Obama power grab triggers 1st Amendment nightmare

 

Fox News Channel senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano says the Obama administration’s efforts to regulate the Internet constitute a major infringement upon freedom of speech, but he believes the new plan will get struck down in court for lack of transparency.

The five members of the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, are scheduled to vote Thursday on a plan to advance Obama’s net neutrality agenda, which also allegedly calls for the Internet to be treated like a utility. Despite the major changes the plan could well involve, lawmakers and the media have been rather quiet about it.

“People don’t know the danger that is coming,” Napolitano said. “The danger that is coming is a gaggle of bureaucrats here – three Democrats and two Republicans, the Republicans will probably dissent – claiming they have the power to regulate the Internet.”

He said Congress has passed no statute authorizing new government controls on the Internet, and the First Amendment clearly states that neither Congress nor any government agency it created can make a law restricting the freedom of speech.

Napolitano admits the stated goal of net neutrality sounds innocuous when first presented, but he said the problem Obama and his allies really have is with the free market.

“They claim that the purpose of their regulation is to prevent the Internet from affording priority and faster service to certain preferred users,” he explained. “Would we all like to have fast service? Yes. Do we all know how to get fast service? Yes, we do. Might that cost us something? Yes, it might, but at the present time it is free from government regulation.”

However, the judge said the public goal of establishing Internet fairness will come at a very heavy price.

“If the government regulates the Internet and tells providers how fast they can move information, we will soon see the government regulating the cost of the Internet. We will eventually, just like with broadcast television, see the government regulating the content of the Internet,” said Napolitano, who described the chain reaction he believes the FCC proposal would trigger.

“Right now, the Internet is the freest marketplace of ideas and transfers of information that the world has ever known,” he said. “At least in the United States, it is utterly and totally – there are some minor exceptions – unregulated. Once these federal bureaucrats get their hands on it, give them a couple of years. It’ll look like broadcast television, a watered-down version of what we now have.”

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Also at work, according to Napolitano, is the federal government’s unquenchable thirst for more and more power.

“Think about it,” he said. “You’re a commissioner on the FCC. You’re regulating telecoms and broadcast TV. Wouldn’t you like to regulate cable while you’re at it? Wouldn’t you like to regulate the Internet while you’re at it? It’s human nature when you have power to want to expand the power. That’s why we have a Constitution, to prevent these expansions of power.”

One of the greatest frustrations for those concerned about the FCC plan eroding speech rights is that the commissioners will not, and say they cannot, reveal any details of the package until after the vote on Thursday. Napolitano said that tactic is actually a double-edged sword. He said the downside of the secrecy is obvious.

“It’s bad because the government has an obligation under federal law, when any of its administrative agencies plan on changing their rules and expanding their power or modifying substantially the manner in which they regulate, to publish those rules for 30 days,” Napolitano said.

And because the FCC is not following the law, it gives opponents fertile ground for an appeal.

“The good part is, the failure to publish this will invalidate the rules once they’re challenged before a federal court. The government is shooting itself in the foot,” said Napolitano, who sees this turning into a replay of another fierce court battle involving the administration.

“This is the very same thing it did when it attempted to implement President Obama’s changes in immigration law, and they were enjoined from doing so last Monday by a federal judge in Texas, who said, ‘You didn’t publish these rules for 30 days, which gives the public the opportunity to comment and, more importantly, Congress the opportunity to modify the rules,”he said.

Napolitano said the biggest asset for net neutrality supporters right now is the disinterest of the American people. He said if that changes, the whole debate will change.

“This proposal by the president (these are the president’s appointees on the FCC) actually has the support of the leadership of both political parties, big-government Republicans and big-government Democrats,” he said. “But some of them will have great pause for reconsideration if there is a great national debate on this.”

He said fierce debate is exactly what the Democrat majority of commissioners is trying to avoid through its secretive tactics.

“That’s the reason why the three Democrats on the FCC want to force it through,” he said, “so there will be no great national debate, because a great national debate will result in the undoing of this.”

Obama power grab triggers 1st Amendment nightmare
Greg Corombos
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 00:50:00 GMT

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Secret Iranian nuke facility revealed

 

Alireza Jafarzadeh and Soona Samsami of the National Council of Resistance of Iran revealed Tuesday the details of an underground top-secret nuclear site(Courtesy NCRI)

WASHINGTON – As the Obama administration negotiates a controversial nuclear agreement with Iran, a dissident group is revealing evidence Tehran is operating a secret uranium-enrichment site northeast of the capital city.

