Tax Revenues Hit Record in First 5 Months of FY14; 5-Month Deficit Still $377B

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Photo Credit: APInflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $1,104,947,000,000 in the first five months of fiscal 2014, but the federal government still ran a $377,379,000,000 deficit during that time, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement for February.

Each month, the Treasury publishes the government’s “total receipts,” including all revenue from individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, social insurance and retirement taxes (including Social Security and Medicare taxes), unemployment insurance taxes, excise taxes, estate and gift taxes, customs duties, and “miscellaneous receipts.”

In constant 2014 dollars, the $1,104,947,000,000 that the federal government collected from October through February in fiscal 2014 was $90,193,750,000 more than the $1,014,753,250,000 it collected in October through February in fiscal 2013.

After the current fiscal year, the second highest federal tax intake in the first five months of a fiscal year occurred in the first five months of fiscal 2007, when the government collected $1,076,721,860,000 in 2014 dollars—or $28,225,140,000 less than in the first five months of this fiscal year.

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Cruz Calls For Missiles In Eastern Europe

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Photo Credit: APSen. Ted Cruz is calling for the Obama administration to place missile installations in Eastern Europe in the wake of Russia’s moves in Ukraine.

The Washington Post reports the Texas Republican made the comments during an interview Monday.

“Beyond sanctions and aid to Ukraine, the most important thing we could be doing right now, with respect to Russia, is installing anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe,” Cruz said.

“Appeasement has not worked. After more than five years of being unwilling to stand up to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Russian aggression, it is time for the United States to honor our commitments to our friends.”

The proposal is not a new one. President Bush recommended the U.S. have missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic during his time in office, but in 2009 President Obama scratched the plan and instead focused on defending against threats from Iran.

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Health Insurance Premiums Up 56% Under ObamaCare

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Photo Credit: Thinkstock ImageBy Paul Bedard.

Americans buying health insurance outside the new Obamacare exchanges are being forced to swallow premiums up to 56 percent higher than before the health law took effect because insurers have jumped the cost to cover all the added features of the new Affordable Care Act.

According to a cost report from eHealthInsurance, a nationwide online private insurance exchange, families are paying an average of $663 a month and singles $274 a month, far more than before Obamacare kicked in. What’s more, to save money, most buyers are choosing the lowest level of coverage, the so-called “bronze” plans.

The firm provided the costs to Secrets through their new online price index, which gives the averages of what people are paying for insurance sold through their system. In California, for example, some families are paying a high of $2,604 a month and in New York, $1,845.

The shocking surge in prices show what Americans not in Obamacare or covered by their employer are paying as they seek lower premiums. Typically, they are not eligible for the subsidies Obamacare offers those with low incomes.

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Photo Credit: National Review One-Third of Uninsured Don’t Plan to Buy Obamacare – Regardless of the ‘Deadline

By Kyle Becker.

Despite any “hardship” that the uninsured might have, they have no plans to buy into Obamacare, regardless of the deadline.While the White House denies that it is delaying the individual mandate, the ambiguity being created by the constant delays and illegal changes to the law certainly is signaling to prospective enrolles that there’s no rush to get insured.

Even if it is 2014, and the March 31st deadline is fast approaching. As Fox News reported:

Two weeks out from the ObamaCare enrollment deadline, a new survey shows about one-third of uninsured American have no plans to buy insurance — despite the law’s requirement to do so. And despite the administration’s aggressive campaign to spread the word about the health care law, the same survey shows a startling percentage of people still don’t know about the Affordable Care Act’s basic provisions.

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Tea Party Leader Sets the Record Straight about Supposed CPAC Controversy

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore In case you missed it, Texas Congressman Steve Stockman supposedly hosted an “awesome” hot tub party on the Saturday night after CPAC concluded.

The Washington Post characterized it this way: “The real-life CPAC party, held at a suite in the Gaylord Hotel, where the conference was taking place, featured an expletive-spewing congressman, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.), offering $20 to whoever would jump into the bathroom’s hot tub, according to Slate’s Dave Weigel. Weigel witnessed Stockman, the quirky challenger who was just crushed by Sen. John Cornyn in the state’s senate Republican primary, offer this eloquent toast: ‘F*** the left!’”

