Category Archives: Federal Malfeasance

When the GOP tries to…

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…out liberal the democrats, can any good come from it?

Many insiders believe SCOTUS is going to declare Obamacare subsidies to be unconstitutional. ‘Pubbies everywhere should celebrate! Let Obamacare implode and when the screams get the loudest push through a total repeal and allow insurance companies to provide healthcare insurance like they did before Obamacare. Those companies who dropped out of the healthcare market will return when there’s money to be made once again. The greatest healthcare system in the world, available to everyone regardless of their ability to pay, will return, albeit over a couple of years.

What is the GOP establishment doing? They are planning to pass legislation to reinstate subsidies!

House Republicans craft Obamacare subsidies alternative ahead of Supreme Court ruling

By Tom Howell Jr. – The Washington Times – Wednesday, June 17, 2015
http://twt-thumbs.washtimes.com/media/image/2015/06/17/Boustany_s878x585.jpg?9739c089d09019457eff90957353d2bf131e7da7

“I think it’s a good plan. It’s a good start,” Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr., Louisiana Republican, said after huddling with the GOP caucus behind closed doors. (Associated Press)

House Republicans settled on the outlines of a plan Wednesday to wean the country off of Obamacare’s subsidies in anticipation of a Supreme Court ruling this month that could throw the massive health program into chaos.

Described as a “work in progress,” the plan would continue to pay full subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to all beneficiaries regardless of where they live, but starting next year states could begin to opt out of Obamacare, taking the money as a block grant to help their residents obtain insurance however local officials see fit. (Read the entire column here.)

Conservative groups, like the Heritage Foundation, are agast!

Don’t Fix Obamacare

Mike Needham / /

Many Republicans are watching ongoing developments in the King v. Burwell Obamacare case with trepidation. In the abstract, most recognize the opportunity such a case represents to roll back Obamacare and force a debate about real, pro-market insurance reform.

But as the decision looms, many now have second thoughts, convinced that the country will blame them for disruption in the ruling’s wake and that eventually, the only politically tolerable option will be to cave and restore the Obamacare subsidies eliminated by the Supreme Court.

That assumption is wrong, and Republicans will do more harm than good for their cause if they act on it.

According to a new poll conducted by the American Perceptions Initiative at The Heritage Foundation, the fear that Republicans, not Democrats, will take the blame for any disruption caused by the ruling appears to be unfounded. Only 36 percent of Americans will blame congressional Republicans, with 58 percent of the blame split between President Obama and congressional Democrats.

Also wrong is the presumption that most Americans will look past their general opposition to Obamacare and push for Congress to extend the subsidies to prevent disruption. A staggering supermajority—69 percent—told pollsters they agreed that “Passing new legislation to continue the Obamacare subsidies doesn’t fix the problem – it just prolongs it.”

Moreover, restoring the subsidies appears likely to shift more rather than less blame to Republicans for the situation. According to Heritage’s survey, 67 percent of Americans agree that if Republicans extend the law’s subsidies for the short term, “they will bear the blame when the time comes to take those subsidies away.” (more here.)

By reinstating the subsidies, the GOP will then own every piece of Obamacare. It was the GOP who kept it in force. It was the GOP who provided funding for Obamacare in last year’s Cromnibus bill instead of allowing Obamacare to starve for funds. Now if they provide funding for subsidies, Obamacare will not be a democrat albatross, it will a republican one—exactly what the GOP establishment claims to fear!

Last week the House voted to kill, with a number of democrats, the TPA portion of Obama’s trade bill. Obama’s bill was split into two parts, TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) the fast-track trade authority, and the TPP (TransPacific Pact).

The TPP was filled with kickbacks, union payoffs and a multitude of items unrelated to trade. TPA, on the other hand, gave Obama a rubber stamp to do whatever he wanted to do. Congress would NOT be able to make any amendments to future trade bills, just an Up/Down vote. With the well-demonstrated lack of backbone among the GOP leadership in both Houses of Congress, any trade bill brought before them would likely be approved.

When you see the GOP supporting Obama against the democrats, you know something is very, very wrong in the GOP DC establishment. Now, McConnell and Boehner are about to try again.