The disclosure Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, NCRI, threatens to undermine the credibility of any nuclear agreement the Obama administration might reach with the radical Islamic clerics that have controlled the government in Tehran since Ayatollah Khomeni’s revolution in 1979.

NCRI’s deputy director, Alireza Jafarzadeh, said Iran cannot be trusted.

“How in the world can the United States expect to get an agreement from Iran to end their nuclear program, when we continue to find Iran is developing and operating secret nuclear facilities that are withheld even from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Administration?” Jafarzadeh asked.

“Iran has lied repeatedly about its secret nuclear facilities, and then when Iran is caught, the government gives you two more lies,” he said.

Jafarzadeh and Soona Samsami, U.S. representative of NCRI, identified the secret nuclear site as Lavizan-3, located in the northeastern suburbs of Tehran.

They said it operates advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges under the cover of an Intelligence Ministry center.

The NCRI disclosure was developed by the Mujahedin-e Klaq, MEK, the group’s political arm in Iran founded in 1965 to oppose Khomeini’s radical Islamic revolution.

NCRI has a track record of accurately disclosing secret Iranian uranium enrichment sites. In 2002, NCRI revealed Iran’s top secret uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, some 100 miles north of Isfahan, and a second top secret Iranian nuclear plant in Arak, approximately 150 miles south of Tehran, designed to produce heavy water for the production of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.

The Lavizan-3 site is about 500 by 500 yards, with the primary nuclear facility buried deep underground, NCRI said. It consists of four parallel halls, each more than 200 yards long. The facility was constructed by the Iranian Defense Ministry under the direction of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Brig. Gen. Seyyed Ali Hosseini-Tash, then the deputy defense minister, and Kalaye Electric Company, affiliated with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, responsible for the enrichment of uranium.

Jafarzadeh said there is “no way to insure Iran is not developing secret nuclear weapons if Tehran keeps nuclear sites like Lavizan-3 hidden even from the IAEA such that the sites cannot be subject to international inspection.”

“This is especially important when you are talking about a regime that has a track record of lying, cheating and deceiving the whole world,” he said. “That is why the U.S. government and the IAEA should take this information very seriously.”

Jafarzadeh emphasized the importance of the disclosure of yet another secret Iranian nuclear site as the negotiations with the U.S. in Geneva are approach a March 31 deadline.

“This site, Levizan-3, must be inspected and there should be no delay,” he said. “It is absolutely senseless to continue the negotiations discussing how many centrifuges Iran will be allowed to have going forward when we have these serious outstanding issues lingering out there.”

Jafarzadeh said NCRI shared the disclosures with top levels of the U.S. government and with the IAEA.

The disclosures were a “revelation” to the IAEA, he said.

“Under current IAEA agreements, the operation of Levizan-3 is in clear violation of IAEA requirements to inform the IAEA of all developments in Iranian nuclear research and development, as well as a violation of numerous United Nations Security Council decrees, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he said.

An NCRI statement said the “notion that the mullahs will abandon their nuclear weapons program through nuclear talks is a misguided narrative, which is the byproduct of the mullahs’ duplicity and western economic and political expediency.”

“Those who hope to secure the regime’s cooperation in the campaign against fundamentalism by offering nuclear concessions to the mullahs are both increasing the chances of a nuclear-armed Iran and contributing to the spread of Islamic fundamentalism,” NCRI said.

In a prepared statement she read at the press conference,

Samsami said in a prepared statement that research and development with advanced centrifuges in secret sites are only intended to advance Iran’s nuclear weapons project.

“Why else would the Iranian regime deceive the world into believing it had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, when Levizan-3 was in preparation from 2004 through 2008?” she asked.

“If the United States is serious about preventing the Iranian regime from obtaining nuclear weapons, the United States must make the continuation of talks conditional on the IAEA’s immediate inspection of the Levizan-3 site,” she stressed. “Any delay in doing so will enable the Iranian regime to destroy the evidence as it has done in the past.”

In 2005, WND Books published “Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians.”  The author, senior staff writer Jerome Corsi, argued Iranian supporters in the U.S. of the Islamic regime, including New York-based investment banker Hassan Nemazee, had influenced U.S. politicians such as then-Sen. John Kerry to take campaign contributions in exchange for accepting an Iranian promise of developing nuclear capabilities only for energy.

In 2004, Nemazee served as the New York finance chairman for Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, followed by serving as finance chairman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In her 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton chose Nemazee to serve as her national finance director.