But truthfully, the party story is just another media hit job based on fabricated facts. And since Stockman launched his quirky and (according to some) ill-fated campaign against Senator John Cornyn (the reigning RINO of Texas politics and a close pal of Karl Rove), the media has been in a feeding frenzy.

Mainstream newspapers around the country are quick to publish any negative story about a Tea Party leader without even bothering to check the facts. Take the Houston Chronicle, for example. Numerous Chronicle stories would be considered libel if Stockman wasn’t a public figure.

The thing is, Stockman is misunderstood because he never cared about the perks of being in Congress. He isn’t obsessed with power like so many of the little people that populate the GOP caucus on the Hill. Instead, he’s frustrated by John Boehner’s do-nothing attitude and the pathetic leaders obsessed with protecting their jobs, the country be damned.

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Honey, We’re Going to China! GUESS WHO Will Be Enjoying Another Tax-Payer Funded Vacation

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jon NazcaThe first lady, her mother, her two kids, plus numerous White House aides and security personnel are going to tour China this month, but White House officials are refusing to say how much the taxpayers will pay for the trip.

However, they did say it would be a thrill for everyone on the trip, including for Michelle Obama’s top aide, Tina Tchen.

“It is a real honor and privilege, and I think we are all, here in the first lady’s office, quite excited about the upcoming trip,” said Chen, just after she declared that “my parents emigrated from China in the late ’40s, so this … will be my fourth time returning to China but the first time, obviously, in a role such as this.”

“The first lady has been looking for an opportunity to go to China,” said Ben Rhodes, the White House’s deputy national security advisor for strategic communications.

“I think the first lady is very much looking forward to it,” said Tchen.

“We will meet [the Chinese president’s wife] Madame Peng on our first day … [and] she will accompany the first lady and her family to the Forbidden City and will take the first lady through the Forbidden City before they’re able to join each other for a meal, a private meal and a private performance later on in the evening,” said Tchen. ”We’re looking forward to it.”

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Alright, Michelle: ‘Let’s Move’… On to Some Correct Statistics…

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Photo Credit: love48220 / Creative Commons If the news last month that the prevalence of obesity among American preschoolers had plunged 43 percent in a decade sounded too good to be true, that’s because it probably was, researchers say.

When the study was published in late February in the Journal of the American Medical Association, no one had a ready explanation for that astounding finding by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Indeed, it seemed to catch the experts by surprise.

Anti-obesity campaigners credited everything from changes to the federal nutrition program for low-income women and children to the elimination of trans-fats from fast food, more physical activity in child-care programs and declining consumption of sugary drinks.

First Lady Michelle Obama and others seized on the finding as a sign that efforts to combat the national obesity epidemic were paying off.

But as obesity specialists take a closer look at the data, some are questioning the 43 percent claim, suggesting that it may be a statistical fluke and pointing out that similar studies find no such decrease in obesity among preschoolers.

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Hilary Clinton: Abortion Needed for Equality —and Human Development…

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Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey / Creative CommonsBy Stafano Genarinni, J.D.

Twenty years after the Clintons failed to get countries to declare a right to abortion, Mrs. Clinton told a posh UN crowd that humanity cannot advance without reproductive rights.

“You cannot make progress on gender equality or broader human development without safeguarding women’s reproductive health or rights,” she declared. Clinton is adamant that reproductive health includes abortion.

The undisputed leader in the race for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination was the highlight of International Women’s Day at UN headquarters last Friday, drawing thunderous applause from a well-heeled audience as she decried how women’s equality remains “the great unfinished business of the 21st century.”

Reproductive rights are the starting point for a successful development agenda, according to the former U.S. Secretary of State who called this a “bedrock truth.” Many countries do not share that truth.

The most recent UN conference on development, held in 2012 while Clinton was U.S. Secretary of State, did not mention reproductive rights, instead emphasizing social and economic development.

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Photo Credit: AIMClintonworld Determined to Contain Latest Controversy

By Roger Aronoff.

