the launch of Healthcare.gov, the ill-trained Navigators have put Americans’ sensitive health and tax information at risk.
Breitbart News has obtained a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report on the Obamacare Navigators that will be released Monday. It has found that Obamacare Navigators have been giving Americans misinformation and, in some cases, actively encouraging enrollees to commit fraud in order to raise their subsidies. To complicate matters further, there is no way for Americans to find out whether their Navigators are properly certified.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a Congressional hearing that it was “possible” for convicted felons to become Navigators. The report, titled Risks of Fraud and Misinformation with ObamaCare Outreach Campaign: How Navigator and Assister Program Mismanagement Endangers Consumers, concludes that is only one of many worries Americans should have about Navigators.
The Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), and HHS actually learned that “poorly-trained Navigators gave consumers incorrect information about the health care exchanges, violated HHS rules and procedures, and even encouraged applicants to commit tax fraud in some instances.” Moreover, this was learned from various news reports due to the complete lack of any internal oversight.
On November 21, the Obama administration briefed the Committee. Those in attendance included Gary Cohen, the Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO), and Mandy Cohen, Director of the Consumer Support Group at CCIIO.
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Photo Credit: AP
Kerry expressed hope the new Iranian government would provide information on the whereabouts of the 65-year-old Robert Levinson and pushed back on the argument that the U.S. has stopped looking for the retired FBI agent.
“To suggest that we have abandoned him or anybody has abandoned him is simply incorrect, and not helpful,” he told ABC’s “This Week.” “I think the Iranian government has the ability to help us here, and we hope they will.”
Meanwhile, Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Levinson is not being held by the government and that he has “no idea” about who might have him.
Still, Zarif said his country “will certainly discuss” Levinson’s return should he be found.
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Photo Credit: Newsbusters
When he heard this during his appearance on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry show, Republican strategist Ron Christie strongly objected saying, “Racial! I will not sit here and allow you to say that!” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
During a lengthy political discussion with Christie as the lone conservative against four extreme liberals (including the host, of course), Rye said, “I was just thinking, to me, in 2010, the Republican infighting took a particularly dangerous tone because it wasn’t just about infighting anymore. It was about taking our country back with the resurrection of the Tea Party. And it was very, very racial, whether any of them will admit it or not.”
Christie quickly refuted this saying, “Racial! I will not sit here and allow you to say that!”
“I said it, and I’ll say it again,” Rye responded.
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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich heatedly disputed Robert Reich’s contention that the “War on Poverty’s” initial success was spoiled by decades of Republican “intransigence,” telling the former labor secretary his argument was “baloney.”
Gingrich and Reich appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” to discuss TIME magazine’s choice of Pope Francis as Person of the Year. Reich, a well-known proponent of wide-scale income redistribution, changed the topic to inequality in the United States today. ABC News host Jonathann Karl asked Gingrinch whether the Republican Party should be worried about poverty in America.
“Absolutely,” he responded. “How can you justify the level of wealth in those big towers in New York City and the level of poverty in those alleys? And without talking about government, surely a society that cared, that believed every person was endowed by their Creator with the right to pursue happiness, would come up with a better solution than 22,000 children that are homeless.
“I think that the Republican Party has an obligation to rethink some of its indifference to the very poor,” he continued, “and I think the Democrats have an obligation to ask themselves after 50 years of the ‘War on Poverty,’ isn’t it clear that government isn’t a very good –”
https://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=90046&sitesection=dailycaller&VID=25447180
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Photo Credit: Screen grab via NBC
President Barack Obama’s appearance at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service this week was subject to a “Saturday Night Live” skit that targeted the stage’s fake interpreter and the president’s now infamous selfie.
The skit opened with an actor playing Obama delivering an address on the “series of unfortunate events” that occurred at the Mandela memorial.
“First, I got roped into taking a selfie with the blonde female Danish prime minister,” the Obama actor said. “Some people said Michelle was angry at me for that. But, I talked to her afterwards and I can assure you, she was furious.”
“Some people said Michelle was angry at me for that….she was furious.”
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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images
By Michael Goodwin.
My bookshelves sag with encyclopedic volumes arguing that America and the West are in decline. But proving that a picture is worth a thousand books, the “selfie” seen ’round the world ends the argument.
It’s official — the government of the United States of Obama consists of boobs and bores and is led by a narcissist. It is no consolation that Great Britain joins us in racing to the bottom.
President Obama’s flirting with Denmark’s prime minister would be shameful on any occasion. That it happened at the memorial for Nelson Mandela only adds to the embarrassment.
But the “selfie” episode also symbolizes the greater global calamity of Western decline. With British prime minister David Cameron playing the role of Obama’s giggling wingman, the “look at me” moment confirms we have unserious leaders in a dangerously serious time.
Iran marches toward nuclear weapons and already there is talk in military circles that a nuclear-armed Iran could mean mushroom clouds in the Mideast within five years.
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An amnesty, which does not have the support of the State Department, would represent a surprising denouement to an international drama that has lasted half a year. It is particularly unexpected from a surveillance agency that has spent months insisting that Snowden’s disclosures have caused vast damage to US national security.
The NSA official in charge of assessing the alleged damage caused by Snowden’s leaks, Richard Ledgett, told CBS News an amnesty still remains controversial within the agency, which has spent the past six months defending itself against a global outcry and legislative and executive proposals to restrain its broad surveillance activities.
“My personal view is, yes, it’s worth having a conversation about,” Ledgett, who is under consideration to become the agency’s top civilian, said in an interview slated to air Sunday evening on 60 Minutes. “I would need assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured, and my bar for those assurances would be very high. It would be more than just an assertion on his part.”
Snowden is in Russia, having been granted a year-long asylum that has sparked international intrigue. In June, the Justice Department filed a criminal complaint charging the 30-year old former contractor with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and “wilful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person”, although he has not yet been indicted.
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Photo Credit: Francisco Seco/AP
While the military and law enforcement agencies long have been able to hack into individual cellphones, the NSA’s capability appears to be far more sweeping because of the agency’s global signals collection operation. The agency’s ability to crack encryption used by the majority of cellphones in the world offers it wide-ranging powers to listen in on private conversations.
U.S. law prohibits the NSA from collecting the content of conversations between Americans without a court order. But experts say that if the NSA has developed the capacity to easily decode encrypted cellphone conversations, then other nations likely can do the same through their own intelligence services, potentially to Americans’ calls, as well.
Encryption experts have complained for years that the most commonly used technology, known as A5/1, is vulnerable and have urged providers to upgrade to newer systems that are much harder to crack. Most companies worldwide have not done so, even as controversy has intensified in recent months over NSA collection of cellphone traffic, including of such world leaders as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The extent of the NSA’s collection of cellphone signals and its use of tools to decode encryption are not clear from a top-secret document provided by former contractor Edward Snowden. But it states that the agency “can process encrypted A5/1” even when the agency has not acquired an encryption key, which unscrambles communications so that they are readable.
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Photo Credit: AP Photo/TLC, Bryant Livingston
Advocacy groups for polygamy and individual liberties on Saturday hailed a federal judge’s ruling that key parts of Utah’s polygamy laws are unconstitutional, saying it will remove the threat of arrest for those families.
U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups said in the decision handed down Friday that a provision in Utah law forbidding cohabitation with another person violated the First Amendment right of freedom of religion.
The ruling was a victory for Kody Brown and his four wives who star in the hit TLC reality show “Sister Wives” and other fundamentalist Mormons who believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven.
The Brown family filed their lawsuit in July 2011 and fled Utah for Las Vegas last year under the threat of prosecution.
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