Obama Plays Extortionist-In-Chief

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Photo Credit: Allison Harger At the end of 1995 and stretching into January 1996, the federal government “shut down” because of an impasse between President Clinton and House Republicans led by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich. The issue was increased taxes vs. less spending. Sound familiar? The government re-opened when a bipartisan agreement was reached to balance the budget by 2003. It wasn’t balanced by then, for reasons that included but were not limited to two wars. Now the national debt is racing toward an unsustainable $17 trillion.

This time around it isn’t about closing government. It’s about “sequestration,” which President Obama, the Democrats and their big media toadies are styling as economic Armageddon.

On Tuesday, following another vacation and a round of golf with the disgraced Tiger Woods, Obama appeared in the Eisenhower Executive Office building next to the White House. Behind him on risers, looking like a church choir but without the robes, was his usual Greek chorus of potential victims should Republicans cut spending by a single dollar.

The president said the cuts from sequestration would be “brutal” if lawmakers allow “this meat-cleaver approach to take place.” Military readiness would be hurt, he claimed, if these cuts were allowed to happen. Investments in energy curtailed, medical research impaired, teachers laid off (I wasn’t aware the federal government paid teacher salaries) and emergency responders couldn’t respond.

Once again, the president offered up the old bait and switch: “targeted spending cuts” along with “closing tax loopholes.” As has happened before, if Republicans agree to this (and they had better not if the party is to survive) they’ll likely get inconsequential “cuts,” if any, but tax hikes will occur right away. More importantly, any new revenue will likely not reduce the debt because Democrats in Congress are noted for spending new revenue and they won’t deal with the major reason for the debt: entitlements.

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Found! Iran’s Secret Ballistic Missile Base

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Photo Credit: DigitalGlobe WND has learned of the existence of a secret ballistic missile base in Iran’s Semnan Province to which the Islamic regime has moved missiles armed with microbial warheads.

The Badr base, a center for air defense which has about 50 underground missile silos housing Iran’s Shahab 3 ballistic missiles, serves as Iran’s second-largest missile-launching site, and is under the control of the Revolutionary Guards.

The base, in the deserts of Semnan far from any city, has many underground tunnels connecting to the silo launching pads, according to a source in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit.

The base’s command and control are connected to other bases in Noje, Hamdan, Shahid Doran in Shiraz and the country’s air traffic control centers in Tehran, Birjand and Bandar Abass. Last year, the Revolutionary Guards aired footage on Iranian TV showing commanders along with a reporter travel via private jet to the base to observe a test launch of a Shahab 3 from an underground silo.

At that time, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace division, claimed that by placing the ballistic missiles in underground silos, the country is preparing for asymmetrical warfare, which will allow the country to stand up to more powerful enemies. Asymmetric warfare is war between belligerents whose relative military power differs significantly, or whose strategy or tactics differ significantly.

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Federal Reserve Grappling With When To End Stimulus Program

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Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey New minutes from the Federal Reserve show central bank officials grappling with exactly when and how the Fed should exit from its massive stimulus efforts.

The minutes detailing talks of the Fed’s meeting at the end of January show officials trying to decide whether to continue monthly bond purchases of $85 billion, and with what exactly the Fed should be doing to support a steady but slow economic recovery.

“Several” members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) argued in January that the Fed should be prepared to vary the speed at which it is buying bonds in response to the trajectory of the economy or the effectiveness of the policy.

Currently, the Fed has committed to buying $85 billion of bonds a month until it sees either substantial improvement in the labor market or a spike in inflation. To be more precise, the FOMC has said its policies would likely remain in place until the unemployment rate fell below 6.5 percent or inflation climbed above two percent.

But the minutes show a number of participants warning that the Fed may be forced to reduce or halt those purchases well below those thresholds if further evaluation of the policy’s effectiveness and risks were to change.

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Hispanicked GOP Elite: They’ll Respect Us In the Morning

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Photo Credit: Gary CameronDon’t anyone tell Marco Rubio, John McCain or Jeff Flake that nearly 80 percent of Hindus voted for Obama, or who knows what they’ll come up with.

I understand the interest of business lobbies in getting cheap, unskilled labor through amnesty, but why do Republican officeholders want to create up to 20 million more Democratic voters, especially if it involves flouting the law? Are the campaign donations from the soulless rich more important than actual voters?

Without citing any evidence, the Rubio Republicans simply assert that granting 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens amnesty will make Hispanics warm to the GOP. Yes, that’s worked like a charm since Reagan signed an amnesty bill in 1986!

True, Romney lost the Hispanic vote, but so did John McCain, the original Rubio. (McCain lost Hispanics by 67 percent compared to 71 percent who voted against Romney.)

President George H.W. Bush created “diversity visas,” massively increased legal immigration and eliminated the English requirement on the naturalization test. In the 1992 election, he won 25 percent of the Hispanic vote — less than what Romney got.

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Senators Raise Alarm Over Another Possible Sale Of Taxpayer-Backed Firm To Chinese

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Photo Credit: ReutersRepublican senators complained Wednesday that U.S. taxpayer dollars could end up boosting the Chinese economy, following reports that a Chinese firm is leading the pack of companies bidding for a majority stake in government-backed Fisker Automotive.

The troubled California-based electric car maker, which was backed by U.S. taxpayers to the tune of nearly $530 million, for months has been looking for a financial partner. Reuters reported earlier this week that China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is favored to take over, though Fisker is also reportedly weighing a bid from another Chinese auto maker.

The development comes after Fisker’s main battery supplier — U.S. government-backed A123 Systems — was recently purchased by a separate Chinese firm.

Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, voiced concern Wednesday that Chinese companies are benefiting from U.S. taxpayers’ investment.

“Obama’s green energy investments appear to be nothing more than venture capital for eventual Chinese acquisitions,” Thune said in a statement. “After stimulus-funded A123 was just acquired by a Chinese-based company, it’s troubling to see that yet another struggling taxpayer-backed company might be purchased under duress by a Chinese company.”

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Pro-Gay Marriage Ads Feature Obama, Bush, Cheney, Powell (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller The Gay Marriage advocacy partnership Respect for Marriage Coalition launched a $1 million national advertising campaign featuring a bipartisan group of political heavyweights pushing for gay marriage Wednesday.

The campaign features past statements from President Barack Obama, former first lady Laura Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Colin Powell all voicing their support for same-sex couples to wed.

Respect for Marriage Coalition’s message is set to appear in the coalition’s nationwide television, print — including full-page ads in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post — and online ads.

The ads rely on past clips of interviews and speeches from Obama, Bush, Cheney and Powell.

The organization uses a clip of Bush on CNN saying, “When couples are committed to each other and love each other then they ought to have the same sort of rights that everyone has” and Powell, also on CNN, saying, “Allowing them to live together with the protection of law, it seems to me is the way we should be moving in this country.”

See video:

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Coal Industry Regulations Were A Laughing Matter to the EPA

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Photo Credit: AP Lisa Jackson recently left her job as EPA administrator amid an investigation into her use of alias email accounts. She apparently used those secret accounts to shield official agency business from Freedom of Information Act requests.

In one of those emails, recently obtained by a free-market think tank, an EPA employee mocked proposed coal ash regulations, joking that Jackson “knows which landfill’s leaching, She knows which pond might break, She knows they all lack liners, Close ’em down, for goodness sake!”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute says it has now received thousands of heavily redacted emails sent by or to Jackson and her email alias, Richard Windsor.

(CEI sued the EPA to force compliance with its FOIA requests related to the EPA’s coal policies. The second batch of emails was released three hours after most federal offices had closed on Feb. 15 for the holiday weekend.)

According to CEI, “nearly 95 percent of the correspondence from the administrator and more than 80 percent of the email sent to ‘Richard Windsor’ – excluding news stories available to the public – were redacted (blacked out), despite claims by President Obama his was the most transparent administration ever.”

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Lawyer: Cyprus Attack Plan Suspect Admits Hezbollah Ties, Denies Plotting Attacks on Israelis

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Photo Credit: acrollNICOSIA, Cyprus — A man being tried on allegations he planned attacks on Israeli tourists in Cyprus has admitted being a member of the militant group Hezbollah and staking out locations that such visitors frequent, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Hossam Taleb Yaacoub’s admissions follow accusations that the Lebanon-based Hezbollah was behind a bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists. Authorities here have been reluctant to link the Cyprus case to the attack in Bulgaria, but both have fed concerns about militant activity in Europe.

Lawyer Antonis Georgiades noted that Yaacoub, who is Swedish and Lebanese, told a Cyprus court that he came to this country on business with no plan to harm anyone. But Yaacoub, 24, also admitted that an unidentified man in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based, gave him the “mission” of recording flight arrivals and bus routes of Israeli tourists and checking out a hospital parking lot.

Georgiades said Yaacoub acted alone in Cyprus and that instructions where given to him “in complete secrecy” by a man whose face he couldn’t see. The lawyer said that while his client’s actions may raise suspicions, there is no hard proof that Yaacoub was planning an attack.

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Obama’s Special Thirst for Control (+audio)

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Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli led the fight against Obamacare in federal court, and he says he is bringing the same fidelity to the Constitution in his bid to become the next governor of the Commonwealth.

Cuccinelli is also author of the new book “The Last Line of Defense: The New Fight for American Liberty. He told WND a presidential administration striving for more power is typical in both parties, but he believes the Obama team has a special thirst for control.

“What makes this unique, frankly, is the brazenness and frequency of this administration’s willingness to break the law and to trample the Constitution,” Cuccinelli said. “Just last month they lost the constitutional case that came straight from the president about his supposed recess appointments. He claimed the right to essentially declare when the Senate was in recess, which is an egregious violation of the separation of powers, and the court found so unanimously and they threw out his appointment.”

Cuccinelli said his own state is also the victim of federal overreach, a claim that was also validated in a recent federal court ruling involving the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.

“We beat the EPA in Virginia, which I refer to as the Employment Prevention Agency because they’re so good at that, with Fairfax County as our co-plaintiff,” Cuiccinelli said. “It is a very partisan, Democrat board of supervisors, and yet they joined me as the co-plaintiff in that suit because they knew that the federal government had broken the law in how it was attempting to regulate water just like it would regulate a pollutant. It sounds crazy and it is, which is probably part of why we won so convincingly. That was worth over $300 million to the people of Virginia.”

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Missouri House Bill Makes Proposing Gun Control Illegal

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Photo Credit: CBS St. Louis A Missouri lawmaker is proposing to send colleagues to prison for introducing gun control legislation — a plan that even its sponsor acknowledges has no chance of passage but nonetheless highlights the increasingly strident tone of gun measures in Missouri’s generally pro-gun Legislature.

Rep. Mike Leara said Tuesday that he considers his bill a statement of principle. It would make lawmakers guilty of a felony punishable by up to four years in prison if they introduce legislation restricting gun rights.

“I have no illusions about the bill making it through the legislative process, but I want it to be clear that the Missouri House will stand in defense of the people’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms,” Leara, a Republican from suburban St. Louis, said in a written statement. He declined further comment.

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