Yes Another Bad Deal For America From Obama: His Amnesty Plan Provides Safe Harbor In US To Criminal Illegal Immigrants – Felony And Misdemeanor Convictions, Being Here Illegally, And Criminal Use Of Stolen Or Fake Social Security Numbers Forgiven

WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama’s new immigration plan will provide safe harbor to criminal illegal immigrants and will lead to a “capitulation to lawlessness” that could threaten public safety, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said.

Fox News has obtained an internal document detailing how the Department of Homeland Security plans to implement what critics say amounts to an amnesty policy for what could be more than one million illegal immigrants.

According to the documents, illegal immigrants convicted of felonies or misdemeanors under “state immigration laws” may be granted deferred action. Those who have repeatedly entered the United States illegally will also be eligible. And traffic violations would not be considered a misdemeanor.

“It is a direct threat to the rule of law and to the demonstrated desire of the American people for a lawful system of immigration,” Sessions said. “I believe this administration has utilized this policy to basically undermine and negate the ability of the law officers to do what they have been hired and paid to do.”

Sessions told Fox News that according to his understanding of the implementation documents, illegal immigrants who are using stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers in order to gain employment will not be charged with a crime.

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eMails Show That Deportation Of Obama’s Drunk Driving Illegal Immigrant Uncle Was Delayed – And That Top Immigration Officials Kept Tabs On Mitt Romney’s Take On The Issue

WASHINGTON, DC – Emails exchanged by top U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials confirm that ICE delayed the deportation of President Obama’s uncle, an illegal immigrant, and that they had a close eye on Mitt Romney’s view of the issue.

“Mr. Onyango is subject to a final order of deportation. ICE had granted him a stay of deportation effective until June 5, 2012,” Brian Hale, director of ICE’s public affairs, explained in an April 1, 2012 email to ICE Director John Morton that was obtained by Judicial Watch. “The stay was granted to allow him to attend pending criminal proceedings and to seek reopening of his deportation proceedings, which concluded before the Board of Immigration Appeals on January 29, 1992.”

The emails also show that Hale kept Morton apprised of how Onyango Obama’s case was playing in the media. When Mitt Romney said in December 2011 that he would deport Onyango Obama following his arrest for drunk driving, Hale sent the news report to Morton and other members of ICE leadership.

“It certainly appears that Obama’s uncle is receiving favorable treatment from the Obama administration, which explains that we had to sue in federal court to obtain this material,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “ICE should have deported Onyango immediately, especially after his DUI. We now know that the Obama administration decided not to deport Obama’s uncle despite his being a criminal and being on the lam for at least 20 years.”

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Nixon 2.0: House Oversight Committee Investigates White House Involvement In Eric Holder’s Botched “Fast And Furious” Operations After President Claims Executive Privilage To Hide Incriminating Documents Linking Holder And/Or President To Scandal

WASHINGTON, DC – The chairman of the House oversight committee investigating White House involvement in the botched “gun-walking” program that led to the 2010 death of U.S. Border Patrol agent accused President Obama on Monday of downplaying his involvement in the program or intentionally obstructing the Congress’ inquiry.

Rep. Darrel Issa’s letter to Obama questioned the legal basis of the White House move to withhold subpoenaed documents from the Government Reform and Oversight Committee under protections afforded Obama by executive privilege. The Justice Department denied Issa’s committee the subpoenaed documents last week, prompting the GOP-led committee to vote along party lines to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.

The full House is scheduled to consider the contempt citation this week. The White House contends it’s legally entitled to withhold documents related to internal deliberations on policy and advisory discussions among Obama’s senior advisers. It was the first time Obama, who pledged a new era of government transparency, has exerted executive privilege.

Issa said the assertion of executive privilege, which occurred after 16-months of negotiations between his committee and Justice officials over documents related to the gun-walking program called Fast and Furious, raised two troubling questions.

“Either you or your most senior advisers were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it…or, you are asserting a Presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation,” Issa wrote. “To date, the White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the Department with respect to the congressional investigation. The surprising assertion of executive privilege raised the question of whether that is still the case.”

Issa’s committee has subpoenaed documents it believes relevant to Justice and White House deliberations that led to a false Justice Department submission—in Holder’s name—in February 2011 that Fast and Furious was not a gun walking operation. The committee had been told by whistle-blowers that Fast and Furious allowed large quantities of AK-47 firearms and variants to “walk” into Mexico. Two of those firearms were discovered at the scene where Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed near Rio Rico, Az., on Dec. 14, 2010.

The White House dismissed Issa’s letter.

“The Congressman’s analysis has as much merit as his absurd contention that Operation Fast and Furious was created in order to promote gun control,” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. “Our position is consistent with Executive Branch legal precedent for the past three decades spanning Administrations of both parties, and dating back to President Reagan’s Department of Justice. The Courts have routinely considered deliberative process privilege claims and affirmed the right of the executive branch to invoke the privilege even when White House documents are not involved.”

Issa has at times suggested Fast and Furious might have been initiated as part of a larger push for tighter U.S. gun control laws. The chairman largely abandoned that theory on the Sunday talk shows.

The Bush administration in its second term initiated the gun-walking program in an attempt to prosecute gun-runners and drug traffickers in Mexico. Under a larger program called Operation Gun Runner, an ill-fated program called Operation Wide Receiver was conducted from 2006-2007. It was riddled with inefficiency and poor inter-agency cooperation and communication. It yielded no arrests or indictments on Bush’s watch. The Obama administration reviewed the dormant Bush-era cases and brought charges against nine people accused of low-level gun trafficking offenses. In October 2009, the Obama administration expanded efforts to pursue high-level Mexican drug and arms traffickers. Building on Wide Receiver, efforts at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives greatly expanded the use of surveillance of firearms purchases. These efforts grew into Fast and Furious.

At the heart of Issa’s inquiry is how much Justice and the White House knew about the origins of Fast and Furious, its scope and its operational ambitions.

As he did on the Sunday talk shows, Issa held out hope for a compromise over the disputed documents. The full House has never before voted to hold an attorney general in contempt of Congress.

“I remain hopeful that the Attorney General will produce the specified documents,” Issa said. Short of that, the chairman urged Obama to “define the universe of documents over which you asserted executive privilege and provide the Committee with the legal justification from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).”

Issa acknowledged Justice has provided in excess of 7,600 documents, but said the high-stakes dispute is now over those related to Justice’s initial denial—nearly three months after agent Terry’s death—that that Fast and Furious was a gun-walking operation.

“These key documents would help the Committee understand how and why the Justice Department moved from denying whistle blower allegations to understanding they were true; the identities of officials who attempted to retaliate against whistle blowers,” Issa wrote, adding the committee also want to learn “whether senior (Justice) Department officials are being held to the same standard as lower-level employees who have been blamed for Fast and Furious by their politically-appointed bosses in Washington.”

Issa also asked Obama to explain “what extent were you or your most senior advisers involved in Operation Fast and Furious and the fallout from it” and sought documents related to “any communications, meetings, and teleconferences between the White House and the Justice Department between February 4, 2011 and June 18, 2012, the day before the Attorney General requested that you assert executive privilege.”

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President Obama Joins Disgraced US Attorney General In Cover Up – Asserts Executive Privilege Over Fast And Furious Documents That Holder Is Hiding From House Committee – Operation Armed Criminals And Mexican Drug Cartels

WASHINGTON, DC – An extraordinary House committee hearing began considering a contempt measure against Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday even though President Barack Obama asserted executive privilege over documents sought by the panel investigating the botched Fast and Furious gun-running sting.

Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, said the White House assertion of executive privilege “falls short” of any reason to delay the hearing.

However, the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, accused Issa of setting an “impossible standard” for Holder by demanding documents the attorney general was legally prohibited from providing.

Issa has “no interest in resolving” the dispute with Holder, Cummings said.

Wednesday’s development further heightened the drama of a high-profile showdown between Issa and Holder over the committee’s demand for the Department of Justice to turn over more documents about the Fast and Furious program.

The White House move means the Department of Justice can withhold the documents from the House Oversight Committee, which was scheduled to consider a contempt measure Wednesday against Holder.

“I write now to inform you that the president has asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-February 4, 2011, documents,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote in a letter to Issa made public just before the committee meeting was scheduled to begin Wednesday.

“We regret that we have arrived at this point, after the many steps we have taken to address the committee’s concerns and to accommodate the committee’s legitimate oversight interests regarding Operation Fast and Furious,” Cole’s letter continued. “Although we are deeply disappointed that the committee appears intent on proceeding with a contempt vote, the department remains willing to work with the Committee to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution of the outstanding issues.”

See Holder’s letter requesting privilege (.PDF)

The hearing started 20 minutes late as panel members digested Cole’s letter, and Issa immediately made clear he intended to hold a vote on the contempt measure.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives launched Operation Fast and Furious out of Arizona to track weapon purchases by Mexican drug cartels. However, it lost track of more than 1,000 firearms that the agency had allowed straw buyers to carry across the border, and two of the lost weapons turned up at the scene of the 2010 killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

Issa and other Republicans on the panel mentioned Terry’s death by name in accusing Holder and the Justice Department of trying to stonewall the investigation of what happened.

“The Department of Justice has fought this investigation every step of the way,” Issa said.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, complained that subpoenas for documents remained unresolved eight months later.

“We have not gotten to the bottom of this, and Brian Terry was killed in December of 2010,” Chaffetz said.

Cummings and other Democrats challenged the Republican contention of stonewalling by Holder, saying political motivations were at play.

“It shouldn’t be a political witchhunt against the attorney general and the president in an election year,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York.

Issa and Holder met Tuesday evening in what was billed as a final effort to resolve their differences. However, the meeting amounted to little more than a reiteration of the positions the two staked out in an exchange of letters the previous week, and Issa said afterward the committee would proceed with its contempt vote if Holder failed to turn over the documents in question.

Holder told reporters that he offered to provide the documents on the condition that Issa gave his assurance that doing so would satisfy two committee subpoenas and resolve the dispute.

See letter to Issa from Deputy Attorney General (.PDF)
Holder at center of GOP fireworks
Holder rejects Cornyn’s call to resign
Front Lines: Holder in contempt?

“They rejected what I thought was an extraordinary offer on our part.,” Holder said. Asked about whether Issa was open to resolving the issue before the committee meets Wednesday, Holder said: “I think we actually are involved more in political gamesmanship” instead of a sincere effort to get the requested documents.

In particular, Issa’s committee wants documents that show why the Department of Justice decided to withdraw as inaccurate a February 2011 letter sent to Congress that said top officials had only recently learned about Fast and Furious.

In a letter to Issa after the Tuesday meeting, Cole reiterated Holder’s position that the documents would show Holder had nothing to hide about his role in Fast and Furious.

Cole noted that the lone point of dispute was whether the February 4,2011 letter was part of a broader effort to obstruct a congressional investigation.

“The answer to that question is an emphatic ‘no’ and we have offered the Committee the opportunity to satisfy itself that that is so,” Cole wrote.

Holder floats ‘Fast and Furious’ deal with Congress

A committee statement issued before Tuesday’s meeting said it was a chance for Holder to meet the panel’s demands for additional documents, which would allow for a postponement.

“Currently, (the Department of Justice) has not delivered or shown the committee any of the documents it has said it is prepared to produce,” the statement continued. “It is not clear if they will actually produce these documents to the committee before the Wednesday vote to facilitate a postponement.”

Holder, however, said he made an unprecedented offer of documents and a briefing to the committee, which so far has turned him down.

Cummings, who also attended the Tuesday meeting, said Holder was trying to end a protracted standoff with the Republican-led panel.

“He sees this as a never-ending process,” Cummings said in describing Holder’s concerns about the continuing requests for more documentation.

Another person in the room, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vermont, said afterward that he supported Holder and appreciated “that he is going the extra mile to resolve this.”

However, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who also participated in the meeting, said Holder was seeking to get cleared before he actually turned over any of the requested information.

Holder rejects resignation call at heated Senate hearing

“The attorney general wants to trade a briefing and the promise of delivering some small, unspecified set of documents tomorrow for a free pass today,” Grassley said afterward. “He wants to turn over only what he wants to turn over and not give us any information about what he’s not turning over. That’s unacceptable. I’m not going to buy a pig in a poke.”

While such disputes have long been part of the interaction between Congress and the government, the public showdown between Holder and Issa — coming in the politically charged atmosphere of an election year — raised the stakes on an already volatile issue.

Issa has accused the attorney general of stonewalling an investigation into Fast and Furious and how the Justice Department provided Congress with erroneous information about it. The department says it already has handed over more than 7,000 pages of records to House investigators, and that the remaining material Issa wants could jeopardize criminal prosecutions.

The back-and-forth letters exchanged between Holder and Issa before Tuesday’s meeting revealed an incremental negotiation over what the committee wanted and what the Department of Justice was willing to provide.

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Taxpayer Dollars Spent On Food Stamps Has Doubled Since Obama Took Office – 100% Increase – Estimated Cost Over Next 10 Years Is $770 Billion

WASHINGTON, DC – The vast majority of federal spending in the Senate farm bill, which is estimated to cost over $100 billion annually, is going toward food stamps, representing a 100 percent increase since President Barack Obama took office, according to Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions.

“This legislation will spend $82 billion on food stamps next year, and an estimated $770 billion over the next ten years. To put these figures in perspective, we will spend $40 billion federal dollars next year on roads and bridges,” said Sessions, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.

“Food stamp spending has more than quadrupled since the year 2001. It has increased 100 percent since President Obama took office,” he said.

