A Policy So Bizzare, So Obama

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Obama has a new get-tough policy with Russia.

It’s called the War on the Billionaires.

The United States is using narrow sanctions against Russian billionaires—private persons presumably– some of whom Obama supposes supports Russia’s war in Ukraine. And the policy isn’t just bizarre; it’s Obama.

He’s seen our war on millionaires here at home, and raised them a war on billionaires in Russia.

“The U.S. and Europe are gearing up for a new round of sanctions expected to be announced this week that will impose travel bans and business sanctions against several Russian billionaires with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” reports CNBC. “In a phone call last night, British Prime Minister David Cameron told Putin that his ‘cronies’ will face sanctions unless Russia withdraws its support for the separatists in Ukraine.”

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Welfare Cash for Weed in Colorado

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Photo Credit: Dreamstime

Photo Credit: Dreamstime

For the past six months, welfare beneficiaries in Colorado have repeatedly withdrawn their cash benefits at marijuana retailers and dispensaries, according to a new analysis by National Review Online. Such apparent abuses have caught the eye of Colorado’s executive and legislative powers alike, and the state has launched an effort to curb them.

At least 259 times in the first six months of legalized recreational marijuana in Colorado, beneficiaries used their electronic-benefit transfer (EBT) cards to access public assistance at weed retailers and dispensaries, withdrawing a total of $23,608.53 in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash, NRO’s examination found.

In 2012, the latest fiscal year available, Colorado used $124 million in TANF money from the federal government, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Withdrawals at marijuana establishments represented only a tiny fraction of the more than 500,000 total EBT transactions that have occurred since recreational weed became legal in Colorado on January 1. And it’s impossible to determine how much of that welfare money actually was used to buy pot, given that cash benefits are fungible and some of these establishments also sell groceries.

Nevertheless, welfare withdrawals at weed stores are coming under increasing scrutiny, and Colorado’s legislators and bureaucrats are beginning an effort to restrict abuses.

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LA Street Artist Blasts Obama for 'Scandalous' Fundraiser

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Photo Credit: Truth Revolt

Photo Credit: Truth Revolt

As President Obama arrives in Los Angeles for his $32,000 per plate fundraiser at the home of Shonda Rhimes this week, a local street artist is pointing out the irony of the producer of the hit TV show Scandal, a show about a Washington public relations firm that specializes in managing political scandals, hosting the producer of such actual scandals as the cover-up surrounding the Benghazi attack, the lost hard-drives of IRS officials targeting conservatives, and the Fast and Furious gun running scheme.

Posters went up Monday night all over Hollywood around Rhimes’s Hancock Park home and the Sunset Gower Studios where Scandal is filmed.

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Obama Refuses to Add Religious Exemption to Homosexual Employment Mandate

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Photo Credit: Christian News

Photo Credit: Christian News

Barack Obama has refused to include a religious exemption in an executive order that he plans to sign today, which mandates that federal contractors hire homosexual and transgender persons.

According to White House representatives, Obama will sign the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) on Monday without any provisions for religious entities. The order prohibits federal contractors from refusing to hire prospects on the basis of their gender identity or “sexual orientation.”

“Following on his pledge for this to be a year of action to expand opportunity for all Americans, the president has directed his staff to prepare for his signature an executive order that prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” an unnamed White House official told Time last week.

“The action would build upon existing protections, which generally prohibit federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. This is consistent with the president’s views that all Americans, LGBT or not, should be treated with dignity and respect,” they stated.

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Joaquín Castro: Rick Perry ‘Militarizing’ Border

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Photo Credit: Getty

Photo Credit: Getty

By Jonathan Topaz.

Texas Rep. Joaquín Castro on Monday said Gov. Rick Perry is “militarizing our border” with his decision to deploy state National Guard troops there.

“We should be sending the Red Cross to the border not the National Guard to deal with this humanitarian crisis,” the Democratic congressman said in an email. “The children fleeing violence in Central America are seeking out Border Patrol agents. They are not trying to evade them. Why send soldiers to confront these kids?”

“Militarizing our border is the wrong response to the arrival of children,” Castro continued. “I remain hopeful that our state can provide a more helpful response than to send armed soldiers to greet children seeking refuge from violence.”

Castro was responding to a report from a Texas newspaper The Monitor that Perry is planning to deploy up to 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

At a news conference on Monday in Austin, Perry announced that he has directed the state’s adjutant general to immediately prepare to deploy the forces to help secure the southern border. “I will not stand idly by,” he said in announcing Operation Strong Safety. “The price of inaction is too high.”

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Gov. Rick Perry deploying up to 1,000 National Guard troops to border

By Rebecca Kaplan.

Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, announced Monday that he is activating up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border as he accuses the federal government of offering “lip service” on border security.

The announcement comes as the Obama administration is still struggling to deal with the influx of more than 50,000 unaccompanied minors, most from Central America, who have crossed into the United States in the past year. The additional resources are not aimed at the children themselves, Perry said, describing them instead as a “force multiplier” to help the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) “combat the brutal Mexican drug cartels that are preying upon our communities.”

“I will not stand idly by while our citizens are under assault and little children from Central America are detained in squalor. We are too good of a country,” Perry said.

The troops could detain people if asked, Texas Adjutant General John Nichols said at the press conference with Perry, but they are planning to play a “referring and deterring” role by deterring cartels with their visible presence and referring any immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally to DPS.

