Rising Percentage of Americans Renouncing US Citizenship

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Photo Credit: Forbes America is a great land and lures immigrants worldwide, yet record numbers of U.S. citizens and permanent residents are giving up their citizenship or residency. For all the immigrant arrivals the trickle the other direction is increasing. The number is still small, with the “published” expatriates for the quarter 630 for the last quarter of 2013.

That brings the total number to 2,999 for all of 2013. The previous record high for a year was 1,781 set in 2011. It’s a 221% increase over the 932 who left in 2012. You can call it a shaming or a public record, but the Treasury Department is required to publish a quarterly list of Americans who renounced their U.S. Citizenship or terminated their long-term U.S. residency. The public outing puts Americans on notice who relinquished their rights.

Those seem like tiny numbers, yet the total thus far for 2013 is 2,369. See Number of Taxpayers Who Renounced U.S. Citizenship Skyrockets to All-Time Record High, quoting Andrew Mitchel. Under U.S. tax law, it is not relevant why someone expatriates. Whether the expatriation was motivated by tax avoidance or something else used to matter, but the law was changed in 2004.

Since then, the tax and other consequences do not depend on why one leaves. Yet after Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin departed permanently for Singapore with his Facebook IPO riches, there was an angry backlash. Mr. Saverin’s post-Facebook fly-away prompted such outrage that Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey introduced a bill to double the exit tax to 30% for anyone leaving the U.S. for tax reasons.

So far, that bill remains unpassed. Meantime, are people following Tina Turner’s lead? No, and not Eduardo Saverin’s either. Most expatriations are probably motivated primarily by factors such as family and convenience. Many people like Ms. Turner have built a life somewhere else and may not plan to need a U.S. passport.

Read more from this story HERE.

Demonomics

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This week the big story was the tag end of the old JournoList gang trying to spin gold out of the dross of the Congressional Budget Report. The CBO report projected that by 2021 under ObamaCare more than 2 million full-time workers will find it financially advisable to quit work entirely or switch to part-time jobs in order to get more subsidies for healthcare insurance. To most of us who studied real economics or just paid attention to human nature, subsidizing indolence means you’ll get more of it.

But to the airheads on the left and their JournoList spinmasters — the very people who believed in their hearts that young, healthy workers would willingly pay more for their health insurance to subsidize older, sicker Americans and learned nothing from the failure of that prediction, this devastating CBO report spelled out a wonderful new world of possibilities for American workers at the bottom rungs.

1. Job Lock

Working their dreidels overtime, the gang argued that the CBO report was going to end job lock — long a Republican goal — but as “Ignatz” posted on Just One Minute: “I believe the Republican idea was to decouple insurance from employment, not decouple the employee from employment”

Nancy Pelosi, the JournoList band leader on this less-is-more score taunted: “The GOP seems to have forgotten that ending ‘job-lock; has been an avowed Republican goal for years — even a highlight in the Republican Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential race.” Her claim was a gross misrepresentation:

“Job-lock” itself is a different problem. Instead of effectively paying people to work less, as Obamacare does, conservative proposals would end federal preferences for employer-based insurance, allowing Americans to take insurance with them from job to job. People would not be stuck with a specific employer because they want to stay insured.

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Objects to Obama Administration Easing Immigration Rules for Terror Supporters

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsThe Obama administration’s use of an executive directive to ease the rules for people trying to enter the United States or stay in the country even though they have given “limited” support to terrorists or terror groups is causing problems for Republicans working on immigration reform.

“President Obama should be protecting U.S. citizens rather than taking a chance on those who are aiding and abetting terrorist activity and putting Americans at greater risk,” says Virginia GOP Rep. Robert Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and part of the GOP House leadership team working on immigration reform.

He and other Republican lawmakers argued that the administration is relaxing rules designed by Congress to protect the country from terrorists.

And Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt on “Fox News Sunday” repeated the concerns of fellow Republicans and others about Obama repeatedly saying that “he can use his pen and his telephone” to work around Congress.

The change is one of Obama’s first actions on immigration since he pledged during his State of the Union address last month to use more executive directives.

Read more from this story HERE.

Soldiers Say Intel Tool Is Too Difficult: Congress Cuts Funds for Army’s System

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Photo Credit: Rahmat GulAn internal memo from the U.S. command in Afghanistan says soldiers are voicing strong complaints about the Army’s battlefield intelligence network, for which Congress just slashed spending by 60 percent.

The $28 billion Distributed Common Ground System is too slow and unstable and hurts operations in some cases, say intelligence officers who rely on the computer network to collect and quickly dispense data on hard-to-find insurgents and the homemade bombs they plant.

The “official use only” memo issued in November was in the form of a survey of four combat and support units in Afghanistan.

Soldiers with the 130th Engineer Brigade said that, after training, “the system is still too complex and overwhelming for most to use.”

“DCGS continues to be unstable, slow, not friendly and a major hindrance to operations at the [battalion] level and lower,” the brigade said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gunman Kills Nun, Parishioner, Wounds 6 in Russian Cathedral

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/ Dmitriy SindyakovRussian investigators say a gunman opened fire in a cathedral on Sakhalin Island off the Pacific coast, killing a nun and a parishioner and wounding six others.

The federal Investigative Committee said law enforcement officers detained the man, who works as a security guard.

A man employed as a private security guard opened fire Sunday in a cathedral on Russia’s Sakhalin Island in the Pacific, killing a nun and a parishioner and wounding six others, investigators said.

Law enforcement officers detained the 24-year-old man at the scene and were trying to determine why he had attacked the Russian Orthodox cathedral in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the federal Investigative Committee said in a statement. The man worked for a private security firm in the city and was armed with a rifle. His name was not released.

Read more from this story HERE.

