Wednesday, December 4, 2013

One Private Meeting Between President, Sebelius in 3.5 Years Leading Up to Obamacare Launch

One Private Meeting Between President, Sebelius in 3.5 Years Leading Up to Obamacare Launch

A stunning new study unveiled on Fox News' Hannity finds that President Barack Obama’s White House calendar records just one face-to-face meeting between Obama and his Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in the more than three-and-a-half years leading up to the disastrous Obamacare launch.

The startling statistic comes from a new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) analysis of Obama’s own official White House calendar, as well as the Politico presidential calendar, and raises new questions about Obama’s executive leadership and management throughout the implementation of his singular legislative achievement.
More alarming still, the president’s schedule lists 277 private meetings with 16 other Cabinet secretaries in the same time span from Obamacare’s March 23, 2010 signing to November 30, 2013. Why Obama would devote so little face time to the person tasked with implementing what he calls his “most important initiative” is presently unclear.
According to the GAI report, technically, the official White House calendar contains zero meetings with Sebelius, as it only reaches back to July 12, 2010. GAI researchers then used the Politico presidential calendar to assess listings between Obamacare’s signing (March 23, 2010) and the first date listed on the White House’s calendar (July 12, 2010). The study also analyzed the entirety of the Politico calendar from March 23, 2010 to November 30, 2013 and found a single mention of an April 21, 2010 joint meeting between Obama, then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and Sebelius.
In a November 14th press conference, Obama claimed he “was not informed directly that the website would not be working the way it was supposed to.”
GAI says it recorded listings as they were contained on the White House and Politico presidential calendars; other forms of communications, such as private emails or phone calls, are not able to be quantified.
The lack of in-person meetings between Sebelius and Obama may offer new insight into what the New York Times calls a “deeply dysfunctional relationship” between HHS and Obama’s White House chief of staff. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that White House officials are coming under "mounting pressure from Democrats and close allies to hold senior-level people accountable for the botched rollout of President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement and to determine who should be fired."
GAI Calendar Report 12.4.2013 PDF

Meet the Newest Victim of Obama’s Death Panel: 6 Year Old Ellie Porter

Meet the Newest Victim of Obama’s Death Panel: 6 Year Old Ellie Porter

Ellie-Porter-417x620


Just six months ago, she was your typical five year old girl, playful and rambunctious, and the overnight, cancer changed all that.  Not just cancer but a cancer so rare, the doctor was only able to find 10 previous cases in the United States.  The treatment is 4 times more aggressive than normal treatment and side effects can include hallucinations, coma, and death.
As if that weren’t bad enough, her parents received a letter just like 5 million others have received.  Your policy isn’t good enough for Barack Obama.  To upgrade his policy to meet those requirements would cost double and for a family, barely able to hold on, that can be catastrophic.  He has some choices, but his window of opportunity closes after Dec 15th.  Paul Porter, her father was forced to hire someone to help him sort out the mess.
He can now keep the policy he has now that he likes for one more year, he can buy a compliant policy, or he can go to the exchanges.  If he keeps his current policy, the costs could soar even higher next year.  If he upgrades the policy, he may not be able to meet the premiums and the exchanges are iffy at best.
KSL-TV reported Jason Stevenson, communications director with Utah Health Policy Project, said most families in a position like the Porters could potentially find a better coverage option under Obamacare.
“Generally folks with cancer, with pre-existing conditions, are finding both their rates much more affordable and finding their options more widespread.”
This story is being told every day, just with new names and cities, but Obamacare has never been the answer for any of them.  How many children have to die before liberals drop Obamacare?  The simple answer is they won’t.  Any party who gleefully call the murder of over 1 million innocent babies are year, will not be affected by a few thousand more.  All you can do is just pray that it never happens to you.

