Report: How Obama’s Justice Department Selectively Blocks Mergers By Republican CEOs

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Photo Credit: Forbes

Photo Credit: Forbes

Like all mergers, the proposed $45.2 billion Comcast CMCSA +1.5% merger with Time Warner Cable TWC +1%—the largest and second largest cable providers in the nation—has its advocates and critics. There are certainly important questions about what impact the merger would have on consumers—but there are equally significant issues associated with the highly politicized approval process.

The Obama Department of Justice, led by Eric Holder, must review the merger and decide whether to approve or block it. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration and Justice Department have a long track record of pushing the rule of law aside and making decisions based on politics. Will the proposed Comcast merger with Time Warner Cable receive the scrutiny it deserves, or simply be fast-tracked for approval based on politics?

Let’s look at some history—which is detailed in a new Frontiers of Freedom report. In 2009, the Obama Administration gave Solyndra, a failing California solar panel firm, a $536 million “loan.” Shortly thereafter, Solyndra was fully bankrupt. Prior to the loan, Solyndra executives and board members gave generously to Barack Obama, including Tulsa oil billionaire and Obama bundler George Kaiser, one of Solyndra’s main investors.

UnitedHealth Group is expecting higher earnings thanks to ObamaCare. After United supported passing the plan, one of its subsidiaries, Quality Software Services, Inc. won a contract of $90 million for the rollout of Healthcare.gov. UnitedHealth’s Executive Vice President Anthony Welters and his wife are significant Obama donors and bundlers. The Administration did not perceive any conflict of interest in providing the nation’s largest health insurer with the keys to Healthcare.gov.

If money buys favors from the Obama Administration, a lack of it produces the opposite.

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Government Suspends Controversial Program to Recover Money from Adult Children of Dead Taxpayers

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Social Security Administration announced Monday it is suspending a controversial program that goes after adult children of deceased taxpayers who the government claims were recipients of overpayments more than a decade ago.

Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin said she has directed an immediate halt to the three-year-old program while the agency does a review. The controversial program seized tax refunds in an effort to recoup the funds.

The move to halt the program came after many of the recipients and members of Congress complained to the federal agency.

“While this policy of seizing tax refunds to repay decades-old Social Security overpayments might be allowed under the law, it is entirely unjust,” Democratic Sens. Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland said in a letter to Colvin.

After Colvin’s announcement, Boxer said in a statement: “I am grateful that the Social Security Administration has chosen not to penalize innocent Americans while the agency determines a fair path forward on how to handle past errors.”

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Ted Cruz Is Beating Rand Paul in the Tea Party Primary

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Rand Paul has been methodically planning his run for president. Now Ted Cruz could come along and spoil the whole thing.

Both senators have a path to the Republican nomination that rests on the support of the Tea Party. And when forced to choose, that segment appears to prefer Cruz, whose speech to an activists’ gathering here over the weekend was the more enthusiastically received of the two.

Saturday’s Freedom Summit, billed as an early audition for potential 2016 candidates, provided a rare opportunity for right-wing activists to directly compare the Texan and the Kentuckian. The senators spoke practically back to back, and the crowd clearly loved them both. But Cruz’s theatrical delivery wowed them more than Paul’s comparatively cerebral appeal, and his rhetorical focus on conservative red meat found more favor than Paul’s detours into libertarian concerns.

“I like Rand Paul, I agree with a lot of what he says, but as far as charismatic leadership, I’ve got to go with Ted Cruz,” Robin Parkhurst, a state-government worker from Newbury, New Hampshire, said after hearing both men speak at the event. “Ted Cruz has the ability to deliver a message that resonates with people.”

Parkhurst was one of several at the summit to echo that sentiment. It was a dramatic demonstration of a dynamic political watchers have speculated about—Cruz’s ability to steal Paul’s thunder if both seek the 2016 GOP nomination.

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Food Stamp Recipients Outnumber Women Who Work Full-Time

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

People participating in the food stamp program outnumbered the women who worked full-time, year-round in the United States in 2012, according to data from the Department of Agriculture and the Census Bureau.

In the average month of 2012, according to the Department of Agriculture, there were 46,609,000 people participating in the food stamp program (formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). That contrasts with the 44,059,000 women who worked full-time, year-round in 2012, according to the Census Bureau’s report on Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States.

For each woman who worked full-time, year-round in 2012, there was slightly more than 1 other person collecting food stamps.

FOOD STAMP BENEFICIARIES AND FULL-TIME FEMALE WORKERS-CHART 1

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Mom Gives Birth in a Coma After Horrific Crash, Wakes Up Three Days Later

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

A young woman has given birth despite being in a coma following a horrific crash. Fortunately, she awoke three days later to be able to spend her life with her new baby.

Wei Liu, 30, gave birth while in a coma in hospital after the horrific crash and didn’t know she had a new son until she awoke from the coma. In an accident in Manchester, England, Zain Iqbal crashed into Lui’s cab — leaving her badly injured as medical officials rushed her to a hospital. Iqbal was attempting to pass another vehicle at the time and speeding.

Liu was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary in a critical condition and her son Lucas was delivered after an emergency caesarean in A&E a month early.

