Author Topic: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)  (Read 58917 times)

guest118

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #30 on: April 16, 2014, 05:36:54 pm »
"I strongly disagree.  The biggest problem is that it is a major step toward socialism and a massive expansion of the power of government.  The problems with its cost are insignificant in comparison."

True that. 100%

otto105

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #31 on: April 16, 2014, 07:17:15 pm »
The long-awaited Rand Corp. study of Obamacare's effect on health insurance coverage was released Tuesday and confirmed the numbers that had been telegraphed for more than a week: At least 9.3 million more Americans have health insurance now than in September 2013, virtually all of them as a result of the law.


That's a net figure, accommodating all those who lost their individual health insurance because of cancellations. The Rand study confirms other surveys that placed the number of people who lost their old insurance and did not or could not replace it -- the focus of an enormous volume of anti-Obamacare rhetoric -- at less than 1 million. The Rand experts call this a "very small" number, less than 1% of the U.S. population age 18 to 64.

The Rand study was eagerly anticipated in part because of the dearth of hard information from other sources, including the federal and state governments, which are still compiling their statistics and may not have a full slate for months.


Rand acknowledges that its figures have limitations -- they're based on a survey sampling, meaning that the breakdowns are subject to various margins of error, and they don't include much of the surge in enrollments in late March and early April. Those 3.2-million sign-ups not counted by Rand could "dramatically affect" the figures on total insureds, the organization said.

A few other important takeaways:

--The number of people getting insurance through their employers increased by 8.2 million. Rand said the increase is likely to have been driven by a decline in unemployment, which made more people eligible for employer plans, and by the incentives in the Affordable Care Act encouraging more employer coverage. The figure certainly undermines the contention by the healthcare law's critics that the legislation gave employers an incentive to drop coverage.

--Of the 3.9 million people counted by Rand as obtaining insurance on the individual exchange market, 36% were previously uninsured. That ratio is expected to rise when the late signups are factored in. Medicaid enrollment increased by 5.9 million, the majority of whom did not have insurance before signing up.

--These figures are only the leading edge of a long-term trend. "It's still early in the life of the ACA," Rand said. Its experts expect more enrollments "as people become more familiar with the law, the individual mandates increase to their highest levels, the employer mandate kicks in, and other changes occur." But their bottom line is that the law already has led to "a substantial increase in insurance coverage."



http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-rand-20140408,0,6208659.column#ixzz2z67iGVpB




Enjoy that beerflabby

Pekin

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #32 on: April 16, 2014, 09:05:25 pm »
Bullshit!

Do you ever get tired of carrying the water for this administration?  The law is a disaster as is this administration.

Keysbear

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #33 on: April 16, 2014, 09:14:56 pm »
He's posted that same article at least 3 times. He's running out of material. Can't wait to hear  the whining from all the people who used to go to the emergency room for free now show up there and find out that they owe $200 or more for the ER co-pay.

otto105

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #34 on: April 16, 2014, 09:19:01 pm »
Ignorant wingbutts


Its a Rand Corp study of the PPACA, not a press release from the Administration.


Idiots.

Keysbear

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #35 on: April 16, 2014, 09:35:58 pm »
Rand Corporation calls itself independent but as they say...follow the money. Interesting article showing political contributions of "think tank" employees including Rand.

Rand employees donations between 2003-2010  91.20% to democrats vs 8.80% to republicans. Why would anyone be skeptical about the results of the survey?


http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/03/03/think-tank-employees-tend-to-support-democrats

However, employee contributions from some of the top moderate think tanks skew decidedly to the left. For example, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the RAND Corporation, two of the policy institutes with the most generous employees, have 84 percent and 91 percent Democratic giving records, respectively. The two think tanks with the most bipartisan spread of campaign contributions--the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Institute--still have seen more than two-thirds of their employees' reported contributions going toward Democrats and liberal PACs since 2003. Even employees of the Congressional Research Service, sometimes called "Congress' think tank," have given 100 percent of their donations since 2003 to Democratic candidates and committees.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2014, 10:12:21 pm by Keysbear »

Jackiejokeman

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #36 on: April 17, 2014, 12:07:27 am »
 
 Who started the Rand Corporation ? Yer gonna **** when you find out.
 
 Look it up.
 
 As far as the 29 aircraft pics go ... Im gonna post them, may take some time ...  ;D
 
 Just to let all of us know who died so that we can do this.  >:(

Jackiejokeman

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #37 on: April 17, 2014, 01:21:00 am »
 
 
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Yahoo's recently fired chief operating officer, Henrique de Castro, left the Internet company with a severance package of $58 million even though he lasted just 15 months on the job.
 