GOP leaders vow to resurrect Obama trade deal

By Dave Boyer and Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times – Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Republican leaders will try to resurrect the trade deal Democrats sank less than a week ago, planning a revote Thursday and insisting they will corral enough votes to approve fast-track negotiating powers that President Obama needs to complete a legacy-building Pacific Rim agreement.

Mr. Obama met Wednesday afternoon with Democratic lawmakers who support free trade to make sure they will vote for the plan, and House Republican leaders began the process of forcing a revote on powers known as Trade Promotion Authority, which is favored in their party, and Trade Adjustment Assistance, which is generally a Democratic priority.

Democrats last week voted against Trade Adjustment Assistance as a way of poisoning the package, so Republican leaders have decided to split the bill and pass Trade Promotion Authority first, then leave it to Mr. Obama to rally enough Democrats to pass Trade Adjustment Assistance.

“We are committed to ensuring both TPA and TAA get votes in the House and Senate and are sent to the president for signature,” said a joint statement by House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, rejecting claims that the issue was dead.

The republican party appears to have made an alliance with democrats and the GOP establishment is acting in concert with democrats to fulfill democrat agendas and policies. That begs the question, “Are there two political parties in Washington or only one?” More and more it appears to be just one.

Being a Republican (note the capital R) is more than just winning elections, it is a political philosophy. It does no one any good to win elections if the result is the same as if democrats had won.

I used to think a 3rd party would allow democrats to control Congress for at least two election cycles before being effective and in that time, democrats could gut our liberties and the Constitution blocking any 3rd party from power. Watching the actions of McConnell, Ryan, Boehner, et. al., I’m beginning to believe that has already happened.

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Evolution

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When I retired from Sprint—kicked out the door that is, one of the ‘retirement’ bennies was keeping our cell phones, for Mrs. Crucis and myself, on the employee phone plan. I used my employee discount to upgrade our cell phones to the latest one available at the time, an android smartphone. It was the best available when I retired.

That was over three years ago, almost four. Times have changed. Our original smartphones only had 512mb internal memory. The ‘external’ memory card was for data storage. That amount of memory worked well for almost four years.

The problem that eventually arose is that apps run in internal memory. Many—most, are loaded at startup and every one wants its piece of that internal memory. Over the years, after app update after update, those apps grew, demanding more and more memory…and that…is where the problem arose.

When some of the core apps need memory, they seize it from the free, available internal memory. When there isn’t enough memory, bad things happen. Apps stop, the phone locks up, or, those apps that allow swapping internal memory with storage, grow slooow.

Our new phones arrive this week. They have over 4gb internal memory and up to 64gb external storage. I hope they last another three-four years.

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I’ve been waiting to see this item announced by the MSM. So far this morning, nothing has been said. (So far, only the Washington Free Beacon and FOX News are reporting on this issue.)

Putin is rattling his cold-war saber. Long range Russian bombers have bee flying along the coasts of the US and now they are practicing launching long-range cruise missiles from outside the northern Canadian border. The real issue is that NORAD, the old North American Air Defense command is a shadow of its former self.

In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, we had the DEW line (Distant Early Warning) across Alaska, Canada and Greenland. Later, we also had BMEWS (Ballistic Missile Early Warning System) that reached from Alaska to the UK. The easternmost leg of that system was in northern Scotland, the western leg ended in the Aleutian Islands. In addition to these two systems, we also had a line of over-the-horizon radar and radio intercept sites all along our northern and European borders with the old USSR.

We still have capability to detect Russian incursions into our territory and to monitor them off our coasts. The real problem is that we don’t have the capability, in aircraft and bases, to defend ourselves if Putin’s practice launches, and wargames, become real.

With all this in mind, What have you heard from the MSM? Russian bombers have been stalking us for some time and, whether we acknowledge it or not, Cold War II is in full force.