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McConnell’s Tea Party Opponent Raises $1.12 Million In First Quarter

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Photo Credit: AP / Timothy D. Easley

Photo Credit: AP / Timothy D. Easley

Though he’s trailing the Senate minority leader by more than 30 points, Matt Bevin’s influx of cash could force McConnell to spend vital funds to defend himself.

Updated 4/14/14 at 3:33pm to include McConnell’s first quarter fundraising numbers.

Matt Bevin, the Tea Party candidate challenging Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, announced Monday that he raised $1.12 million from 30,000 donors in the first quarter of 2014.

“As Kentuckians learn the truth about Sen. McConnell’s record of repeatedly caving to President Obama and his long history of votes for bailouts, amnesty, and funding for Obamacare, they have rallied to our campaign,” Bevin, a businessman and first time candidate, said in a statement. “With the help of these grassroots conservatives, we will make history when we win on May 20.”

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President Obama, Vladimir Putin Talk Ukraine Unrest

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone Monday but appeared to do little to narrow or obscure the wide gulf between the U.S. and Russian governments over the continuing unrest in Ukraine.

A Russian foreign ministry statement about the leaders’ phone call described a situation in Ukraine starkly different from the picture painted by U.S. officials and Western news outlets.

U.S. officials have accused Russian-backed paramilitaries and militia forces of taking over government buildings in eastern Ukraine, less than two months after Russian troops and well-armed fighters with few visible insignia staged similar takeovers in the Crimea region.

However, the Russian statement referred to “southeastern regions” of Ukraine being “engulfed by mass protests against the policies of the current authorities in Kiev.”

Russia effectively annexed Crimea last month after a referendum there in which voters reportedly backed such a move by overwhelming numbers. The vote was not recognized by most world powers.

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‘Heil Hitler’ Shooting Kills 3 at Kansas City-Area Jewish Centers (+video)

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Photo Credit: Pam Broviak / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Pam Broviak / Creative Commons

A gunman opened fire at two Jewish facilities near Kansas City on Sunday, killing three people, police said.

Authorities are investigating whether the shootings were a hate crime, Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass told reporters.

“It’s too early in the investigation to try to label it. We know it’s a vicious act of violence. Obviously, at two Jewish facilities, one might make that assumption, but we’re going to have to know more about it,” he said.

Suspect Frazier Glenn Cross faces charges of premeditated first-degree murder. He is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, Lt. Craig Buckendahl from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office said.

Video from CNN affiliate KMBC showed a man who appeared to be the suspect sitting in the back of a patrol car and shouting, “Heil Hitler.”

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Ex-CBS Journalist Active in Covering Benghazi, Fast & Furious Describes ‘Chilling Effect’ Obama Admin. Has on Reporting

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Former CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson took a swing at her former employer Sunday and described the “chilling effect” she says the Obama administration has on reporting.

“I didn’t run into that same kind of sentiment (at CBS) as I did in the Obama administration when I covered the Bush administration very aggressively,” Attkisson told “Media Buzz” host Howard Kurtz.

“It never runs,” she continued. “Or it dies the death of a thousand cuts, as some of us say. If it’s something they don’t want it will be changed and revised and shortened and altered so much that it’s a shadow of its former self if it does air.”

Attkisson, who had been active in covering the aftermath of the Benghazi terror attacks and the Fast and Furious scandal, abruptly announced she had resigned from CBS News last month. According to Politico, sources said Attkisson had grown increasingly frustrated by what she perceived as a liberal bias at CBS News.

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Official Campaign Kickoff Event – Monday, April 21st!

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I have an exciting announcement! Our official campaign launch will be Monday, April 21st in Wasilla at Screen Shot 2014-04-11 at 2.14.37 PMthe Wasilla Lake Resort at 6pm, and conservative radio talk show host Lars Larson will be on hand, broadcasting live nationwide! 
 
The Alaska race for the U.S. Senate is heating up, and it is shaping up to be one of the most watched races in the country. In these momentous and challenging times, the need of the hour is for new leadership in Washington committed to restoring the constitutional rule of law and reviving the American spirit.


 
I pledge to you as Alaska’s next United States senator, I won’t back down in the fight to roll back the encroaching socialist state brought about under the Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Mark Begich regime. I will stand with reformers like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and bring your voice and your vote to Washington, DC in the cause of restoring our freedom!

I can’t do this alone. The Karl Rove’s and other Washington elite have set their eyes on the Alaska seat and have pledged millions to defeat reform candidates nationwide. We simply cannot go back to the Big Government, failed policies of the last decade and hope to survive as a nation.
 
My agenda is clear: constrain the federal government to its constitutional limits, balance the budget, revive the American economy, create jobs, defend the right to life, repeal ObamaCare, and secure our borders.  
 
If I truly believed that any of the other candidates who entered the race were willing to exercise the kind of leadership required to get the nation back on track, I would not be running. The cost is too high to me and my family, but I simply cannot stand by while the greatest nation in the history of the world plunges headlong towards ruin.
 
Our campaign is catching fire. We have seen a dramatic rise in the polls head-to-head against Begich putting us within striking distance, and the Republican primary is anyone’s race! 
 
The DC elites know this too, and I expect their full fury to be unleashed in the weeks following our campaign kick-off. I ask you to stand with me and send a powerful message to the Establishment, that We the People are sovereign and the government is our servant.
 
Together we can make a difference and do our part, so the great story and the great experiment that is America can go forward.
 
Thank you for your friendship and support!