House Republicans to demand delaying the individual mandate as part of the debt ceiling debate
On Tuesday I wrote a post about a possible House strategy in regards to Obamacare after the Senate sends the continuing resolution back with healthcare reform money restored. The strategy was to go something like this: The House would approve the continuing resolution with the Obamacare funding but would include a one year delay in implementing the individual mandate.
However, either the Republicans are rethinking this strategy or they are preparing a Plan B just in case the strategy I outlined fails, because it now appears as if they are moving forward on a debt ceiling strategy without waiting to see how the continuing resolution debate pans out.
Obamacare: Barack Obama admits healthcare reform did raise taxes on “some things”
Do you remember when Barack Obama promised that under his healthcare plan Middle Class America would not see their taxes raised even one thin dime? I do, but if you have forgotten, here is what he said:
“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increases. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.” – Barack Hussein Obama, Sept. 12, 2008
“If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not a single dime.” – Barack Hussein Obama, Feb. 24, 2009
That facade was torn asunder when Chief Justice John Roberts issued his disastrous Supreme Court decision redefining the individual mandate as a tax. But still the president clung to his claim that he did not raise taxes on the Middle Class.
Obamacare: The IRS cannot account for $67 million taken from healthcare slush fund
According to this article when Obamacare was passed into law there was a provision in the bill which gave the IRS $1 billion to implement Obamacare.
The “Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund” (HIRIF) was tucked into Obamacare in order to give the IRS money to enforce the tax provisions of the healthcare law. The fund, totaling some $1 billion of taxpayer money, was used to roll out enforcement mechanisms for the approximately 50 tax provisions of Obamacare.
However a newly released report finds that the IRS did not account for $67 million spent from this fund: Read more…
The House may move to delay Obamacare’s individual mandate
I think it is quite certain that Mike Lee and Ted Cruz are going to fall short in their effort to defund Obamacare as part of the continuing resolution, due in part, to the timidness of the Republican leadership for they are afraid to take on Barack Obama and the Democrats on this issue.
At this point I am note sure if their timidness on this issue comes from the media reports that Republicans will take the blame for a government shut down, or whether Barack Obama has something on the Republican leadership that he is holding over their heads. Remember, Barack Obama is a master of dirty politics; this is how he won his Illinois Senate seat and he was indiscriminate toward all his opponents, both Democrats and Republicans alike, and I wouldn’t put it past him today. But that is not the subject of this post.
With the likelihood that the Obamacare funding will be put back into the bill and sent back to the House it appears as if the Republicans are readying a Plan B.
Disgraced IRS official Lois Lerner will get to keep her full pension
When I wrote about the retiring of Lois Lerner yesterday I speculated that this move would allow the disgraced official to keep her pension. It wasn’t really a hard prediction to make but now it appears as if that is indeed the case.
Lois Lerner, the IRS official who presided over a partisan program that targeted conservative organizations because of their political beliefs, will retire on Monday with a full pension package, a source at the Department of Treasury told MailOnline.
Lerner, 62, has been a federal government employee since at least 1981, making her eligible for the most robust retirement package the federal government offers career employees.
Because she is a career public servant she is also going to receive the best retirement package the Federal Government has for its dedicated employees of the public trust. Isn’t that wonderful? But if that was not bad enough she is also going to receive 50% compensation for all of her unused sick and vacation time.
Ron Paul was right in 2002, if only we listened
As a libertarian leaning conservative I am one who liked much of what Ron Paul stood for on domestic issues, but he always lost me on the foreign issues because in trying to articulate his points he often came off as being too much of an isolationist for me. I thought about voting for him in 2008 and 2012 but he always said something which made him come off as being a little off kilter.
He was portrayed as a crazy old man but back in 2002 Ron Paul took the floor of the House and made several predictions. He gave no timetable for his predictions but at the end of his speech he asked Americans to look back at his predictions in five to ten years to see if he was accurate so now that time has come. Read more…
Why do the establishment ruling class Republicans hate Ted Cruz?
Over the weekend Ted Cruz sat down with Chris Wallace to discuss the issue of defunding Obamacare, after this interview Chris Wallace made the claim to Karl Rove that establishment ruling class Republicans were asking him to “hammer” the Senator from Texas during the interview.
“As soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our featured guest this week, I got unsolicited research and questions, not from Democrats but from top Republicans, to hammer Cruz,” Wallace said, addressing Karl Rove, a member of the show’s panel.
Sarah Palin then took Chris Wallace to task and called upon him to release the names of those Republicans who were attacking Ted Cruz instead of using unanimous sources.
At this point it is unclear to me what Sarah Palin’s motive was: was she in disbelief of Chris Wallace’s statement and looking for proof, or does she believe the claim and is simply looking for the names of those Republicans who are going after Ted Cruz?
As for me, I happen to believe Chris Wallace for I see no benefit to him for making this up. So why are the establishment ruling class Republicans so opposed to Ted Cruz? I think Karl Rove’s response to Chris Wallace sums it all up: Read more…
Lois Lerner retires from the IRS amidst scandal
Last May Lois Lerner admitted, through a planted question, that the IRS had been wrongfully targeting conservative groups before the 2010 election. Since that time she has been on administrative leave while an internal investigation was conducted.
She then appeared before the Congress and pleaded the fifth, claiming she did nothing wrong, but then we learned that Lois Lerner was feeling pressure from above to do something about the Citizens United ruling and just two weeks ago we found out that newly released emails might prove that she did in fact target conservative groups.
It is among this backdrop that today’s news comes out that just as the IRS’s internal investigation was about to be released which called for her ouster for “neglect of duties” that she abruptly retired. You can’t fire me, I quit!
Lindsey Graham flip-flops, now supports defunding Obamacare
On Friday, after the vote to defund Obamacare, Lindsey Graham tweeted his support for the measure. This was strange considering the fact that he has opposed defunding Obamacare in the past:
Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) appeared to do an about-face Friday afternoon, tweeting his support for the House’s recently passed continuing resolution that defunds ObamaCare
As recently as Tuesday, Graham had derided the effort, telling The Huffington Post that defunding ObamaCare would be ineffective because “80 percent” of the law would remain untouched, but “that seems to not resonate with anybody.”
He was also dismissive of the resolution’s prospects for success, telling Talking Points Memo that he “[didn’t] see [Obama] agreeing to defund his signature issue.”
Back in July, Graham had referred to defunding ObamaCare as “a bridge too far” for him.
So recently he was opposed to the measure because he thought it would be ineffective and had no chance to become law, and back in July he claimed it was “a bridge too far” so what changed?
Last week we learned that Obamacare was headed back to the Supreme Court; the issue to be decided this time revolves around the abortion mandate. Some Christian business owners do not want to provide healthcare insurance which covers the costs of abortions, citing their faith and moral opposition to the practice. They are claiming this mandate violates the Religious Freedom Reformation Act.
But in an interesting twist we are just now finding out that the Obama regime has petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the Hobby Lobby challenge to the abortion mandate as well, meaning there most likely will be two challenges before the Supreme Court on the issue at the same time.
As you may be aware, I do not trust Barack Obama in the least and I always look for the ulterior motive behind his actions. But what could it be in this case?
America's Watchtower 