Russian Strategic Bombers Near Canada Practice Cruise Missile Strikes on US

Nuclear launch rehearsal conducted in North Atlantic

BY: , September 8, 2014 5:00

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Acts of Defiance

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de·fi·ance
diˈfīəns/
noun
noun: defiance
1.
open resistance; bold disobedience.
“the demonstration was held in defiance of official warnings”

synonyms:

resistance, opposition, noncompliance, disobedience, insubordination, dissent, recalcitrance, subversion, rebellion

The country has been watching an act of defiance in Nevada for the last week. That confrontation between citizens and members of the federal government has subsided…for now. There was another act of defiance occurring in New York. That one received little attention from the media.

The state of New York requires gun owners to register certain firearms. Compliance to that law, known as the SAFE Act, has been low. Protesters to that law met outside the office of State Senator Mark Grisanti to protest the act.

Shredding SAFE Act Registration Forms In New York

By: Caleb Howe (Diary)  |  April 15th, 2014 at 05:10 PM

On Tuesday in upstate New York, outside the office of State Senator Mark Grisanti, gun owners gathered in protest. Together they shredded their SAFE Act registration cards to signify their non-compliance with the controversial new law. Grisanti is a Republican who helped to pass the SAFE Act, including by offering up changes to the bill to make it bipartisan.

Human Events wrote last week about a recent SAFE Act protest that had a huge turnout, and involved many of the same people and groups as the rally on Tuesday, where gun owners intend to shred their registration forms as a form of protest. One of the organizers, Rus Thompson of TEA New York, was recently interviewed about this event, and discussed in depth the reasoning behind the shredding.

Gun owners across the state have been speaking out and protesting the SAFE Act from the beginning. As Bearing Arms reported yesterday, as many as one million are refusing to register their weapons.

Non-compliance of the ban is expected to be between 90%-99%, but a provision in the NY SAFE Act prevents registration data from being shared with the public.

Non-compliance in the neighboring state of Connecticut is thought to be in excess of 85%, with an estimated 80,000-100,000 gun owners refusing to register their firearms. Connecticut State Police have made no move to enforce their law four months after their registration deadline, fearing possible armed resistance.

Conservative estimates are that at least 300,000 and as many as one million New Yorkers will likewise practice civil disobedience and refuse to comply with the registration requirement.

The Shredding Registration event has a Facebook page here, and was covered live by a local Buffalo talk radio station here.

The defiance in New York isn’t limited to gun owners. Some officials—county Sheriffs, have declared they won’t enforce the law, either.

Despite deadline, protesters ‘will not comply’ with SAFE Act

Registration deadline for law was Tuesday

By Lou Michel | News Staff Reporter , T.J. Pignataro | News Staff Reporter | @TJPignataro | Google+, on April 15, 2014 – 8:30 PM, updated April 16, 2014 at 2:04 AM

Rus Thompson, a tea party activist, shreds the state assault weapon registration form during a rally Tuesday outside the Mahoney State Building.

Rus Thompson, a tea party activist, shreds the state assault weapon registration form during a rally Tuesday outside the Mahoney State Building. Harry Scull Jr. /Buffalo News

Owners of assault-style weapons were supposed to have registered their guns by Tuesday.

But there is no way of knowing exactly how many of these weapons there are in the state and how many were registered under the NY SAFE Act.

The state refuses to say how many were registered, claiming it is confidential information protected by the law.

Gun-rights advocates estimate compliance will be less than 10 percent.

And in Erie County, the sheriff says he will not force his deputies to enforce registration.

“Theoretically, any law enforcement officer who encounters anyone with this type of gun at a minimum is supposed to record the serial number and the individual’s identity and report it to Albany,” Sheriff Timothy B. Howard said.

But will his deputies do that?

“I don’t know. I am not encouraging them to do it. At the same time, their own consciences should be their guide. I am not forcing my conscience on them. That is a decision they should make,” Howard said.

The sheriff’s opposition sits well with roughly 70 opponents of the law who gathered outside the Walter J. Mahoney State Office Building in downtown Buffalo late Tuesday afternoon to shred State Police registration forms for assault weapons.

It was seen as a form of civil disobedience to a law that opponents say was hastily drafted some 16 months ago in response to the December 2012 massacre in Newtown, Conn., where 20 elementary school children and six adults were slain by a heavily armed gunman.

