Judicial Watch Statement on the Potential Violation of Law in President Obama’s Proposed Expansion of DACA

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding potential criminal and civil violations of law in the implementation of President Obama’s executive actions for immigration, which may be in violation of the Antideficiency Act:

“Judicial Watch calls upon Congress, its committees, or its members to request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigate, analyze, and opine on the following issues:

“Whether Congress has specifically appropriated the funds or has specifically authorized the assessment of fees necessary for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to implement the plans to extend Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA) and establish Deferred Action to Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA);

“To the extent no funds have been specifically appropriated, whether USCIS is using funds appropriated, including any monies raised by fees assessed by USCIS, for a different, designated purpose to fund the implementation the plans to extend DACA and establish DAPA;

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-statement-on-the-potential-violation-of-law-in-president-obamas-proposed-expansion-of-daca/

Why is Hillary Clinton paying women only 72 cents for every dollar she pays men?

Part of the hoped for winning strategy for Hillary Clinton's hypothetical presidential run is to focus on disgruntled women who think they should be paid more. (OK, they probably should.  And so should men.)  Hammering on the myth that women are paid 72 cents (or 77 cents) for every dollar men earn and hyping multi millionaire Patricia Arquette's Oscar winning plea for more money for women with support from other multi millionaire Hollywood women--and men--is probably being worked on as you read.    Hints of this emerged last Tuesday at a Silicon Valley tech conference where Clinton stated, earning her $300,000 fee, “I think we all cheered Patricia Arquette’s speech at the Oscars, because she’s right — it’s time to have wage equality,”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/02/why_is_hillary_clinton_paying_women_only_72_cents_for_every_dollar_she_pays_men.html

Government Takeover of the Internet Begins

In a vote along party lines, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved what amounts to a government takeover of the Internet. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his fellow Democrats, Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, approved placing the Internet under Title II regulations. They will reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, and regulate Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like utility companies, or “common carriers,” rather than “information services” that remain outside the agency’s regulatory power. Republican commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly dissented, with Pai explaining that net neutrality is “a solution that won’t work to a problem that doesn’t exist.”

The arrogance of Wheeler and his allies has been evident for some time. The 332-page proposal they approved was never made available to the public or Congress prior to the vote, even as Wheeler ignored pleas by Pai and O’Rielly to do so. “We respectfully request that FCC leadership immediately release the 332-page Internet regulation plan publicly and allow the American people a reasonable period of not less than 30 days to carefully study it,” they said in a statement released Monday.

 

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/arnold-ahlert/government-takeover-of-the-internet-begins/ 

The US recovery story is a fraud: SocGen bear

Societe Generale's notoriously bearish strategist, Albert Edwards, has poured scorn on the belief that the U.S. economy is recovering and predicts "violent" reactions in asset markets during the second half of 2015.

"The downturn in U.S. profits is accelerating and it is not just an energy or U.S. dollar phenomenon – a broad swathe of U.S. economic data has disappointed in February," he said in a research note published Thursday.

U.S. indexes have continued to hit all-time highs this year and the Nasdaq is also looking to break through a level last seen at the peak of the tech bubble in 2000.
However, Edwards said that, rather than concentrating on these corporate earnings or dismal economic data points, market participants were too focused on the "pillow talk" about decent payroll data from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102458578?__source=yahoo|finance|headline|headline|story&par=yahoo&doc=102458578#. 

Investigators find 32,000 emails in IRS probe

Investigators said Thursday they have recovered 32,000 emails related to a former IRS official at the heart of the agency's tea party scandal.

But they don't know how many of them are new.

The emails were to and from Lois Lerner, who used to head the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. Last June, the IRS told Congress it had lost an unknown number of Lerner's emails when her computer hard drive crashed in 2011.

At the time, IRS officials said the emails could not be recovered. But at a congressional hearing Thursday evening, investigators said they recovered thousands of emails from old computer tapes used to back up the agency's email system.

"We recovered quite a number of emails but until we compare those to what's already been produced we don't know if they're new emails," Timothy Camus, a Treasury deputy inspector general for tax administration, told the House Oversight Committee.

http://news.yahoo.com/investigators-32-000-emails-irs-probe-014144302--politics.html 

There’s more to oil’s plunge than record-high supplies

Some blamed crude-oil’s decline Thursday on the record-high supplies in the U.S. But there is a little more to it than that.
True, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Wednesday a seventh straight weekly climb in crude inventories to their “highest level for this time of year in at least the last 80 years.”
But prices for crude that day on the New York Mercantile Exchange actually rallied by 3.5%, with analysts considering whether prices have bottomed and fretting over the declines in petroleum-product stockpiles.
On Thursday, April crude CLJ5, +2.16%  on Nymex lost 5.5% to settle at $48.17 a barrel, its lowest settlement in nearly a month.
So why did prices fall?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/theres-more-to-oils-thursday-plunge-than-record-high-supplies-2015-02-26?siteid=yhoof2 

Whoops! The Department of Justice Admits That It Misunderstood U.S. Citizenship Law

We all know that immigration law is complicated. We all know that human beings make mistakes. What we don't expect is that our government can't figure out who its own citizens are. But time and time again, the government disappoints. The latest culprit is the Department of Justice (DOJ), which employs the most powerful attorneys in the country.
The DOJ has the authority to issue deportation orders. In a recent decision, the DOJ admitted that it has been misinterpreting certain citizenship statutes since 2008. As a consequence, DOJ officers have been incorrectly ordering U.S. citizens deported.
The DOJ's error involved what is known as "derivative citizenship." If a parent naturalizes while a child is under 18, the child automatically becomes a citizen, if some other conditions are met. For example, if a father naturalizes, his out-of-wedlock children must be "legitimated" to derive citizenship.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-murraytjan/whoops-the-department-of_b_6763514.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592 

What if the Government Fears Freedom?