On March 2010, Nemazee, then 60, pleaded guilty in federal court to fraudulently applying for and receiving some $292 million in loans. As chairman of Nemazee Capital, he received the loans from Citicorp, Bank of America and HSBC to buy property in Westchester County, make campaign contributions to Democratic Party politicians, donate to charity and to support his lavish society lifestyle.

On July 15, 2010, U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York sentenced Namazee to more than 12 years in federal prison on multiple federal criminal counts of bank and wire fraud.

Secret Iranian nuke facility revealed
Jerome R. Corsi
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 01:08:12 GMT

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Olbermann yanked off air for 'pitiful' exchange

 

Keith Olbermann

ESPN has suspended anchorman Keith Olbermann for the remainder of this after the left-wing firebrand called students of Penn State University “pitiful,” a remark the sports network is calling “completely inappropriate.”

The exchange began when Olbermann, a former anchor on MSNBC, commented on an article about Penn State students raising more than $13 million to fight pediatric cancer during its annual THON fundraiser.

Lisa De Leon, a Penn State alumna, tweeted the news to Olbermann, who last month slammed the school for its with the NCAA concerning penalties from the Jerry Sandusky case.

Olbermann responded to De Leon with one word: “Pitiful.”

The remark went viral, and Twitter users came to De Leon’s defense, with Dave Seidel saying: “So @KeithOlbermann says PSU students raising over $13m for pediatric cancer research is ‘pitiful.’ No sir, u r the definition of the word.”

Olbermann immediately doubled-down, claiming Penn State students were pitiful because they’re Penn State students – “period.”

He followed up with a searing tweet that said: “I’d like to thank the students and alums of Penn State for proving my point about the mediocrity of their education and ethics.”

Officials at ESPN were not thrilled, and issued this statement:

“We are aware of the exchange Olbermann had on Twitter last night regarding Penn State. It was completely inappropriate and does not reflect the views of ESPN. We have discussed it with Keith, who recognizes he was wrong. ESPN and Keith have agreed that he will not host his show for the remainder of this week and will return on Monday. The annual tradition of THON and the efforts of the students of Penn State to fight pediatric cancer should be applauded.”

Tuesday afternoon, Olbermann tweeted an online apology: “I apologize for the PSU tweets. I was stupid and childish and way less mature than the students there who did such a great fundraising job.”

James Miller, who co-authored a book on the network, told the New York Post Olbermann would be paid during his time off the air.

Olbermann yanked off air for 'pitiful' exchange
Joe Kovacs
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 21:52:15 GMT

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Ted Cruz opens throttle in campaign against Lynch

 

Loretta Lynch

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Tuesday opened the throttle on his effort to torpedo President Obama’s nomination of Loretta Lynch to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, tweeting his opposition and writing in Politico that her “radical positions” are more than alarming.

WND has reported concerns about Lynch’s key role in the Obama administration’s decision not to prosecute the banking giant HSBC for laundering funds for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists. The Senate Judiciary Committee recently conducted a two-hour session with HSBC whistleblower John Cruz in its investigation of Lynch’s role in the scandal.

WND was the first to report in a series of articles beginning in 2012 on charges by Cruz, a former HSBC vice president and relationship manager, based on his more than 1,000 pages of evidence and secret audio recordings.

Lynch allowed HSBC to enter into a “deferred prosecution” settlement in which the bank agreed to pay a $1.9 billion fine and admit “willful criminal conduct” in exchange for dropping criminal investigations and prosecutions of HSBC directors or employees.

On Tuesday, Cruz tweeted his opposition to Lynch, saying, “Read & RT my new op-ed: GOP must oppose Loretta Lynch – or lose all credibility on lawlessness.”

The Stop Loretta Lynch website linked the senator’s op-ed.

Wrote the senator: “What does it take for Senate Republicans to decide not to confirm Loretta Lynch, who is President Obama’s nominee to be attorney general? At what point is the lawlessness simply too much?”

“Senate Republicans have the power to stop this nomination. And we have a choice. We can honor our oaths to the Constitution – we can defend liberty and the rule of law – or we can confirm an attorney general who has candidly admitted she will impose no limits on the president whatsoever,” he said.

He said Holder “has abused the office, turning a Department of Justice that had built a long bipartisan tradition of impartially enforcing the law into effectively a partisan arm of the Democratic Party. And he has repeatedly ignored the law and the Constitution, so much so that he is the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt of Congress.”

