Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is blaming Republicans for the National Institutes of Health turning away cancer patients. But when asked why the Senate wouldn’t try to help “one child who has cancer” by approving a mini-spending bill, he shot back: “Why would we want to do that?”
The tense exchange occurred Wednesday, as Senate Democrats tried to lambaste Republicans ahead of a vote where the House ultimately approved funding the NIH and other agencies — a bid to ease the pain amid the budget stand-off.
Reid has opposed the measures, saying that if Republicans want to end the government suspension they’ll have to simply approve a “clean” budget bill — devoid of any provision that would hurt ObamaCare.
But Reid was challenged at a Democratic press conference by CNN’s Dana Bash about why the Senate wouldn’t consider the NIH bill.
“If you can help one child who has cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?” she asked.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-03 00:35:462013-10-03 00:35:46Help Kids with Cancer? Reid Asks: ‘Why Would We Want to do That?’
The IRS is still collecting taxes during the government shutdown, but it isn’t sending refunds — and it also has stopped complying with a subpoena to turn over documents to members of Congress who are investigating the agency’s targeting of tea party groups.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have stopped getting documents from the Internal Revenue Service.
“The IRS has indicated to the committee that their furlough decisions will affect the agency’s responsiveness to committee requests, including the outstanding subpoena,” said Ali Ahmad, a spokesman for the oversight committee.
The government shutdown, which began Tuesday morning, has kept home an estimated 800,000 federal employees, including more than 85,000 who work for the IRS, according to the agency’s contingency plan. That leaves slightly more than 9 percent of the IRS staff on the job.
That is too few to process refunds but does not let taxpayers out of their obligations.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-03 00:25:072013-10-03 00:25:07IRS Collecting Money but Not Sending Tax Refunds During Shutdown
In Tennessee, those shopping on the new health insurance co-ops could end up with more than just some health insurance. They might even walk away with a free smartphone.
The Nashville Business Journal is reporting that Community Health Alliance, Tennessee’s Obamacare health insurance co-op, is using the prospect of a free phone to encourage folks to enroll:
Community Health Alliance, Tennessee’s health insurance co-op, is running a unique promotional program to drive enrollment in its plans for sale on the exchange: health insurance in exchange for a smartphone.
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the appointment of an independent monitor and a community advisory board to ensure that an Arizona sheriff is complying with constitutional requirements after finding his office engages in racial profiling.
U.S. District Judge Murray Snow found in May that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office singled out Latinos and deputies unreasonably prolonged detentions.
It was the first finding by a court that the agency covering Arizona’s most populous county engages in racial profiling after a small group of Latinos sued the Arpaio for violating their constitutional rights, saying they were being detained simply because of their race.
Snow had delayed ordering remedies in the case to allow time for both parties to reach agreements, but disputes over key issues prevented consensus.
In his ruling Wednesday, Snow ordered that a monitor be appointed to oversee the agency’s re-training of deputies and ensure the Sheriff’s Office is complying with constitutional requirements. Snow also ordered the creation of a community advisory board aimed at helping restore the public’s confidence, among other remedies.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-03 00:10:572013-10-03 00:10:57Judge Orders Monitor to be Appointed to Oversee Arizona Sheriff Arpaio
It’s possible for a law to be really stupid, but still constitutional, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Wednesday in a lecture at Tufts University.
Scalia’s appearance attracted a couple dozen student protesters outside the venue. Inside, Tufts’ president said school officials had to increase seating capacity twice and even turn down ticket requests from some local law students.
Scalia talked about his approach to interpreting the U.S. Constitution, calling it a legal document and “not an organism.”
The justice also called himself a conservative, saying he’d put more people in jail if it was up to him, just not in violation of that document.
Scalia has served on the nation’s highest court since 1986, following a nomination by President Ronald Reagan.
The White House and the Department of the Interior rejected a request from Rep. Steven Palazzo’s office to have World War II veterans visit the World War II memorial in Washington, the Mississippi Republican told The Daily Caller Tuesday.