What if the current massive spying on Americans began with an innocent secret executive order signed by President Reagan in 1986? What if Reagan contemplated that he was only authorizing American spies to spy on foreign spies unlawfully present in the U.S.?

What if Reagan knew and respected the history of the Fourth Amendment? What if the essence of that history is the colonial revulsion at the British use of general warrants? What if general warrants were issued by a secret court in London and authorized British agents in America to search wherever they wished and to seize whatever they found? What if the revulsion at this British government practice was so overwhelming that it led to the Revolutionary War against the king?

What if the whole purpose of the Fourth Amendment was to outlaw general warrants? What if the Fourth Amendment specifically guarantees the right to privacy to all in America in their persons, houses, papers and effects?

http://townhall.com/columnists/judgeandrewnapolitano/2015/02/26/what-if-the-government-fears-freedom-n1962387

Greenpeace: The roots of Climate Smear

A brief word of explanation about the first part of that title, it’s a variation of the “Resist, we much” teleprompter reading gaffe by the Reverend Al Sharpton, where he meant to say “Resist, we must” on his TV show. It lends itself to a variety of other overblown political situations which beg for a “Sharptonism” parody. The latest instances where Boston Globe, New York Times, and Washington Post articles cited Kert Davies’ supposedly damaging documents (screencaptures here, here and here), in an effort to trash skeptic climate scientist Dr Willie Soon, invites exactly that kind of parody.

Funny how none of those publications bothers to mention (hiding appearances of bias, we much?) Davies’ former position as Greenpeace’s Research Director.

Regarding the Washington Post article in particular, the comical aspect of it is how the late WashPo editor Ben Bradlee must be spinning in his grave at the sight of Chris Mooney as its author – Mooney being nothing like the thorough reporters who investigated the Watergate scandal under Bradlee’s command, but is instead apparently too much in love with Ross Gelbspan’s ‘industry-corrupt skeptic climate scientists’ accusation, as I described in my 2011 WUWT guest post. Conspicuous by its absence in Mooney’s WashPo bio is his association with Desmogblog, the anti-skeptic site built around the works of Ross Gelbspan.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/26/the-origin-of-climate-smear/

The FCC Just Voted to Regulate the Internet Like a Utility

In a 3-2 vote today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to radically overhaul the way Internet service is regulated. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and the commission’s two Democratic commissioners voted to move forward with the rules. The agency’s two GOP-appointed commissioners opposed them.

Under the new rules, broadband providers, long classified by the agency as Title I information services, will now be regulated as Title II telecommunications services—essentially making them public utilities, like the phone system. The move is designed to allow the FCC to implement strict net neutrality rules limiting how much control Internet service providers (ISPs) can exert over what passes over their networks.

Today’s vote is the result of a lengthy process begun by Chairman Wheeler roughly a year ago, and that process came in the wake of two previous efforts in which the agency’s net neutrality rules were struck down in court. But the end result of the vote was largely set near the end of last year, when President Obama released a statement calling for the agency to implement the strongest possible net neutrality rules.

http://reason.com/blog/2015/02/26/the-fcc-just-voted-to-regulate-the-inter

Feds Dismiss Google's Fears Over FBI’s Hacking Power

The Justice Department is firing back at Google for asserting that a plan to expand the FBI's hacking authority represents a "monumental" constitutional concern.

In a stinging rebuttal submitted this week, DOJ castigated Google, claiming that the search giant is misreading its proposal that would give judges more flexibility in how they can approve search warrants for electronic data.

"The criticisms appear to misunderstand what is at stake in the proposal," Deputy Assistant Attorney General David Bitkower wrote. "As the department has repeatedly emphasized, the proposal would not authorize the government to undertake any search or seizure or use any remote search technique not already permitted under current law."

Google's concerns, Bitkower concluded, are "premised on incorrect understandings of what the proposal would actually authorize or of current law."

Bitkower's reply is an attempt to answer concerns Google raised this month about the government's little-noticed attempt to change an arcane federal rule by petitioning a judicial advisory panel. Known as Rule 41 of the federal rules of criminal procedure, the provision generally allows judges to grant search warrants only within the geographic bounds of their judicial district.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/feds-dismiss-google-s-fears-over-fbi-s-hacking-power-20150226

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN

We all know — and are still suffering for — the fact that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was defeated by an incumbent who had (and continues to have) abysmal approval ratings while presiding over an economy that is leaving millions of Americans living a nightmare rather than the American Dream.

Prior to the 2012 election, polls, reporters and pundits across the political spectrum pointed out how Barack Obama was vulnerable. That conversation, as true as it was, neglected the weaknesses of Mr. Romney, which were further magnified to the point of caricature by the Obama machine and its useful pawns in the “mainstream” media.

When it comes to 2016, it is becoming increasingly likely that we’ll see a mirror image of this play out to the benefit of the GOP.

