MSNBC: Joe Miller is Retiring? Not So Fast. . .

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If you were watching MSNBC Live this morning, you might be wondering why former and current Alaska Republican senatorial candidate Joe Miller is retiring in the middle of his campaign. It’s an unorthodox political strategy for someone who is not currently embroiled in scandal, and who stands a reasonable chance of walking away with the nomination for a second time.

Joe Miller MSNBC

It appears that reports of his political death have been exaggerated. And so has his conversion to the Democratic Party, his relocation to California, and his service to the United States Congress since the early 1970s.

Someone at MSNBC confused candidate Joe Miller with George Miller, 21-term Democratic congressman from California who came out with a statement today declaring his upcoming retirement.

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Taxpayers Paid Nearly $175M for Penis Pumps Between 2006 and 2011

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Photo Credit: Andromedical Indonesia Flickr

Photo Credit: Andromedical Indonesia Flickr

Taxpayers paid nearly $175 million for vacuum erection systems (VES), commonly known as “penis pumps,” from 2006 to 2011, according to an inspector general report released on Monday.

The federal government paid more than double the retail price for VES, the Department of Health and Human Services IG found. Medicare prices for the systems, the report said, “remain grossly excessive compared with the amounts that non-Medicare payers pay.”

Medicare paid 473,620 VES claims during calendar years 2006 through 2011, according to the IG report.

Health care policy experts said the revelations in the IG report are a troubling indication of what they describe as wasteful spending in federal health programs.

“The fact that taxpayers have spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the past decade on penis pumps via Medicare is obscene and insulting – even more so when you consider that this is an arena of Medicare expenditures rife with fraud and where the government doesn’t even bother to assess medical necessity,” said Ben Domenech, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute.

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Watch Out Tea Party! Obama Weaponizing the IRS (+video)

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

“Non-profit groups must prepare to fight back [against] the IRS on yet a second front,” warns Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the Washington-based law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, well-known for providing expert legal advise to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

In discussions throughout the Capitol, Mitchell has expressed her concern new rules proposed by the IRS demonstrate once again the Obama administration is determined to keep tea-party groups from having the type of impact on the mid-term elections this November that they had in 2010, when Republicans grabbed majority control of the House of Representatives.

“This is a real assault on the First Amendment rights of American citizens, and we need to do everything we can to stop the IRS from implementing these new rules,” Mitchell says.

Mitchell has produced in a YouTube video a briefing in which she explains the goal of the IRS is to limit the free speech of conservative groups:

She is urging conservatives groups and individuals to file comments with the IRS right away, arguing it is “impractical, burdensome and unacceptable for the IRS to interject itself into the workings of every citizens group in the country.”

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White House Has Harsh Words for Senators Seeking New Iran Sanctions: Actions Could Lead to War

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Photo Credit: T.J. Kirkpatrick / Getty Images

Photo Credit: T.J. Kirkpatrick / Getty Images

The White House launched a harsh attack on supporters of a Senate bill to impose fresh sanctions on Iran, suggesting that they have a hidden goal of drawing the country into another Mideast war.

If supporters “want the United States to take military action, they should be up front with the American people and say so,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in a statement. “Otherwise, it’s not clear why any member of Congress would support a bill that possibly closes the door on diplomacy and makes it more likely that the United States will have to choose between military options or allowing Iran’s nuclear program to continue.”

[Updated at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 10: A pro-sanctions advocacy group, United Against a Nuclear Iran, pushed back.]

“It is wrong for the White House to continue questioning the integrity and motives of anyone who supports more sanctions,” said Mark Wallace, chief executive of the group. “It is nonsensical and out of bounds to say that a bipartisn majority of U.S. senators secretly wants war with Iran.”]

The White House argues that by driving Iran from the bargaining table, the tough new sanctions bill could undermine international negotiations aimed at an agreement to ensure that Tehran’s nuclear program remains peaceful. Many nations fear that Iran, despite its denials, seeks a nuclear weapon capability.

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Joe Miller: This is The Best Anti-Poverty Program

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610px-Signing_of_the_EOAAs we mark the 50th Anniversary of the Great Society, the greatest lesson that we can draw from it is that the best anti-poverty program is a job. The question then becomes what is the best manner to create jobs and grow the economy. 

The lesson of the 1920s, the 1960s, the 1980s and the 1990s, is that if you create an atmosphere in which businesses can thrive and hire new workers, who turn around and buy goods and services, the rising tide of economic prosperity raises all boats. Both John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan knew this to be true and acted on it.

Unemployment during all four of those decades following pro-growth tax reform and reduction in regulations was 5 percent or less, which resulted in a significant decrease in the poverty rate. 

Using the government as the instrument to raise people out of poverty and put them back to work failed in the 1930s, the 1970s (as the full weight of the Great Society programs came into play), and the late 2000s/early 2010s. Under FDR, the federal government undertook all manner of programs and regulations in an attempt to control the economy and put Americans back to work, but it failed miserably. 

