Is Obama Sacrificing the Senate for Executive Power?

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Larry Downing-Pool/Getty Images

Photo Credit: Larry Downing-Pool/Getty Images

Almost two decades ago, Bill Clinton stood before the nation and declared that “the era of big government is over.” Tuesday night, President Obama proclaimed himself the Big Man on Campus.

The contrast was stark: Obama’s Democratic predecessor used the language of restraint. This president, on the other hand, spoke of doing more in a campaign-themed “Year of Action”—and doing it on his own.

The White House is gambling with this new message, betting that a public disheartened by years of gridlock and distrustful of government will welcome a president vowing to act unilaterally, particularly to help the economy. Obama’s team is hoping, guessing, that the public won’t fear him.

It’s a risk—one the White House may not fully appreciate. As one frustrated Democratic strategist put it: “People are suspicious of executive power, so you have to tread carefully.”

But worse yet for Obama, whether he realizes it or not, is the effect this approach could have on Democrats trying to hold onto the Senate. Indeed, while the White House aims to demonstrate that this president remains large and in charge (and aims to boost his flagging stock as a result), the tactic poses a not insignificant chance of denigrating the role of Congress, and by extension the Senate Democrats fighting to preserve his party’s majority rule. Obama may end up hurting that cause more than helping it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Endorsement of Wendy Davis Triggers National Boycott of Girl Scout Cookies

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

A part of every Thin Mint and Do-Si-Do, every Samoa and Savannah Smile goes to support abortion advocacy. So say John Pisciotta, who runs a tiny pro-life organization in Waco, Texas, and a dozen national pro-life organizations he has convinced to join him in a national boycott of Girl Scout cookies that will be announced in Texas tomorrow.

A few weeks ago, the Girl Scouts designated Wendy Davis as an “incredible woman” who deserved to be on the list of 2013 “Women of the Year.” Only a month earlier, the organization promoted Kathleen Sebelius as a woman of “courage” on its Facebook page.

Davis is not known for much more than exaggerating her life story and for her filibuster of a pro-life bill in the Texas legislature. Her critics point out that the bill she filibustered was one that limited abortions after viability.

Kathleen Sebelius has been the bête noir of the pro-life movement for her role in Obamacare and mandating abortion coverage even for religious entities, what some Catholic bishops have called the largest expansion of abortion in the country since Roe v. Wade.

All this was too much for Pisciotta, who will ask families across America not to participate in the Girl Scouts’ fundraising through cookie sales.

Read more from this story HERE.

How A Divorce Can Boost Health Insurance Subsidies

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: iStockphoto

Photo Credit: iStockphoto

As the enrollment period continues for health coverage on the state health insurance marketplaces, people continue to have many questions about buying a plan there.

What happens with premium tax credits if a couple gets divorced? If the premium tax credit is based on the previous year’s income when the couple filed taxes jointly, many wouldn’t qualify. But once someone is divorced, one individual might have little income. What is the subsidy based on in that situation?

If a couple divorces, each person’s eligibility for premium tax credits will generally be based on his or her own annual income. The former spouse’s income won’t be counted, even if the couple filed taxes jointly the previous year.

Premium tax credits are available to people with incomes up to 400 percent of the 2013 federal poverty level ($45,960 for an individual).

During the application process, people are asked to project their income for the year. If someone estimates income that’s more than 10 percent lower than the previous year’s taxes or wage information or Social Security data would suggest, the system will flag it.

Read more from this story HERE.

TV Ratings: State of the Union, With 33.3 Million Viewers, Hits 14-Year Low

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Larry Downing

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Larry Downing

With final ratings in for the State of the Union address, Nielsen Media puts the grand total just shy of last year’s for a 14-year low.

The gross average audience of 13 networks airing President Barack Obama’s speech puts viewership at 33,299,172. That’s down from the 33.5 million that tuned in for the 2013 speech for its lowest showing since 2000. (President Bill Clinton’s final address in office averaged 31,478,000.)

Read more from this story HERE.

Ted Cruz Changes His Mind About Obamacare

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

During the summer and fall of 2013, Texas senator Ted Cruz repeatedly warned that it would be impossible to repeal Obamacare once Americans began receiving subsidies on January 1, 2014.

In the new year, Americans would become “hooked on the subsidies, addicted to the sugar,” Cruz told a Tea Party gathering in his home state on August 19, according to the Texas Tribune. “If we get to January 1, this thing is here forever.” This belief was a main justification for the last-ditch campaign to fund the government if, and only if, Obamacare was defunded.