Let’s go over some of the main weaknesses of candidate Romney as over-analyzed in the pre- and post-mortems of the 2012 election:

http://spectator.org/articles/61878/déjà-vu-all-over-again

FCC readies vote on government takeover of internet

The Federal Communications Commission will vote today on whether to classify the internet as a "utility" for purposes of regulating net neutrality. The new regulations will clear the way for government domination of the internet and could radically alter the fundamental manner in which the internet operates.

The Hill:

For supporters, the new net neutrality rules will provide the clearest restrictions to prevent Comcast, Verizon and other Internet service providers from interfering with people’s access to view any website or online service they choose.
“We’re on the eve of a historic event at the FCC,” Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) said during a Wednesday morning hearing on the rules. “Tomorrow, the commission is set to put into place what will be the strongest Internet protections consumers have ever had.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/02/fcc_readies_vote_on_government_takeover_of_internet.html#ixzz3Ssxdw3gQ

Judicial Watch Forces Obama Administration to Release Pentagon Benghazi Attack Documents

Judicial Watch announced today that the Obama administration finally turned over hundreds of pages of documents about the military response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound and other facilities in Benghazi.  The documents, which are heavily blacked out (redacted), confirm that the U.S. Military, through its U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) drafted orders for a military response to the attack, specifically “to protect vital naval and national assets.”  Other documents suggest that the military, hours after the attack, tied the assault to a group supporting “an Islamic state” that wanted to attack U.S. interests in Libya in retaliation for a drone strike on an al-Qaeda leader.

The Pentagon produced a total of 486 pages in response to a federal court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit Judicial Watch filed against the U.S. Department of Defense asking for “any and all” records produced by the U.S. Africa Command Operations Center concerning the terrorist attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia on September 4, 2014, (Judicial Watch v. Department of Defense (No. 1:14-cv-01508)).  Almost all of the documents had been previously classified as secret, and the Defense Department has redacted a large percentage of the material in order to protect “military plans and operations,” “intelligence” activities, and other exemptions.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-forces-obama-administration-release-pentagon-benghazi-attack-documents/

Yellen Defies Congress, Defends Greenspanian General Counsel Scott Alvarez After Elizabeth Warren Grilling

Elizabeth Warren subjected Fed chairman Janet Yellen to one of her fiercest interrogations ever in Congressional hearings yesterday. The Massachusetts senator has taken note of how the Board of Governors’ general counsel and Greenspan-era holdover Scott Alvarez exerts outsized influence at the Fed, to the detriment of regulatory reform. As Matt Stoller wrote in an in-depth post on Alvarez last October:

Alvarez is a regulatory specialist who controls the bulk of the legal expertise in the Fed, whereas Yellen is a macroeconomist who doesn’t know regulations that well. Alvarez’s institutional opponent is Fed Governor Dan Tarullo, and Tarullo as a single Governor doesn’t have the resources to fight the entire Fed legal staff. So Alvarez is likely to continue to win. In other words, what Yellen really needs to do to put her stamp on the Fed is to fire Alvarez and replace him with someone who actually sees the legal mandate of the Fed in the context of the institution’s recent failures. Alvarez is simply too wedded to Greenspan’s legacy to do so; he is incapable of recognizing the needs of today’s Fed. 

As we noted then:

Yellen has said she wants to make financial stability as important a priority of the Fed as monetary policy. That means, among other things, being willing to regulate banks. Scott Alvarez is too deeply invested in an out-of-date world view to carry that vision forward. If Yellen intends to live up to her word, Alvarez has to go.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/yellen-defies-congress-defends-greenspanian-general-counsel-scott-alvarez-elizabeth-warren-grilling.html 

The End of Freedom in America

The America that has existed from the days of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, when its sovereignty was acknowledged by a treaty with England 1783, and its founding in 1788 with the ratification of the Constitution is no more. The America for which thousands fought and gave their lives is no more.

That America ends on February 26 when the Federal Communications Commission, under intense pressure from the Obama White House and with the votes of its Democratic Party commissioners asserts government control over the Internet with a 332-page set of regulations, dubbed “Net Neutrality.”

Writing in the Feb 22nd Wall Street Journal, columnist L. Gordon Crovitz summed up what will occur saying “Obamanet promises to fix an Internet that isn’t broken…The permissionless Internet which allows anyone to introduce a website, app, or device without government review, ends this week.”

“The big politicization came when President Obama in November demanded that the supposedly independent FCC apply agency’s most extreme regulation to the Internet.” Of course Obama wants the Internet regulated and of course the Democratic Party will support this move to control who gets to put up a website or blog and, more importantly, who gets to say anything critical of the President.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/70032

The Political Assimilation of Immigrants and Their Descendants

will not politically assimilate and will consistently vote for bigger government for generations.1 Political survey data suggest that this fear is unwarranted, as the political differences between immigrants and native-born Americans are small and, in most cases, so small that they are statistically insignificant. In the cases where the differences are significant, the descendants of immigrants rapidly assimilate into America’s political culture by adopting mainstream ideologies, political party identifications, and policy positions held by longer-settled Americans. The policy and political views of immigrants and their descendants are mostly indistinguishable from Americans whose families have been here for at least four generations. As a result of these small differences in opinion and the subsequent rapid assimilation of immigrants, they and their descendants are unlikely to alter America’s aggregate political attitudes.