But rather than make the public safer, opponents contend the law’s main accomplishment has been to create a new classification of criminals – individuals who out of conscience refuse to register their assault weapons because they believe the law overstepped their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

The column continues at the website. The Erie County Sheriff echoes the sentiments of many law enforcement officials across the country. “Will…shall I comply with a law that is clearly unenforceable and does nothing more than make criminals out of formerly law-abiding citizens?”

The New York Sheriffs Organization has examined the SAFE Act and has found a number of flaws and inconsistencies. They noted these flaws on their website and point out that a number of the Act’s provisions are unenforceable and produce undue burden of their offices and other agencies and institutions.

Three acts of defiance with days of one another: the Bundy Ranch vs. the BLM, gun owners of New York vs. the SAFE Act, and the NY Erie County Sheriff versus that same SAFE Act. When you add the defiance of many states against Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, the refusal of those same states to create state exchanges, a person could reasonably expect more acts of defiance to occur at any time, any where.

 

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The Rime…

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Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part II, Stanza 14.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Obama must be feeling as if he were that Ancient Mariner, who killed the Albatross and was condemned to wear its dead body around his neck. The difference is that Obama’s Albatross is Obamacare.

Some statistics were published today that is another weight, another burden, around Obama’s political agenda. Statistics, such as:

OBAMACARE POLL: THEY’VE TRIED IT AND THEY DON’T LIKE IT
Fifty percent of voters disapprove of ObamaCare, 43 percent strongly so, according to a poll out from the budget hawk group Public Notice. The survey, conducted by Tarrance Group, found that while 40 percent of respondents approved of the health law, a majority of key groups disapprove including women ages 18 to 44 (51 percent), employees of small businesses (57 percent), adults in households with children (56 percent) and voters who’ve tried to shop on ObamaCare Web sites (52 percent). The poll also showed that Members of Congress who voted for the president’s law are getting a negative reaction from voters, with 43 percent saying they less likely to re-elect those who voted for the health law versus 38 percent who are more likely to vote for their member if he or she voted for ObamaCare. — FOX Newsletter, 12-10-2013.

The critical issue is the age groups in the poll above. These groups are the demographic segment that Obama was planning on soaking to pay for his monstrosity. Now, they are opting out, refusing to play Obama’s game, a game he is losing badly.

But that isn’t the only damaging news about Obamacare. As we move closer to the implementation date, more failings of Obamacare are emerging. This time for prescription drugs—the list of covered drugs has been slashed. Many of us, forced onto Medicare, take maintenance drugs. Some are to control cholesterol, some to control blood pressure, plus many others. Now, with the list of covered drugs slashed, Obamacare and Medicare participants must pay for those drugs out of their pockets. Plus, for Obamacare enrollees, those out-of-pocket costs cannot be charged to your deductible.

OBAMACARE PAIN PILL
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former senior policy adviser to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told Megyn Kelly that many prescriptions may not be covered under ObamaCare. “The list of drugs that the plans cover, in many cases, aren’t very long.  And if the drugs aren’t covered you’re on your own, you basically have to pay for it entirely out of pocket, and the money that you spend on those drugs doesn’t count against your out of pocket limit or against your deductible,” Gottlieb said. “This could cost patients who need special drugs a lot of money, literally tens of thousands of dollars a year.” — FOX Newsletter, 12-10-2013.

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What a disappointment Paul Ryan has turned out to be. He ran in the last election, as a conservative, a tax conservative and a spending conservative. His current budget plan, with democrat Senator Patty Murray, exposes the lies he spoke during that campaign.

The Big Spenders Return

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  December 10th, 2013 at 04:30 AM

If Paul Ryan were a Peanuts character, he’d be the guy who pulls the football out of the way just as he himself is about to kick it. Over the past number of years, Congressman Ryan has come up with a few reform proposals.

From his roadmap to this, he has made as his starting point for negotiations that which should be his ending point.

Now, with liberal Senator Patty Murray, Congressman Ryan wants to raise spending today on the promise that Congress will restrain itself ten years from now (or whenever the benchmark will be). It’s a return to pre-sequestration Washington — spending increases today in exchange for promises of spending cuts later.