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Lawmakers Taking United States Down The Road To Financial Ruin – Federal Debt To Double In 15 Years Unless Congress Changes Course On Spending And Taxes

WASHINGTON, DC – The federal government is staring at a disastrous fiscal picture with debt approaching 200 percent of GDP within two decades if Congress doesn’t change course on spending and taxes, according to the latest analysis by the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday.

The CBO said it’s the worst picture since a brief period during World War II when spending ballooned to fund the military campaign.

“In the past few years, the federal government has been recording the largest budget deficits since 1945, both in dollar terms and as a share of the economy. Consequently, the amount of federal debt held by the public has surged,” the CBO report said in a long-term budget outlook that paints a shockingly dark picture of government finances.

CBO analysts said the downturn and Congress’s response have been devastating for the government. Federal debt as a percentage of GDP — a standard measure of a government’s debt burden — stood at 40 percent at the end of 2008. But it will top 70 percent by the end of this year, and is only headed higher unless Congress changes course. The ratio could double by the middle of the next decade and will have topped 200 percent of GDP — twice the size of the projected U.S. economy — by 2037.

At that level, fiscal catastrophes are more likely, and the government’s ability to respond becomes far more constrained.

The increases in federal spending will come chiefly from higher interest payments and health care costs. Federal spending on health will nearly double from about 5.4 percent of GDP to 10.4 percent by 2037, according to Tuesday’s report.

Ironically, the nonpartisan budget agency said the deep deficits and debt are not inevitable. If Congress would step out of the way and allow the laws currently on the books — including ever-deeper spending cuts and potentially devastating tax increases — to go into effect, federal debt would begin to shrink almost immediately as a percentage of the economy, as measured by GDP.

But President Obama and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been reluctant to let the law take its course. Instead, the GOP has fought to permanently extend lower tax rates due to expire, and Democrats have defended existing spending and in many instances called for new spending.

That’s left the country bumping along with deficits of $1 trillion or more each of the last three years. Yet with the economy still weak, lawmakers remain paralyzed as they try to figure out how to act over the long term without harming the economy now.

The budget agency said that may not be possible.

“On the one hand, cutting spending or increasing taxes slowly would lead to a greater accumulation of government debt and might raise doubts about whether longer-term deficit reduction would ultimately take effect,” the CBO report said. “On the other hand, abruptly implementing spending cuts or tax increases would give families, businesses, and state and local governments little time to plan and adjust, and would require more sacrifices sooner from current older workers and retirees for the benefit of younger workers and future generations.”

The report produced hand-wringing and finger-pointing on Capitol Hill.

“The president’s policies are not working,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican. “The sobering reality of our economic challenges require leadership and action. The president and his party’s leaders have failed on both counts.”

But House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, said the primary hurdle is the GOP’s demand that spending cuts fuel any debt solution.

“CBO’s report is a warning that we must get our fiscal house in order by achieving big and balanced deficit reduction that includes both spending and revenues,” he said. “Cutting domestic spending alone won’t work, and it will require both parties working together.”

The CBO’s analysis is a look at long-term budget and economic factors, and gives some interesting snapshots about how both the budget and the economy will change.

Among the agency’s assumptions is that the U.S. population will reach 389 million in 2037 and top 500 million in 2087, with the population skewing ever older.

And older workers tend to work fewer hours, meaning that by 2087 the average number of hours worked per employee in the workforce will be about 2 percent less than in 2022.

The report also projected that the growth in the labor force will slow, keeping economic growth to an average of 2.2 percent over the long-term. But the interest rate on debt will be higher, at an average of 2.7 percent — a reversal from recent years, when economic growth and interest rates were about the same.

The non-partisan scorekeeping agency also put an exact price on the deficit when it comes to savings, saying that for each dollar the deficit rises, national savings is reduced by between 32 cents and 72 cents, and domestic investment is reduced by between 10 cents and 50 cents.

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More Federal Government Debt Racked Up In Last 15 MONTHS Under Obama Than In Previous 195 YEARS Under 43 Presidents

WASHINGTON, DC – The Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which took office in January 2011, has enacted federal spending bills under which the national debt has increased more in less than one term of Congress than in the first 97 Congresses combined.

In the fifteen months that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives–led by Speaker John Boehner–has effectively enjoyed a constitutional veto over federal spending, the federal government’s debt has increased by about $1.59 trillion.

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution says: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” A law appropriating money cannot be enacted unless it is approved by the House.

The approximately $1.59 trillion in new debt accumulated since the Republican-controlled House gained a veto over federal spending legislation is more than the total increase in the federal debt between 1789, when the first Congress convened, and October 1984, when the 98th Congress was nearing the end of its second session.

Rep. Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania served as speaker in the first Congress. Rep. Tip O’Neill of Massachusetts served his third term as speaker in the 98th Congress.

When Boehner became speaker on Jan. 5, 2011, the federal government was operating under a continuing resolution that had been passed on Dec. 21, 2010 by a lame-duck Congress. That CR expired on March 4, 2011.

On March 1, 2011, Boehner agreed to a new short-term spending deal with President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders to keep the government running past the March 4, 2011 expiration of the old CR. Since March 4, 2011, federal expenditures have been carried out under a series of CRs approved by both the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate and signed into law by President Obama.

At the close of business on March 4, 2011, the total federal debt was $14,182,627,184,881.03, according to the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Public Debt. At the close of business on May 31, 2012, it was 15,770,685,085,364.14. That is an increase of $1,588,057,900,483.11—in just 15 months.

All of the debt accumulated by the federal government throughout the history of the country did not exceed $1.588 trillion until October 1984.

Under the Republican-controlled House, the federal debt has been increasing at an average pace of about $105.9 billion per month.

Frederick Muhlenberg served two non-consecutive terms as speaker–in the first and third Congresses. At the end of the first Congress, in 1791, the total debt of the federal government was about $75.5 million, according to the U.S. Treasury.

Tip O’Neill served as speaker in the 95th through 99th Congresses, from 1977 through 1986.

At the end of September 1984, during the 98th Congress, the total national debt was approximately $1,572,266,000,000.00, according to the Treasury Department’s Monthly Statement of the Public Debt for that month. At the end of October 1984, it was $1,611,537,000,000.00, according to the Monthly Statement of the Public Debt.

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Incompetent: Classified National Security Secrets Don’t Stay Secret Under Obama Administration

WASHINGTON, DC – The level of detail spilling out through media reports about crucial national security operations is raising the question of whether President Barack Obama’s administration can keep a secret – or in some cases even wants to.

In just the past week, two tell-all articles about Obama’s leadership as commander-in-chief have been published, dripping with insider details about his sleeves-rolled-up involvement in choosing terrorist targets for drone strikes and revelations about his amped-up cyber war on Iran.

Each article notes the reporters spoke to “current and former” American officials and presidential advisers, as well as sources from other countries.

“This is unbelievable … absolutely stunning,” a former senior intelligence official said about the level of detail contained in the cyberattack story.

The official noted that the article cited participants in sensitive White House meetings who then told the reporter about top secret discussions. The article “talks about President Obama giving direction for a cyberweapons attack during a time of peace against a United Nations member state.”

The article follows on the heels of what many considered dangerous leaking of details about a mole who helped foil a plot by al Qaeda in Yemen. The revelations of the British national threatened what was described at the time as an ongoing operation.

“The leak really did endanger sources and methods,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California and chair of the Intelligence Committee, told Fox News.

The Yemen plot had many intelligence and national security officials flummoxed and angered by its public airing. Despite that, a senior administration official then briefed network counterterrorism analysts, including CNN’s Frances Townsend, about parts of the operation.

But such briefings are an “obligation” for the administration once a story like the Yemen plot is publicized, insisted National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.

“The reason that we brief former counterterrorism officials is because they are extremely conscientious about working with us about what can and cannot be said or disclosed,” Vietor told Security Clearance. “They understand that there is an obligation for the U.S. to be transparent with American people about potential threats but will work with us to protect operational equities because they’ve walked in our shoes.”

Subsequently, the intelligence committee initiated a review of its agencies to assess the leak. The FBI launched an investigation as well.

Perhaps the highest profile intelligence coupe for the administration, the killing of Osama bin Laden, was followed almost immediately by criticism of how much detail was leaking out. Then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates complained that after officials agreed in the Situation Room not to reveal operational details, it was mere hours before that agreement was broken.

“The leaks that followed the successful bin Laden mission led to the arrest of Pakistanis and put in danger the mission’s heroes and their families,” Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said in an interview on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.”

Questions were raised about why details of documents and other articles that were seized during the raid were discussed even before the intelligence community had time to review what they were holding.

Leon Panetta, who at the time was the director of the CIA and is now the defense secretary, penned a letter to CIA staff warning against loose lips.

In the letter, obtained by CNN, Panetta wrote that the operation, “led to an unprecedented amount of very sensitive – in fact, classified – information making its way into the press.”

“Disclosure of classified information to anyone not cleared for it – reporters, friends, colleagues in the private sector or other agencies, former agency officers – does tremendous damage to our work. At worst, leaks endanger lives,” the letter said.

In the latest case, the White House denied it was orchestrating the leak. Asked Friday if the Times’ story detailing the cyberattack on Iran was an “authorized leak,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest disagreed “in the strongest possible terms.”

“That information is classified for a reason. Publicizing it would pose a threat to our national security,” Earnest told reporters.

But the White House has tried to be more open about what have been secretive programs. The president himself became the first administration official to acknowledge U.S. drones were conducting attacks in Pakistan when he made a comment to a supporter in an online chat, even though officials through all the years of the program had never said publicly they were being conducted.

Then, in April, the president’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, John Brennan, publicly blew the cover off the drone program, saying in a speech that “yes, in full accordance with the law – and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save American lives – the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al Qaeda terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones.”

But that speech, Vietor told CNN’s Security Clearance last month, was carefully considered for how revealing it could be.

“I’m not going to get into internal deliberations, but as a general matter we obviously push to be as transparent as we can while being mindful of our national security equities,” Vietor said.

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Obama Promises Donors He Will Continue Doomed ObamaCare Effort If Re-elected

WASHINGTON, DC – President Barack Obama is confiding to Democratic donors that he may have to revisit the health-care issue in a second term, a position at odds with his publicly expressed confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the Affordable Care Act, according to three Democratic activists.

A Tea Party activist outside the Supreme Court hearings on the constitutional challenges to the 2010 health care overhaul law. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/The New York Times via Redux
Obama Needs More Time to Redo Health Care

As he previewed his agenda for donors at a May 14 fundraiser, Obama said he may be forced to try to revise parts of his health-care plan, depending on how the court rules later this month, said one activist, who requested anonymity to discuss the president’s comments. Guests at the $35,800-a-plate dinner in the Manhattan apartment of Blackstone Group LP (BX) President Tony James were asked to check their smart phones and BlackBerries at the door.

The president has made similar remarks, usually in response to questions, at other fundraising events since the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case during the last week of March, according to two other activists, who also requested anonymity.

Obama’s answers, which begin with the president repeating his contention that the high court will uphold the law, have led some contributors to conclude the White House is making contingency plans should the justices strike down parts of the law, which would give Republicans a powerful talking point about one of his signature issues.

A challenge by 26 states centers on the law’s requirement that individuals purchase health insurance or face a penalty.
Outside Groups

While Obama is discussing with wealthy donors the prospect of a rebuke from the court, administration officials are coordinating with health-care-reform groups on how to manage their public response in the aftermath of the decision.

“While I won’t discuss in detail the president’s private conversations, I can say that your reporting, attributed to unnamed sources, inaccurately reflects the president’s views,” Jay Carney, Obama’s spokesman, said in an e-mail.

On April 3, Obama professed “enormous confidence” the law is constitutional and “the court is going to exercise its jurisprudence carefully,” in response to a question at the Associated Press’s annual meeting. A day earlier, he said the Supreme Court would have to take “an unprecedented, extraordinary step” to throw out “a law that was passed by a strong majority” in Congress.

Yet a planning memo, including a reminder that it’s important “to continue projecting confidence that the court will uphold the law,” was discussed at a May 29 meeting hosted by a group called Protect Your Care, attended by officials from the White House and Department of Health and Human Services, said one of the attendees, who requested anonymity to discuss a private meeting.
Staging Events

“The best way to demonstrate public outrage or public celebration about the decision is to stage an event that shows average people actually responding to the news,” according to the memo, e-mailed on May 16 by an official at the Herndon Alliance, a coalition of groups that backs the health-care overhaul.

“The White House is obviously very involved in this stuff,” said Bob Crittenden, executive director of the Herndon Alliance. “Some of the groups we work with have very close connections with the White House.”

Nick Papas, a White House spokesman, and Anton Gunn, director of external affairs at Health and Human Services, make regular appearances at the Protect Your Care meetings, which are held every other week.
Private Meetings

Last week, Gunn and Hilary Haycock from the White House attended, along with representatives from Families USA, Health Care for America Now, the Center for American Progress and labor organizations including the Service Employees International Union and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

“There’s a really strong feeling that getting out there and trying to do contingency planning out in public is not a very smart thing to do,” said Crittenden, also a professor of medicine at the University of Washington. “What we really want to do is to make sure that everyone is prepared to talk about the law when it comes up.”

Based on the tone of the justices’ questions to the lawyers arguing the case, some of the law’s supporters are concerned that the court will strike down the requirement that uninsured individuals purchase health insurance or else pay a fine.

Overturning Mandate

“The odds are that it’s slightly more likely to overturn the individual mandate,” said Richard Kirsch, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and the former campaign manager for Health Care for America Now, a group that fought for the overhaul. After the court makes its ruling, “one of the battles will be to define what’s happened.”