This analysis is based on responses from the nationwide General Social Survey (GSS), a large biennial in-person survey of the demographic characteristics and attitudes of Americans that has been conducted since 1972.2 The GSS records the respondent’s political party identification, ideological positions, and opinions on the spending levels of various government programs as well as the place of birth of the respondents, their parents, and their grandparents. The political opinions of the immigrants and their descendants can be measured directly in the GSS, which produces more accurate results than other polling methods.3 The first-, second-, third-, and fourth-generation or greater categories are defined in Table 1.

http://www.cato.org/publications/economic-development-bulletin/political-assimilation-immigrants-their-descendants

The Obama Administration Doesn’t Know Why 800,000 Obamacare Tax Forms Were Sent Out With Errors

The administration’s admission last Friday—it’s always a Friday—that it had sent  out 800,000 Obamacare tax forms with mistaken information is merely the latest confirmation that, when it comes to President Obama's signature health law, the White House and its bureaucratic operatives are in way over their heads.

The tax forms, which document tax credits received under the law, were likely to prove daunting to individuals in any case. The administration’s rampant mistakes are certain to make tax-season headaches even worse.

The error affects about 20 percent of statements sent out under the law, according to The Wall Street Journal, but individuals who have received the forms have no way of independently determining whether their statement is among the mistaken. As the Journalreports, “It is very difficult for consumers to know on their own whether the local premium listed on the statement, known as a 1095-A, is incorrect.” Instead, individuals must rely on the administration, which has already proven itself unreliable, to let them know whether they were among the affected.

http://reason.com/blog/2015/02/23/the-obama-administration-doesnt-know-why

THE RISE AND RISE OF TECH AND TELECOM LOBBYING

The tech and telecom industry has spent many millions on lobbying in the past decade, as watershed issues like SOPA/PIPA and net neutrality consumed the interest of telecom giants and dragged tech newcomers like Google and Facebook into the Washington influence scene.

Once relatively disconnected from politics and lobbying, tech companies "learned to play the Washington lobbying game" in the 2000s, says Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation. Since then, the amount they spend in Washington has exploded, approaching the lobbying budgets of large, influential telecom associations like the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/the-future-of-broadband/the-rise-and-rise-of-tech-and-telecom-lobbying-20150225

FEDS FIDDLE WHILE SUPERBUGS SPREAD

Seven patients at UCLA Ronald Reagan medical center contracted a deadly superbug from an utterly routine medical procedure. Two have died. A third, an eighteen-year-old boy, fights on for his life after 83 days in the hospital, mostly in intensive care. All this suffering was preventable. If the CDC and the FDA had alerted UCLA and other hospitals about medical equipment they knew was contaminated, patients would not have been put at risk. The agencies had already watched the same lethal problem unfold in Chicago, Seattle, and elsewhere but they swept it under the rug.

Imagine having a long flexible tube with a camera on the end threaded down your throat to treat gallstones, ulcers, and the like, something half a million patients undergo every year. You assume it’s clean. But these reusable devices — a special type of endoscope — have a design flaw that prevents thorough cleaning. The result is that germs lurk inside the device. That’s what happened in L.A., where as many as 179 patients were exposed to a particularly deadly germ called Carbapenem — resistant bacteria. The CDC nicknamed it “nightmare bacteria” because few if any antibiotics work against it, and close to half the patients who get it die.

http://spectator.org/articles/61869/feds-fiddle-while-superbugs-spread

The Common Core: Something to Like and Loathe

There’s a lot of hyperbole surrounding the Common Core, whether it’s teachers unions bellyaching about tests, or those on the right warning of subterfuge socialist agendas. And then there are more establishment types like Jeb Bush and former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett who defend it, seemingly with little information about the practical implications of the standards. I have always approached the issue with an open mind, similar to Shakespeare’s Juliet: “I’ll look to like, if looking liking move.” And yet I find something to like and loath.

The Common Core doesn’t care about a student’s opinion. Perhaps that sounds provocative. But there is an emphasis in the Common Core on the “text itself,” rather than the annoying progressive education doctrine of having students relate everything to their own lives. This progressive belief presupposes that students only can take an active interest in matters which touch upon their immediate (and limited) experience. Nonsense. It’s much better to challenge one to forget about their ego for a moment and engage with the content at hand. 

The practice material from PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), the Common Core test made by behemoth educational publishing company Pearson, suggests that students should not even offer an opinion on the ideas expressed in a text. At any rate, on the practice tests I note that they aren’t asked for their opinion. Instead, they have to show that they understand what they read. 

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/02/the_common_core_something_to_like_and_loathe.html#ixzz3SlobdjvK

An American Renaissance

The Obama years will be forever known as the Dark Ages of US history, a time of political, cultural, and economic deterioration. We have yet to see if they will lead to the fall of the American republic.
In the Obama years, the lie became not only a campaign strategy or a means to enact damaging policies, but an institution of government: the Presidency itself, a lie of monstrous proportions guarded by the complicit and the willingly ignorant.
In the Obama years, the Congress finally clearly demonstrated that although we have elections, there is no longer a government representing its citizens, but an entity serving itself, operating outside of Constitutional constraints and unaccountable to the American people for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/needed-american-renaissance/#ou4qyCr0Gd526UCA.99

How Bad PACs Are Killing The Conservative Movement

Earlier this week, my website Right Wing News put out a report called 50 Million Down The Tubes: How 17 Conservative PACs Are Spending Their Money. That report was based on 170 pages of research I had commissioned into how conservative PACs are spending their money and the numbers of the 10 groups on the bottom were so bad that I was genuinely shocked, which doesn’t happen very often.