But on a conference call Wednesday afternoon, a month after Obamacare subsidies began flowing, Cruz told reporters that he no longer believes that January 1 was the deadline to stop Obamacare. “I believe we will repeal Obamacare,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Wasserman Schultz: ‘The President Is Going to Have to Use His Executive Authority’ (+video)

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Despite criticism of President Barack Obama’s pledge that he will use his executive authority and executive orders to advance his agenda regardless of Congress, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said the president “should use his executive authority.”

At the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday following the president’s State of the Union speech, CNSNews.com asked Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, “What do you think of the criticism about using executive order(s) to get things done on climate change or [the] minimum wage?”

“Well, the ball’s in their court,” she said, in reference to Republicans in the House of Representatives. “I mean, they have an opportunity to work with him.”

Read more from this story HERE.

MSNBC Lionizes ‘Action Hero’ Obama as Superman, Washington Crossing the Delaware, and Uncle Sam (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Newsbusters

Photo Credit: Newsbusters

MSNBC airs a bizarre video montage at the beginning of every episode of The Ed Show, but the program was especially outlandish on Monday and Wednesday, depicting President Obama as a series of larger-than-life figures. The liberal network first portrayed the chief executive as Superman standing on top of the White House, and later placed the Democrat’s head on George Washington’s body in the famed painting of the crossing of the Delaware River.

Two days later, The Ed Show lead segment repeatedly showed a graphic depicting the President as Uncle Sam, holding a pen in his boxing glove-covered hand:

After the montage on both Monday and Tuesday, host Ed Schultz gave his commentary in front of a graphic trumpeting President Obama as an “action hero,” and touted the liberal politician’s controversial vow to take executive action on several issues, as a means to motivate Congress to pass his legislative agenda.

Read more from this story HERE.

$20M and Counting: Feds Tackle Counterfeit Goods Ahead of Super Bowl

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The feds have already set a Super Bowl record — by seizing some $20 million worth of phony gear smuggled in from all over the world as Sunday’s game approaches.

Fake tickets good enough to gain entry to MetLife Stadium, knock-off jerseys and even sex workers descending on the biggest event in American sports are all on the radar of the Department of Homeland Security. The agency has set up a 24-hour operation at JFK airport, where they are confiscating loads of unlicensed Super Bowl paraphernalia in advance of Sunday’s game, FoxNews.com has learned.

“We have seized upwards of $20 million worth of counterfeit merchandise, most of which is related to the Super Bowl,” said Special Agent in Charge James T. Hayes of Homeland Security in New York. “We’ve executed 11 arrests so far and expect to make more in the coming days.”

Hayes said investigators have confiscated “thousands of pieces” of illegal merchandise, sent mostly from Asian countries like China. The fraudulent items include hats, jerseys and T-shirts made to look like they are officially endorsed by the National Football League for this year’s Super Bowl game between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos as MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

“If it’s produced, it’s being counterfeited,” Hayes said. “This is the perfect environment for counterfeiters because of street vendors,” he said of New York City and areas surrounding the northern New Jersey stadium.

Read more from this story HERE.

Students Stranded on Buses Overnight

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

Officials in Hoover, Alabama, were sending buses early Wednesday morning to pick up stranded motorists.

In the first run, two school buses were sent to transport as many as 100 people to local shelters, said Rusty Lowe of the Hoover fire department.

The buses will make several runs.

About 50 Atlanta school children were still stuck on buses early Wednesday morning.

The students had gotten on buses to get home shortly after noon Tuesday, but treacherous road conditions coupled with gridlocked traffic has made it impossible.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ted Cruz: The Imperial Presidency of Barack Obama

/12 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the president’s persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat. On Monday, Mr. Obama acted unilaterally to raise the minimum wage paid by federal contracts, the first of many executive actions the White House promised would be a theme of his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

The president’s taste for unilateral action to circumvent Congress should concern every citizen, regardless of party or ideology. The great 18th-century political philosopher Montesquieu observed: “There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates.” America’s Founding Fathers took this warning to heart, and we should too.

Rule of law doesn’t simply mean that society has laws; dictatorships are often characterized by an abundance of laws. Rather, rule of law means that we are a nation ruled by laws, not men. That no one—and especially not the president—is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

Yet rather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying and waiving portions of the laws he is charged to enforce. When Mr. Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

On many of those policy issues, reasonable minds can disagree. Mr. Obama may be right that some of those laws should be changed. But the typical way to voice that policy disagreement, for the preceding 43 presidents, has been to work with Congress to change the law. If the president cannot persuade Congress, then the next step is to take the case to the American people. As President Reagan put it: “If you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat” of electoral accountability.

Read more from this story HERE.