New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer admits the influence of the Tea Party is “undeniable” and he is not happy about it at all.
“They’ve won elections, stymied Democratic priorities and taken a sledgehammer to programs that are important to tens of millions of Americans,” he complained.
As such he has come up with a means to silence the Tea Party–electoral reforms:
Among other recommendations, Schumer suggested an IRS crackdown on funding for tea party groups. “We have to look at electoral reform,” he said.
“Our very electoral structure has been rigged to favor tea party candidates in Republican primaries, even when the district or the state may not be that red.”
Schumer said “the tea party machine” has a particularly strong influence on Republican primaries, partly because the far right turns out to vote; and partly because of gerrymandering — “where Republicans have learned to capture state legislatures and then use innovative technology to draw districts where a Democrat could never be elected.
“Hence, the Republican House member only has to look over his right shoulder and moves much further to the right than the average voter in his or her district would want.”
He is apparently supportive of using the IRS to monetarily hurt the Tea Party and he has a radical idea for the primaries in order to lessen the influence of the Tea Party:
Could Obamacare lead to property seizures?
Kudos to Jim over at Asylum Watch for catching this story which has not surprisingly not been covered by the mainstream media. It appears as if Obamacare sets the stage for more property seizures by the Federal government.
How is this possible? It has to do with the Medicaid expansion which is part of the healthcare reform law:
Obamacare requires everyone to have health insurance. In more than half of the states in the country, that comes through an expansion of Medicaid, the joint federal-state program for the poor. Under a 1993 federal law, states can recoup the costs of Medicaid by seizing the property of deceased Medicaid recipients.
With the vast expansion of who can enroll in Medicaid under Obamacare, that could mean significantly more property. Though The Washington Post called it “scary but improbable,” the newspaper reported there are people who are concerned about it and that the federal government has not rejected it out of hand.
The Washington Post calls it improbable but the Federal government has not ruled it out, doesn’t that make you feel better about this? The Congress passed this law in 1993 to help deal with the rising costs on Medicaid:
Arizona Republicans censure John McCain for not being a conservative
Arizona Republicans have censured John McCain for being a liberal. This comes on the heals of his being censured by some Arizona county Republicans. Here is more:
The Arizona Republican Party formally censured Sen. John McCain on Saturday, citing a voting record they say is insufficiently conservative.
The resolution to censure McCain was approved by a voice-vote during a meeting of state committee members in Tempe, state party spokesman Tim Sifert said. It needed signatures from at least 20 percent of state committee members to reach the floor for debate.
According to the resolution, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee has campaigned as a conservative but has lent his support to issues “associated with liberal Democrats,” such as immigration reform and funding the federal health care law.
While I agree with the notion that John McCain is not now, nor has he ever been, a conservative this appears to be misguided to me for the problem does not lie solely at the feet of John McCain, but rather with the voters of Arizona.
Open thread for Sunday, January 26th: Sick of It!
Here is the open thread for Sunday, January 26th; please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
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Let me ask you all a simple question: are you sick of it?
Are you sick of an overreaching Federal government which wishes to impose its radical agenda through dictate? Are you sick of a lawless regime which unilaterally decides which laws to enforce and which one to ignore? Are you sick of the NSA spying on your telephone calls? Are you sick of the Federal government using the IRS to target its political opponents? Are you sick of the criminalization of opposition? Are you sick of being called names for disagreeing with the government? Are you sick of politicians who put their own personal gain and lust for power ahead of doing the people’s business? Are you sick of the global warming hoax? Are you sick of lobbyists enjoying all the power of making policy while the people have no voice? Are you sick of being lied to and betrayed by the people who are supposed to be representing you? Are you sick of the mainstream media’s lies, deceptions, and distractions? Are you sick of the class warfare and the trumped up war on women? Are you sick of a Federal government which seeks to divide in order to conquer? Are you sick of the out of control deficits and spending? Are you sick of politicians like Paul Ryan who claim to want to put an end to the spending and then passing a budget which reverses the sequester cuts on the backs of the military? Are you sick of politicians using tragedies to push their agenda? Are you sick of politicians creating crisis to push their agenda? Are you sick of the fact that nobody has been held accountable for Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, the TSA, the green energy initiative which sent money to politically connected corporations which eventually failed? Are you sick of there being no accountability in the Federal government? Are you sick of the lack of transparency despite the promise of more transparency? Are you just plain sick of the whole damn thing?