Just in case you’re wondering, those bottom 10 PACs you’re looking at spent $54,318,498, but only $3,621,896 of that money went to candidates via direct contributions or independent expenditures on their behalf.
Some people have asked why we even looked into this, especially since some of these groups are generally well thought of conservative groups that endorse great grassroots candidates.

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2015/02/21/how-bad-pacs-are-killing-the-conservative-movement-n1960316 

Greece Is Just the Beginning. ISIS and Ukraine Are Skirmishes: “The Real War is Economic and Currency Related”

Between the manipulation of gas & oil prices, to the contentious events in Ukraine, with ISIS in the Middle East and the new debt bomb in Greece, there is little doubt for anyone paying attention that a currency war is definitely underway.
The only question is: who will prevail, and who is holding a stronger hand?
Greece alone has the potential to unravel the Euro-zone and shatter the fragile dominoes across the global financial markets. And that’s just one area that is exploding.
Though Russia is taking a hit from the falling gas prices, and the combined effect of sanctions, it has also been furiously stockpiling gold and working with China and the BRICS nations to build a counter-balance to international development and currency manipulation, as SHTF has reported.
Something huge is happening with currencies on the global scene, but it is a quiet war – you won’t hear about it on the mainstream news. Just make sure it doesn’t sneak up on you; instead, be as prepared as you possibly can for whichever why the wind blows and the hammer falls. Have you considered your plan? Have you invested in gold, silver, storables or valuable barter items?

http://www.shtfplan.com/forecasting/greece-is-just-the-beginning-isis-and-ukraine-are-skirmishes-the-real-war-is-economic-and-currency-related_02192015 

U.S. refinery strike widens to include nation's largest refinery

The U.S. refinery strike widened as workers at the nation's largest refinery walked off their jobs at 12 a.m. CST (0600 GMT) on Saturday, according to the United Steelworkers union (USW).

Shortly after talks between union and oil company representatives ended on Friday night, the union notified Motiva Enterprises [MOTIV.UL] of a strike by its members at the company's 600,250 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Port Arthur, Texas.

The USW also gave notices on Friday of strikes to begin in 24 hours at Motiva's 235,000 bpd Convent, Louisiana and 238,000 bpd Norco, Louisiana refineries and the Shell Oil Co chemical plant in Norco, the union said.

"The industry’s refusal to meaningfully address safety issues through good faith bargaining gave us no other option but to expand our work stoppage," USW International President Leo Gerard said in a statement.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-refinery-strike-widens-nations-070252933.html 

Embarrassing Predictions Plague the Global-Warming Industry

It is now pretty clearly agreed that the CO2 content [in the atmosphere] will rise 25% by 2000. This could increase the average temperature near the earth’s surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter.- - Presidential advisor Daniel Moynihan 1969

Move Where (to escape the cold)? The Brutal Buffalo (NY) winter might be common all over the United States. Climate experts believe the next Ice Age is on its way. According to recent evidence, it could come sooner than anyone expected. - In Search of - “The Coming Ice Age” 1978

In New York City by 2008 The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change. There will be more police cars. Why? Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up... Under the greenhouse effect, extreme weather increases. Depending on where you are in terms of the hydrological cycle, you get more of whatever you’re prone to get. New York can get droughts, the droughts can get more severe and you’ll have signs in restaurants saying “Water by request only.” - James Hansen Grist Magazine June 1988

http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/hot.html 

Obama dances around reality as ISIS plays the tune

After months of taking flak for his lack of a coherent strategy to combat ISIS, President Obama came up with an answer. Unfortunately, it’s “Let’s pretend.”
In a speech to a conference Wednesday as well as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, our president did set forth an agenda for countering what he insisted on calling “violent extremism.” But his approach puts the top priority on the West acknowledging the terrorists’ economic and political grievances.
That won’t convince anyone that Obama understands the nature of the threat. Nor will it do much to convince groups like ISIS that he’s serious about defeating them.
By continuing to dance around the reality that Islamism is a dangerous mainstream force within the Arab and Muslim worlds and downplaying the necessity to fight ISIS on the ground, the president once again demonstrated his discomfort in leading a struggle against evil and his unfitness as a war leader.

http://nypost.com/2015/02/19/obama-dances-around-reality-as-isis-plays-the-tune/ 

With Obama's Help, UAW Tries To Force VW Workers To Unionize

Labor: A year ago, the United Auto Workers launched a high-profile campaign to unionize a Tennessee Volkswagen plant. But a majority of the workers said no. The UAW lost fair and square, but it won't take no for an answer.
Many of the workers who voted down the union told local media they were worried that the union presence would mean lost jobs. They feared the UAW would turn Chattanooga, Tenn., into the next Detroit.
Last summer, however, union bosses started agitating for another election. In other words, keep voting until you win.
Once it became clear the union would lose a revote, they scuttled another embarrassing setback at the ballot box and looked for other alternatives.
Next, they wanted a system under which the UAW would simply have to persuade a majority of workers to sign a card to certify the union — the "we don't need no stinking elections" option.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021815-739839-union-tries-to-force-autoworkers-to-join-even-though-they-voted-not-to.htm#ixzz3SCeJg4Xf

Our Culture Is Dying

Those who love big government and all its regulations and controls of what people can and cannot do are either control freaks or do not like to take care of themselves.  The reasons are so unfair as to be criminal.  The control freaks are self serving, egotistical and think they know best what others need or should do.  Those that do not like to take care of themselves love getting free stuff so they do not have to be responsible for themselves.  This leftist progressive political and secular humanist approach to life, governance and practically everything else has killed cultures in the past and is rapidly killing ours.  Here are a few examples modern day destruction.    