Call every congressman, demand a motion of non-confidence in Speaker and House Majority leader, demand immediate vote to remove Speaker Boehner and House Majority leader Cantor from their possitions. Replace them with Steve King and Lou Gohmert. I do not recommend Stockman, as so far he only talked and did not do a thing

Posted on | December 4, 2013 | No Comments
Larry Driscoll
10 approved
Orly,
Yes, good start to call Speaker John Boehner’s Office to object to his hiring of the e Rebecca Tallent Amnesty supporting individual.
Even more important, tell his office that you will be calling other Representatives asking them to remove Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Eric “Kid Amnesty” Cantor from their respective positions.
Good Replacement Speaker and Majority Leader, Representatives Steve Stockman of TX and Steve King of IA.
Share

Obama Accused of ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ at International Criminal Court

Obama Accused of ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ at International Criminal Court


dealAccording to Egyptian newspaper El Watan, a group of Egyptian lawyers has submitted a complaint charging U.S. president Barrack Hussein Obama with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.
The complaint charges Obama of being an accessory to the Muslim Brotherhood, which incited widespread violence in Egypt both before and after the June 30 Revolution.
Along with Obama, the complaint reproduced by El Watan mentions several Brotherhood members by name, beginning with the leader of the organization Muhammad Badie, and other top ranking leaders such as Mohamed al-Beltagy, Essam al-Erian, and Safwat Hegazi, adding that “Obama cooperated, incited, and assisted the armed elements of the Muslim Brotherhood in the commission of crimes against humanity in the period from 3/7/2013-8/18/2013, in the Arab Republic of Egypt.”
According to the published text, the complaint begins by quoting Article 7/1 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, titled “Crimes against humanity,” which is reproduced below:
Article 7
Crimes against humanity
1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;
(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
(f) Torture;
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced
sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial,
national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other
grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international
law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime
within the jurisdiction of the Court;
(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
(j) The crime of apartheid;
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
Next, the complaint shows how Muslim Brotherhood leadership violated some of the above definitions, for example, by torturing, mutilating, raping, and killing Egyptians in their “sit in” camps (first reported here), with a highlight on the role the Brotherhood played in inciting violence and the killing of peaceful protesters around Itthadiya Palace back in December.
Above and beyond the accusations of crimes against humanity that the lawyer-drafted complaint cited by El Watan levels against the Brotherhood, one need only look to the fate of Egypt’s Christian minority, who were especially targeted by the Muslim Brotherhood—and thus, by extension, their supporter, Obama—to see numerous examples of nearly every aforementioned definition of crimes against humanity, as follows:
Religious Persecution and Apartheid (see h and j)
Right after Morsi was ousted, the Muslim Brotherhood, including its supreme leader, Muhammad Badie, and its spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, as well as several of the other Brotherhood members mentioned in the complaint, publicly scapegoated the Christian minority for daring to support the popular June 30 Revolution (that is, for acting like equal citizens as opposed to cowed dhimmis as required by Islamic law).  The aftermath of the atrocities committed against the Copts are well known (to those who do not exclusively rely on the so-called mainstream media), and include the torching, destroying, and plundering of at some 85 churches, some of which were ancient.  Islam’s back flag was raised above some churches; anti-Christian graffiti littered the sides of other churches and Coptic homes.
Murder and Extermination (see a and b)
Among many others to be murdered in response to Brotherhood-incitement against the Copts, a ten-year-old girl was shot and killed while walking back from Bible class.  In the Sinai, a young Coptic priest was shot dead in front of his church, while the body of another Copt was found mutilated and beheaded.  Four other Christians were slaughtered by Muslims in Luxor province.  Most recently, a church wedding was attacked, leaving, among others, two girls, aged eight and twelve, dead and riddled with bullets.
As for “extermination,” the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters have long been threatening the Copts with annihilation if they ever opposed them.  Back in December 2012, Safwat Hegazi (a leading Brotherhood member named in the complaint, publicly declared during a Brotherhood rally:
A message to the church of Egypt, from an Egyptian Muslim: I tell the church—by Allah, and again, by Allah—if you conspire and unite with the remnants [opposition] to bring Morsi down, that will be another matter [screams of "Allah Akbar!" followed by chants of "With our soul, with our blood, we give to you, O Islam!"]… [T]here are red lines—and our red line is the legitimacy of Dr. Muhammad Morsi. Whoever splashes water on it, we will splash blood on him” [followed by more wild shouts of "Allah Akbar!"]
Around the same time, and more to the point, Dr. Wagdi Ghoneim—another vocal Brotherhood agitator who earlier praised Allah for the death of the late Coptic Pope Shenoudacursing him to hell and damnation in a video he posted on YouTube—made another video telling Egypt’s Christians:
You are playing with fire in Egypt, I swear, the first people to be burned by the fire are you [Copts].” … The day Egyptians—and I don’t even mean the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafis, regular Egyptians—feel that you are against them, you will be wiped off the face of the earth. I’m warning you now: do not play with fire!… What do you think—that America will protect you? Let’s be very clear, America will not protect you. If so, it would have protected the Christians of Iraq when they were being butchered!
Ghoneim’s words have proven prophetic—an indicator that this Egyptian hatemongering sheikh, who was expelled under Hosni Mubarak, knows the conduct of America’s leadership better than most Americans.  Along with Iraq’s and Egypt’s Christians, he could have mentioned the Christians of Syria as well, who are being decimated thanks to Obama’s support for al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists, AKA, “freedom fighters.”
Deportation, Extortion, Kidnapping, and General Abuse of Copts (see c, d, e, f, g, and i)
Since the Muslim Brotherhood publicly denounced the Copts, entire towns and villages have been emptied of Christians—for example, more than 100 Christian families from El Arish. After mentioning the mass destruction of churches during a recent conference, and speaking of a different incident, Dr. Sherif Doss, an Egyptian activist, said, “But worst of all, about 140 families were evicted from their own homes; and worse still is that, not only were they thrown out of their houses, but their shops and properties were robbed and destroyed… General Sisi has promised to rebuild the churches and this takes time to be done. But we can’t wait all that time for those people destitute and in the streets, with no place to live and nowhere to work…. These people are in a very bad condition. If you go and see these villages, you will be amazed—it is as if a nuclear bomb exploded there. People burned and plundered their homes without mercy.”
Similarly, Muslim Brotherhood supporters are extorting Copts, rationalized in the context of making them pay jizya—the money, or tribute, that conquered non-Muslims historically had to pay to their Islamic overlords “with willing submission and while feeling themselves subdued” to safeguard their existence, as indicated in Koran 9:29.  For instance, the roughly 15,000 Christian Copts of Dalga village in south Minya province were recently forced to pay jizya.  In some cases, those not able to pay were attacked, their wives and children beaten and/or kidnapped.  As a result, some 40 Christian families had fled Dalga, joining the ever growing list of displaced Christians in the Middle East.
Days before the June 30 Revolution, letters addressed to the Copts threatened them not to join the protests against Morsi, otherwise their “businesses, cars, homes, schools, and churches” might “catch fire”—which of course they all did. The message concluded by saying “If you are not worried about any of these, then worry about your children and your homes.”
Such threats, as mentioned, were hardly limited to anonymous letters.  During a TV interview, Sheikh Essam Abdulamek, a then member of parliament’s Shura Council, warned Egypt’s Christians against participating in the June 30 Revolution against Morsi, threatening them by saying “Do not sacrifice your children” since “general Muslim opinion will not be silent about the ousting of the president [Morsi].”
And the children of Copts have certainly been targeted—both during and after Morsi’s tenure.  Some, especially young girls, are regularly abducted, raped, and shamed into converting to Islam and “marrying” their rapists. Coptic boys have increasingly been abducted from the doorsteps of their churches and held for ransom. Recently, a 6-year-old Christian boy was murdered by his kidnapper—after the boy’s family paid the ransom.  (Read more about the jihad on Egypt’s Christian children.)
——
In short, by simply focusing on the plight of Egypt’s Christians, almost every criterion found under the category of “crimes against humanity”—including murder, extermination, deportation, torture, rape, disappearance, apartheid and religious persecution—are met.
Only one is necessary for the charge to stick.
As for the Obama administration’s support for the Brotherhood, if most Americans are clueless or indifferent about it, average Egyptians have long known and resented it—hence the many large placards and signs held during the June 30 Revolution calling on Obama to stop supporting terrorism and calling on Americans to wake up.
One need only follow the words and deeds of Anne Patterson, John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Hillary Clinton, et. al. to know that the U.S president is a firm supporter of the crimes-against-humanity-committing Muslim Brotherhood.
Of course, whatever the merits of El Watan’s report—here is another English-language article talking about apparently a different complaint of crimes against humanity leveled against Obama by Coptic activists—all these complaints seem futile, as the U.S. is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court.
However, all technicalities aside, the facts are clear: by any definition, the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters have committed numerous crimes against humanity in Egypt, especially in the context of the Christian Copts; and by its ongoing support for the Brotherhood, the Obama administration is complicit.   Remember this next time the Obama administration cites concerns about “human rights” violations as reason to involve the U.S. in war—as it recently tried to do in Syria, again, to support more Islamic terrorists who are committing even worse crimes against humanity.
*
Don’t miss Jamie Glazov’s video interview with Walid Shoebat about “Obama’s Disturbing  Brotherhood Ties”:
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.  