Even if the mandate is removed, supporters of the law should organize media events to have “people who continue to benefit from the law to tell their stories,” said Kirsch, author of “Fighting for Our Health: The Epic Battle to Make Health Care a Right in the United States.”

Public opinion is divided on the different parts of the law, said Bob Blendon, an associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“Nobody wants the whole bill thrown out,” he said. “Nobody wants the bill as it is. The majority would be happy if the mandate disappeared.”

While Republicans, including Mitt Romney, their presumptive presidential nominee, would “gain a little” if the mandate is removed, they may be forced to offer another plan to cover those with pre-existing conditions, Blendon said. “If the bill is upheld, it’s a real boost for the president.”

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Obama Ignorant And Incompetent: Poland Demands Response After President’s Mention Of “Polish Death Camp”

WASHINGTON, DC – Poland demanded a “strong and clear response” from the U.S. after President Barack Obama’s mention of a “Polish death camp” while honoring a Pole who told the world about the Holocaust.

“We can’t accept such words in Poland, even if they are spoken by a leader of an allied country,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told journalists in Warsaw today. “Saying Polish concentration camps is as if there was no German responsibility, no Hitler.”

Since, 2004 Poland has sought clarifications from several news outlets for the use of a phrase “Polish concentration camps” that were run by the Nazis during the country’s occupation in the World War II, according to the Foreign Ministry’s website. The government has convinced publications including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle to stop using the phrase.

The U.S. administration regrets “this misstatement,” the Wall Street Journal’s website cited Tommy Vietor, the National Security Council spokesman, as saying. The text of Obama’s remarks on the White House website hasn’t been corrected as of today.

“The White House will apologize for this outrageous mistake,” Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on his Twitter Inc. account. “It’s a shame that such a momentous ceremony has been overshadowed by ignorance and incompetence.”

Obama posthumously awarded Jan Karski the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, at a ceremony in Washington yesterday, saying the Polish officer “illuminated one of the darkest chapters of history” as he “repeatedly crossed enemy line to document the face of genocide, and courageously voiced tragic truths all the way to President Roosevelt.”

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Motion To Dismiss Charges In Kangaroo Court At US Torture Prison At Guantanamo Bay Based On Unlawful Influence By G.W. Bush And Obama

WASHINGTON, DC – Defense lawyers in the Sept. 11 case at Guantanamo are seeking the testimony of former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama in a motion to dismiss charges, according to a legal motion released Wednesday.

Lawyers for three of the five defendants charged with planning and helping carry out the attacks say the charges should be dismissed because Bush, Obama and other top officials have made many statements that could influence potential jurors in their eventual trial before a special tribunal known as a military commission, according to the motion.

They have exerted what is known as “unlawful influence,” over the case with such statements as calling the defendants “terrorists,” and saying they must be brought to justice, the lawyers argue.

“Under these facts, it is impossible for any objective, disinterested observer, with knowledge of all the facts and circumstances, to believe these men can receive a fair trial by military commission,” they wrote.

Also among those called to testify are Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has been active in detainee policy, as well as several Pentagon officials.

The motion was filed May 11 but was only just released on a Pentagon website following a security review. It will be up to the military judge to decide whether to call any of the witnesses to the stand at the U.S. base in Cuba and such an outcome would seem unlikely. The judge may just require written briefs in what is one of many pretrial motions pending in the case.

Prosecutors have not filed a response.

The five defendants, including the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were arraigned at Guantanamo on May 5 on charges that include terrorism and murder. They could get the death penalty if convicted.

The brief was submitted by the defense lawyers for three of the men: Ramzi Binalshibh of Yemen; Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia; and Pakistani national Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali.

A prohibition on improper influence is an important tenet of the military justice system, intended to prevent higher ranking officers from attempting to sway a case being tried by people over whom they have command.

“For the past 10 years, through the administrations of two presidents, these accused have consistently been described as ‘thugs,’ ‘murderers’ and ‘terrorists’ who ‘planned the 9/11 attacks’ and must ‘face justice,'” the lawyers wrote. “It can easily be understood by members of the public that this system of military commissions exists solely for the purpose of imposing a death sentence upon these accused.”

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The Amateur – Barack Obama In The White House – Debuting At #1 On NYT Nonfiction List For June

Edward Klein’s new book about President Obama, The Amateur, has already made some news, particularly with regard to allegations that an ally of Obama’s offered the odious Reverend Jeremiah Wright a $150,000 bribe to keep his mouth shut during the 2008 presidential campaign. And the title of the book is a quote from Bill Clinton, who was said to be urging his wife to challenge Obama for the Democrat nomination in 2012.

That’s pretty sensational stuff, but the media has been studiously ignoring Klein’s book. NewsBusters noted on Tuesday that none of the mainstream media networks have interviewed Klein on the air, or offered a serious discussion of his work. ABC News very briefly mentioned the “amateur” quote from Clinton on their website, but that’s about it.

Needless to say, that’s very different from the way the mainstream press treats provocative books about people they dislike.

It looks like the public hasn’t been ignoring Klein’s book, however, because Regnery Publishing (around whose metaphorical water cooler we HUMAN EVENTS writers gather) announced today that The Amateur will debut at Number One on the New York Times nonfiction list for June 3rd.

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CHANGE: US Electric Bills To Skyrocket As President Obama’s “War On Coal” Continues – Energy Costs In Some Areas Projected To Jump 8 Times Higher Than 2012 Costs

Obama’s War on Coal has already taken a remarkable toll on coal-fired power plants in America.

Last week the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a shocking drop in power sector coal consumption in the first quarter of 2012. Coal-fired power plants are now generating just 36 percent of U.S. electricity, versus 44.6 percent just one year ago.

It’s the result of an unprecedented regulatory assault on coal that will leave us all much poorer.

Last week PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) held its 2015 capacity auction. These are the first real, market prices that take Obama’s most recent anti-coal regulations into account, and they prove that he is keeping his 2008 campaign promise to make electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket.”

The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.

Why the massive price increases? Andy Ott from PJM stated the obvious: “Capacity prices were higher than last year’s because of retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.” Northern Ohio is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, hence the even higher price.

These are not computer models or projections or estimates. These are the actual prices that electric distributors have agreed to pay for new capacity. The costs will be passed on to consumers at the retail level.

House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) aptly explained: “The PJM auction forecasts a dim future where Americans will be paying more to keep the lights on. We are seeing more and more coal plants fall victim to EPA’s destructive regulatory agenda, and as a result, we are seeing more job losses and higher electricity prices.”

The only thing that can stop this massive price hike now is an all-out effort to end Obama’s War on Coal and repeal this destructive regulatory agenda.

The Senate will have a critical opportunity to do just that when it votes on stopping Obama’s most expensive anti-coal regulation sometime in the next couple of weeks. The vote is on the Inhofe Resolution, S.J. Res 37, to overturn the so-called Utility MACT rule, which the EPA itself acknowledges is its most expensive rule ever.

This vote is protected from filibuster, and it will take just 51 votes to send a clear message to Obama that his War on Coal must end.

Of course, Obama could veto the resolution and keep the rule intact, although that would force him to take full political responsibility for the massive impending jump in electricity prices.

I have a form set up at http://www.WarOnCoal.com to make it easy to contact your senators on this crucial issue.

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Arizona Sercretary Of State Threatens To Keep Obama Off State Ballot Until He Sees Real Proof He Was Legally Born In Hawaii

ARIZONA – Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett is threatening to keep President Obama’s name off the state’s ballot in November unless he receives confirmation from Hawaii that it has a valid birth certificate on file for him.

Bennett, who spoke to Arizona radio host Mike Broomhead Thursday, said he requested the confirmation eight weeks ago and has not gotten it. Hawaii, he said, does not have to supply a certified copy of the birth certificate, merely send him an email confirming that it has one.

Asked by Broomhead if he would remove Obama’s name from the ballot if Hawaii fails to comply, Bennett said: “That’s possible. Or the other option would be that I would ask all the candidates, including the president, to submit a certified copy of their birth certificate.”

Despite overwhelming evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii, the issue of his birth continues to dog him. Thursday, Breitbart Big Government reported on a promotional booklet by Obama’s own literary agency listing him as having been born in Kenya.

Bennett said Hawaii law permits government officials to request verification of possession of a birth certificate in lieu of a certified copy.

“They could say yes tomorrow and the whole thing goes away,” Bennett said. “If they can’t say yes to that simple question, than it makees we wonder if we have to take it to another level. One way or another, we have to have some simple verification that people are qualified for the office if they’re going to be on the ballot here in Arizona.”

Bennett asserted that he is not a “birther” and denied accusations that he is playing to the birther crowd in Arizona because he wants to run for governor. But Bennett also hedged in stating his belief that Obama was Hawwaii-born.

“I believe the president was born in Hawaii – or at least I hope he was,” Bennett said.

Arizona, with its 11 electoral votes, is an important 2012 presidential battleground state. A Real Clear Politics average of recent polling in the state has Mitt Romney ahead by only four points.

One thing I’d like to make clear. This blog believes Obama was born in Hawaii. But it also believes threats by the Arizona Secretary of State to exclude the president from the ballot are newsworthy.

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President Obama’s Budget Fails To Attract A Single Vote In Senate 99-0 – Previous House Vote In March Was 414-0

WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama’s budget suffered a second embarrassing defeat Wednesday, when senators voted 99-0 to reject it.

Coupled with the House’s rejection in March, 414-0, that means Mr. Obama’s budget has failed to win a single vote in support this year.

Republicans forced the vote by offering the president’s plan on the Senate floor.

Democrats disputed that it was actually the president’s plan, arguing that the slim amendment didn’t actually match Mr. Obama’s budget document, which ran thousands of pages. But Republicans said they used all of the president’s numbers in the proposal, so it faithfully represented his plan.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, even challenged Democrats to point out any errors in the numbers and he would correct them — a challenge no Democrats took up.

“A stunning development for the president of the United States in his fourth year in office,” Mr. Sessions said of the unanimous opposition.

The White House has held its proposal out as a “balanced approach” to beginning to rein in deficits. It calls for tax increases to begin to offset higher spending, and would begin to level off debt as a percentage of the economy by 2022. It would produce $6.4 trillion in new deficits over that time.

By contrast the chief Republican alternative from the House GOP would notch just $3.1 trillion in deficits, and three Senate Republican alternatives would all come in below $2 trillion.

The Senate is holding votes Wednesday on Mr. Obama’s budget, the House GOP’s budget and the three Senate Republican alternatives. None was expected to gain the 50 votes needed to pass the chamber.

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President Obama Made Secret Deal With Pharmaceutical Company Lobbyists To Secure Support For His Doomed National Health Care Law

WASHINGTON, DC – Three years ago, President Obama cut a secret deal with pharmaceutical company lobbyists to secure the industry’s support for his national health care law. Despite Obama’s promises during his campaign to run a transparent administration, the deal has been shrouded in mystery ever since. But internal emails obtained by House Republicans now provide evidence that a deal was struck and GOP investigators are promising to release more details in the coming weeks.

“What the hell?” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, who is now Obama’s campaign manager, complained to a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in January 15, 2010 email. “This wasn’t part of our deal.”

This reference to “our deal” came two months before the final passage of Obamacare in an email with the subject line, “FW: TAUZIN EMAIL.” At the time, Billy Tauzin was president and CEO of PhRMA.

The email was uncovered as part of investigation into Obama’s closed-door health care negotiations launched by the House Energy and Commerce committee’s oversight panel.

“In the coming weeks the Committee intends to show what the White House agreed to do as part of its deal with the pharmaceutical industry and how the full details of this agreement were kept from both the public and the House of Representatives,” the committee’s Republican members wrote in a memo today.

On June 20, 2009, Obama released a terse 296-word statement announcing a deal between pharmaceutical companies and the Senate that didn’t mention any involvement by the White House.

“The investigation has determined that the White House, primarily through Office of Health Reform Director Nancy Ann DeParle and Messina, with involvement from Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, was actively engaged in these negotiations while the role of Congress was limited,” the committee members wrote. “For example, three days before the June 20 statement, the head of PhRMA promised Messina, ‘we will deliver a final yes to you by morning.’ Meanwhile, Ms. DeParle all but confirmed that half of the Legislative Branch was shut out in an email to a PhRMA representative: ‘I think we should have included the House in the discussions, but maybe we never would have gotten anywhere if we had.’”

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Federal Judge Blocks Military Detention Law – Lawsuit Against President Obama, Defense Secretary Panetta And Defense Department To Protect Americans From US Military – Could Have Held Citizens Forever Without Legitimate Charges

WASHINGTON, DC – A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a part of the National Defense Authorization Act that opponents claim could subject them to indefinite military detention for activities including news reporting and political activism.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan today ruled in favor of a group of writers and activists who sued President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Defense Department, claiming a provision of the act, signed into law Dec. 31, puts them in fear that they could be arrested and held by U.S. armed forces.

The complaint was filed Jan. 13 by a group including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges. The plaintiffs contend a section of the law allows for detention of citizens and permanent residents taken into custody in the U.S. on “suspicion of providing substantial support” to people engaged in hostilities against the U.S., such as al-Qaeda.

“The statute at issue places the public at undue risk of having their speech chilled for the purported protection from al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ‘associated forces’ – i.e., ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’” Forrest said in an opinion today. “The vagueness of Section 1021 does not allow the average citizen, or even the government itself, to understand with the type of definiteness to which our citizens are entitled, or what conduct comes within its scope.”

