HEART OF THE SCANDALS: TOTALITARIANISM
[Ed Note: Reposted from FrontPage Magazine, June 10, 2013, by Mark Tapson, "The Totalitarianism at the Heart of the Obama Scandals."
Freedom and Liberty are at the heart of the Tea Party movement which stands for less government, fiscal responsibility from those that govern, and free enterprise. None of which is evident in the heart of the current Administration. Rather, from all we've seen so far, this administration is headed for total control of everyone within its grasp.]
The Obama administration’s legs are wobbling under the weight of so many scandals lately that whole chunks of the edifice – the IRS, the NSA, the DOJ – are threatening to implode, particularly without support from the normally adoring media. Even the New York Times – the New York Times! – is no longer willing to bolster an administration whose totalitarian urges have been exposed to the light.
Let’s begin with the Internal Revenue Service’s thuggish targeting of conservative groups. From April 2010 to April 2012, the IRS placed on hold the processing of applications for tax-exempt status received from organizations with such presumably conservative indicators as “Tea Party,” “patriots,” or “9/12” in their names, approving only four while green-lighting applications from several dozen organizations whose names included the likely left-leaning terms “progressive,” “progress,” “liberal,” or “equality.” It demanded from some conservative organizations unwieldy amounts of documentation and private information, such as what books their members were reading or what they had posted on social networking sites. The Coalition for Life of Iowa was actually asked to detail the content of their prayers…
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IRS TARGETING GOES BACK DECADES
[Ed. Note: Reposted from FoxNews.com, June 13, 2013, "IRS targeting goes back decades, houses of worship have been main targets." Even before they could spell Tea Party, the IRS was targeting groups and people not in line with Liberal thought.]
By Daniel Blomberg and Eric Rassbach, Legal Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
The big news recently has been that the IRS has targeted hundreds of organizations for audits, refusal of non-profit status, and other bureaucratic ordeals simply because of what they say. People are outraged that the IRS, which is supposed to enforce the law in an evenhanded way, is actually pursuing political goals.
What most people don’t realize is that the IRS has been acting as the speech police for decades. Ever since 1954, when then-Senator Lyndon Johnson pushed for a law enabling the IRS to punish non-profits who opposed him politically, the IRS has been in the business of government censor. What’s worse is that one of the biggest targets of this censorship has been religious people and houses of worship. In fact, one of the IRS’s first targets in the 1950s was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was subjected to a searching IRS audit because of his religious advocacy for civil rights for African-Americans.
The IRS of course has the crushing power to deny or revoke the non-profit status of a synagogue, church, or mosque if it says something the IRS decides is too “political.” But it can also put houses of worship and other religious organizations through the wringer of intrusive, costly, and time-consuming audits.
There are two ways the targeting works. One way is for an outside group, often one that is anti-religion, to…
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OBAMACARE? WE WERE JUST LEAVING…
[Ed.Note: Republished from Politico, June 13, 2013, by Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman. What used to be sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. Now, when the going gets tough, the ganders get going!]
Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting.
The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.
Democratic and Republican leaders are taking the issue seriously, but first they need more specifics from the Office of Personnel Management on how the new rule should take effect — a decision that Capitol Hill sources expect by fall, at the latest. The administration has clammed up in advance of a ruling, sources on both sides of the aisle said.
If the issue isn’t resolved, and massive numbers of lawmakers and aides bolt, many on Capitol Hill fear it could lead to a brain drain just as Congress tackles a slew of weighty issues — like fights over the Tax Code and immigration reform.
The problem is far more acute in the House, where lawmakers and aides are generally younger and less wealthy. Sources said several aides have already given lawmakers notice…
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SHOCKING OBAMACARE “NEWS”
[Ed. Note: Republished from The Christian Post, June 10, 2013, by Bethany Blankley, "ObamaCare to Increase Health Insurance Premiums by 100-400 Percent, Deficit and Taxes to Skyrocket." All the news that was fit to print in 2008 is contained in this "revelation" just out on ObamaCare.]
Americans have every right to be worried. Come January 1, 2014 and for years to come, their health insurance premiums will implode, their taxes will increase, and the nation’s deficit will soar—all thanks to President Obama, those who voted him and Democratic Congressmen who voted for ObamaCare.
Americans can expect individual premiums to become unaffordable. According to a new report released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, ObamaCare will increase individual health insurance premiums by an average of nearly 100 percent. In some cases, premiums could rise by 400 percent. The committee prepared the report based on internal documents they received from some of the nation’s largest health insurance companies. “The average yearly cost for a new customer in the individual market grows from $1,896 to $3,708—a $1,812 cost increase,” the report states.
The Committee projections were right. Last week, for example, Covered California—the name for the state’s insurance exchange—released the rates that Californians will have to pay to enroll in the exchange—an increase of up to 146 percent for individual premiums.
Health insurance costs will go up because medical claims costs will become more expensive…
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MOSQUES EXEMPT FROM OBAMA’S SNOOPING
[Ed. Note: Republished from Investors.com, June 12, 2013, "Obama's Snooping Excludes Mosques, Missed Boston Bombers." If this doesn't set your hair on fire, nothing will!]
The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won’t snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are.
That’s right, the government’s sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized.
Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.
Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.
We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel’s formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.
Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting…
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AN INSIDER TALKS ABOUT TEXAS EDUCATION
[Ed Note: Republished from The Texas Tribune, June 13, 2013, by Morgan Smith, "Kent Grusendorf: The TT Interview."
The battles over Education are over for another legislative session, but what really goes on behind the scenes as one group or another comes out in favor or against the bills introduced in the Texas House and Senate? Kent Grusendorf has been there and continues the fight after 20 years in the Texas House and two terms as the chairman of the Public Education Committee. Here he shares some of the "inside baseball" secrets of what is really going on in Austin.]
Visionary to some, anti-public-school bogeyman to others, Kent Grusendorf has been a powerful voice in the state’s debates over public education in the three decades since he launched his political career on the State Board of Education.
An early champion of conservative education reforms based on a philosophy of low regulation and high competition that later gained national prominence with the No Child Left Behind Act, the Arlington Republican finished 20 years in the Texas House with two terms as the chairman of the Public Education Committee. After his defeat in a 2006 primary, Grusendorf has continued to advocate for programs allowing students to use public funds attend to private schools — and to be an outspoken critic of public school bureaucracy.
Most recently, he has taken his cause to the courtroom, leading a newly formed organization…
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