Woman arrested after killing man with penis injection

Woman arrested after killing man with penis injection

Kasia Rivera 
By: Sarah Weiss A woman was arrested and charged after killing a man with a penis injection.

The New Jersey woman on Tuesday, pleaded not guilty to causing the death of a man with a silicone injection meant to enlarge his penis.

Kasia Rivera, 35, could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the death of 22-year-old Justin Street.

Street, a father of two children, had gone to Rivera on May 5, seeking a penile lengthening procedure, which prosecutors said Rivera announced in ads posted by local businesses.

Rivera, who performed the procedure in her apartment, apparently without a license or medical training, administered a silicone into the penis of Street, according to prosecutors.

Street died the next day. His death was a ruled homicide following an investigation and determination of a coroner that he had died of a silicone embolism. Rivera was indicted by a grand jury last month.

Investigators believe Rivera may have conducted similar unauthorized procedures from her apartment in East Orange, but prosecutors said the search for witnesses, and a public plea for people to step forward, have turned up nothing.

Rivera, who remains free on $75,000 bail, declined to comment through her attorney appointed by the court this week.

Money, Gold, and History

Money, Gold, and History

In Money, Gold, and History, Lewis E. Lehrman raises three questions:
1) Will the perennial global monetary crisis and the century-old age of inflation still be underway a generation from now?
2) Will the global economy have succumbed to national rivalries, mercantilism, financial disorder, and entropy?
3) Or, will monetary order have been restored by the leading nations of the world in their own self-interest?
The authentic and effective American solution is neither esoteric nor complicated. It is simple and straightforward. The solution is authorized by the United States Constitution in Article I, Sections 8 and 10 whereby the control of the quantity of dollars in circulation is entrusted to the hands of the people because the definition of the dollar was entrusted to Congress. In 1792, Congress defined by statute the dollar as a specific weight unit of precious metal.
There it remained for most of American history, especially from 1792 to 1914 because the dollar was precisely defined by congressional statute as a weight unit of gold or silver. This gold standard economic era was America s longest period of rapid, non-inflationary, economic growth almost four percent annually with the budget under control, except during major wars.
Congress need only mobilize its unique, constitutional power under Article I "to coin money and regulate the value thereof." Until 1971 U.S. law defined the gold value of American currency such that paper dollars and bank demand deposits were convertible to their gold equivalent by the people (1792-1914) and/or by governments (1933-1971). The last vestige of convertibility was terminated by President Richard Nixon s Executive Order of August 15, 1971.
Congress should now exercise its constitutional power to restore discipline in the Federal Reserve System by dollar-gold convertibility, especially because of the proven, budgetary, and economic growth benefits of a dollar as good as gold.