Quote: "There is a big problem in this country. The social safety net has been transformed into a nice, comfy bed. It used to be that people were ashamed to go on the government dole. Now, it’s a way of life for many. No shame to it at all. And for people who really need it, it should be there. But the moment you start taking money from others, your number one goal in life should be to stop. Unfortunately, a great many people in this country don’t see it that way. They see how much easier it is to cash a welfare check than it is to work for a living, and they abandon any sense of pride they might have once had. To hell with it, they say. I’m going to ride this gravy train as far as it goes."  http://www.fixthisnation.com/conservative-breaking-news/food-stamps-requiring-id-is-the-least-we-can-demand/

Quote: "Consider one current example in the international sphere: U.S. President Barack Obama's recent remarks about leftist-led Greece falling even deeper into economic crisis suggest either a severe lack of self-awareness or a self-deprecating sense of humor. "You cannot keep on squeezing countries that are in the midst of depression," Obama said. "At some point there has to be a growth strategy in order for them to pay off their debts to eliminate some of their deficits."  This from the president who has increased the national debt by 70 percent since he took office. How many yes-men does it take to wrap oneself in that level of delusion? And how many other leaders are equally and increasingly isolated from inconvenient political realities?"  When you have leaders that say do what I say and not what I do you are in trouble.  We are in trouble big time.  http://townhall.com/columnists/rachelmarsden/2015/02/10/draft-n1955619/page/full

Quote: "In fact, we see that is the initial play with the left. A young man last week pointed out that transgenderism is largely a mental health issue and started receiving threats on twitter and general harassment. The Fire Chief in Atlanta referred to homosexuality as a sin and lost his job. Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty quoted scripture and the left tried to drive him from the airwaves. The Benham Brothers are evangelical Christians and had their TV deal cancelled for offending the gay mafia.  Christians will be made to shut up. Those who question political correctness will be made to shut up. Now there is a new troubling story out. A tenured professor at Marquette University lost his tenure and was fired for a blog post in which he took issue with a graduate student who told a class only bigots and homophobes could question gay marriage. The one student who did question it was failed. Again, a tenured professor lost his job for raising questions about the appropriateness of a graduate student’s class instruction on gay marriage."    http://www.redstate.com/2015/02/11/first-they-shut-you-up-then-you-will-be-made-to-care/

When schools can do this there is a real problem at hand.  Quote: "Seminole County’s Lyman High School is being called out for its blatant Islamic indoctrination by a student’s father.  Ron Wagner read, “There is no god, but God, Muhamad is the messenger of God.”  However, he wasn’t reading from the Koran, The Five Pillars of Islam or the Hadiths.  He was reading from his son’s 10^th grade world history textbook.  Even more concerning is that the school district not only stands by the curriculum, but have the full support of designated terror group Hamas-CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations)."  http://eaglerising.com/14993/florida-public-school-continues-islamic-indoctrination-even-parents-protest/  Where is the government's hard core position that there MUST BE separation of church and state in public schools????  Government decisions on any subject are relative, not based on either the rule of law or common sense.  In other words, only progressive secular humanistic relativism rules apply to a society in decline.   

Anyone who thinks progressivism is advancing society, its cultural, religious, scientific, academic, etc. norms needs only look carefully at the consequences that result therefrom to see they are wrong.

George Burns

About America's Founding

Secular humanist, atheists, progressives, liberals, socialists, etc. deny this truth but they are dead wrong.  Revisionist history has attempted to wash away the truth and substitute it with a bunch of hooey.  This item serves as a quick tutorial that alerts those interested that the search for truth can sometimes be difficult.  Instead of reviewing revisionist writings to get the real history go to the original documents from the hands of the founders to read what they said and wrote. Quote:  "Know all of you therefore, that these enemies among us who deny the fact of America as a Christian nation, fail in their arguments on two counts: first, their arguments fail on the merits, due to more than three centuries of observed behavior of America and its citizens, clearly demonstrating that our words and actions as a nation, and as individual citizens, have strived to attain Christian ideals and values; second, their arguments fail because they are outright lies and falsehoods.   Even the most casual observer or student of basic American history will obtain and know mountains of evidence and facts, collected over nearly four centuries, totally contrary to all who would deny the Christian nature of America."  

http://eaglerising.com/14367/united-states-america-founded-historically-christian-nation/   

George Burns

Obamacare

This doctor sees serious problems ahead for our healthcare system.  http ://www.wnd.com/2015/01/doctor-america-seeing-shortages-of-critical-drugs/

The more we learn of the details of Obamacare in action the more distressing it becomes.  Among the items in this piece are the perverse incentives towards payments of taxpayer funded subsidies and reduced work hours.  Quote: "Even if there were no employer mandate, the Affordable Care Act would reduce employment. The Congressional Budget office estimates that the biggest effect of the ACA on employment is likely to be from workers voluntarily reducing their hours so they can take advantage of subsidies provided through health insurance exchanges."   http://humanevents.com/2015/02/02/giving-workers-freedom/

Another complication resulting from Obamacare.  Quote: "The truth is that the vast majority of conservatives oppose big government projects because they believe those policies don't work, are detrimental to the country, and in some cases, even harm the very people they're intended to help.  Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid is a case in point.  On the surface, this initiative sounds attractive to average, conscientious people: We're expanding health coverage for less fortunate people.  That's a good thing.  That's compassionate.  This line of argument polls pretty well.  But intentions are not the same as outcomes, and "coverage" does not equal "care." In reality, the policy of Medicaid expansion piles more patients into an already-strained and underfunded system that is a demonstrable failure -- and an insanely expensive one, at that.  Medicaid does not improve health outcomes for its beneficiaries, as compared to uninsured people."    http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2015/02/10/not-compassionate-obamacares-medicaid-expansion-failing-patients-in-california-n1955097?