I opposed sequestration at the time the GOP came up with it. I figured they’d do an end run around it. But they did not. Surprisingly, they stuck with it if only because they couldn’t figure out a way to undermine it without rocking the boat with their base.

Now it’s looking like they are prepared to rock that boat.

The Democrats have repeated painted doom and gloom scenarios about sequestration. They said it would undermine economic growth, but the latest economic figures dispute that. They said it would cause increased unemployment, but the latest employment numbers dispute that. They’ve said a great deal, all of which has been nonsensical hyperbole.

Based on what has been reported so far, the Ryan-Murray plan seems like outright capitulation to the big spending, big government agenda of both parties’ lobbyist class. In fact, the op-eds already coming out for it are being written by those who stand to profit from more spending.

Congress should start at sequestration spending levels and reduce spending from there — not raise revenue and not raise spending. After all, like Obamacare, sequestration is the law of the land too.

A sellout in any form, is still a sellout. Actions like this, Ryan’s betrayal of his Tea Party supporters, makes me wonder if there are ANY national politicians, Cruz, Lee and a handful of others excepted, who are not traitors to their constituents?

Here is a link to another report on the Paul Ryan-Patty Murray Tax and Spend bill. It’s very informative.

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If you watch the news coming out of the Middle-east, you may have come across this article, the possible creation of strange allies, Saudi Arabia and…Israel! Neither country wants a nuclear Iran on their borders.

Saudis to Obama: We Will Not Tolerate a Nuclear Iran

By Karin McQuillan, December 10, 2013

Individuals who have even visited Israel, or who observe Judaism, or who carry a Bible are banned from Saudi Arabia.  Yet Saudi Arabia’s Israel-hating King Abdullah just flew in an Israeli scientist to have dinner with him, to enjoy some royal hospitality, accept a medal and the $200,000 “Arab Nobel Prize.”  It’s a not-so-subtle message to President Obama: the unthinkable can happen, so don’t assume the Saudis won’t join with Israel to bomb Iran.

Obama’s new Iran policy moves the Mid-East closer to war over oil and religion — Sunni Saudis versus Shia Iranians.  There is no more strategic commodity than Gulf oil to the entire world economy.  American national security stakes could not be higher.   Iran’s end game, some say more than an attack on Israel, is to seize the Saudi oil fields.  There is a Shiite majority in the oil province that the Saudi Princes fear could be turned by Iran.  The Saudis no longer see the U.S. as an ally in stabilizing the Middle East.  We have become a force for chaos. The UK Telegraph:

Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review, said the great unknown is how Saudi Arabia will react to a move deemed treachery in Riyadh… The great question is whether they can live with this deal, or whether it is intolerable,” he said.

Mr Skrebowski said the Middle East is a tinder box, in the grip of a Sunni-Shia civil war comparable in ideological ferocity to the clash between Catholics and Protestants in early 17th Century Europe. Saudi Arabia has already shown how far it will go to protect its interests, helping to overthrow Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

The Saudis are signaling that they will unleash a pre-emptive war in the Middle East in response to Obama’s nuclear capitulation to Iran.  These signals are an effort to change Obama’s decision to prop up the mullahs and green light their nuclear program.  Can the Saudi threats become real?  It’s a wild card our President is willing to play.

The column continues, here, at the American Spectator website.

The Obama administration, acting as if by design, is alienating our friends and allies. If Obama’s plan is to isolate the United States from our friends around the world, he is being extremely successful. That’s is Obama’s only agenda item that is working.

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Rewrite!!

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Obamacare

healthcare.gov

One of the top headlines on Drudge this morning says, “5 million lines of software code needs to be rewritten...". Five million lines of code. You know what that means? A  rewrite of a significant portion of the software.

Before I retired, I was a project manager. I built things for my employer. I built customer service call centers across and outside the country. I built nearly 30 specialized call centers to allow the Deaf and Hard of Hearing use TTYs to communicate with the non-deaf. I created specifications for unique hardware and in the process of all this, was awarded seven telecommunications related patents.