History tells us we need to embrace
the least imperfect monetary system
A Gold Standard Now.

Muslim immigrants raped over 300 Swedish children in seven months of 2013

Muslim immigrants raped over 300 Swedish children in seven months of 2013

In the first seven months of 2013, over 1,000 Swedish women reported being raped by Muslim immigrants. Over 300 of those were under the age of 15. The number of rapes is up 16% compared to 2012 numbers.
From Swedish Public Radio…
Antalet polisanmälningar om våldtäkt i Stockholms län har ökat med 16 procent hittills i år. En stor del av ökningen gäller våldtäkt av unga flickor.
Det är Brottsförebyggande Rådet, BRÅ, som tagit fram statistik som publiceras idag.
Drygt 1 000 våldtäkter har anmälts i länet under årets första sju månader.
En stor del av ökningen gäller våldtäkter av flickor under 15 år.
Enligt BRÅ har polisen i länet fått in 300 sådana anmälningar hittills i år.

Issa: FBI impeding inquiry into IRS targeting of conservative groups

Issa: FBI impeding inquiry into IRS targeting of conservative groups


The House’s chief investigator says the FBI is stonewalling his inquiry into whether the agency and the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative group True the Vote for special scrutiny, and Rep. Darrell E. Issa is now threatening subpoenas to pry loose the information from FBI Director James B. Comey Jr.
Mr. Issa, California Republican, and Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, are leading the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s IRS inquiry. They also said the FBI is refusing to turn over any documents related to its own investigation into the IRS, which began in the days after an auditor’s report revealed the tax agency had improperly targeted tea party groups for special scrutiny.


Six months after it began, the FBI’s investigation has resulted in no release of information. The congressmen said the FBI even rescinded an offer for an in-person briefing with the assistant director in charge of the investigation. The reversal, after the FBI consulted with the Justice Department, suggests political meddling, the two investigators said.
“The department’s tactics have impeded a congressional investigation and interfered with the committee’s access to documents and information. Obstructing a congressional investigation is a crime,” Mr. Issa and Mr. Jordan said in their letter to Mr. Comey, warning that if they don’t get the information they will use “compulsory” means.
They set a Dec. 16 deadline.
The FBI declined to comment on the congressional letter, saying the agency would respond in writing. The FBI did say its investigation into the IRS continues.
The Justice Department referred inquiries about its involvement to the FBI.
Mr. Issa, chairman of the House oversight committee, has been leading an investigation for months into the IRS targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.


The internal auditor for the IRS reported in May that the agency asked inappropriately probing questions and delayed conservative groups’ applications — in some cases for three years.
After the revelations, the IRS promised to clean up its operations, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. ordered the FBI to open a criminal investigation.
At the same time, however, one of the conservative activists whose groups were targeted came forward to say that she was assailed by both the IRS and the FBI, as well as other federal agencies.
Catherine Engelbrecht was an officer in the King Street Patriots, which was seeking status as a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, and True the Vote, which was seeking status as a 501(c)(3) charity.
Soon after True the Vote began pushing to clear rolls of ineligible voters, Ms. Engelbrecht said, she and her husband faced an occupational safety investigation into their company, an IRS audit of their company, repeated rounds of IRS questions about True the Vote’s activities, and six inquiries from the FBI about the King Street Patriots — including general inquiries and specific questions about someone who attended a group meeting.
“They basically got the full monte — all these agencies with everything she’s involved in,” said Cleta Mitchell, an attorney for True the Vote and counsel to the ActRight Legal Foundation.
After three years of waiting, True The Vote was granted nonprofit status this fall, but the King Street Patriots is still waiting. The group got another round of questions from the IRS in August, Ms. Mitchell said.
Story Continues →
View Entire Story