 The disclosure in a regulatory filing Wednesday may lead to more second-guessing about Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to hire de Castro as her second-in-command in October 2012.
 
 Mayer dumped de Castro in January after concluding he wasn't executing on her plan for reviving Yahoo's lackluster ad growth. De Castro had been in charge of ad sales.
 
 "Ultimately, Henrique was not a fit and that's a very regrettable conclusion," Mayer told analysts in late January. "And it's a conclusion that we tried very hard to avoid, but it was the right decision in the end for the company." After making the expensive mistake, Mayer has said she won't pick another chief operating officer.
 
 De Castro's severance pay more than doubled the amount that Yahoo paid Mayer last year. Mayer's compensation was valued at $24.9 million, a 32 percent decline from the previous year. The decrease stemmed primarily from a stock award of $35 million that she received in July 2012 when Yahoo persuaded her to leave her previous job as a top Google Inc. executive to become its CEO.
 
 Yahoo Inc. previously disclosed de Castro would be getting a severance package, but didn't reveal the amount until Wednesday.
 
 The company's board said most of the severance stemmed from the costs of luring de Castro from his previous job at Google. Like many other senior Google executives, de Castro would have received millions in stock by staying at the company. That prompted Yahoo to make up for some of the Google awards he had to relinquish when he defected.
 
 "The board believed at the time Mr. de Castro was hired that he had a unique set of highly valuable skills and experiences that would be key to returning the company to long-term growth and success," Yahoo's compensation committee said in its defense of de Castro's severance pay.
 
 The compensation committee ended up having such a dim view of de Castro's performance in 2013 that it decided not to give him a bonus, according to Wednesday's filing. He was eligible for a bonus of up to $540,000, or 90 percent of the $600,000 salary that he received last year.
 
 De Castro's severance package wouldn't have been worth nearly as much if Yahoo's stock hadn't more than doubled during de Castro's brief tenure with the company.
 
 But those gains had little to do with the managerial acumen of de Castro, Mayer or any other Yahoo executives.
 
 Analysts trace almost all the increase in Yahoo's stock price to the company's 24 percent stake in China's Alibaba Group, which is running some of the world's fastest-growing and most-profitable e-commerce sites. Alibaba is planning to go public on the New York Stock Exchange and when that happens, Yahoo will be able to reap a multibillion dollar windfall from its holdings in the company.
 
 Yahoo's own business remains in a funk. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company's revenue, minus ad commissions, dipped 1 percent last year. Advertising sales showed some signs of modest improvement during the first three months of this year, but Yahoo is still lagging the overall growth of Internet marketing.
 
 Had Yahoo's stock price remained at roughly the same level as when de Castro joined the company, his severance package value would have been worth about $17 million.
 
 Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

chifaninva

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #38 on: April 17, 2014, 05:00:21 am »
Rand employees donations between 2003-2010  91.20% to democrats vs 8.80% to republicans. Why would anyone be skeptical about the results of the survey?

Who couldn't trust them? LOL!!!

WshflThinking

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #39 on: April 17, 2014, 07:13:42 am »
No IRS scandal? Its all Issa's fault? NO, its coming out and its going to explode.



How High Does It Go?: New Emails Could Implicate Holder’s DOJ In IRS Targeting Of Conservatives


April 17, 2014 by Sam Rolley 

How High Does It Go?: New Emails Could Implicate Holder’s DOJ In IRS Targeting Of Conservatives
 
New emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit indicate that former Internal Revenues Service official Lois Lerner’s targeting of conservative groups was part of a broader assault on right-leaning groups by other Federal agencies.

The emails, obtained by Judicial Watch, reveal communication between Lerner and Justice Department officials regarding the possibility of prosecuting tax-exempt groups for making “false statements.” The email exchange took place just days before Lerner was forced to apologize for the IRS’s unfair targeting of conservatives.

In a May 8 email to Nikole C. Flax, former chief of staff to former-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller, Lerner wrote:


I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ … He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who “lied” on their 1024s –saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs. I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS …”

Lerner, who was heading up the IRS’s tax-exempt organizations division at the time, was referencing suggestions Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) made during a Senate hearing on campaign finance last April.

In a reply, Flax said, “I think we should do it — also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate.” She went on to suggest that the IRS should partner in the undertaking with the Federal Elections Commission.