Enforcement Blocked

Forrest’s order prevents enforcement of the provision of the statute pending further order of the court or an amendment to the statute by Congress.

Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan, declined to comment on the ruling.

The plaintiffs claim Section 1021 is vague and can be read to authorize their detention based on speech and associations that are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Hedges and two other plaintiffs testified in a hearing before Forrest in March, the judge said. A fourth plaintiff submitted a sworn declaration. The government put on no evidence, Forrest said.

Forrest, an Obama appointee who has served on the Manhattan federal court since October, rejected the government’s arguments that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue over the law and that it merely reaffirmed provisions in an earlier law, the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which was passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Plaintiffs’ Activities

In her opinion, Forrest said the government declined to say that the activities of Hedges and the other defendants don’t fall under the provision. Forrest held a hearing in March at which government lawyers didn’t call any witnesses or present evidence, according to the judge. The government did cross- examine the plaintiffs who testified and submitted legal arguments.

“The government was given a number of opportunities at the hearing and in its briefs to state unambiguously that the type of expressive and associational activities engaged in by plaintiffs — or others — are not within Section 1021,” Forrest said. “It did not. This court therefore must credit the chilling impact on First Amendment rights as reasonable — and real.”

Hedges, who testified he has been a foreign news correspondent for 20 years, said he has reported on 17 groups that are on a State Department list of terrorist groups. Hedges testified that after the law was passed, he changed his dealings with groups he had reported on, Forrest said.

“I think the ruling was not only correct, but courageous and important,” Hedges said in a telephone interview today.

The case is Hedges v. Obama, 12-CV-00331, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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Obama Team Tried To Silence Preacher With $150,000 Bribe

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – ‘Man, the media ate me alive,” Wright told me when we met in his office at Chicago’s Kwame Nkrumah Academy. “After the media went ballistic on me, I received an e-mail offering me money not to preach at all until the November presidential election.”

“Who sent the e-mail?” I asked Wright.
QUIET, PLEASE: President Obama’s onetime pastor Jeremiah Wright says he was offered money not to preach.
AP
QUIET, PLEASE: President Obama’s onetime pastor Jeremiah Wright says he was offered money not to preach.

“It was from one of Barack’s closest friends.”

“He offered you money?”

“Not directly,” Wright said. “He sent the offer to one of the members of the church, who sent it to me.”

“How much money did he offer you?”

“One hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Wright said.

“Did Obama himself ever make an effort to see you?”

“Yes,” Wright said. “Barack said he wanted to meet me in secret, in a secure place. And I said, ‘You’re used to coming to my home, you’ve been here countless times, so what’s wrong with coming to my home?’ So we met in the living room of the parsonage of Trinity United Church of Christ, at South Pleasant Avenue right off 95th Street, just Barack and me. I don’t know if he had a wire on him. His security was outside somewhere.

“And one of the first things Barack said was, ‘I really wish you wouldn’t do any more public speaking until after the November election.’ He knew I had some speaking engagements lined up, and he said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t speak. It’s gonna hurt the campaign if you do that.’

“And what did you say?” I asked. “I said, ‘I don’t see it that way. And anyway, how am I supposed to support my family?’ And he said, ‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t speak in public. The press is gonna eat you alive.’

“Barack said, ‘I’m sorry you don’t see it the way I do. Do you know what your problem is?’ And I said, ‘No, what’s my problem?’ And he said, ‘You have to tell the truth.’ I said, ‘That’s a good problem to have. That’s a good problem for all preachers to have. That’s why I could never be a politician.’

“And he said, ‘It’s going to get worse if you go out there and speak. It’s really going to get worse.’

“And he was so right.”

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Obama Pushing Another Multi-Billion-Dollar Get Jobs Quick Scheme

WASHINGTON, DC – Putting pressure on Congress to approve parts of his latest economic stimulus plan, President Obama urged Americans Saturday to push lawmakers to approve his multibillion-dollar “to-do list” for creating jobs.

“Each of the ideas on this list will help create jobs and build a stronger economy right now,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly address. “Let’s push Congress to do the right thing. Let’s keep moving this country forward together.”

The president’s list includes an expanded program to help homeowners refinance their mortgages, a proposal to give small businesses tax breaks for hiring more workers, a program that would help veterans find jobs, and an extension of tax credits for clean-energy companies.

He lobbied for the refinancing plan Friday in a speech in Reno, Nev. – a state that ranks second in the nation in mortgage foreclosures.

All told, the proposals on the president’s list could cost up to $34.7 billion: They are part of a more comprehensive $447 billion jobs package that Congress mostly has resisted.

Mr. Obama didn’t discuss in his address the cost of his proposals or how to pay for them. The refinancing plan, for example, would likely include a fee charged to homeowners.

The president often uses his weekly address to sum up major actions he took during the week, but Mr. Obama made no mention Saturday of the biggest headline he generated – his announcement that he now supports same-sex marriage.

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Obama Loses 40 Percent Of West Virginia Primary Votes To An Inmate Serving Time In Federal Prison – People Will Vote For Anyone Who Isn’t Obama

WEST VIRGINIA – Just how unpopular is President Obama in some parts of the country? Enough that a man in prison in Texas received four out of 10 votes in West Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary.

Inmate Keith Judd is serving 17 years for extortion at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas. He was sentenced in 1999 for making threats against the University of New Mexico.

With 93 per cent of precincts reporting, Obama was receiving just under 60 per cent of the vote to Judd’s 40 per cent.

For some West Virginia Democrats, simply running against Obama is enough to get Judd, or Inmate Number 11593-051, votes.

‘I voted against Obama,’ said Ronnie Brown, a 43-year-old electrician from Cross Lanes who called himself a conservative Democrat.

‘I don’t like him. He didn’t carry the state before and I’m not going to let him carry it again.’

When asked which presidential candidate he voted for, Brown said: ‘That guy out of Texas.’

Judd was able to get on the state ballot by paying a $2,500 fee and filing a form known as a notarized certification of announcement, said Jake Glance, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office.

According to the Charleston Gazette, Judd circulated his political standpoints to local media. These include opposing national health care reform on the grounds that it violates the 10th Amendment.

He also cites the U.S. Constitution, saying that incarcerated felons should not be disqualified from voting.

Attracting at least 15 per cent of the vote would normally qualify a candidate for a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

But state Democratic Party Executive Director Derek Scarbro said no one has filed to be a delegate for Judd.

The state party also believes that Judd has failed to file paperwork required of presidential candidates, but officials continued to research the matter, Mr Scarbro said. There may also be issues because the man is an inmate in federal prison.

Voters in other conservative states showed their displeasure with Obama in Democratic primaries last March.

In Oklahoma, anti-abortion protestor Randall Terry got 18 per cent of the primary vote. A lawyer from Tennessee, John Wolfe, pulled nearly 18,000 votes in the Louisiana primary.

In Alabama, 18 per cent of Democratic voters chose ‘uncommitted’ in the primary rather than vote for Obama.

Obama’s energy policies and the Environmental Protection Agency’s handling of mining-related permits have incurred the wrath of West Virginia’s coal industry.

With the state the nation’s second-biggest producer of this fossil fuel, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin and Senator Joe Manchin – both Democrats have championed the industry – have declined to say whether they will support Obama in November.

Hillary Rodham Clinton beat Obama in the state’s 2008 primary, and he lost the state to Republican John McCain in the general election.

The latest state-by-state Gallup poll, released in January, found Obama with a 32.7 per cent approval rating in West Virginia.

The president had a lower approval rating only in Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma and Wyoming.

‘Keith Judd’s performance is embarrassing for Obama and our great state,’ outgoing West Virginia GOP Chairman Mike Stuart said.

Presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney won West Virginia’s GOP primary on Tuesday with more than 69 per cent of the vote, with 93 per cent of precincts reporting. Rick Santorum followed with 12 per cent, while Ron Paul had 11 per cent.

Mr Brown, the Cross Lanes electrician, went to the polls on Tuesday with his 22-year-old daughter, Emily. She planned to vote for Judd too until she found out where Judd has been living.

‘I’m not voting for somebody who’s in prison,’ she said.

However she was certain about one thing: ‘I just want to vote against Barack Obama.’

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White House Visitors Office Requires Registration Of Unborn Fetus’s “Security Information” Prior To Tours – Wants Records Updated After Actual Birth

WASHINGTON, DC – The White House Visitors Office requires that an unborn child—still residing in utero—must be counted as a full human being when its parents register for a White House tour, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

White House Visitors Office director Ellie Schafer sent an email to a Capitol Hill staffer Tuesday morning explaining the process for registering an unborn fetus for a White House tour:

We have received a number of calls regarding how to enter security information for a baby that has not yet been born.

Crazy as it may sound, you MUST include the baby in the overall count of guests in the tour. It’s an easy process.

LAST NAME: The family’s last name

FIRST NAME: “Baby” as a first name
MIDDLE NAME: NMN as in No Middle Name
DOB: Use the date you are submitting the request to us as their birthday
GENDER: if the parents know put that gender down if not, you can enter either M or F as we’ll ask you to update it at the time of birth
SOCIAL: As they will not have a SSN and are under 18, you will not need to enter this field. Again if the spreadsheet asked for a social enter 9 zero’s (not the word nine zeros but 000000000 and yes it happens!)
CITIZEN/CITY/STATE: The citizen, city and state should be entered the same as the parents

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“Justice For Sale” Under Obama And Disgraced US Attorney General Eric Holder – Department Of Justice Not Prosecuting Wall Street Execs Represented By Law Firms Where Holder And His Top Aides Worked

WASHINGTON, DC – In an explosive Newsweek article set to rock official Washington, reporter Peter Boyer and Breitbart contributing editor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer reveal how Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice are operating under a “justice for sale” strategy by forgoing criminal prosecution of Wall Street executives at big financial institutions who just so happen to be clients of the white-shoe law firms where Holder and his top DOJ lieutenants worked.

There’s more.

Even as President Barack Obama and Holder co-opt the Occupy Wall Street rhetoric of getting “tough” on the Big Banks and Big Finance, the Newsweek investigative report reveals that Eric Holder has not criminally charged or prosecuted a single top executive from any of the elite financial institutions thought responsible for the financial crash. And why would they? As Boyer and Schweizer report, “through last fall, Obama had collected more donations from Wall Street than any of the Republican candidates; employees of Bain Capital donated more than twice as much to Obama as they did to Romney, who founded the firm.”

Collecting millions from Wall Street was hardly the plan Obama and Holder telegraphed upon entering office. In 2009, the new Attorney General said boldly:

We face unprecedented challenges in responding to the financial crisis that has gripped our economy for the past year. Mortgage, securities, and corporate fraud schemes have eroded the public’s confidence in the nation’s financial markets and have led to a growing sentiment that Wall Street does not play by the same rules as Main Street. Unscrupulous executives, Ponzi scheme operators, and common criminals alike have targeted the pocketbooks and retirement accounts of middle class Americans, and in many cases, devastated entire families’ futures. We will not allow these actions to go unpunished….This Task Force’s mission is not just to hold accountable those who helped bring about the last financial meltdown, but to prevent another meltdown from happening.

Obama unloaded on Wall Street too. In 2009, Obama created the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force and announced that its purpose was to hold “accountable those who helped bring about the last financial crisis as well as those who would attempt to take advantage of the efforts at economic recovery.”

But Holder and Obama’s anti-Wall Street “law and order” rhetoric has turned out to be a smokescreen that allows the Obama campaign to talk the talk of the 99% while taking money from Wall Street’s 1%. The result is extortion by proxy. As President Obama put it to the Big Finance executives who met with him at the White House just two months into his presidency, “My Administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

Not surprisingly, of the elite bundlers who made up Obama’s 2008 campaign, the second most represented industry after law was the securities and investment industry. It’s a level of hypocrisy that has outraged even committed leftists. Industrial Areas Foundation activist Mike Gecan put it squarely: “I’m from Chicago, I’ve seen this game played my whole life.”

So what have the securities and banking industries received for their political contributions?

As Boyer and Schweizer report, Department of Justice criminal prosecutions are at 20-year lows for corporate securities and bank fraud. And while large financial institutions have faced civil prosecution, those typically end in settlement fees with the major banks that represent a fraction of their profits, often paid through special taxes on mortgage-backed securities.

It’s the most crass and cynical brand of politics imaginable, the Chicago Way writ large: pay to play justice from the nation’s highest law enforcement official.

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Obama Campaign Slogan “Forward” Tied To Socialism And Marxism Throughout 19th And 20th Centuries

WASHINGTON, DC – The Obama campaign apparently didn’t look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, “Forward” — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism.

Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name “Forward!” or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called “Forward (generic name of socialist publications).”

“The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications,” the online encyclopedia explains.

The slogan “Forward!” reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.

The Obama campaign released its new campaign slogan Monday in a 7-minute video. The title card has simply the word “Forward” with the “O” having the familiar Obama logo from 2008. It will be played at rallies this weekend that mark the Obama re-election campaign’s official beginning.

There have been at least two radical-left publications named “Vorwaerts” (the German word for “Forward”). One was the daily newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany whose writers included Friedrich Engels and Leon Trotsky. It still publishes as the organ of Germany’s SDP, though that party has changed considerably since World War II. Another was the 1844 biweekly reader of the Communist League. Karl Marx, Engels and Mikhail Bakunin are among the names associated with that publication.

East Germany named its Army soccer club ASK Vorwaerts Berlin (later FC Vorwaerts Frankfort).