Some of those projects were larger than the one proposed for Obamacare. The expected user base for our systems approached that expected for Obamacare.

My largest budget was under $15million over a three-year project. Obamacare spent over half a billion dollars—and it doesn’t work. In the private sector, everyone connected with that software development project would have been fired in three months—for gross incompetency and failure to meet milestones.

You see, in the private sector, there exists project gateways. Every few months, a gateway review is conducted—are you on schedule, does the design meet the original specifications, are you on budget (and woe to you if you are over or under budget for that particular segment of the project.)

Fail one of these criteria, and your project is on probation, fail two, you, the manager, are up for review and maybe fired, fail three and the project is killed before it can waste more money and usually, everyone on the project team is looking for a new job. Contractors are out on the street. In addition, at the end of each year of the project, it is reviewed for specification changes, whether the business climate, still needs the project. The project must pass this gateway, too, before any money is allocated and allowed to be budgeted to the project for the coming year.

I once had a three-year project killed after the second year. Why? I was on-time, on-budget, meeting all the project specifications and milestones…but the business climate changed and the project wouldn’t meet its expected ROI, Return-On-Investment. Too bad. Stamp! The project was killed. The company would not pour money into a project that couldn’t pay for itself within three years.

That is the real world, not the fantasyland that is now government. Apparently, the government failed to do any of these project reviews.

Obama is scheduled to have a press announcement later today to explain what he’s going to do to fix Obamacare. I know what he should do but knowing him and the dems, he’ll throw more money down the rathole to fix the unfixable.

He no longer takes questions. It is too dangerous. Someone may ask a hard question such as why a project needed 500 million lines of code or why was a Canadian company chosen on a No-Bid contract? Are there not plenty of US companies with that skill? I’ve managed projects with a comparable customer user base that was one-tenth that amount of code—and my project worked.

I suspect the real reason is that the data collected from people is shared across a multitude of government (and maybe outside companies, Obama favorites?) databases all across the government from the IRS to the FBI to who knows. One bottleneck in that update slows everything—if the transaction is completed at all. It is a rookie mistake by software engineers who don’t understand transaction processing, which, at the core, Obamacare enrollment must be.

Be that as it may, now Obama must “explain” why it failed. He’s already blamed Bush, I wonder who he will blame now? Probably Ted Cruz and the Tea Party.

Tech ‘surge’ to repair Obamacare websites

By JASON MILLMAN | 10/20/13 1:38 PM EDT Updated: 10/21/13 11:21 AM EDT

The Obama administration Sunday said it’s called on “the best and brightest” tech experts from both government and the private sector to help fix the troubled website at the root of the Obamacare enrollment problems.

The unusual Sunday 600-word blog post from the Department of Health and Human Services was the first update in more than a week on the many failings of an expensive website that HHS itself described as “frustrating for many Americans.” But it didn’t specify whom the administration had called in, or when the American people would see clear-cut results on HealthCare.gov.

“We’re kind of thinking of it as a tech ‘surge,’” an HHS official told POLITICO.

The Health and Human Services statement didn’t explain everything that’s wrong, or give technical details about the repairs under way. It outlined some steps being taken to fix the site, including updates with “new code that includes bug fixes.” The department also says it’s installing monitors to catch parts of the website that are proving the most troublesome for consumers. And it also said it had seen some improvements in wait times and consumer access to the website, the online portal to health insurance exchanges or marketplaces the federal government is running in 36 states.

Blah, blah, blah. Words from non-engineers who have no concept what they’re doing. I can tell you right now, they’re going to fail because they never knew what it was supposed to do in the first place. It reminds me of the old programmer’s joke.

IT Manager yells to his programming team, “You start coding and I’ll go see what they want!”

It was never so true as with Obamacare.

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Liberalism in the news

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The lead story for today is another example of liberal agendas. This time in a public library. For years, the Hudson Falls Free Library, NY, had a summer reading program. It was limited to school children. The one who read the most books won. It was a competition.

Tyler Weaver, age 9, won this year by reading 63 books in six weeks. The library director decided that instead of awarding the prize to Tyler, the winner would be drawn from a hat, “to make it fair.”  You see, Tyler had won five years in a row. That unset the library director.