Want to know how much Obamacare costs each tax payers per co-op enrollees?  Only $17,000.  Quote: "More than 500,000 people enrolled in health plans offered by nonprofit insurance companies created under the Affordable Care Act. And with the co-ops receiving an average of $108.7 million from the federal government, taxpayer-backed funding per enrollee topped $17,000. http://dailysignal.com/2015/02/11/much-taxpayer-money-obamacare-co-op-receive-per-enrollee/?

You cannot trust the government with your personal information gathered by Obamacare mandates.  See what they are already doing.   http://conservativesunited.com/wont-believe-obamacare-website-personal-data/  

George Burns

More of What They Do & Say

Here is another example of Obama's opportunistic misstatement of history for his own political purposes.  In other words he thinks we are to stupid to notice his purposeful deceptions.  http://humanevents.com/2015/02/10/rev-wrights-star-pupil/?   Here's a bit more.  http://www.christianfreedom.org/news/stop-blaming-christians/  Yet another observation.  http://www.redstate.com/2015/02/10/something-wicked-this-way-comes/

  

Just another lie necessary to get elected.  Quote: "Former-Senior Advisor to President Obama David Axelrod admits in a new book that Obama lied about his opposition to gay marriage in order to become president. "Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a 'sacred union,'"Axelrod writes in his new book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics."  And another indication of his absence of principles.  http://townhall.com/tipsheet/conncarroll/2015/02/10/obama-advisor-admits-obama-lied-about-gay-marriage-n1955359?

Where are those compassionate women's rights groups???  Maybe this does not merit their time and effort.  You know they need to go after important things like free contraceptives and aborting babies.  http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/half-million-u-s-women-mutilated-in-barbaric-practice/

Another tyrannical move by the President.  This time it affects the internet...in effect he wants to have the government control it.  One thing is for certain Obama and the government will screw things up. 

Quote: "More specifically, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to use a law from the 1930s as an excuse to seize authority to micro-manage this (at least so far) vibrant sector of our economy.  In a column for the Wall Street Journal, Gordon Crovitz writes about this regulatory power grab in Washington that could stifle the “permissionless innovation” of the Internet."    http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2015/02/10/should-unelected-dc-bureaucrats-turn-the-internet-into-a-governmentregulated-public-utility-n1955152/page/full   Call to Action!!!  Wake up your elected officials and tell them in no uncertain terms to KEEP THE GOVERNMENTS HANDS OFF the internet.

Net Neutrality?  It is really all about control.  http://www.independentlivingnews.com/Big-Government/Politics/202630-why-net-neutrality-is-a-terrible-idea-and-bad-for-the-country.stml?

Have you noticed the pattern of corruption of those with whom the President associates and appoints to powerful public offices?   http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/senators-ripped-for-bungling-obamas-ag-pick/ 

George Burns

About Our Mainstream Media

Quote: "An estimated 200,000 people joined in a March for Life in Washington, D.C., bringing to the streets in front of Congress their plea for protection of the unborn. It was double the number of people that go to even the biggest football games or indoor concerts.  Yet the establishment media was virtually absent."  Besides it doesn't fit their narrative of important news in support of progressive causes.  http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/media-black-out-200000-marching-americans/

Don't believe the media twists and turns words to reflect their leftist bias?  Read this.    http://www.redstate.com/2015/01/27/scott-walker-media-bias-washington-post/

A true reflection of the elitists anchors on many of the mainstream news shows.  https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/the-elite-television-anchor-narrator-of-reality/

An example of the lies our "heros" in the media tell us daily.   This item summarizes the ethics of one of the elite among them.   http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/nbcs-brian-williams-admits-to-lying-on-air/  There is more to this story.  His admission of lying left out some critical details.  http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/02/05/nbc-nightly-news-anchor-brian-williams-left-out-key-facts-in-war-story-apology/

A good assessment of the ethics and motives of mainstream media and their attempts to "sound" scientific in all they do and say. https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/mind-control-media-brian-williams-fake-science-and-the-reality-egg/  

A broader take on the Brian Williams case.  The media at large has no case to criticize him when so many of them do the same thing.  Quote: "Williams’ greater crime is one that all of his media cohorts share in common. Whether they work for NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, or MSNBC, these “journalists” are guilty of lying each and every time they come on the air. The same holds true for the reporters working for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and all the other left-wing newspapers. Time and again, they have opted to raise the banner of liberalism instead of giving us the real facts." http://unfilteredpatriot.com/the-media-doesnt-deserve-to-criticize-brian-williams/   Another take on the Brian Williams thing.  http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/dwwilber/2015/02/06/media-embellishment-and-lies-n1953622?