Roosevelt’s own Treasury Secretary testified before a Senate committee in 1939, in terms of creating jobs, that the New Deal had been a failure and doubled the National Debt. Does any of this sound familiar?

Today, true unemployment in the United States remains at over 13 percent, and we are on course to double the national debt within the decade. 

Big Government Begich holsters a rubber stamp with a big fat “YES” on it: ObamaCare, Yes; trillion dollar stimulus bill, Yes; for the nuclear option to end the filibuster and push radical nominees through the senate, Yes; for nearly $8 trillion in new debt since taking office a mere 5 years ago, Yes; Voting 91 percent of the time with Harry Reid and the Democrats, YES! So much for being an independent voice for Alaska in the Senate.

He and the Democrats must be stopped and replaced. As Alaska’s next senator, I will link arms with reformers like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul and work to restore economic prosperity and our constitutional freedoms.

Thank you for your support!

In the fight,

Joe Miller, Candidate
United States Senate

Beware of the Left-Wing-Funded “Main Street” Republicans

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

What do George Soros, labor unions and money-grubbing former GOP Rep. Steven LaTourette all have in common? They’re control freaks. They’re power hounds. They’re united against tea party conservatives. And they all have operated under the umbrella of D.C. groups masquerading as “Main Street” Republicans.

LaTourette heads up the so-called “Main Street Partnership,” which claims to represent “thoughtful,” “pragmatic,” “common sense” and “centrist” Republican leadership. Reality check: The pro-bailout, pro-debt, pro-amnesty, anti-drilling group founded by former liberal New York GOP Congressman Amory Houghton includes three liberal Senate Republicans (John McCain, Mark Kirk and Susan Collins) and 52 center-left House Republicans. LaTourette himself is a self-serving Beltway barnacle who held office for nearly two decades. Now he’s leveraging his new tea party-bashing platform to benefit a family-operated lobbying business.

The New York Times shed light on LaTourette’s tangled web of GOP establishment outfits last week. But that story just scratched the surface. As the paper reported, the Main Street Partnership is a nonprofit group that charges members up to $25,000 per year to rub elbows with Washington’s rich and powerful. The Main Street Advocacy Fund and the Defending Main Street SuperPAC are political satellites planning to amass $8 million to bolster Republican liberals and moderates facing tea party challengers in 2014. McDonald Hopkins Government Strategies is LaTourette’s lobbying firm.

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Darrell Issa: Obama Administration Waging ‘a War on Guns’ with ‘Rogue’ ATF Sting Operations

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Darrell-Issa-2853California Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, accused the Obama administration of waging “a war on guns” after new reports of “rogue” sting operations by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) conducted during 2013.

Issa spoke to Fox News’ Shannon Bream Sunday about a report by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which claimed that ATF agents operating firearm stings in 6 separate cities “took advantage of the mentally ill, set up stings near churches and schools and made decisions which some claim actually increased crime in their neighborhoods.” Issa and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley sent a letter to ATF Director Todd Jones this week to demand answers on the tactics and how often they’ve been used.

But Issa believes he already knows what’s going on.

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Al-Qaeda’s New Poster Boy for the Middle East

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Photo Credit: Telegraph

Photo Credit: Telegraph

THE FBI “most wanted” mugshot shows a tough, swarthy figure, his hair in a jailbird crew-cut. The $10 million price on his head, meanwhile, suggests that whoever released him from US custody four years ago may now be regretting it.

Taken during his years as a detainee at the US-run Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, this is the only known photograph of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria. But while he may lack the photogenic qualities of his hero, Osama bin Laden, he is fast becoming the new poster-boy for the global jihadist movement.

Well-organised and utterly ruthless, the ex-preacher is the driving force behind al-Qaeda’s resurgence throughout Syria and Iraq, putting it at the forefront of the war to topple President Bashar al-Assad and starting a fresh campaign of mayhem against the Western-backed government in Baghdad.

Last week, his forces fought open clashes with Iraqi army troops around the city of Fallujah – once known as the graveyard of the Americans – after brazenly attempting to seize control there the weekend before.

“They turned up in convoys waving their black flags and saying that Fallujah belongs to al-Qaeda again,” said Ayad Dulaimi, a local resident. “With God’s help, the army will destroy them.”

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Former SecDef Gates: Obama Didn’t Work to Make Troops Believe in their Mission

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President Obama visits Bagram AirfieldFormer Defense Secretary Robert Gates doubled down on criticisms against his former boss on Sunday, claiming that President Barack Obama failed to convince American troops that their sacrifice was worth it and saying that absence of conviction “disturbed” him.

Gates spoke with “CBS This Morning’s” Rita Braver about “Duty,” his new book about his five-year tenure as Secretary of Defense. His unique position as a high-level holdover from a rival administration allows him to compare George Bush and Barack Obama’s handling of the War in Afghanistan. And his conclusion is none-too-flattering for the Oval Office’s current occupant.

“It’s one thing to tell the troops that you support them,” Gates began. “It’s another to work at making them believe that you believe, as president, that their sacrifice is worth it. That the cause is just. That what they are doing is important for the country. And that they must succeed.”

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