Now, he said, referring to Lynch’s responses to Congress, the Senate is faced with a nominee “who tells us ahead of time she will ignore the law.”

“If the Senate [confirms her], we are complicit in the lawlessness,” Cruz wrote.

A day earlier, dozens of House Republicans urged senators to block Lynch’s confirmation.

The letter was signed by 51 House Republicans and states, “We respectfully ask that you refuse to vote Ms. Lynch out of the committee, and that you return her nomination to the president.

Read the explosive backstory inside the HSBC scandal – how WND first exposed the massive money-laundering scheme, the fallout from the eye-popping discovery and the role Loretta Lynch played in “Launder-gate.”

“We appreciate Ms. Lynch for her many years of outstanding service to our nation,” the Republicans continue. “Nonetheless, having observed her nominating hearing testimony, we can only conclude that she has no intention of departing in any meaningful way from the policies of Attorney General Eric Holder, who has politicized the Department of Justice and done considerable harm to the administration of justice.”

The House members, said, however, their larger concern was that Lynch apparently was unwilling “to stand up to the president and his unconstitutional efforts to circumvent Congress and enlarge the powers of his office.”

Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., said in a statement: “The top law enforcement official in the land must be willing to enforce the law, independent of administration politics. The testimony of Loretta Lynch demonstrated an unwillingness to depart from the politicization of justice we have seen from Eric Holder. The Senate has a constitutional obligation not to confirm her.”

Cruz wrote that he had wanted to support Lynch’s nomination.

But her testimony gave rise to major concerns: “When asked whether she would defend President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty – which Obama himself acknowledged, 22 times, he had no authority to undertake and which a federal court has just enjoined as unlawful – she responded affirmatively, saying that she thought the administration’s contrived legal justification was ‘reasonable.’”

Pointedly, Sen. Cruz wrote: “When asked if a subsequent president could use the same theory to exempt the state of Texas from every single federal labor law and environmental law – she refused to answer. … When asked if a subsequent president could use ‘prosecutorial discretion’ to order the Treasury Secretary to no longer collect any income taxes above 25 percent … she refused to answer.”

“These are extreme, radical positions,” Cruz said. “There is a reason the Senate is given constitutional authority over ‘advice and consent.’ We were not elected to be a ‘fraternal order.’ … We were elected to defend the Constitution.”

WND has reported that Cruz, the whistleblower, called the $1.9 billion HSBC fine “a joke.” He said HSBC bank auditors had told him in 2009 that senior managers and compliance officers in New York were fully aware the London-headquartered bank was engaged in a criminal scheme to launder money internationally for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists.

“The auditors warned me investigating the money laundering could cost me my job,” Cruz said. “The auditors told me in 2009 that nobody in the bank was going to go to jail and that HSBC had already put aside $2 billion in reserves to pay the fine they somehow had reason to suspect back then that the Department of Justice would demand to settle the case.”

Cruz argued that a $1.9 billion fine of an international bank the size of Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, the official name of HSBC, amounted to no more than “a few days operating profit.” He described it as “a cost of doing business” once HSBC had decided to launder money for international criminals.

Senate investigators to hear HSBC recordings

Confidential sources in Washington confirmed to WND that Jason Foster, the chief investigative counsel at the Senate Judiciary Committee, was directing the investigation into Cruz’s allegations against Lynch.

Cruz’s charges and documentation were brought to Sen. David Vitter, R-La., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, before the senator announced Feb. 11 that he was opening his own investigation of Lynch.

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Foster is considered on Capitol Hill to be one of the Senate’s best, most experienced investigators. A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, he had more than 15 years experience directing fact-finding inquiries for the Senate Committee on Finance, Senate Homeland Security Committee and the House Committee on Government Reform, before becoming chief investigative counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2011.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s staff questioning of Cruz and his attorney focused on approximately 1,000 pages of HSBC customer account records that Cruz turned over to WND early in 2012. The records were pulled from the HSBC computer system before he was fired by HSBC senior management who didn’t want to investigate his claim to have discovered illegal money-laundering activity at the bank.

As WND reported in its series of articles, Cruz was able to document a complex criminal scheme that involved wiring billions of dollars of money for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists thorough thousands of bogus accounts created through identity theft. The scheme used the names and Social Security numbers of hundreds of unsuspecting current and former customers. It allegedly had the active participation of regional bank managers, branch managers and employees, as well as bank compliance officials at hundreds of HSBC locations throughout the nation. The money ultimately was wired by the bank to undisclosed bank accounts internationally.