Lita Casey, who worked as an aide at the Hudson Falls Free Library for 28 years, said she was “stunned” after a library board member called her with the bad news on Monday night. — New York Daily News.

The news of the rule change was leaked and the controversy began.

Library Director Marie Gandron, wanted to change the rules to end the child’s winning streak. Gandron reportedly said the boy “hogs” the contest and should “step aside.” — New York Daily News.

Casey objected. When TV news crews and international reporters arrived. The library board acted. Gandron was suddenly gone after 41 years at the library. But that wasn’t all. Lita Casey was told she was fired too, after 28 years as a reading aid. When Casey asked why she was fired, she was ignored. I suspect Casey was fired because she objected when Gandron tried to implement her “redistribution of achievement.” Gandron created the controversy and was rightly fired. Casey objected to Gandron’s act of tyranny and the library board could not allow that.

Just another day in a liberal paradise.

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What goes around, comes around. In this case, it’s to come to Chief Justice Roberts.

Exclusive: Rand Paul wants Chief Justice Roberts, all federal workers, to enroll in Obamacare

12:40 AM 09/23/2013

Arguing federal workers should not get special treatment, Rand Paul says he does not want taxpayers subsidizing the personal health-care plans of any federal employee — including Chief Justice John Roberts — anymore.

With some in Congress arguing lawmakers and their staff should not get subsidies to cover their health insurance as President Obama’s health-care law goes into effect, the Republican senator from Kentucky told The Daily Caller on Sunday that he’s going to start pushing a constitutional amendment that goes even further.

Paul’s proposal — outlawing any special exemptions for government employees — would mean all federal workers would have to purchase health insurance on the new Obamacare exchanges instead of getting taxpayer-funded subsidies. Some critics say those subsidies amount to special treatment. The Obamacare health insurance exchange opens Oct 1.

“My amendment says basically that everybody including Justice Roberts — who seems to be such a fan of Obamacare — gets it too,” Paul told TheDC by phone on Sunday from Mackinac Island in Michigan, where he won a straw poll of potential Republican candidates for president in 2016.

“See, right now, Justice Roberts is still continuing to have federal employee health insurance subsidized by the taxpayer,” Paul said. “And if he likes Obamacare so much, I’m going to give him an amendment that gives Obamacare to Justice Roberts.”

Roberts famously voted to uphold the constitutionality of Obama’s unpopular health-care law when it went before the Supreme Court last year.

Paul’s constitutional amendment says no federal employees should get special exemptions from laws. The senator also plans to push a proposal requiring that Congress and all federal employees rely on Obamacare for their insurance.

His proposal comes after outrage from conservatives about a so-called “exemption” for members of Congress and their staff from Obamacare.

There’s much more at the Daily Caller website, go and read the rest of the story…like the ‘Pub Senator who created the exemption.

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Abuses of power. We seem to see more and more examples, a ground-swell of political, prosecutorial and judicial abuses of power. The article below fell into my email box this morning. It was triggered by the news of Tom DeLay’s acquittal. There there were other instances where federal prosecutors abused their authority as well.

High-profile cases show a pattern of misuse of prosecutorial powers

By Jeffrey Scott Shapiro — Special to The Washington Times

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Despite the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy prohibition, federal civil rights statutes enable U.S. prosecutors to pursue felony charges against a defendant in limited instances even if they have been acquitted of underlying state crimes.

Evidence in the New Orleans case was compelling, and the officers were convicted, but U.S. District Court Judge Kurt Engelhardt ordered a new trial last week, saying the government “engaged in a secret public relations campaign” by anonymously making extrajudicial statements against the defendants on a New Orleans news site.

“This case started as one featuring allegations of brazen abuse of authority, violation of the law and corruption of the criminal justice system,” he wrote in his order. “Unfortunately the focus has switched from the accused to the accusers. The government’s actions, and initial lack of candor and credibility thereafter, is like scar tissue that will long evidence infidelity to the principles of ethics, professionalism and basic fairness and common sense necessary to every criminal prosecutor, wherever it should occur in this country.”