Perry argued that the elevated response at the border by DPS personnel has already has already acted as a deterrent force and reduced apprehensions. That operation comes at a cost of $1.3 million per week. A state memo obtained by the McAllen Monitor, which first reported Perry’s plan to deploy the National Guard, indicated the new efforts will cost the state of Texas $12 million per month.

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IRS Seeks Help Destroying Another 3,200 Hard Drives

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Days after IRS officials said in a sworn statement that former top agency employee Lois G. Lerner’s computer memory had been wiped clean, the agency put out word to contractors Monday that it needs help to destroy at least another 3,200 hard drives.

The Internal Revenue Service solicitation for “media destruction” services reflects an otherwise routine job to protect sensitive taxpayer information, but it was made while the agency’s record destruction practices remain under a sharp congressional spotlight.

Congressional investigators of the IRS targeting of conservative groups have been hampered by the unexplained destruction of emails and other records of Ms. Lerner, the former head of the IRS tax-exempt division and a central figure in the scandal.

The loss of Ms. Lerner’s hard drive also raised broader questions about why the tax agency never reported the missing records to the National Archives and Records Administration, as required by the Federal Records Act.

While those questions remained unresolved, IRS officials signaled plans to destroy tens of thousands of additional electronic records.

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Rasmussen: 40% Still Not Sure Obama is American Citizen

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

By Rasmussen Reports.

On a list of some of the world’s best-known conspiracy theories, Americans are most likely to believe the one about JFK‘s assassination. But President George W. Bush and President Obama don’t escape suspicion.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 45% of American Adults reject as false the theory that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by more than one shooter. Thirty-two percent (32%) believe more than one shooter was involved in the 1963 assassination in Dallas, and another 23% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Last November, on the 50th anniversary of the assassination, 36% of adults said Kennedy was the victim of a lone gunman, but just as many (37%) said he was the victim of a larger conspiracy.

One-in-four adults (24%) are convinced that the U.S. government knew in advance about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and did nothing to stop them, and 19% more are not sure. Only 57% say that conspiracy theory is false.

Just as many (23%) say the theory that Obama is not an American citizen is true, with another 17% who aren’t sure. Sixty percent (60%) reject that theory as false.

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Battleground Poll: Obama Disapproval Climbs to 57 Percent

By Guy Benson.

…Fewer than one in five favor leaving Democrats’ signature healthcare experiment intact. For all of their “fix, don’t nix” rhetoric, Congressional Democrats’ 2015 budget proposed zero changes to Obamacare, as liberal Senators and pundits alike continue to blindly extol its implementation:

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It’s Not Just the VA: Systemic Weaknesses Plague Government Agencies Across the Board

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Headlines broke in April surrounding an investigative report that revealed 40 veterans had died waiting for appointments at the Pheonix Veterans Affairs Health Care System. Further examination affirmed that this was not a singular instance, but rather a widespread case of bureaucratic corruption.

Between the falsification of waiting lists, the retaliation against whistle blowers, and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki’s resignation, all eyes have been on the VA the past few months. Should it come as a surprise, then, that numerous commissions, GAO investigations, hearings, and IG reports previously spoke to the inefficiencies of the VA? Nothing was done about this deep, institutional problem until it was too late.

Peter Schuck, Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School, has written a book titled “Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better” which chronicles the deep structural flaws that undermine the vast majority of federal agencies. Though the VA is a perfect case study for what he describes in his book, Schuck analyzes a large number of domestic programs and develops criteria for assessing their effectiveness.

At last week’s “Fixing the US Department of Veterans Affairs” panel at the American Enterprise Institute, Schuck outlined several features that contribute to the defective nature of large government service programs:

1. Ever-increasing budgets: In the case of the VA, the budget has doubled in real terms over the past 10 years. Big government agency budget hikes are often driven by demographics and interest group politics.

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Judge Tosses Senator's ObamaCare Lawsuit

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A federal judge on Monday dismissed a U.S. senator’s lawsuit challenging a requirement that congressional members and their staffs obtain government-subsidized health insurance through small business exchanges, saying the senator had no grounds to sue.

Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, filed the lawsuit in January after the Office of Personnel Management decided months earlier that lawmakers and their staffs should continue to receive health care benefits covering about 75 percent of their premium costs after leaving the health insurance program for federal workers.

Johnson said the decision would make him decide which staff members qualified for subsidized insurance, potentially creating conflict in his office. He also said it forced him to participate in a program that he believed was illegal and that it could make voters view him negatively because his staff received benefits the general public did not.

But U.S. District Judge William Griesbach said Johnson and a staff member who filed the lawsuit with him didn’t have grounds to bring the suit.

Johnson’s belief that subsidies provided to lawmakers and their staffs are illegal isn’t a strong enough reason to disqualify him from the rule put in place under the Affordable Care Act, Griesbach said. The judge also said Johnson failed to show voters would view him negatively if his staff received subsidized insurance.

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Big Brother is Watching — Your Waistline

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Data mining is digging into your health.

Actuaries predict your life span. Banks track your spending habits. Now, your employer can tell whether you’ll have diabetes a year from now.

And the federal government is encouraging businesses to use that information to tell you how to eat and exercise, to “data mine” for your own good and the employer’s bottom line.

Medical records, social media, credit card records and new activity tracking gadgets like Fitbits are being used to assess your riskiness to yourself and to the cost-conscious health care system.

Aetna is among the companies paving the way. It’s using data analytics and interventions on its own 50,000 employees — and about 40 of the companies it insures are using them, too.

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