Vladimir Lenin founded the publication “Vpered” (the Russian word for “forward”) in 1905. Soviet propaganda film-maker Dziga Vertov made a documentary whose title is sometimes translated as “Forward, Soviet” (though also and more literally as “Stride, Soviet”).

Conservative critics of the Obama administration have noted numerous ties to radicalism and socialists throughout Mr. Obama’s history, from his first political campaign being launched from the living room of two former Weather Underground members, to appointing as green jobs czar Van Jones, a self-described communist.

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President Obama Has Hit List Of Romney Supporters – Obama ReElection Campaign Attacking Private Donors To Romney Campaign

WASHINGTON, DC – Try this thought experiment: You decide to donate money to Mitt Romney. You want change in the Oval Office, so you engage in your democratic right to send a check.

Several days later, President Barack Obama, the most powerful man on the planet, singles you out by name. His campaign brands you a Romney donor, shames you for “betting against America,” and accuses you of having a “less-than-reputable” record. The message from the man who controls the Justice Department (which can indict you), the SEC (which can fine you), and the IRS (which can audit you), is clear: You made a mistake donating that money.

Are you worried?

Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” appalled the country for the simple reason that presidents hold a unique trust. Unlike senators or congressmen, presidents alone represent all Americans. Their powers—to jail, to fine, to bankrupt—are also so vast as to require restraint. Any president who targets a private citizen for his politics is de facto engaged in government intimidation and threats. This is why presidents since Nixon have carefully avoided the practice.

Save Mr. Obama, who acknowledges no rules. This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled “Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney’s donors.” In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having “less-than-reputable records,” the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that “quite a few” have also been “on the wrong side of the law” and profiting at “the expense of so many Americans.”

These are people like Paul Schorr and Sam and Jeffrey Fox, investors who the site outed for the crime of having “outsourced” jobs. T. Martin Fiorentino is scored for his work for a firm that forecloses on homes. Louis Bacon (a hedge-fund manager), Kent Burton (a “lobbyist”) and Thomas O’Malley (an energy CEO) stand accused of profiting from oil. Frank VanderSloot, the CEO of a home-products firm, is slimed as a “bitter foe of the gay rights movement.”

These are wealthy individuals, to be sure, but private citizens nonetheless. Not one holds elected office. Not one is a criminal. Not one has the barest fraction of the position or the power of the U.S. leader who is publicly assaulting them.

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Associated Press/The News & Observer

Barack Obama at the University of North Carolina, April 24

“We don’t tolerate presidents or people of high power to do these things,” says Theodore Olson, the former U.S. solicitor general. “When you have the power of the presidency—the power of the IRS, the INS, the Justice Department, the DEA, the SEC—what you have effectively done is put these guys’ names up on ‘Wanted’ posters in government offices.” Mr. Olson knows these tactics, having demanded that the 44th president cease publicly targeting Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, which he represents. He’s been ignored.

The real crime of the men, as the website tacitly acknowledges, is that they have given money to Mr. Romney. This fundraiser of a president has shown an acute appreciation for the power of money to win elections, and a cutthroat approach to intimidating those who might give to his opponents.

He’s targeted insurers, oil firms and Wall Street—letting it be known that those who oppose his policies might face political or legislative retribution. He lectured the Supreme Court for giving companies more free speech and (falsely) accused the Chamber of Commerce of using foreign money to bankroll U.S. elections. The White House even ginned up an executive order (yet to be released) to require companies to list political donations as a condition of bidding for government contracts. Companies could bid but lose out for donating to Republicans. Or they could quit donating to the GOP—Mr. Obama’s real aim.

The White House has couched its attacks in the language of “disclosure” and the argument that corporations should not have the same speech rights as individuals. But now, says Rory Cooper of the Heritage Foundation, “he’s doing the same at the individual level, for anyone who opposes his policies.” Any giver, at any level, risks reprisal from the president of the United States.

It’s getting worse because the money game is not going as Team Obama wants. Super PACs are helping the GOP to level the playing field against Democratic super-spenders. Prominent financial players are backing Mr. Romney. The White House’s new strategy is thus to delegitimize Mr. Romney (by attacking his donors) as it seeks to frighten others out of giving.

The Obama campaign has justified any action on the grounds that it has a right to “hold the eventual Republican nominee accountable,” but this is a dodge. Politics is rough, but a president has obligations that transcend those of a candidate. He swore an oath to protect and defend a Constitution that gives every American the right to partake in democracy, free of fear of government intimidation or disfavored treatment. If Mr. Obama isn’t going to act like a president, he bolsters the argument that he doesn’t deserve to be one.

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Nearly Half Million In Taxpayer Cash Spent On Michelle Obama’s Vacation In Spain – Similar Costs When Obama’s Went To South Africa And Botswana

WASHINGTON, DC – It cost taxpayers nearly a half-million dollars for first lady Michelle Obama to travel to Spain in 2010, according to an analysis by Judicial Watch.

The right-leaning watchdog group estimated that the trip cost $467,585. It based its analysis on documents obtained from the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Air Force.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said it took his group “two years and a lawsuit to get these documents out of the Obama administration.”

“It is hypocritical for President Obama to fire GSA officials for wasteful conference spending, while his family went on a luxury vacation in the Costa del Sol Spain that cost taxpayers nearly half a million dollars,” Fitton said.

Among the various travel costs, the group estimated — using the Defense Department’s 2010 published hourly rates — that it cost the government $199,323 to fly to Spain and back to the United States.

The New York Times reported that those on the trip included the first lady, one of her daughters and “two friends and four of their daughters, as well as a couple of aides and a couple of advance staff members.”

Fitton’s group has previously disclosed the cost of sending the first family on overseas trips. Its analysis indicated that it cost $424,142 to fly the first family to South Africa and Botswana in 2011.

White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to comment on the report during a press briefing Thursday.

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Veteran US Marine Corps Sergeant Gets Other Than Honorable Discharge For Criticizing Less Than Competent President

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – The Marine Corps said Wednesday it has decided to discharge a sergeant for criticizing President Barack Obama on Facebook.

The Corps said Sgt. Gary Stein will be given an other-than-honorable discharge for violating Pentagon policy limiting speech of service members.

The San Diego-area Marine has served nearly 10 years in the Marine Corps. He has said he was exercising his free-speech rights.

The discharge will mean he loses all benefits.

A federal judge previously denied a request to block military discharge proceedings against Stein, who called Obama an enemy on Facebook.

U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff ruled then that the military has the right to respond to Stein’s online comments in a case that has called into question the Pentagon’s policies regarding social media and the limits regarding the speech of active duty military personnel.

Attorney J. Mark Brewer told Huff the entire process violates the First Amendment, which federal courts have the right to uphold.

Huff disagreed, calling Stein’s postings “truly troubling.” Service members have had their speech limited since the Civil War, especially if their comments are believed to disrupt good order and discipline.

The judge pointed out Stein’s March 1 comments on a Facebook page used by Marine Corps meteorologists in which the sergeant stated, “Screw Obama and I will not follow all orders from him.”

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Economy And Unemployment So Bad Under Obama That Millions Of Illegal Immigrants Are Heading Home

WASHINGTON, DC – Well, that’s one way to stem the tide of illegal aliens streaming across the border from Mexico.

Jack up unemployment rates to near double digits, dunk America into a double-dip recession and put us so deeply into hock with the Chinese communists that it will take generations for us to recover.

After long enough, living and working and trying to eke out bare survival in America becomes even worse than trying to get by in Mexico.

A new study from the highly esteemed Pew Hispanic Center says the millions of Mexicans who risked their lives crossing the desert to get here to the promised land for a better life have given up on the U.S.

This is no small feat. Have you ever been to Mexico? Not the ritzy beach towns with the gated resorts, but Nuevo Laredo? The dusty streets are filled with bony children selling gum and candy for just a few spare pennies.

Desperate as that little trade may have once seemed to us, at least it has the vibe of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during the ‘90s. Nothing like that is going on anywhere on this side of the border.

Remember the axiom of big government bureaucrats: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. When, finally, under the crushing weight of taxes and regulation, it stops moving, subsidize it.

So the Mexicans have quit coming to the hopeless part of North America. Canada is just too far to walk.

Or, at least, the few final stragglers who have not kept up with America’s woes and are still sneaking into the U.S. are balanced out by all the illegal Mexicans already here who are now risking their lives to cross the desert to escape the American “dream.”

Now we know why all the politicians in Washington have finally agreed to beef up security and build a fence along the southern border. They’re desperate to keep all the Mexicans from leaving.

That’s right, who would raise their children and mow their lawns and do all of America’s dirty work if all the Mexicans left?

Authors of the Pew report call the stunning shift in migration patterns historic. Not since the Great Depression, they say, has a shift of this magnitude occurred along the U.S.-Mexico border. Not since the Great Depression?

It’s almost enough to make you pine for the good old days of rampant illegal immigration.

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White House Lawyer Claims No White House Staff Involved In Secret Service’s Columbian Prostitute Scandal – Also Claims White House Communication Agency Member Isn’t Part Of The White House

WASHINGTON, DC – White House Press Secretary Jay Carney announced that White House legal counsel has concluded no White House staff engaged in any “misconduct” in Cartagena.

“The decision to conduct a review here, internally, was simply done out of due diligence,” Carney said. “There is no indication of any misconduct by any member of the White House advance team or staff.”

He added that “there have been no specific, credible allegations of misconduct by anyone on the White House advance team or White House staff.”

Carney refused to give any details on the investigation, such as whether the investigation included checking hotel records in Colombia or interviewing the White House advance team that went to Cartagena.

“There’s no point in getting into the details of this internal review except to say that it was conducted,” he said.

He also sought to distance the Obama administration from the White House Comunication Agency (WHCA) member under investigation over the Secret Service prostitution scandal.

“WHCA, as we call it, is staffed entirely by military personnel, not by White House staff,” Carney told reporters when asked about reports that a WHCA member is under investigation. “They are not members of the White House staff, they are not chosen by the White House.”

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Obama Administration Is Pissing Away $8 BILLION In Taxpayer Cash On Experimental Program That Investigators Say In Unlikely To Produce Useful Results

WASHINGTON, DC — Medicare is wasting more than $8 billion on an experimental program that rewards providers of mediocre health care and is unlikely to produce useful results, federal investigators say in a new report.

The report, to be issued Monday by the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, urges the Obama administration to cancel the program, which pays bonuses to health insurance companies caring for millions of Medicare beneficiaries.

Administration officials, however, defended the project and said they would not cancel it because it could improve the quality of care for older Americans.

In the 2010 health care law, Congress cut Medicare payments to managed care plans, known as Medicare Advantage, and authorized bonus payments to those that provide high-quality care. Investigators found that most of the money paid under the demonstration program went to “average-performing plans” rated lower than the benchmarks set by Congress.

The report said the project would cost $8.3 billion over 10 years, with 80 percent of the cost occurring in the first three years.

Federal investigators are trying to determine whether Medicare officials had the legal authority to make the changes.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, and Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said the report suggested that Medicare officials had abused their authority.

In a statement, Mr. Hatch and Mr. Camp said they were concerned that the government might be “using taxpayer dollars for political purposes, to mask the impact on beneficiaries of cuts in the Medicare Advantage program.” Administration officials denied that.

A separate federal panel, the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, also criticized the project, saying it increases “spending at a time when Medicare already faces serious problems with cost control and long-term financing.”

The panel denounced Medicare’s “overly broad use of demonstration authority” and said “limited Medicare dollars should go to truly high-performing plans.” It said “the extension of quality bonuses to the vast majority of plans is likely to result in far greater program costs than the reward system enacted” by Congress, and that by spreading the rewards so broadly, “the demonstration lessens the incentive to achieve the highest level of performance.”

The G.A.O. said the project “dwarfs all other Medicare demonstrations” in its impact on the budget, but is so poorly designed that researchers could not tell whether the bonus payments led to improved care. As a result, it said, it is unlikely to “produce meaningful results.” Insurers can use the bonuses to offer extra benefits, like vision and dental care, or to lower premiums.

More than 12 million people are in Medicare Advantage plans. About one-third of them are in plans that would receive bonuses under the 2010 law. By contrast, under the demonstration program, 90 percent are in plans eligible for bonuses, the report said.

The administration said that by offering bigger bonuses to more health plans, it hoped to encourage larger, more rapid improvements in care. “All Medicare Advantage plans will be part of the demonstration,” a federal health official told James C. Cosgrove, the accountability office’s director of health care studies.

The Medicare commission said “demonstration authority is intended for smaller-scale projects” that test innovations in the way health care is financed and delivered.

The health care law cut payments to private Medicare Advantage plans after many studies found that they were being overpaid. President Obama said the private plans were getting “unwarranted subsidies” that “pad their profits but don’t improve the care of seniors.”

The commission said payments to private plans, including the bonuses, were still about 7 percent higher than what the government would pay for similar beneficiaries in the traditional Medicare program.
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Obama’s $8,000,000,000.00 HHS Slush Fund To Mask Debilitating Effects Of ObamaCare On Seniors In Key Markets Long Enough For His Re-Election Attempt

WASHINGTON, DC – Call it President Obama’s Committee for the Re-Election of the President — a political slush fund at the Health and Human Services Department.

Only this isn’t some little fund from shadowy private sources; this is taxpayer money, redirected to help Obama win another term. A massive amount of it, too — $8.3 billion. Yes, that’s billion, with a B.

Here is how it works.

The most oppressive aspects of the ObamaCare law don’t kick in until after the 2012 election, when the president will no longer be answerable to voters. More “flexibility,” he recently explained to the Russians.

But certain voters would surely notice one highly painful part of the law before then — namely, the way it guts the popular Medicare Advantage program.