Palazzo helped the veterans commit an act of civil disobedience against the Park Service Tuesday, when the heroes stormed through barricades around the closed memorial. (Related: WWII vets storm closed memorial as GOP congressman reportedly distracts cops)
The veterans were visiting the memorial as part of Honor Flight, a non-profit that provides veterans free transport to the nation’s capital to visit the memorials to the wars they fought in…
In a statement, Palazzo noted that he is introducing legislation to ensure that all Honor Flights are granted access this week. “This is an open-air memorial that the public has 24/7 access to under normal circumstances — even when Park Service personnel aren’t present,” Palazzo said in the statement. “It actually requires more effort and expense to shut out these veterans from their Memorial than it would to simply let them through. My office has been in touch with NPS officials and the Administration to try to resolve this issue.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ World War II Veterans Storm Memorial: Pols Help
by Mackenzie Weinger and Jose Delreal – Politico
(Politico) An Honor Flight of almost 100 WWII veterans on the Mississippi Gulf Coast flight didn’t let the barricades set up due to the government shutdown stop them from entering the memorial, according to reports and Tweets from the area. Shortly after, a group of Iowa vets wearing matching yellow shirts also entered the memorial and more visitors poured in….
“We’ll be here every day we’re shut down, until it’s done,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) who was out doing her “usual morning walk” when she received an email from another member of Congress about the veterans. “I ran over here to do what I could,” Bachmann said…
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert (R) also tweeted a photo of him with a veteran at the memorial, writing, “Proud to stand with #WW2 veterans today in Washington, DC,” and Michigan Rep. Bill Huizenga (R) told his followers, “Amazing grace sounds even more beautiful on bagpipes when I am helping WWII vets tour the monument they risked their lives for. #freedom.” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Steve King (R-Iowa) were also on hand.
________________________________________________________________________________________ Veterans Break Past World War II Memorial Barricade
By Laura Koran and Ashley Killough — CNN
Busloads of World War II veterans, many in wheelchairs, broke past a barricade Tuesday morning to cross into the World War II Memorial, as onlookers applauded and a man playing the bagpipes led the way.
Moments earlier, a few Republican members of Congress had removed a section of the black gates that surrounded the site, allowing a line of veterans to roll past security officers, who willingly stood aside…
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, called the moment heart-warming, if infuriating that intervention was necessary in the first place. “We don’t have guards around them at any other time,” King said of the monuments in a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.
He referred to the gating off of the memorial as “a completely spiteful act,” by President Obama, comparing it to the White House canceling school tours in the aftermath of the automatic budget cuts of the sequester. “Perhaps the most bitter, spiteful act ever committed by a commander in chief”…
Carol Johnson, the spokeswoman for the National Mall and Parks, said the memorial hosts Honor Flight visitors every day. “We want to make sure that they have a good time and are enjoying the memorial, but legally, the National Mall and the memorial are closed,” she said. Asked if she was off the clock and volunteering her time, Johnson replied: “Apparently so.”
With the new “Obamacare” health insurance exchanges officially open for business, Glenn Beck and his radio co-hosts Pat Gray and Stu Burguiere went to www.healthcare.gov on Tuesday only to find what countless others were greeted with: glitches, errors, and messages asking you to hold.
Before long, they also spoke with a caller whose life is being turned upside down by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“We appreciate your patience,” Gray said in the voice of a telephone operator. “You are Number 477,326 in line. Please continue to wait, as you will be taken in the order in which you arrived. Thank you for your patience.”…
After the break, Beck took a call from Bryan in Florida, who says his costs have already skyrocketed in the wake of the Affordable Care Act.
“Our insurance for the family plan…our current cost is $127 a week through United Healthcare which, you know, we have a really good plan,” Bryan began. “Well, my wife went in early this morning, they went over all the different options. The same plan for my family — nothing in our life has changed, everything is the same — is now $237.10 a week.”
But the jump from $127 a week to $237 a week isn’t even the worst of it, he said. Even if they opt for a plan that’s not as good as what they currently have, they’ll still be paying more than they were before.
Obamacare Quadruples Costs for Some, Rewards Others Who Quit Working
By Hans Bader.