Foster, on behalf of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has requested that Cruz submit some 70 hours of conversations Cruz secretly recorded of bank management and compliance officers in New York. He also recorded his conversations with law-enforcement authorities, including the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS.

Cruz began working at HSBC Jan. 14, 2008, as a commercial bank accounts relationship manager and was terminated for “poor job performance” on Feb. 17, 2010, after he refused to stop investigating the HSBC criminal money-laundering scheme from within the bank.

In his position as a vice president and a senior account relationship manager, Cruz worked in the HSBC southern New York region, which accounts for approximately 50 percent of HSBC’s North American revenue. He was assigned to work with several branch managers to identify accounts to which HSBC might introduce additional banking services.

Cruz told WND he recorded hundreds of hours of meetings he conducted with HSBC management and bank security personnel in which he charged that various bank managers were engaging in criminal acts.

“I have hours of hours of recordings, ranging from bank tellers, to business representatives, to branch managers, to executives,” he said. “The whole system is designed to be a culture of fraud to make it look like it’s a legal system. But it’s not.”

Ted Cruz opens throttle in campaign against Lynch
Bob Unruh
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 16:31:45 GMT

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Cupcake cop goes ballistic on grandma, 78

 

78-year-old Mary Poole after she was pepper-sprayed twice in the face.

A California school district is now being sued by a 78-year-old grandmother who was allegedly pepper-sprayed and manhandled by a school police officer, all because she wanted to give her granddaughters cupcakes and cookies.

Mary Poole reportedly suffered a fracture and dislocated shoulder in the incident last year at Kastner Intermediate School in Fresno, California, leaving her more than $180,000 in medical bills.

According to KFSN-TV, the woman was dropping off treats for the girls when she says the Clovis Unified police officer asked her to leave because of a court order against her. Poole was delivering the goodies since the girls’ parents are embroiled in divorce and custody proceedings.

The station says Poole was the guardian of her son’s daughters for several years, but the custody dispute left her unable to see the girls. However, there’s no court order against her.

“I hadn’t seen my granddaughters for some time and I wanted to see them, and so I baked some cupcakes and bought some cookies for my granddaughters’ classroom,” Poole told the station.

As she was waiting at the class door, an officer told her she had to leave.

Poole says she departed the campus but pulled her car over in front of the school.

“He wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say, period,” said Poole. “Every time I tried telling him anything … I mean, I was even telling him, ‘I’m 78 years old,’ before he grabbed me. He sprayed me with mace twice.”

Watch video coverage by KFSN-TV:

Poole says she telling her son what happened on the phone, and that’s when the officer became confrontational.

“And I was very frightened, and I told him to call the police and he said, ‘I am the police,’” said Poole.

“He jerked me out of my car with my left arm with such great force, and then threw me onto the pavement. From there he dragged me by my left arm up to the school grounds,” said Poole.

Mary Poole

In her lawsuit filed Monday against Clovis Unified School District, Poole claims excessive force, elder abuse, assault and false arrest.

“The amount of force it took to inflict these injuries is testament to what happened that day,” Mark Coleman, Poole’s attorney, told the ABC affiliate.

He says the officer should have been trained properly to handle such a situation.

Poole, who stands less than 5 feet tall and weighs about 110 pounds, was never arrested.

While Clovis Unified has not commented on the suit, the officer still reportedly works for the school district.

Cupcake cop goes ballistic on grandma, 78
-NO AUTHOR-
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 17:45:30 GMT

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Black 12-year-old blasts Obama in epic speech

 

A 12-year-old black middle-school student from Georgia is raising eyebrows as he’s scorching Barack Obama in an epic YouTube speech, accusing the president of having a “downright hatred for this nation.”

C.J. Pearson posted the video Saturday, seeking to “applaud Mayor Rudy Giuliani for his comments about President Barack Obama.”

“Here’s the truth of the matter: I don’t want to be politically correct. I don’t care about being politically correct at this point.

“President Obama, You don’t love America. If you really did love America, you would call ISIS what it really is: an assault on Christianity, an assault on America and downright hate for the American values that our country holds. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion and every single thing that our country stands for.”

C.J. Pearson blasts President Obama in a viral video on YouTube.

He adds, “I hope that one day people will get enough guts to speak out against your downright hatred for this nation.”

When it comes to the Islamic terror group ISIS, Pearson said, “When they kill innocent Americans that have done no wrong except report on what is their constitutional right as journalists and you do nothing about it, you don’t care about their lives. You could care less!