For years, 12 million seniors have relied on these policies, a more market-oriented alternative to traditional Medicare, without the aggravating gaps in coverage.

But as part of its hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts, the Obama one-size-fits-all plan slashes reimbursement rates for Medicare Advantage starting next year — herding many seniors back into the government-run program.

Under federal “open-enrollment” guidelines, seniors must pick their Medicare coverage program for next year by the end of this year — which means they should be finding out before Election Day.

Nothing is more politically volatile than monkeying with the health insurance of seniors, who aren’t too keen on confusing upheavals in their health care and are the most diligent voters in the land. This could make the Tea Party look like a tea party.

Making matters even more politically dangerous for Obama is that open enrollment begins Oct. 15, less than three weeks before voters go to the polls.

It’s hard to imagine a bigger electoral disaster for a president than seniors in crucial states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio discovering that he’s taken away their beloved Medicare Advantage just weeks before an election.

This political ticking time bomb could become the biggest “October Surprise” in US political history.

But the administration’s devised a way to postpone the pain one more year, getting Obama past his last election; it plans to spend $8 billion to temporarily restore Medicare Advantage funds so that seniors in key markets don’t lose their trusted insurance program in the middle of Obama’s re-election bid.

The money is to come from funds that Health and Human Services is allowed to use for “demonstration projects.” But to make it legal, HHS has to pretend that it’s doing an “experiment” to study the effect of this money on the insurance market.

That is, to “study” what happens when the government doesn’t change anything but merely continues a program that’s been going on for years.

Obama can temporarily prop up Medicare Advantage long enough to get re-elected by exploiting an obscure bit of federal law. Under a 1967 statute, the HHS secretary can spend money without specific approval by Congress on “experiments” directly aimed at “increasing the efficiency and economy of health services.”

Past demonstration projects have studied new medical techniques or strategies aimed at improving care or reducing costs. The point is to find ways to lower the costs of Medicare by allowing medical technocrats to make efficient decisions without interference from vested interests.

Now Obama means to turn it on its head — diverting the money to a blatantly nonexperimental purpose to serve his political needs.

A Government Accounting Office report released this morning shows, quite starkly, that there simply is no experiment being conducted, just money being spent. Understandably, the GAO recommends that HHS cancel the project.

Congress should immediately launch an investigation into this unprecedented misuse of taxpayer money and violation of the public trust, which certainly presses the boundaries of legality and very well may breach them.

If he’s not stopped, Obama will spend $8 billion in taxpayer funds for a scheme to mask the debilitating effects on seniors of his signature piece of legislation just long enough to get himself re-elected.

Now that is some serious audacity.

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One Out Of Every Seven People In United States Receiving Food Stamp Benefits – Up 70% Since Obama Took Office

WASHINGTON, DC – The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. It said the number of people receiving the benefits, commonly known as food stamps, would continue growing until 2014.

Spending for the program, not including administrative costs, rose to $72 billion in 2011, up from $30 billion four years earlier. The CBO projected that one in seven U.S. residents received food stamps last year.

In a report, the CBO said roughly two-thirds of jump in spending was tied to an increase in the number of people participating in the program, which provides access to food for the poor, elderly, and disabled. It said another 20% “of the growth in spending can be attributed to temporarily higher benefit amounts enacted in the” 2009 stimulus law.

CBO said the number of people receiving benefits is expected to fall after 2014 because the economy will be improving.

“Nevertheless, the number of people receiving SNAP benefits will remain high by historical standards,” the agency said.

It estimated that 34 million people, or 1 in 10 U.S. residents, would receive SNAP benefits in 2022 “and SNAP expenditures, at about $73 billion, will be among the highest of all non-health-related federal support programs for low-income households.”

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Obama Jobs “Plan” Has Americans Collecting Unemployment AND Working

WASHINGTON, DC – The Obama administration is looking for states that will experiment with unemployment insurance programs by letting people test a job while still receiving benefits.

The plan is a key feature of a payroll tax cut package that President Barack Obama negotiated with congressional Republicans in February.

The Labor Department will open the application process Thursday for 10 model projects across the country. Any state can apply for the “Bridge to Work” program.

The plan is modeled after a Georgia program called “Georgia Works.” Under the plan, workers who have lost jobs can be placed in other temporary jobs as trainees for short periods to retain their skills or gain new ones while receiving jobless assistance. About a third of the time, those workers wind up getting hired full-time.

A number of states are combining unemployment benefits with on-the-job training, including North Carolina, New Hampshire, Utah and Missouri.

A senior administration official said those states would be eligible to apply for the federal demonstration project. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the program before an administration announcement.

States that are chosen could get waivers from the federal government allowing them to tap their unemployment insurance accounts to pay for such costs as transportation for workers in temporary jobs.

The program has had mixed results in some states that have their own programs. Administration officials said they hope the waivers and assistance offered by the federal demonstration projects could help rectify any problems that have emerged.

Supporters of the programs say it helps workers retain or learn new skills and add new job references to their resumes. The plan passed with support from leading Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

It also is designed to answer critics of unemployment benefits who say the aid discourages some people from aggressively seeking work.

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Incompetent President Bankrupting The United States – Federal Debt Has Increased 4.3 BILLION Dollars Per Day Under Obama – Now Totals Over 5 TRILLION – $5,027,761,476,484.56

WASHINGTON, DC – In the 39 months since Barack Obama took the oath of office as president of the United States, the federal government’s debt has increased by $5,027,761,476,484.56.

Although he has served less than a term, Obama is now the first American president to see the federal government’s debt increase by more than $5 trillion during his time in office.

During the full eight years that George W. Bush served as president, the federal government’s debt increased by $4,899,100,310,608.44. (Rising from $5,727,776,738,304.64 to $10,626,877,048,913.08.)

The $5,027,761,476,484.56 that the debt has increased during Obama’s presidency equals $16,043.39 for every one of the 313,385,295 people the Census Bureau now estimates live in the United States.

At the close of business on Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama was inaugurated, the federal government’s debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08, according to the U.S. Treasury. By the close of business on April 16, 2012—as many Americans were working to finalize their 2011 tax returns to meet an April 17 filing deadline—the debt had reached $15,654,638,525,397.64.

The $5,027,761,476,484.56 in additional debt that the U.S. government has taken on during the 39 months that Obama has been president is more debt than the federal government accumulated in the first 219 years of the Republic.

The total federal debt did not exceed $5,027,761,476,484.56 until March 14, 1996, when President Bill Clinton was in the last year of his first term in office. On that day, the national debt rose from $5,025,887,531,178.79 to 5,035,165,720,616.33.

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US Secret Service Pissing Away Tax Dollars Investiging Ted Nugent’s Remarks

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Secret Service is reportedly investigating faded ’70s rock star Ted Nugent for his recent insistence he’ll be “dead or in jail” in a year’s time if President Barack Obama is re-elected in November.

At a convention of the National Rifle Association over the weekend, the longtime gun advocate compared Obama and the Democrats to a coyote who should be shot.

“It isn’t the enemy that ruined America,” he said as he reaffirmed his endorsement of Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.

“It’s good people who bent over and let the enemy in. If the coyote’s in your living room pissing on your couch, it’s not the coyote’s fault. It’s your fault for not shooting him.”

He accused the Obama administration of being “evil” and “America-hating.”

“If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year,” he said angrily. “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.”

He then told his audience of proud gun-owners that if they failed to “clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration, I don’t even know what you’re made out of.”

The Secret Service says it’s aware of the weekend remarks and is looking into them.

The Romney campaign, meantime, attempted to distance itself from Nugent on Tuesday, undoubtedly regretting the former Massachusetts governor’s comments last month to a Missouri radio show: “It’s been fun getting to know Ted Nugent.”

“Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from,” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in an email to reporters. “Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil.”

The Democratic National Committee called on Romney to strongly condemn the remarks by Nugent, best known for his late ’70s hit “Cat Scratch Fever.”

“Threatening violence — or whatever it is that Nugent’s threatening — is clearly beyond the pale, but Nugent’s not the one running for president,” said DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

At the daily White House press briefing on Tuesday, spokesman Jay Carney wouldn’t comment on Nugent’s remarks.

“We can’t be policing the statement of supporters across the board. The president is focused on the issues,” he said.

Nugent, however, was unapologetic, telling conservative radio host Dana Loesch that his incendiary remarks were “100 per cent positive.”

“I will stand by my speech,” he said, and then upped the ante by heaping more scorn on Democrats, describing Wasserman Schultz as a “brain-dead, soulless, heartless idiot.”

Nancy Pelosi, minority leader for the House of Representatives, he added, is a “sub-human scoundrel.”

Nugent also claimed the generally mild-mannered Romney agreed with his remarks.

“Mitt Romney knows what I’m saying is true. He puts it into words for him, I put it into words for me,” he said.

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Obama Presidency An “Unmitigated Disaster” For US

CHEYENNE, WYOMING – Former Vice President Dick Cheney walked onstage without any assistance and spoke for an hour and 15 minutes without seeming to tire in his first public engagement since he underwent a heart transplant three weeks ago.

“He has been an unmitigated disaster to the country,” Cheney said of President Barack Obama.

“I can’t think of a time when I felt it was more important for us to defeat an incumbent president today with respect to Barack Obama. I think he has been an unmitigated disaster to the country,” Cheney said at the Wyoming Republican Party state convention in Cheyenne on Saturday.

“I think to be in a position where he gets four more years in the White House to continue the policies he has, both with respect to the economy, and tax policy, and defense and some other areas would be a huge, huge disappointment,” the former Vice President said.

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12 US Secret Service Agents Who Were Supposed To Protect Obama At International Summit Relieved Of Duty And Shipped Home Due To Misconduct With Columbian Prostitutes And Alcohol

WASHINGTON, DC – A dozen Secret Service agents sent to Colombia to provide security for President Obama at an international summit have been relieved of duty over alleged misconduct.

A caller who said he had knowledge of the situation told the Associated Press the misconduct involved prostitutes in Cartagena, site of the Summit of the Americas. A Secret Service spokesman did not dispute that.

A U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and requested anonymity, put the number of agents sent home at 12. Secret Service was not releasing the number of personnel involved.

The incident threatened to overshadow Obama’s economic and trade agenda at the summit and embarrass the U.S. The White House had no comment, but also did not dispute the allegations.

In Washington, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan would not confirm that prostitution was involved, saying only that there had been “allegations of misconduct” made against Secret Service personnel in Cartagena for the summit.

Donovan said the allegations of misconduct were related to activity before the president’s arrival Friday night and did not impact security plans for Obama’s trip.

Obama attended a leaders’ dinner Friday night at Cartagena’s historic Spanish fortress and was due to attend summit meetings with regional leaders Saturday and Sunday.

The Washington Post reported that Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said the accusations related to at least one agent having involvement with prostitutes in Cartagena. The association represents federal law enforcement officers, including the Secret Service.

Adler later told the AP that he had heard that there were allegations of prostitution, but he had no specific knowledge of any wrongdoing.

The agents were staying at Cartagena’s Hotel Caribe, which is also hosting members of the White House staff and press corps during the summit

A hotel employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said the agents arrived at the beachfront hotel about a week ago. The employee described the agents as drinking heavily during their stay.

The employee said the agents left the hotel Thursday, a day before Obama and other regional leaders arrived for the weekend summit.

The hotel’s public relations chief had no comment.

Those involved had been sent back to their permanent place of duty and were being replaced by other agency personnel, Donovan said. The matter was turned over to the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which handles the agency’s internal affairs.

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Obama’s Drunk Driving Illegal Immigrant Uncle Prepares To Fight Deportation Home To Kenya

FRAMINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS – President Obama’s illegal immigrant half-uncle is preparing to fight new efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport him, myFOXboston.com reported Friday.

Onyango Obama met with immigration officials Thursday as they began the process of sending him back to Kenya, according to the Boston Herald.

He is required to regularly check in with immigration officials pending his removal, ICE spokesman Brian Hale was quoted as saying.

The Kenyan national, who is the half-brother of the President’s father, was ordered to leave the country in 1992 but never left.

His immigration status came to light after he was arrested in August last year for driving under the influence.

Onyango Obama was pulled over in Framingham, Mass., about 20 miles southwest of Boston, after making a sudden right turn at a stop sign and nearly colliding with a police cruiser. He initially denied being drunk but later admitted to having had “two beers.”

He had a blood-alcohol content of .14 percent, above the legal limit of 0.08.

Obama plans on fighting the deportation and has hired the same attorney who helped the President’s half-aunt win asylum in 2010, myFOXboston.com reported.

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White House Claims Opponents Are Using “New Math” – But Obamacare Will Add At Least $340 Billion To Budget Over Next Decade

WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama’s landmark health-care initiative, long touted as a means to control costs, will actually add more than $340 billion to the nation’s budget woes over the next decade, according to a new study by a Republican member of the board that oversees Medicare financing.

The study is set to be released Tuesday by Charles Blahous, a conservative policy analyst whom Obama approved in 2010 as the GOP trustee for Medicare and Social Security. His analysis challenges the conventional wisdom that the health-care law, which calls for an expensive expansion of coverage for the uninsured beginning in 2014, will nonetheless reduce deficits by raising taxes and cutting payments to Medicare providers.

The 2010 law does generate both savings and revenue. But much of that money will flow into the Medicare hospitalization trust fund — and, under law, the money must be used to pay years of additional benefits to those who are already insured. That means those savings would not be available to pay for expanding coverage for the uninsured.