Due to Obamacare, in North Carolina, insurance premiums will “triple for women, and quadruple for men” in the “individual-market” for health insurance. In Tennessee, Obamacare will triple men’s premiums, and double women’s, in the market for individual health insurance. Nationally, Obamacare will increase men’s premiums by 99 percent, and women’s by 62%.
Kathy Kristof of CBS MoneyWatch describes experiencing a 67 percent spike in her premiums, for a worse policy than she had before:
“The promise that you could keep your old policy, if you liked it, has proved illusory. My insurer, Kaiser Permanente, informed me in a glossy booklet that ‘At midnight on December 31, we will discontinue your current plan because it will not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.’
“My premium, the letter added, would go from $209 a month to $348, a 66.5 percent increase that will cost $1,668 annually . . . the things that mattered to me – that I would be able to limit my out-of-pocket costs if I had a catastrophic ailment – got worse under my new Obamacare policy. My policy, which has always paid 100 percent of the cost of annual check-ups, had a $5,000 annual deductible for sick visits and hospital stays. Once I paid that $5,000, the plan would pay 100 percent of any additional cost. That protected me from economic devastation in the event of a catastrophic illness, such as cancer.
“Kaiser’s Obamacare policy has a $4,500 deductible, but then covers only 40 percent of medical costs for office visits, hospital stays and drugs. Out-of-pocket expenses aren’t capped until the policyholder pays $6,350 annually.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:45:022013-10-02 00:45:02How Obamacare has Changed One Family’s Situation to ‘It’s Either Eat or Buy Health Insurance’
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will take one of the biggest hits of any federal agency if the government shuts down this week, operating with under 7 percent of its employees, according to guidance issued by the agency.
Among those furloughed would be most workers at the Office of Air and Radiation, which is in charge of writing and implementing most of the EPA’s major air pollution rules. The clock would also stop, for now, on the EPA’s eagerly-awaited proposal on renewable fuel volume standards for 2014.
The EPA said its plan for dealing with a shutdown would classify 1,069 employees, out of 16,205, as essential. These employees would continue to work if Congress fails to secure a budget deal by midnight Monday to avoid disruption to federal funding.
Taking the air and radiation unit off the grid will tighten timelines to meet certain court-imposed deadlines, said one expert.
“People are not going to be able to be working on these rules at home,” said Dina Kruger, an environmental regulation consultant and former climate change director at the EPA, who worked at the agency when the government shut down in 1996.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:40:132013-10-02 00:40:13EPA to Be Hit Hard in Shutdown, Could Delay Renewable Fuel Standard
The last version of the continuing resolution that House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) pushed through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Monday—and that the Democrat-controlled Senate summarily rejected—surrendered a position that House Republicans had taken in the previous CR that protected Americans from being forced by an Obamacare regulation to act against their moral or religious convictions.
The Obamacare regulation in question effectively prohibits American Catholics from freely practicing their faith in the way they live their daily lives.
Indeed, the Catholic bishops of the United States have unanimously declared this regulation an “unjust and illegal mandate” and “a violation of personal civil rights.”
Many of the nation’s Catholic bishops have also publicly declared in writing that they “will not obey it.”
The CR the House approved after midnight on Sunday included an amendment sponsored by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R.-Tenn.). That amendment said the Obamacare “preventive services” regulation–which requires almost all health-care plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs–could not be imposed between now and Jan. 1, 2015 on employers, health insurers or individuals who opposed “such requirement for coverage based on religious or moral objections.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:35:102013-10-02 00:35:10Latest House CR Funds and Permits Obamacare’s Attack on Free Exercise of Catholicism
A federal judge ruled Monday evening that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee could indeed proceed with a lawsuit against the Justice Department to access certain Fast and Furious documents.
Attorney General Eric Holder had attempted to dismiss the suit. But U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson turned aside that request, asserting the House claim: President Obama could not claim executive privilege and halt certain “Operation Fast and Furious” records from being turned over to Congress for review, Politico reported.
by Charles C. Johnson – Daily Caller 