“But here’s what you need to realize: here in America, we don’t back down to terrorists. We fight them on their own battleground and we annihilate them till the very end.

“Here in America, we don’t allow the government to take away what we work for but we continue to work harder so that we may continue to succeed.”

The speech has already been viewed more than a half-million times on YouTube.

Pearson heads a group called “Young Georgians in Government.”

His Facebook page notes he is “committed to fighting for conservative principles and engaging young people in the political process.”

Pearson is receiving messages of love and hate on YouTube, including:

• “Wise and mature beyond your years, young man. God bless you!” (Evangelist Anita Fuentes)

• “Yawn, who really gives a damn was a middle-schooler thinks? He can’t vote till he is 18. He is a child, who evidently doesn’t know what he is talking about. ISIS is a threat to the whole world, and they have no problem killing Muslims, as well as Christians. This kid is too young and doesn’t have the life experience to form his own political opinion. Right now, he is just aping the opinions of his parents and I bet they are conservatives too.” (Clavell Jackson)

Black 12-year-old blasts Obama in epic speech
-NO AUTHOR-
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 23:24:27 GMT

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Feel the love

 

Feel the love
-NO AUTHOR-
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 22:29:57 GMT

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Obama slammed for redoing Obamacare at whim

 

A key senator on the Judiciary Committee says the real significance of the King v. Burwell lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court that challenges the legality of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tax subsidies to consumers under Obamacare is whether or not the president must follow the nation’s laws – like the rest of the nation.

“If I’m guilty of anything … it’s expecting the president would follow the law,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in remarks prepared for delivery at the Heritage Foundation on Monday.

“And that’s what’s ultimately at stake in King: Is the president bound to the law, or can he rewrite or simply ignore provisions he doesn’t like in order to further his political agenda?”

Hatch said advocates of the president’s position “would have us believe that statutes are infinitely malleable – up can mean down, right can mean left, established by the state can mean not established by the state.”

“What matters to them is advancing some vague notion of statutory purpose – regardless of what the statute actually says – that coheres with the president’s left-wing agenda.”

The case, which is to be heard by the Supreme Court March 4, focuses on the federal subsidies to millions of Americans to pay for health-insurance coverage.

The plain wording of the Obamacare is that the subsidies are available for those who obtain their coverage through exchanges “established” by the states. The stipulation was an incentive for states to set up the exchanges.

However, three dozen states simply refused, so the White House regulations were “interpreted” to mean that those who get coverage from a federally established exchange also could get the subsidies.

A brief from the Cato Institute in the King v. Burwell case charges the subsidies were expanded for purely political reasons.

See the “tsunami” that is changing America irrevocably, in Whistleblower magazine’s issue titled “Killing Obamacare: How to dismantle, destroy, repeal and replace the most destructive law in a generation.”

In the Volokh Conspiracy blog, David Bernstein explained that the Supreme Court “is set to decide whether Obamacare subsidies for policies procured from exchanges are only available when the exchange was ‘established by a state,’ as the plain text of the law says.”

Deferring to the administration’s interpretation of the law would be “foolhardy,” he wrote.

“No Obama political appointee is going to write regulations that say, in essence, ‘Oops, we (at best) forgot to account for the possibility that most states wouldn’t create exchanges, so let’s throw in the towel on the whole Obamacare thing by denying subsidies to residents of states that have federal exchanges,’” he wrote.

Hatch said, “Those of us on the other side … insist that text matters, words matter. What the statute says is what matters, because at the end of the day, the words in our statutes and in our Constitution are what bind our leaders, and what prevent them from doing whatever they want.

“Fidelity to text is the foundation of the rule of law,” he said.

He said if the Supreme Court does adopt the plain language of the law, then Congress needs to be prepared to step in and help those who have been getting subsidies improperly.

“Obamacare has already inflicted a lot of damage on our nation’s health care system, harming patients, consumers and employers alike. I don’t think we can stand by and simply let the shortcomings of the law harm millions more,” he said.

“We need to help the people who will be hurt by losing their subsidies because of Obamacare’s broken promises. That means providing a reasonable and responsible transition for those who may lose their subsidies while Congress works to repeal and replace Obamacare once and for all,” said Hatch.

“And that’s what we have to do: repeal and replace Obamacare. That’s the only permanent solution to this and a host of other problems,” he said.

He said the Obama administration, rather than following the “rule of law,” has “engaged in a sustained assault on the rule of law.”