“Does the health-care act worsen the deficit? The answer, I think, is clearly that it does,” Blahous, a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, said in an interview. “If one asserts that this law extends the solvency of Medicare, then one is affirming that this law adds to the deficit. Because the expansion of the Medicare trust fund and the creation of the new subsidies together create more spending than existed under prior law.”

Administration officials dismissed the study, arguing that it departs from bipartisan budget rules used to measure every major deficit-reduction effort for the past four decades — including the blueprint offered last month by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

“Opponents of reform are using ‘new math’ while they attempt to refight the political battles of the past,” a White House budget official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report was not publicly available. “The fact of the matter is, the Congressional Budget Office and independent experts concluded that the health-reform law will reduce the deficit. That was true the day the bill was signed into law, and it’s true today.”

Blahous acknowledged that his analysis departs from budget conventions, which, he said, make sense for the most part. He said that in this case, however, those rules do not fully illuminate the financial impact of the health-care law, since they permit what conservative critics have dubbed a “double counting” of proposed Medicare savings.

Medicare is financed in part through a trust fund that receives revenue from payroll taxes. Before Obama’s health-care act passed, the trust fund was projected to be drained by 2017 (later updated to 2016). Absent the health-care law, Blahous writes, Medicare would have been forced to enact a sharp reduction in benefit payments in the middle of this decade, or “other Medicare savings would have had to be found.”

Enter the health-care law, which provides about $575 billion in Medicare savings — enough to automatically extend the life of the trust fund through 2029, according to estimates at the time, and avoid a sharp cut in benefits.

But in cost estimates by the nonpartisan CBO, those savings also offset a dramatic expansion of Medicaid under the law, as well as new subsidies for uninsured people to purchase coverage.

CBO and Medicare actuaries acknowledge the double-counting issue. “In practice, the improved [trust fund] financing cannot be simultaneously used to finance other federal outlays (such as the coverage expansions) and to extend the trust fund, despite the appearance of this result from” traditional budget rules, Medicare actuary Rick Foster wrote last year.

And in 2010, the CBO wrote that, absent the Medicare savings, the law would increase deficits by $226 billion through 2019 — instead of decreasing them by the commonly cited $132 billion.

In arriving at his deficit figure of $340 billion, Blahous updates the numbers through 2021 and subtracts savings that would have come from another provision of the law: the CLASS Act, a long-term-care program that was supposed to have generated as much as $86 billion in new revenue through 2021. The administration acknowledged last year that the CLASS Act is unworkable and suspended efforts to implement it.

“This isn’t just a persnickety point about the intricacies of budget law,” Blahous said. “If Medicare were going insolvent in 2016, you’d better believe right now there would be more pressure on lawmakers to do something about it. . . . It’s essential that there be a full public understanding of the most economically significant federal law in years.”

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Gas Prices 103.79 Percent Higher Since Obama Took Office

US – Marking the similarities between President Barack Obama’s time in office and former president Jimmy Carter’s is nothing new. But as of Monday, Obama has hit one more Carter benchmark – both saw gas prices double in their first term of office. [See Where Gas Prices are Spiking the Most]

In fact, while just barely, Obama has seen an even higher gas price increase than Carter dealt with under his administration.

Under the Carter administration, gas prices increased by 103.77 percent. Gas prices since Obama took office have risen by 103.79 percent. No other presidents in recent years have struggled as much with soaring oil prices. Under the Reagan administration, gas prices actually dropped 66 percent. When Bill Clinton was president, gas prices grew by roughly 30 percent, and under both Bush presidencies, gas prices rose by 20 percent. [See pictures of Obama’s re-election campaign.]

The National Republican Congressional Committee called attention to Obama’s recent “dishonorable distinction,” blaming the Democrats’ rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline as a major factor for skyrocketing gas prices.

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President Obama Has Laid Groundwork For What U.S. Representative Believes Will Be Attempt To Call “National Emergency” And Use Unconstitutional Authority

WASHINGTON, DC – A White House order updating federal emergency powers has raised alarm among some conservative commentators, and U.S. Rep. Sandy Adams, that President Barack Obama is attempting to grab unconstitutional powers.

A columnist with The Washington Times declared the mid-March order — an update of a 60-year-old document outlining the president’s authority in a national emergency — “stunning in its audacity and a flagrant violation of the Constitution.” The conservative Drudge Report website linked to it with the headline, “Martial Law?”

And Adams, R-Orlando, said it “leaves the door open for the president to give himself control over American resources during both times of peace, and national crisis.”

So Adams filed a nonbinding resolution specifying what Obama cannot do with the order — including institute a draft, confiscate personal property and “force civilians to engage in labor against their will or without compensation.”

But legal experts from both ends of the political spectrum said it’s a stretch — at best — to believe the order allows any of those powers.

As written, the executive order outlines the powers the president can exercise “in the event of a potential threat,” such as mobilizing for war. These range from the mundane, such as preparing disaster plans, to more robust authority that includes taking control of civil transportation and forcing U.S. companies to prioritize defense contracts.

All this has been on the books for decades. Experts on national-security law say the big difference between what Obama signed and the version in place since President Bill Clinton was in office is reference to the Department of Homeland Security, which wasn’t around then.

“It’s valid to be concerned that the president has too many powers that are justified by national-defense needs,” said Benjamin Friedman, a defense expert with the libertarian Cato Institute. “But this executive order doesn’t change much compared to prior executive orders that Republican and Democratic presidents have put in place.”

The last time the order was invoked in a major way was in January 2001, when Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush both utilized it to direct emergency supplies of electricity and natural gas to California in order to prevent blackouts.

“No one hollered dictator then,” said Peter Raven-Hansen, who teaches national-security law at George Washington University.

Adams, in a brief interview, said Obama’s order could unconstitutionally expand the president’s authority and cited as an example its inclusion of a section of the Stafford Act, which defines the government’s role in dealing with disasters.

“It is my first [term] in Congress. I know we are responsible for oversight,” she said.

But the section of the Stafford Act deals primarily with disaster preparation and training. In regard to civilian labor, it requires workers on construction projects be paid fair market wages and overtime if they work more than 40 hours in a week.

When asked how this could equate to civilians being forced into labor, an Adams spokeswoman said the congresswoman was trying to ensure there was “no misunderstanding as to the powers of the executive.”

Adams’ resolution has at least 37 co-sponsors, including six Florida Republicans: Gus Bilirakis, Jeff Miller, Richard Nugent, Dennis Ross, Steve Southerland and Allen West. It has yet to receive a committee hearing.

The bill is in line with her previous support of causes embraced by some hard-core conservatives. Last year, she introduced a bill to prohibit the use of foreign law in U.S. courts, though there is little evidence that’s happening. And Adams supports the indefinite detention of immigrant criminals who can’t be deported, despite objections of human-rights groups.

“Congresswoman Adams is doing what the GOP does best: pandering to tea-party extremists instead of helping businesses create jobs and grow our economy,” said David Bergstein, a spokesman for the Florida Democratic Party.

Adams denies any political motivation and said she was doing her duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Still, she is running in a tough Republican primary against veteran U.S. Rep. John Mica of Winter Park and is positioning herself as the hard-line conservative in that race.

Dropping a bill that feeds into the “existing narrative that he [Obama] is trying to expand government and take away people’s rights” is one way to do that, said Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist from the University of Central Florida.

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Federal Debt Under President Obama Budget Will Rise To $73,000 Per Person – Was Only $33,000 When He Took Office – Certainly Not The “Change” He Promised During His Initial Campaign…

The latest chart from the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee, showing that under President Obama’s budget plan, debt would be $73,000 per American in 2022:

By contrast, debt per person was still an astonishing $33,000 in 2008, at the end of George W. Bush’s term, and $20,000 in 2000, at the beginning of Bush’s presidency.

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Obama Sends Warning To “Unelected” US Supreme Court Judges Over His Doomed Health Care Plan – Obamacare

WASHINGTON, DC – US President Barack Obama on Monday challenged the “unelected” Supreme Court not to take the “extraordinary” and “unprecedented” step of overturning his landmark health reform law.

Though Obama said he was confident the court would uphold the law, the centerpiece of his political legacy, he appeared to be previewing campaign trail arguments should the nine justices strike the legislation down.

In a highly combative salvo, Obama also staunchly defended the anchor of the law — a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance — as key to giving millions of people access to treatment for the first time.

“Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” Obama said.

Pointed comments from Supreme Court justices last week during three days of compelling hearings have convinced many commentators that the court, expected to rule in June, will declare the law, dubbed ObamaCare, unconstitutional.

Such a move would electrify the White House race, puncture Obama’s claims to be a reformer in the grand political tradition, and throw the US health care industry into chaos.

Obama noted that for years, conservatives had been arguing that the “unelected” Supreme Court should not adopt an activist approach by making rather than interpreting law, and held up the health legislation as an example.

“I am pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step,” Obama said during a press conference in the White House Rose Garden with the leaders of Canada and Mexico in his first comments on last week’s hearings.

Obama’s comments will be seen as a warning shot to the court, one of the three branches of the US government, and could draw complaints from critics that he is trying to influence the deliberations.

The health care case is the most closely watched Supreme Court deliberation since a divided bench handed the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush over Al Gore, and could have far reaching political implications.

Obama also argued there was a “human element” to the health care battle, as well as legal and political dimensions.

He said that without the law, passed after a fierce battle with Republicans in 2010, several million children would not have health care, and millions more adults with pre-existing conditions would also be deprived of treatment.

Opponents of the health care law argue that the government has overreached its powers by requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance.

But supporters say that the government is within its rights to regulate the health industry as it has the power to oversee commerce across state borders.

Without the mandate, they say, the costs of insuring an extra 32 million Americans would be prohibitive to the private health insurance industry.

The Affordable Care Act is highly polarizing in US politics as the election approaches and Obama is yet to get a political dividend for the huge expenditure of political capital required to pass the legislation.

If the court upholds the law, and he wins reelection in November, the legislation will likely stand for years, as it will be fully implemented by 2014, two years before his second term draws to a close.

But Republicans running to replace him in the November 6 election have all vowed to repeal ObamaCare.

“I think it’s important… to remind people that this is not an abstract argument,” Obama said.

“The law that’s already in place has already given 2.5 million young people health care that wouldn’t otherwise have it.

“There are tens of thousands of adults with preexisting conditions who have health care right now because of this law.”

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President Obama’s Drunk Driving Illegal Immigrant Uncle Gets License Back In Massachusetts A Week After It Was Revoked

MASSACHUSETTS – Just a week after he copped a plea in a drunken-driving rap, President Obama’s illegal-alien uncle has landed a hardship driver’s license from the Registry of Motor Vehicles, making it perfectly legal for him to drive in Massachusetts — even though the feds say he doesn’t belong here.

Onyango Obama, 67, who lost his regular license for 45 days last week, scored his limited license yesterday from the Registry’s Wilmington branch, after convincing a hearing officer that life without wheels would have posed an undue hardship on his livelihood as a liquor-store manager. Obama bolstered his case with a letter from his employer, Conti Liquors, as well as proof that he’d enrolled in an alcohol-treatment program.

“He met all of the criteria,” RMV spokeswoman Sara Lavoie said.

Of the state’s decision to award Obama a license even though the federal government considers him an illegal alien, Lavoie would only say, “Registry business is based on Registry records.”

The license allows Obama to drive from noon to midnight.

The license award drew fire from one advocate of tough enforcement on illegals, Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson.

“Our democracy is predicated on law,” Hodgson said. “When we start to interpret these laws differently and manipulate them the way we want them to work for certain people, we start to send a mixed message to people that the law doesn’t really matter. Its subject to interpretation. You don’t have to follow the law. They find ways to justify it. We need the laws to be very clear. We need ‘no’ to mean ‘no’ again.”

Hodgson, along with sheriffs in Plymouth and Worcester counties, stood up for Secure Communities, a program that feeds local police fingerprint checks into federal databases to check the citizenship status of accused criminals. Gov. Deval Patrick has refused to enroll the state in the program.

Obama, a Kenyan national, lost his license last week after admitting in court that Framingham cops had sufficient evidence to convict him in an August OUI bust. His lawyer, P. Scott Bratton, said Obama has an immigration hearing next month.

A judge continued Obama’s OUI case without a finding for one year, meaning he’ll face no further punishment if he stays out of trouble. Obama is the half-brother of President Obama’s late father, and the older brother of Zeituni Onyango, who was granted asylum in 2010.

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Major Obama Campaign Donor Abake Assongba Accused Of Fraud – Accused Of Stealing More Than $650,000 To Build Multi-Million Dollar Home In Florida

WASHINGTON, DC – A major donor to President Barack Obama has been accused of defrauding a businessman and impersonating a bank official, creating new headaches for Obama’s re-election campaign as it deals with the questionable history of another top supporter.

The New York donor, Abake Assongba, and her husband contributed more than $50,000 to Obama’s re-election effort this year, federal records show. But Assongba is also fending off a civil court case in Florida, where she’s accused of thieving more than $650,000 to help build a multimillion-dollar home in the state – a charge her husband denies.

Obama is the only presidential contender this year who released his list of “bundlers,” the financiers who raise campaign money by soliciting high-dollar contributions from friends and associates. But that disclosure has not come without snags; his campaign returned $200,000 last month to Carlos and Alberto Cardona, the brothers of a Mexican fugitive wanted on federal drug charges.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt declined comment to The Associated Press. He instead referred the AP to previous statements he made to The Washington Post, which first reported the allegations against Assongba in its Sunday editions. LaBolt told the paper 1.3 million Americans have donated to the campaign, and that it addresses issues with contributions promptly.