In a later email to top IRS staff, Lerner sought to alleviate any concern that the targeting was politically motivated:


As I mentioned yesterday — there are several groups of folks from the FEC world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are). One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn’t feel so comfortable doing the stuff.

So, don’t be fooled about how this is being articulated — it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity

In other emails, however, Lerner acknowledged that the finding a legal means for the prosecutions would be difficult.

The emails largely serve to indicate that in the days leading up to inevitable bad press about the Federal government using the IRS to bully conservatives, top government officials were working feverishly to manufacture evidence that the targeting was justified via criminal prosecution.

They also provide evidence that Attorney General Eric Holder’s DOJ was well-aware of the targeting.

As House Republicans continue to in attempts to get more information about the extent of the IRS targeting, the newly released emails will likely be a major help to Congressional investigators.

“These new emails show that the day before she broke the news of the IRS scandal, Lois Lerner was talking to a top Obama Justice Department official about whether the DOJ could prosecute the very same organizations that the IRS had already improperly targeted,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “The IRS emails show Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is now implicated and conflicted in the IRS scandal. No wonder we had to sue in federal court to get these documents.”

WshflThinking

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #40 on: April 17, 2014, 07:27:36 am »
Rand Paul Questions Number Of Armed Federal Agents, Criticizes Government Treatment Of Rancher


April 16, 2014 by Sam Rolley 


Rand Paul Questions Number Of Armed Federal Agents, Criticizes Government Treatment Of Rancher
 
While many GOP politicians remain mum on the Federal response to Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s refusal to pay grazing fees, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) criticized the government’s actions this week.

During a radio interview, Paul called out Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and questioned why the government has so many armed personnel.

After a tense standoff between Federal agents and Bundy supporters, some of whom were armed, culminated in the government backing down and releasing the rancher’s livestock, Reid said Monday that the standoff is far from over.

“Well, it’s not over,” Reid told KRNV. “We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over.”

American citizens shouldn’t violate the law, Paul agreed— however, the government shouldn’t either.

“I think there’s an opposite thing to what Harry Reid said, and that’s the federal government shouldn’t violate the law, nor should we have 48 Federal agencies carrying weapons and having SWAT teams,” Paul said Tuesday in a radio interview with the Kentucky-based WHAS.

The lawmaker went on to say that the disputed land, which the Bundy family had leased from the county before a Federal takeover, should be returned to local control—a goal he believes can be best achieved in court.

“Can everybody decide what the law is on their own? No, there has to be a legal process,” he said. “But I think there is definitely a philosophic debate over who should own the land.

“I hope it’ll go through a court. But if it were in a court, I would be siding and wanting to say that look, the States and the individuals in the State should own these lands,” he continued.

WshflThinking

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #41 on: April 17, 2014, 07:52:59 am »
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/justice-department-emails-probe/2014/04/16/id/566075/?ns_mail_uid=25462434&ns_mail_job=1564835_04172014&promo_code=fjeuhogr


Report: Emails Show Justice Dept. Involved in IRS Tea Party Probe
 
Image: Report: Emails Show Justice Dept. Involved in IRS Tea Party Probe 
 

Wednesday, 16 Apr 2014 07:01 PM

By Todd Beamon

Embattled former IRS official Lois Lerner last year discussed working with the Justice Department to prosecute nonprofit organizations that she felt had "lied" about their political activities, according to new documents released on Wednesday by Judicial Watch about the agency's targeting of conservative groups.

The new documents show Lerner's communications with Justice within days of publicly acknowledging that the Internal Revenue Service was singling out tea party, conservative, and religious groups.

 They also indicate that the targeting may have reached further into the Obama White House despite Lerner's original assertions that it was all based out of the agency's Cincinnati field office.

In a May 8 email, for instance, Lerner said that she had received a call from Richard Pilger, director of the elections crimes unit at Justice.

 Pilger asked whether the IRS could help the department "piece together false statement cases about applicants who 'lied'" on a particular IRS form, "saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures.

 "DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs," Lerner said in the email.

 "I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS…," she said.

 Lerner wrote the email to Nikole Flax, who was chief of staff at the time to Steven Miller, who was the acting IRS commissioner.

 She responded in an email the next day: "I think we should do it -- also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to [Federal Election Commission]. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?"

 Lerner, who retired last September, oversaw the unit that evaluated applications for tax-exempt status. Miller was fired because of the scandal, and Flax has reportedly been targeted by congressional investigators.

 Judicial Watch said on Wednesday that it had obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed last October. The watchdog group has sought documents showing how the IRS had targeted the groups between 2010 and the 2012 presidential election.

 Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the IRS failed to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to last May.

 "These new emails show that the day before she broke the news of the IRS scandal, Lois Lerner was talking to a top Obama Justice Department official about whether the DOJ could prosecute the very same organizations that the IRS had already improperly targeted," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. "The IRS emails show Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is now implicated and conflicted in the IRS scandal."

 Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that has been investigating the scandal, said the new emails underscored "the political nature of IRS tea party targeting and the extent to which supposed apolitical officials took direction from elected Democrats.

 "These e-mails are part of an overwhelming body of evidence that political pressure from prominent Democrats led to the targeting of Americans for their political beliefs," the California Republican said in a statement.

 "Now I see why the IRS is scared to give up the rest of Lois Lerner's emails,” Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan said in a statement.

 The documents "further prove the coordination among the IRS, the Federal Election Commission, the Justice Department and committee Democrats to target conservatives," he said.

 Jordan added that had the oversight panel not become involved, "Eric Holder’s politicized Justice Department would likely have been leveling trumped-up criminal charges against tea party groups to intimidate them from exercising their Constitutional rights."

 President Barack Obama has denied GOP charges that the targeting of the groups was politically motivated or illegal, telling Fox News in February that "not even a smidgen of corruption" was involved in the specialized screening.

 In addition, emails Issa's panel released last week showed that staff members of the oversight committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, had shared information with the IRS that effectively led the agency to investigate True the Vote after the group filed its application for tax-exempt status in 2010.

 Cummings did not disclose any of those dealings with oversight committee Republicans, Issa charged.

In a March 27 email, Lerner told IRS staffers about an April 9 2013, hearing — and the document also suggests that the other Obama administration departments might have been targeting the conservative groups.

 The tax-exempt status the groups were seeking was 501(c)(4), which allows them to keep their donors private.

 "There are several groups of folks from the FEC world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are)," Lerner wrote in the email.

 "One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former general counsel at the the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform," she added.

 "This is their latest push to shut these down.

 "One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn't feel so comfortable doing the stuff," Lerner said. "So, don't be fooled about how this is being articulated — it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity."

 Lerner ignited the controversy last May when she disclosed the scandal in response to a question asked at a conference in Chicago.

 Her response came just before the Treasury Department's inspector general released a report disclosing the targeting.

 President Obama fired Miller — and at least three other IRS workers have been placed on put on administrative leave.

 In testimony before the oversight committee, Lerner has twice invoked the Fifth Amendment, though she has denied wrongdoing. The panel voted last week to hold her in contempt for her refusals.

 If the full House finds Lerner in contempt, the matter would be referred to federal prosecutors.




WshflThinking

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #42 on: April 17, 2014, 08:08:54 am »
Rep. Blackburn on Idea of Sebelius as Senator: Hah!

Thursday, 17 Apr 2014 06:37 AM


There's no way Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius can win a Senate seat, Rep. Marsha Blackburn says.

 Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, was stunned at reports that Sebelius — widely blamed for the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act — is mulling a run for U.S. Senate in Kansas.

 "I cannot imagine that she could think she could go back to Kansas after, as she said, she was responsible for the debacle of the HealthCare.gov rollout," Blackburn told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

 "I cannot imagine her saying, 'I'm going to go put my name on the ballot.' That would be a seat that a Republican would certainly win," Blackburn said Wednesday.

 Blackburn is also concerned by a new report from Judicial Watch that indicates former IRS official Lois Lerner wanted to sic the Justice Department on conservative groups the IRS was targeting.

 "It shows a complete disregard for the ethics and integrity of what they are sworn to do and supposed to do with the IRS," said Blackburn, who is vice chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

 "It's supposed to be an independent agency free of political pressures and implications, and what we have seen is that they have gone about politicizing lots of agencies, whether it is CMS or HHS or the ETA or the IRS or Fish and Wildlife, you name it," she said.

 "Look at the amount of overreach and inappropriate activity that has taken place by taking the federal government and using it as a weapon against our fellow citizens, and we're seeing it across the board."

WshflThinking

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #43 on: April 17, 2014, 08:12:52 am »
That has to be the biggest joke of the year.

Maybe she should hire our Oddo to be her campaign manager. That might be even funnier.

WshflThinking

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc. (4.15.14 - 9.10.15)
« Reply #44 on: April 17, 2014, 08:15:45 am »
OTOH Oddo would likely lose his welfare checks if he took the job. NO......he'd whine to Obama who would fix it so he could take the job and still keep his welfare money. Obama can fix anything