“His offenses run the gamut from releasing Guantanamo detainees without first notifying Congress, as the law requires; to claiming that congressional inaction somehow clothes him with legislative-like authority to suspend immigration laws; to arrogating to himself the power to determine when Congress is in session.”

He said the intent of the language of the law is clear.

“The restriction of subsidies to state-established exchanges was thus a key element of Obamacare’s entire cooperative federalism scheme. Without this restriction, the end result would have been a federally run health care market, a result unacceptable to several key Obamacare supporters, including Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, whose vote was essential to passage,” he said.

Amendments to the law itself, to make it comply, are simply out of the question for Obama. The U.S. House has had a majority of Republicans for several years, and Republicans now control the Senate.

There have been dozens of votes already in the House to simply repeal Obamacare. And if a legislative update to the law were proposed, some of its features undoubtedly would be unacceptable to Obama.

Said Hatch, “We need to take the federal government out of the equation and put individuals back in charge of their health care decisions.”

The case is one of several that could create a massive roadblock for Obamacare. At the district court level, Judge Ronald White in Muskogee, Oklahoma, ruled that subsidies, in the form of tax credits, apply only to consumers in the 14 states that have set up insurance marketplaces and not to individuals who buy insurance on the federal marketplace, as in Oklahoma.

Another pending claim against Obamacare alleges the law violates the Fourth, Fifth and Ninth Amendment provisions on privacy.

The complaint also cites Articles I, II and III of the Constitution regarding the separation of powers and focuses on two issues: the requirement to buy insurance and the control that will be vested in the Individual Price Advisory Board, a new creation of the federal law that is unanswerable to Congress and unaccountable to the federal courts.

WND also reported on yet another lawsuit pending in federal court that charges Obama unilaterally altered the law without approval from Congress, which means it’s no longer legal.

In its first trip to the Supreme Court, Obamacare was ruled constitutional but only after the justices re-interpreted the “penalties” required by the law as a “tax,” a stance the Obama administration originally argued against.

In its second trip, the justices ruled that a “closely held” for-profit business can opt out of Obamacare’s universal contraception requirement based on religious objections.

Obama slammed for redoing Obamacare at whim
Bob Unruh
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 20:00:43 GMT

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America 'Harfs' at White House talking points

 

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf

What a week! Harfing, psaking, shoveling and freezing.

The gang over at the highly-trafficked Powerline blog wrapped up last week’s headlines in pictures that made their way around the Internet.

“This week’s is without doubt the biggest and most politically incorrect Week in Pictures ever,” said Powerline, “and that’s before you get to the special video bonus for folks shivering to death in half the country from climate change. And what’s up with Vice Groper Joe Biden? Is he planning on a post-Obama career in the TSA or something? Harf, harf, harf!”

Out of hundreds of comical illustrations that went viral on social media, Powerline snagged one that depicted various iterations of U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf’s laughable explanation that the Islamic State – aka ISIS – needs jobs so they won’t kill us:

Other notable “news” memes included Vice President Joe Biden’s inappropriate touchy-feely behavior caught on camera when he nuzzled the wife of newly-confirmed U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter during an official White House ceremony. It spawned dozens of photoshopped images like this one:

See them all, and marvel at “The Week in Pictures”!

Twitter aggregator Twitchy also tracked last week’s political shenanigans, including “What are you talking about? Marie Harf goes on the defensive, and off the rails.”

“After facing a well-deserved backlash over her asinine assertion that jobs could help convince ISIS terrorists to stop terrorizing, Marie Harf is on the defensive. Needless to say, it’s not working out too well for her. How do you solve a problem like Marie? You don’t. You just sit back, put your feet up, and watch the wheels come off.”

Are you “home free?”

Depending on where you live, your state might be the most free or the most freedom-restrictive. A report by the John Locke Foundation titled “First in Freedom” compares and ranks all 50 states, measuring them by four different criteria: fiscal, education, regulation, and health care policies.

The graphic below shows Florida as the “most free” state, New York the least:

Graphic: John Locke Foundation

To see how your state ranks in all four criteria, click here.

Also, the George Mason University’s Mercatus Center has released a “Freedom in the 50 States” map with even more variables – 200-plus economic and personal – in their calculations.

Tunneling

Snow, snow, snow. Everywhere you look across the nation’s northern tier, there were mountains of white stuff burying communities. One bored cabin-fever-suffering Canadian decided he’d do something about it. He gave new meaning to the term “digging out.”