North Korea Rescinds Invitation for U.S. Official to Discuss Kenneth Bae’s Release

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Photo Credit: Fox News The North Korean government has rescinded an invitation for a senior State Department official to visit the isolated nation to discuss the release of American and Christian missionary Kenneth Bae, a State Department source told Fox News on Sunday.

North Korea apparently made the decision to prevent a visit from Robert R. King, the special envoy for North Korean Human Rights issues, in light of military exercises planned for later this month between the United States and South Korea, with which North Korea technically remains in a state of war following the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

“We are deeply disappointed by the (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s) decision – for a second time – to rescind its invitation for Ambassador King to travel to Pyongyang to discuss Kenneth Bae’s release,” the State Department official said. “We again call on the DPRK to grant Bae special amnesty and immediate release as a humanitarian gesture so he may reunite with his family and seek medical care. We will continue to work actively to secure Mr. Bae’s release. Per our long-standing offer, we remain prepared to send Ambassador King to North Korea in support of Mr. Bae’s release.”

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Rand Paul Op-Ed: When Will Obama Start Caring?

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Photo Credit: APJust when you thought Obamacare couldn’t get any worse, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported on Tuesday that the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs will be lost due to Obamacare.

We can’t afford to lose any more jobs.

These numbers are calculated according to how many work hours the CBO estimates will be lost in the coming decade. Reuters reports, “In its latest U.S. fiscal outlook, the nonpartisan CBO said the health law would lead some workers, particularly those with lower incomes, to limit their hours to avoid losing federal subsidies that Obamacare provides to help pay for health insurance and other healthcare costs.”

Reuters continues, “Work hours would be reduced by the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs in 2024, said the agency, which earlier predicted 800,000 fewer full-time jobs by 2021. The bottom line would be a slower rate of growth for employment and compensation in the coming decade, according to the report.”

This is yet another example of the damage Obamacare has continued to inflict since its implementation.

Read more from this story HERE.

All American Credit Cards Will Disappear In 2015 And Be Replaced With This New Tech

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Photo Credit: instagram/ericabibi_These credit cards are dinosaurs.

Every credit card in the U.S. will be replaced by October 2015 with new cards that contain the chip-and-PIN technology that the rest of the world has had for years, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Both Visa and MasterCard are committed to the switch, which will render extinct the plastic in your wallets and purses right now.

No more black magnetic stripes; no more signing on the dotted line.

Americans who have traveled to Europe in recent years will know that the U.S.’s credit card system is embarrassingly old-fashioned by comparison. It’s often difficult to use American credit cards abroad because the Europeans abandoned magnetic stripes and signatures years ago — they were too easily hacked. Credit and debit cards in the U.S. are about 10 years behind the rest of the world.

Read more from this story HERE.

Iran Says Warships Headed Close to US Borders for First Time

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Photo Credit: Free Beacon By Associated Press.

Iranian warships dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean will travel close to U.S. maritime borders for the first time, a senior Iranian naval commander said Saturday.

The commander of Iran’s Northern Navy Fleet, Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, said the vessels have already entered the Atlantic Ocean via waters near South Africa, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Tehran sending ‘message’ as warships approach US

By JPOST.COM STAFF, REUTERS.

Iranian naval fleets were on their way across the Atlantic Ocean and headed toward the US, the Fars news agency reported on Saturday.

“Iran’s military fleet is approaching the United States’ maritime borders, and this move has a message,” Adm. Afshin Rezayee Haddad of Iran’s Northern Navy Fleet was quoted as saying.

According to Fars, Iran had first warned the US of its plans to deploy its naval forces along US marine borders “in the next few years” in September 2012.

Then, Iran’s Navy Commander R.-Adm. Habibollah Sayyari said the move would counter US presence in its waters in the Persian Gulf.

Fars first reported on an Iranian Navy fleet of warships making its way across the Atlantic Ocean in January 2014. At the time, they reported that the ships would sail for at least three months.

Read more from this story HERE.

Should this Senator be Awarded ‘Lie of the Year’?

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Photo Credit: SenateDemocratsIn an interview with Bill O’Reilly last Sunday, Barack Obama doubled down on the IRS cover-up, claiming that there was not so much as “a smidgen of corruption” in the rogue agency’s clear political profiling of conservative groups.

Nothing could be further from the truth. How do I know this? Because just a few months ago, IRS officials apologized, and the President himself called the behavior “outrageous and unacceptable.”

Now we’re supposed to believe those who demand answers are acting out in bad faith and fabricating “phony scandals.” All this has prompted some to suggest that the Mr. Obama should be in the running for his second consecutive “Lie of the Year” award.

If you recall, the “Lie of the Year” last year was “if you like your health plan, you can keep it.” Problem is, Barack Obama should have had to share the award with Democrat Senator Mark Begich, because he sold Alaskans the same bill of goods.

Turns out Mr. Begich has not been honest about his voting record in Washington, D.C. either. After spending the last year telling Alaskans he was “as independent as Alaska,” Congressional Quarterly reported this week that the junior senator voted with Barack Obama 97% of the time in 2013. Now that’s what I call a whopper!

But that’s not all. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office is now projecting total jobs lost due to the passage of Obamacare to reach 2.5 million, according to Forbes online. This stands in stark contrast to Mark Begich’s 2009 claim that Obamacare would be good for small business.

Mark Begich could have saved Alaska from the train wreck we call Obamacare, but instead chose to hand his 60th and deciding vote over to Harry Reid and the Democrat Majority.

It’s time to send a clear and unequivocal message to the Washington elites. Obamacare must go. Whether it’s by repeal or through defunding, it’s time to kill Obamacare and put America back to work.

I can’t do this alone. But together, we can make a difference.

In the fight,

Joe Miller, candidate
United States Senate