Assongba was listed on Obama’s campaign website as one of its volunteer fundraisers – a much smaller group of about 440 people.

Assongba and her husband, Anthony J.W. DeRosa, run a charity called Abake’s Foundation that distributes school supplies and food in Benin, Africa.

In one Florida case, which is still ongoing, Swiss businessman Klaus-Werner Pusch accused Assongba in 2009 of engaging him in an email scam – then using the money to buy a multimillion-dollar home, the Post reported. The suit alleges Assongba impersonated a bank official to do it. Pusch referred the AP’s questions to his attorney, who did not immediately return requests seeking comment Sunday.

Meanwhile, Assongba has left a trail of debts, with a former landlord demanding in court more than $10,000 in back rent and damages for a previous apartment. She was also evicted in 2004 after owing $5,000 in rent, records show.

In an interview with the AP on Sunday, DeRosa said the allegations against his wife were untrue, although he couldn’t discuss specifics because of pending litigation. He said he and Assongba were “very perturbed” by the charges, and said the couple’s charity does important work in Africa.

Assongba has given more than $70,000 to Democratic candidates in recent years, an AP review of Federal Election Commission data shows. Her larger contributions include $35,000 to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee between Obama and the Democratic Party, and at least $15,000 to the Democratic National Committee. She also contributed to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Abake’s Foundation is listed by the IRS as a registered nonprofit organization; its financial reports were unavailable. A representative who picked up the phone at the foundation’s Benin office declined to answer questions, and instead referred the AP to Assongba.

Obama’s campaign declined to comment on whether its vetting procedures were thorough enough, or whether Assongba’s contribution would be refunded. All told, Obama has raised more than $120 million this election, not counting millions more from the Democratic Party – giving him a financial advantage thus far over any of his Republican challengers.

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Associated Press writer Emily Fredrix and news researcher Susan James in New York contributed to this report.

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Additional $17 Trillion Funding Gap Found In Doomed Obamacare Law

WASHINGTON, DC – Senate Republican staffers continue to look though the 2010 health care reform law to see what’s in it, and their latest discovery is a massive $17 trillion funding gap.

“The more we learn about the bill, the more we learn it is even more unaffordable than was suspected,” said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Republicans’ budget chief in the Senate.

“The bill has to be removed from the books because we don’t have the money,” he said.

The hidden shortfall between new spending and new taxes was revealed just after Supreme Court justices grilled the law’s supporters about its compliance with the Constitution’s limits on government activity. If the court doesn’t strike down the law, it will force taxpayers to find another $17 trillion to pay for the increased spending.

The $17 trillion in extra promises was revealed by an analysis of the law’s long-term requirements. The additional obligations, when combined with existing Medicare and Medicaid funding shortfalls, leave taxpayers on the hook for an extra $82 trillion in health care obligations over the next 75 years.

The federal government has an additional $17 trillion unfunded gap in other obligations, including Social Security, bringing the total shortfall to $99 trillion.

That shortfall is different from existing debt. The federal government already owes $15 trillion in debt, including $5 trillion in funds borrowed during Obama’s term in office.

That $99 trillion in unfunded future expenses is more more than six years of wealth generated by the United States, which now produces just over $15 trillion of value per year.

The $99 trillion funding gap is equal to almost 30 years of the the current federal budget, which was $3.36 trillion for 2011.

Currently, the Social Security system faces $7 trillion shortfall between spending and taxes over the next 75 years, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Also, Medicare will is underfunded by $38 trillion, and Medicaid will consume another $20 trillion of the taxpayer’s wealth beyond what is budgeted, according to estimates prepared by the actuarial office at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The short-term cost of the Obamacare law is $2.6 trillion, almost triple the $900 billion cost promised by Obama and his Democratic allies, said Sessions.

The extra $17 trillion gap was discovered by applying standard federal estimates and models to the law’s spending obligations, Sessions said.

For example, Session’s examination of the health care law’s “premium support” program shows a funding gap $12 billion wider that predicted.

The same review also showed the law added another $5 trillion in unfunded obligations for the Medicaid program.

“President Obama told the American people that his health law would cost $900 billion over ten years and that it would not add ‘one dime’ to the debt… this health law adds an entirely new obligation—one we cannot pay for—and puts the entire financing of the United States government in jeopardy,” Sessions said in a floor speech.

“We don’t have the money… We have to reduce the [obligations] that we have.”

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Obama Based Deficit Reduction Bill Lies Smoldering On U.S. House Floor – President’s Own Budget Shot Down Last Month Without A Single Vote In Favor

WASHINGTON, DC – The Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction plan went down to a crushing defeat in the House late Wednesday night in a vote that damages the one bipartisan proposal that just a few months ago had seemed like a possible solution to the country’s debt woes.

The 382-38 defeat, with just 16 Republicans and 22 Democrats voting for it, marks a bad end to what began nearly two years ago, when President Obama tapped former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, a Democrat, and former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican, to lead a deficit-reduction committee.

Their report has popped up in every deficit discussion since then, but had never gotten a vote in either chamber until this week, when opponents prevailed.

“This doesn’t go big. This doesn’t tackle the problem. This doesn’t do the big things,” said Rep. Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Budget Committee. “You can never get the debt under control if you don’t deal with our health care entitlement programs.”

The debate came as the House worked its way through its fiscal year 2013 budget plan, which Mr. Ryan wrote.
The Bowles-Simpson plan was offered as an alternative on the chamber floor.

Minutes earlier, the House also defeated Mr. Obama’s own budget, submitted last month, on a 414-0 vote arranged by Republicans to embarrass the president and officially shelve his plan.

“It’s not a charade. It’s not a gimmick — unless what the president sent us is the same,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a freshman Republican from South Carolina who sponsored Mr. Obama’s proposal for purposes of the debate. “I would encourage the Democrats to embrace this landmark Democrat document and support it. Personally, I will be voting against it.”

The House also defeated an alternative offered by the Congressional Black Caucus that would have included $4 trillion in additional tax increases on top of those Mr. Obama proposed, and used that money to boost spending on domestic programs. That plan was killed 314-107.

But the Bowles-Simpson plan was the most anticipated vote of the evening, earning its first-ever vote in either chamber.

“There’s a consensus in america we have to reduce our deficit,” said Rep. Rob Andrews, New Jersey Democrat.

“Most of it should be by cutting spending, and some of it should be in revenue contribution by the wealthiest Americans.”

The plan was sponsored by Rep. Jim Cooper, Tennessee Democrat, and Rep. Steve LaTourette, Ohio Republican, and was backed by Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson, who said it faithfully represented their goals.

But it was attacked by those on both ends of the political spectrum, leaving the two chief sponsors to defend themselves. Mr. LaTourette listed a series of attacks he said were untrue, adding after each: “False. Your pants are on fire.”

Rep. Charlie Bass, New Hampshire Republican, said he also supports House Republicans’ budget but said that plan doesn’t have a chance in the Senate, and without a final agreement on a congressional budget it will make it impossible to agree to spending limits and extending the Bush-era tax cuts.

“Compromise is not a capitulation of principle,” Mr. Bass said.

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US Secret Service Pisses Away Tax Dollars Trying To ID Woman Who Said “Pretend Its Obama” While Candidate Was Firing Pistol At Target On Shooting Range

WEST MONROE, LOUISIANA – Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Friday that he will support the eventual GOP nominee, if it isn’t him, despite what he insists are similarities between front-runner Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama that make them indistinguishable on some issues.

“I will support whoever wins the Republican primary to beat Barack Obama,” Santorum told supporters at a police gun range in northern Louisiana.

Poised to do well in Louisiana’s primary Saturday, Santorum sought to explain his comment Thursday in Texas that Romney and Obama are so similar on the issues that Republicans might just as well vote to give the president a second term instead of casting their ballots for Romney.

Santorum argues that he is the only Republican candidate who can offer voters a stark contrast with Obama.

After testing his marksmanship with a .45 caliber semiautomatic Colt pistol, Santorum told reporters: “If you don’t have a choice, then a lot of voters are going to vote for what they have. That’s why we have to have a choice.”

“I’ve said repeatedly and will continue to say, I’ll vote for whoever the Republican nominee is and I will work for him,” he added. “Barack Obama is a disaster, but we can’t have someone who agrees with him on some of the biggest issues of the day.”

While Santorum tamped down one fire, a supporter in the audience added an off-message wrinkle. As he fired the pistol, a woman in the crowd shouted: “Pretend it’s Obama.”

Santorum was wearing protective ear muffs. He said later that he didn’t hear the remark but denounced it as “absurd.”

“It’s a very terrible and horrible remark and I’m glad I didn’t hear it,” he said.

The Secret Service, which provides security for Santorum, was trying to identify the woman.

“Typically, in an incident like this, we attempt to identify the individual, speak to them and then figure out what the next steps are,” said spokesman Edwin Donovan. “People have a right to free speech but we have a right and an obligation to determine what their intent is.”

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Painting Says It All

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Keep Spending: Public Debt Explodes Under Obama “Leadership” – Reaches Record Highs With No End In Sight

WASHINGTON, DC – The Congressional Budget Office said Friday that President Barack Obama’s tax and spending policies will yield $6.4 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than double the shortfall in CBO’s own fiscal baseline — even after taking credit for reduced war costs.

House Republicans, slated to unveil their own plan next week, are sure to seize on the numbers, yet the mountain of data gives reason for both parties to pause going into what’s expected to be a major fiscal crisis after the November elections.

The GOP has been quick to fault Obama for excess spending. But more than three-quarters of the $3.5 trillion in added red ink can be explained by what is still a rich diet of tax breaks continued by the president — but not under the CBO’s baseline.

(See also: CBO’s estimate of repealing IPAB is a head-scratcher)

Indeed, in the case of discretionary appropriations, CBO scores the president as coming in about $4 billion under the $1.047 trillion target set by the Budget Control Act last summer. And within these confines, the biggest discrepancy is that his budget is $2 billion over the caps for security programs at the expense of domestic priorities.

Administration officials Friday took heart that CBO credited Obama’s plan with bringing future deficits down to 3 percent of GDP. In fact, the $6.4 trillion cumulative 10-year shortfall shown by CBO is under the $6.7 trillion forecast by the White House in its own documents in February. And measured against a rough proxy for current policy, the report lends at least partial support to the White House claim of up to $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years.

“CBO found that by 2016 deficits as a share of the economy would be below 3 percent – a key milestone of fiscal sustainability,” said Jeff Zients, director of the Office of Management and Budget. “It found that after implementing the president’s budget, debt held by the public will decrease and then stabilize as a share of the economy, also a key indicator of improving fiscal health.”

But all these deficit reduction numbers come with some important caveats regarding how to treat hundreds of billions in war savings as well as automatic spending cuts due to take effect in January. And even if Obama were to get his way on all fronts, the outlook remains grim.

The federal debt held by the public would still nearly double again from $10.1 trillion at the end of 2011 to $18.8 trillion at the end of 2022. For the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, CBO is now projecting a shortfall of $1.3 trillion. In fiscal 2013, the deficit will still hover near the $1 trillion mark — about $977 billion. And while it will fall to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2017, it then begins to grow again to 3 percent of GDP by 2022.

To be sure, CBO’s baseline isn’t perfect as a standard against which to measure fiscal decisions.

The nonpartisan office is bound by rules that require it to assume that all of the Bush-era tax cuts will end in December, for example. At the same time, it must build-in spending assumptions that major health programs like Medicare and Medicaid continue to grow unchecked.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is determined to bend this spending curve and shows every sign of wanting to renew his call next week for historic, long-range changes in both healthcare programs. At the same time, Republican presidential candidates are demanding still greater tax cuts than even former President George W. Bush envisioned and this complicates any hope of producing substantial deficit reduction.

For example, CBO estimates that Obama’s budget will cut revenues by $2.35 trillion below its baseline, but that assumes he also gets about $1 trillion in tax increases that many in the GOP oppose. Not counted in these totals is another $366 billion in refundable tax credits, which CBO scores as outlays on a separate table.

Altogether, in fact, the disparities between the CBO baseline and Obama’s budget on the spending side are much smaller. The administration appears to benefit from several technical assumptions used in the scoring, and CBO gives Obama $810 billion in credit for savings attributed to pulling troops out of Iraq and future reductions in Afghanistan.

At the same time the president is “charged” $979 billion for his budget’s assumption that across-the-board cuts can be forestalled in January. But even with this, the real added spending in his budget has more to do with interest on the mounting debt than any new initiative.

“Today’s analysis serves as a disappointing reminder of this administration’s broken promises and failed leadership when it comes to averting the most predictable economic crisis in our history,” Ryan said in response to the CBO numbers. “When it comes to our generation’s greatest challenges, the President refuses to take accountability or demonstrate much-needed leadership.”

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Obama Re-Election Fears Drive Citizens To Buy Guns And Ammunition – Simiar To Spike In Sales After His 2008 Election

TEXAS – Gun sales are booming across Texas, and some buyers say their growing belief that President Barack Obama’s re-election is inevitable is fueling their race to bear more arms.

So brisk have sales been that the rush has created a nationwide shortage of firearms and ammunition, the Star-Telegram reports. Fort Worth gun shop owner DeWayne Irwin said the rush is similar to one seen shortly after the president’s 2008 election.

Alan Korwin, author of nine books on gun laws and operator of a gun laws website, tells the Star-Telegram that some are worried that Obama’s re-election would embolden a major gun control push.

Korwin said people worry that if Obama wins “he will go after firearms in a way we have never seen before.” He added the belief is fueled by perceived disarray in the field of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

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