Hypocrisy wouldn't you say?  http://www.redstate.com/2015/02/11/media-suddenly-interested-vetting-candidates-college-years/ 

George Burns

Issues From The Left and Some from the Right

A very interesting read.   http://humanevents.com/2015/02/06/when-liberals-ignore-science/

What's fair is fair.  What's unfair when one side gets its way at the cost of the other side.  Common sense is no longer practiced in our country.   http://patriotnewsdaily.com/christian-bakers-found-guilty-of-discrimination/

A typical leftist professor uses his position as a platform for leftist propaganda.  He thinks the almost universally assailed MSNBC for its bias is the real source of truth.  Educating young minds and helping develop their thinking and analytical skills is no longer their objective.  No matter his credentials he is not worthy of a professorship.   http://patriotnewsdaily.com/fsu-professor-fox-lies-msnbc-tells-truth/

If you have never heard of the Southern Poverty Law center you need to read this item. You will discover that its name has nothing to do with what it is about.  It is a far left agency that spews hate in all the wrong places.   http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/ben-carson-fires-back-after-called-a-hater/ 

It is truly sad when the leftist hate that is so pervasive reacts to a twitter such as this one.  Decency is absent from people such as these.  And their hate is so misplaced.   http://townhall.com/columnists/ryanbomberger/2015/02/09/anna-duggar-causes-controversy-over-black-history-month-tweet-n1954990?

Typical liberal thinking.  They know better than parents what's good for their children.  I am truly tired of their arrogance, self righteousness and feelings of superiority.  They seek control of everything.  http://patriotupdate.com/articles/vaccinations-liberals-claim-parents-not-qualified-decide/ 

This sentiment expressed by new feminists is absolutely disgusting.  They are becoming more and more lunatic with the passage of time.   http://www.leanrightamerica.org/uncategorized/the-new-feminist-abort-boys-to-eliminate-monsters/

Unbelievable.  Liberals now want non-citizen to have the right to vote.  Talk about believing in nothing and letting anything go.   http://unfilteredpatriot.com/and-now-the-left-wants-to-let-non-citizens-vote/

George Burns

Corruption In High Places

Quote: "A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee has opened an investigation he believes could threaten the confirmation of Obama’s nominee to replace Eric Holder as attorney general, Loretta Lynch."  He announced that he "...it is investigating why Lynch, in her capacity as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, allowed banking giant HSBC to avoid criminal prosecution of bank officers and other employees. HSBC paid a hefty fine, instead, for laundering uncounted billions of dollars of illegal drug and terrorist money through its U.S. bank in the service of Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists."  And, "WND also reported evidence Holder’s Justice Department did not investigate money-laundering charges in deference to bank clients of his Washington-based law firm, where he was a partner prior to joining the Obama administration. In addition, WND reported HSBC was engaged in a systematic scheme to defraud citizens of India who live abroad out of billions of dollars in investment accounts."     http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/senator-probing-obamas-launder-gate-cover-up/

What can one say in defense of liars in high places?  Makes it hard to believe anything they say.  http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2015/02/12/true-lies-n1956078/page/full

So what about the ethics of our president?  He gives freebees to illegals - money they did not earn and paid taxes on but American taxpayers did.  His treatment of the people he was elected to serve is truly abysmal.   http://www.westernjournalism.com/outrage-obamas-executive-amnesty-okays-tax-refunds-illegals-never-paid-us-taxes/?    And the IRS adds insult to injury by providing "refunds" to illegals who paid no taxes.  The government thinks our money is theirs and they can do what they want with it.   http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/11/irs-pay-back-refunds-illegal-immigrants-who-didnt-/

Why is it that Al Sharpton who owes $4 1/2 million in back taxes is not in jail?  Could it be because he is close buddies with both President Obama and AG Holder?  I think so.  Look at a few others in the piece who did not get the same treatment as Sharpton. http://libertynewsnow.com/al-sharpton-mr-dynamite-common/article917   

If you believe this lie you will believe anything.  http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/obama-claims-he-didnt-lie-about-gay-marriage/

To think anything a ridiculous as this is good foreign policy is to engage in foolish thinking.  But who ever said our president and his administration were capable of rational thought.  As long as he feels he can get away with it he will continue to spend our money frivolously.   http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/12/us-sends-china-millions-in-foreign-aid-despite-13-/

George Burns

The Problem With Unions

Too many of them are violent.   http://freebeacon.com/union-members-indicted-for-burning-down-quaker-church/

Too many of their leaders look out for their own interests, not the interests of their members or average Americans.   http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/us/politics/labor-leaders-see-focus-on-wages-as-key-to-union-and-democratic-victories.html?

Government unions protect their own while ignoring the interests of the public they are suppose to serve and who pay their salaries.  Their politics are decidedly leftists and self-serving.

http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog/blog_detail.asp

And then there is the Chamber of Commerce, an organization long felt to be in the GOP's pocket.  Not so.  They lean left big time, protecting the interests of big business and big government, not average Americans.  Do not believe what they say.  Rather it behooves us all to take note of what they do.  http://www.redstate.com/2014/07/23/reminder-chamber-commerce-ideological-political-enemy-conservatives/   

Unions hurt the economy.   http://www.teapartypatriots.org/all-issues/news/fact-unions-hurt-the-economy/

Teachers unions hurt tax payers and students.   http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/ecommunicate/detail/1092-1038-76841-kYeDc28GJm

Do unions really represent their members or do union leaders take care of their own personal interests?   http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog/   Here are four findings from a Pennsylvania study.

This seems patently unfair to me.  Unions do not allow hard work, performance excellence, etc. to serve as what an employee deserves as compensation or is worth the company he/she works for.  http://dailysignal.com/2015/02/13/should-workers-need-a-unions-permission-to-get-a-raise/?

George Burns