The Duke University lacrosse players’ case is one of the most notorious of selective prosecution designed for political gain. North Carolina prosecutor Michael Nifong made numerous public statements incriminating the team and turning the media against the defendants.

Despite the accuser’s history of falsely reporting incidents and lack of evidence, Mr. Nifong pushed the politically popular case in the midst of his re-election campaign. State officials took over the case, dismissing all charges, taking the unusual step of declaring the defendants innocent — not merely “not guilty” — and Mr. Nifong was ultimately disbarred.

Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky once said that “you can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners.” The same could be said of how fairly a judicial system prosecutes its accused defendants. Arrogance, not ethics, is emerging as criteria for prosecutorial discretion, and the result is a society based on fear, not freedom.

• Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C.

I suppose it is a stretch to call governmental abuses liberalism. It’s pure corruption and has been present whenever government seizes too much power—and immunity. In these instances, the abusive acts have rebounded on their perpetrators. It’s a good start.

Clandestine Government

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I’m back, after a brief hiatus. I’m have been having some health reviews—test, physicals, etc., one of those things everyone should do on a regular basis.

I’ve been lax. I can’t remember when I had a complete physical. I have learned that physicals aren’t completed in one day. No, it’s one test here, another test there, some can be done with a blood test—and more than once when they forget to check off a particular item to be tested. Some are embarrassing, like mine yesterday. That one went well and I won’t need to repeat that one for five years.

All this has disrupted my schedule. I hope, now, the disruptions will become fewer…and less often.

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I see the…I’m at a loss what to call them. They are dems, of course, but also more. They’re libs, too, but not just being liberals. Infiltrators? Yes, that, they are. They’ve been infiltrating government and our public institutions since the 1930s. Communists? That’s, while accurate, is blasé. I believe Marxists is the current term. Usurpers? That’s what they want to do.

What do you call those who wish to destroy our country, heritage, our republican form of government, our liberty? A good question. However, we cannot deny that they exist and have an agenda.

We see more and more evidence everyday, from the lies about Benghazi, the overt support for radical Islamics inside and outside the government, the attacks on Christian heritage and conservatism, using government agencies to intimidate political opposition, using government to coerce individuals to submit to bureaucratic regulations, many that may have no supporting law.

Yesterday, another piece of clandestine government was uncovered. A separate, secret layer of communication outside the official means of communication within government. Federal law requires all emails in, from, between government agencies to be archived and available to the public via FOIA, Freedom Of Information Act. Obama and his faction created a secret communication system, an illegal system, using a private e-mail platform and refused to make those e-mails public as required by law. Unless, of course, those wanting the emails pony-up $1,000,000…maybe.

We, here in Cass County, have had experience with clandestine government. With the election of responsible Commissioners last Fall, our county government is restoring trust in our local politics.

In earlier years, county government was government by oligarchy. A small group, of both parties, played fast and loose with contracts, money, and some actions appear to have been fraudulent and those involved guilty of conspiracy. Those allegations are under investigation by a number of agencies including the FBI.

Now, look at the changes that have been made to make county government open—and responsible to, county voters.

  • County Commission meeting are regularly scheduled and announced in advance.
  • Information packets of business to be conducted and agendas are released before commission meetings including supporting documents of the topics to be discussed.
  • Commission meeting minutes are posted publicly and available on CDs for a small fee. The county clerk is required by law to record the minutes of commission meetings. However in prior years, the minutes were frequently late and their contents did not always agree with the memories of those meetings from spectators. In some instances, the minutes were altered, after the fact, by request of some commissioners, some have claimed. Those claims have been echoed by some of the county’s elected officials.

How different is our county government to that of the FedGov? A local government where we have elected officials dedicated to open government compared to the one in Washington, DC, where both parties, in the Administration and in Congress, work diligently to conceal their true motives and actions.

None of the activities being disclosed recently in Washington is surprising. We know the agencies and policies have been in place for decades—supported by both parties. The question now is how can we remove those impediments, remove the obstacles that hinder our liberties and our ability to reduce the power of federal agencies, and make government responsible to citizens?

That is a question that I have do not have an answer.

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