To Distance Themselves from Obama, 2016 Democrats Will Move To the Left

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Photo Credit: Cliff OwenThe 2016 Democratic presidential field is likely to run to the left of President Obama, partly because candidates will try to distance themselves from his political baggage while jockeying for an increasingly liberal base of voters, analysts predict.

Prospective candidates and their surrogates insist it’s too early to tell what kind of standing Mr. Obama will have with voters and whether he will be seen as damaged goods the way President Bush was for Republicans in 2008.

But discontent is brewing within the Democratic Party over what some see as Mr. Obama’s concessions to Republicans.

Those Democratic voters will be looking for candidates willing to slide further to the left, especially on economic issues.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the next Democratic candidate is likely to be more populist than Obama has been. I think you might see [Hillary Rodham Clinton] move in that direction. I think you might see any major challenger to her move in that direction,” said Mike Lux, co-founder and CEO of the consulting firm Progressive Strategies who has worked on five presidential campaigns. “I think you will see that rumbling under the surface, that a Democrat is going to need to run a more populist campaign. I don’t think it will be an open, outright distancing from Obama, but just a much more populist version” of the Obama approach.

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A Benghazi Father’s Message For the Son Who Was Left Behind

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Photo Credit: APOn September 11, 2012 — 11 years after Al Qaeda launched an attack against the U.S. — the American Embassy compound in Benghazi, Libya was attacked. In the ensuing gunfight, four Americans died — including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. Lost amongst the blame game and politicking that played out over the internet and cable news was the fact that these men came from families. They had lives. They were somebody’s son.

Charles Woods lost his son, Ty , on Sept. 11, 2012.

Invited to the State of the Union as the guest of Oklahoma Republican Rep. Jim Bridenstine, Woods is a father seeking closure and the truth about what happened to his son.

His son, Ty, was a former Navy SEAL and a private security contractor in Benghazi. He had been described by his compatriots as an “Alpha SEAL” — the SEAL other SEALs sought to emulate — and in a wood-paneled room, in the heart of the nation’s capitol on the day following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, his soft-spoken father glowed with pride as he spoke about him.

Recounting the upbringing that Ty had, Woods explained: ”He was just an ordinary guy, but in his life nothing was done halfway… He was a very independent young man. We would give him a .22 or a BB gun and he’d be gone all day… He was really made to be a Navy SEAL.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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