If you answered yes to any of the above this song is for you. Here is Skillet performing ‘Sick of It’ live from Soulfest last year, a show I just happened to attend.
When everything you do
Don’t seem to matter.
You try but it’s no use
Your world is getting blacker.
When every time you fail
Has no answer.
Every empty promise made
Is a reminder.
No one can make this better
Take control, it’s now or never!
Are you sick of it?
Raise your hands,
Get rid of it!
While there’s a fighting chance.
Are you over it?
Bored to death?
Have you had enough regret?
Take a stand, raise your hands…
If you’re sick of it!
The Department of Justice to institute marijuana banking regulations
Let me say upfront, and this is sure to anger some of my fellow conservatives, that I support the legalizing of marijuana for while I do not smoke it I feel the Federal government does not have the right to tell people they cannot. But beyond that, as a states rights advocate I feel this is a state issue and therefor it should be decided by the individual states not the Federal government. I support Colorado and all the other states who are attempting to take power away from the Federal government which it should not have in the first place.
Having said that: Eric Holder has announced the Department of Injustice will be instituting new banking laws on marijuana.
Moody’s downgrades healthcare insurers due to Obamacare
And the hits just keep on coming. Moody’s has downgraded healthcare insurers due to Obamacare:
Moody’s announced Thursday it was downgrading its outlook for health insurers from stable to negative based on uncertainty related to ObamaCare.
The credit rating agency cited an unstable environment because of the healthcare law’s difficult rollout, and projected that insurers would earn 2 percent less than forecast in 2014.
“While we’ve had industry risks from regulatory changes on our radar for a while, the ongoing unstable and evolving environment is a key factor for our outlook change,” Moody’s Senior Vice President Stephen Zaharuk said in a statement. “The past few months have seen new regulations and announcements that impose operational changes well after product and pricing decisions were finalized.”
The Moody’s report also cites the slow enrollment of young people into ObamaCare as a reason for the downgrade.
“Uncertainty over the demographics of those enrolling in individual products through the exchanges is a key factor in Moody’s outlook change,” the ratings agency said.
Citing statistics released by the administration, it noted that so far about 24 percent of enrollees are between the ages of 18 and 34, while a target of 40 percent may be necessary to keep premiums from rising in the future.
It said the 24 percent of young people enrolled so far is “well short” of the 40 percent target
Dinesh D’Souza indicted for campaign finance fraud
Dinesh D’Souza has been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for campaign finance fraud; he allegedly paid people to donate money to the campaign of Wendy Long when she was running for the Senate in 2012 after he had donated the maximum amount allowed under the law.
First let me say that if he is indeed guilty of this crime he deserves to go to jail. But one has to wonder if this is politically motivated, after all last year he produced an anti-Obama movie entitled ‘2016.’ Could this be retribution, his co-producer thinks so:
NASA admits the pause in global warming continues
NASA released a new report which admits the pause in global warming continued through the year 2013:
“The trends over the last 10 to 15 years compared to the trends before do appear to be lower than they were,” Gavin Schmidt, climatologist with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told reporters.
“We’ve been looking at this in separate work and partially it seems to be a function of internal variability in the system, so the fact is that we’ve had more La Nina-like conditions over the last few years compared to earlier on in the 2000s or in the late 1990s,” Schmidt added.
According to NASA, 2013 was tied with 2009 and 2006 for the seventh warmest year on record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ranks 2013 as the fourth warmest year on record, tying with 2003.
“In summary they both show that the ‘pause’ in global surface temperature that began in 1997, according to some estimates, continues,” wrote David Whitehouse, who holds a doctorate in astrophysics and was the BBC’s science editor. “Statistically speaking there has been no trend in global temperatures over this period.”
“Given that the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] estimates that the average decadal increase in global surface temperature is 0.2 [degrees Celsius], the world is now 0.3 [degrees Celsius] cooler than it should have been,” Whitehouse added.
So, if we have done nothing to curb global warming and global warming has paused anyway does not this mean that we did nothing to create global warming in the first place? Could it be a natural climate cycle of the earth, or is Barack Obama going to take credit for stopping the oceans from rising?
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