And speaking of digging, Massachusetts Facebookers are comparing the tunnel below to Boston’s Big Dig, the most expensive highway project in the U.S., plagued by escalating costs, scheduling overruns, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests and one death. (Wikipedia)

Slowly I turn, step by step…

Remember the hilarious Niagara Falls (aka “Slowly I Turned, Step by Step”) bit made side-splittingly popular by The Three Stooges?

Here’s a “Moe” recent twist on it. Not quite as funny, but certainly as entertaining.

Photo: Zuma/Rex

The ugly side of snow

Yet in Boston it’s not quite as funny and lighthearted. One Facebook user noted that seven feet of snow in four back-to-back New England blizzards in just three weeks is “The ugly side of snow” and linked to a piece in the New York Times:

“We are being devastated by a slow-motion natural disaster of historic proportions. The disaster is eerily quiet. There are no floating bodies or vistas of destroyed homes. But there’s no denying that this is a catastrophe.”

The mountains of snow “crushed roofs, burst gutters, destroyed roads and sidewalks, closed schools and businesses, shut down highways, crippled public transit and trapped people in their homes.” It also resulted in the abrupt resignation of the head of Boston’s oldest subway system, prompting this tweet:

But cheer up, northern tier neighbors.

Bits & Bytes

American cities have changed in the past hundred-plus years. Here is a collection of stunning photos, one as old as 1903, that take you back a hundred years in time to the streets of Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New York, Detroit, and elsewhere.

Got Sharpie? The owner of a white van invited strangers to add their creative designs to his vehicle, using black Sharpie pens. The result? Pretty interesting.

Photo: media.tumblr.com

America 'Harfs' at White House talking points
-NO AUTHOR-
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 19:14:24 GMT

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CNN face: 'I want my kid to be gay, too'

 

A CNN political commentator who is also a writer for the Daily Beast is now saying not only is she homosexual, but she wants her 6-year-old daughter to grow to be a lesbian as well.

Sally Kohn

“I’m gay. And I want my kid to be gay, too,” says Sally Kohn, in an editorial published in the Washington Post.

“Many of my straight friends, even the most liberal, see this logic as warped. It’s one thing for them to admit that they would prefer their kids to be straight, something they’ll only begrudgingly confess. But wanting my daughter to be a lesbian? I might as well say I want her to grow up to be lactose intolerant.”

“‘Don’t you want her to be happy?’ one friend asked. Perhaps he just meant that it’s easier to be straight in a homophobic culture. But this attitude complies with, even reinforces, that culture in the first place.”

Kohn also complained that her young daughter is already showing an interest in boys.

“So far, it doesn’t look like my 6-year-old daughter is gay. In fact, she’s boy crazy,” Kohn writes.

“It seems early to me, but I’m trying to be supportive. Recently, she had a crush on an older boy on her school bus. She was acting as any precocious, socially awkward child would, which is to say not very subtle. I confided in a friend who has an older daughter. ‘She wants to give this kid a card and presents,’ I e-mailed. ‘The other kid is so embarrassed. It’s painful to watch. What do I do?’

Sally Kohn, right, wants her daughter, Willa Hansen-Kohn, center, to be a lesbian like herself.

“My friend wrote back with a slew of helpful advice, ending with a punch to my gut: ‘Bet it wouldn’t bother you so much if her crush was on a girl.’

“She was right. I’m a slightly overbearing pro-gay gay mom. But I’m going to support my daughter, whatever choices she makes.”

Kohn noted: “All I ultimately care about is that she has the choice and that whatever choice she makes is enthusiastically embraced and celebrated.”

Reaction online is varied, including:

• “This is like saying you want your kid to be autistic. You are hoping she has a brain abnormality.”

• “You rock, Sally. Finally there are some gay people who are willing to turn off the nicey nice for two seconds and tell well-meaning straight people that we’re sick of the condescension. I don’t care how liberal you are, if you feel sorry for us for being gay, then you’re part of the problem.”

• “Sorry, as a gay man I totally disagree. Growing up in the conservative South I’ve seen what pushing kids can do whether gay or straight. Personally I don’t think she should even have kids with that type of thinking. It is bad enough to be a lesbian or be gay striving to be accepted. Which personally at this point I am totally over the desire to be accepted at all. But personally this woman’s views are just as bad any parent who wants their kid to grow up in a prefabricated mold.”

CNN face: 'I want my kid to be gay, too'
-NO AUTHOR-
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 17:34:44 GMT

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