Much of the media have been obsessed with “Bridgegate,” the local New Jersey story about traffic jams caused by the closing of some lanes on the George Washington Bridge leading into Manhattan—and other potential scandals—simply because the person who figures into it most—Chris Christie—is the governor, and was considered by many to be the Republican with the best chance to beat Hillary Clinton in a 2016 matchup.

“The fact is that we have to take these guys on directly,” Christie shot back at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. “You know, I’m shy and retiring and I don’t like to speak my mind, especially regarding the media. But what we need to start saying is…that we’re not going to put up any longer with them defining who we are.”

Politico was quick to point out that this was the first time that Christie had given a speech “to a crowd of base Republican voters since his administration was roiled by scandal.”

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who has been among the most obsessive about Bridgegate, told a late-night talk-show host this week that the reason it is so captivating is “I think in part because it’s not over and we still don’t know what happened.” By that standard, she should really want to sink her teeth into this latest Hillary Clinton controversy, which is already bordering on being a full-fledged scandal.

A local Washington D.C. political scandal that has Mayor Vincent Gray in the hot seat has expanded to ensnare the Clinton campaign machine, with actual evidence that illegal money was used to support her 2008 presidential primary campaign to defeat Barack Obama in the Democratic primary. But the former first lady and secretary of state claims that she had no knowledge of these actions, so she is, of course, exonerated by most of the mainstream media. “A campaign adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton was involved in an off-the-books operation to help the former first lady’s 2008 presidential campaign in four states and Puerto Rico, according to federal court documents,” reports CBS News. Will this get enduring wall-to-wall coverage on par with Bridgegate? We doubt it.

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Praise the Lord . . . and Pass the Ammunition

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Photo Credit: Fox News Baptist churches in the Kentucky town that was the site of a deadly high school shooting are giving away steaks and guns to attract more people to their congregations.

According to WJBK Fox 2, churches in Paducah – where three students were killed during a school shooting in 1997 – are hosting “Second Amendment Celebrations,” giving away guns to attract more people to the pews.

At Lone Oak First Baptist Church, about 1,300 people crammed into the church hall this month for a steak dinner and pep talk by a gun expert, Chuck McAlister. McAlister was hired by Kentucky’s Southern Baptists in an attempt to grow church membership. Twenty-five guns were raffled off during the dinner. Winners were required to pass a background check.

“I brought a gun with me tonight,” McAlister told the group. “I know that’s very controversial.”

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RNC Chairman: GOP’s Current Primary Process “A Complete Disaster.”

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Photo Credit: AP / Ben Margot Planned changes to the Republican Party’s presidential selection process are part of a rebuilding process that will strengthen the GOP brand and hopefully make its presidential nominee more competitive in 2016, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told California Republicans on Friday, calling the GOP’s current primary process “a complete disaster.”

Priebus said shortening the primary process by moving up the national convention at which the nominee is typically selected to June and cutting the number of debates are “not an establishment takeover. This is using your brain. Everything’s not a conspiracy.”

“I think a traveling circus of debates is insanity in this party,” Priebus told about 200 delegates. “We’re proposing to have fewer than 10, and this time around, we’re going to pick the moderators.”

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Bible Controversy Hits Air Force Base

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Photo Credit: APFor more than a decade new military recruits at Maxwell Air Force Base – Gunter Annex in Alabama have received a Bible from Gideons International volunteers. But that tradition has come to an end after volunteers said they were told by the military that they would no longer be allowed to personally distribute the pocket-sized Bibles to recruits.

“They kicked us out,” Gideon’s volunteer Michael Fredenburg told me in a telephone interview from his home in Montgomery, Ala. “They told us, ‘get your Bibles out.’”

Gaylan Johnson, is a public affairs officer for the Military Entrance Processing Command. He told me the Gideons’ side of the story is “not strictly true.”

“They can place their literature within our facility, but they are not allowed to stand there and talk with applicants or hand them (the Bibles) out,” he told me.

Fredenburg said his father started the tradition of giving Bibles to new military recruits at the Military Entrance Processing Command center more than 10 years ago. He assumed leadership of the group when his father died last July.

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