Health-care enrollment on Web plagued by bugs

Video: HealthCare.gov was available for 95.1% of users in the week ending November 30. We look at some websites that outperformed it over Black Friday weekend.
The enrollment records for a significant portion of the Americans who have chosen health plans through the online federal insurance marketplace contain errors — generated by the computer system — that mean they might not get the coverage they’re expecting next month.
The errors cumulatively have affected roughly one-third of the people who have signed up for health plans since Oct. 1, according to two government and health-care industry officials. The White House disputed the figure but declined to provide its own.
Graphic
The federal health-care exchange is falling short of expectations
Click Here to View Full Graphic Story
The federal health-care exchange is falling short of expectations

All your Affordable Care Act questions answered

All your Affordable Care Act questions answered
We’ve compiled questions and answers around the topics discussed most, so you can browse what others have asked and get answers of your own.

Shopping for Obamacare? Tell us about it!

Shopping for Obamacare? Tell us about it!
Is HealthCare.gov working for you? We want to know!

Here’s where your state stands on Obama’s cancellation fix

Here’s where your state stands on Obama’s cancellation fix
Three states are in. Three states are out. And a lot more are still deciding.

What’s going on with HealthCare.gov?

What’s going on with HealthCare.gov?
Everything you need to know about the rollout of the new health insurance marketplace.

Implementing Obamacare

Implementing Obamacare
LATEST UPDATES | What you need to know about the new health-care law as it begins to take effect.
Click here to subscribe.
The mistakes include failure to notify insurers about new customers, duplicate enrollments or cancellation notices for the same person, incorrect information about family members, and mistakes involving federal subsidies. The errors have been accumulating since HealthCare.gov opened two months ago, even as the Obama administration has been working to make it easier for consumers to sign up for coverage, the government and industry officials said.
Figuring out how to clean up the backlog of errors and prevent similar ones in the future is emerging as the new imperative if the federal insurance exchange is to work as intended. The problems were the subject of a meeting Monday between administration officials and a new “Payer Exchange Performance Team” made up of insurance industry leaders.
The idea that one-third of the enrollment records are flawed “doesn’t accurately reflect the picture of what’s happening right now,” White House senior communications adviser Tara Mc­Guinness said.
“We’ve got a team of experts already working closely with issuers to make sure that every past and future 834 is accurate. We’re confident they’ll succeed,” Mc­Guin­ness said. The 834s are nightly enrollment forms sent to insurers to tell them who their new customers are.
Some of the errors in the past forms were generated by the way people were using the system, another senior official on the project said, such as clicking twice on the confirmation button or moving backward and forward on the site.
Through more than a dozen bug fixes over the past week, the team has managed to reduce the instances of when data was not generated on 834 forms from 3 percent last week to 0.5 percent now, according to senior officials.
The heightened attention to enrollment errors follows a five-week technical blitz to improve consumers’ ability to use the site.
Federal health officials announced Sunday that they had met that goal. By 6 p.m. Monday, the Web site had had close to 800,000 unique visitors — one of the administration’s targets for the site’s performance — and was set to pass that mark by the end of the day, according to administration officials. And the site processed 18,000 enrollments in the most recent 24-hour period, nearly double the previous record.
Still, not all was smooth. By mid-morning Monday, some Americans trying to use the Web site were running into a logjam. And by late morning, when the number of people on the site was roughly 35,000 — or 15,000 fewer than administration officials had said it could handle — some consumers encountered a “queue,” a new feature intended for times when the site was too crowded. The feature limits the number of people on the site and notifies others by e-mail when it’s a better time to log in.

Assemblymember Nancy Skinner Announces Legislation to Protect Unpaid Interns from Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

Assemblymember Nancy Skinner Announces Legislation to Protect Unpaid Interns from Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

SACRAMENTO, CA. – Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) announced today that she plans to introduce legislation in January to protect unpaid interns from sexual harassment and other workplace discrimination.
“Interns should not have to give up their basic civil rights just because they are willing to forgo pay,” Skinner said. “Interns deserve the same legal protection against discrimination and harassment in the workplace.”
Neither state nor federal law explicitly protects unpaid interns from sexual harassment. Last month, a federal district court in New York ruled that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act – which protects employees from workplace discrimination, including sexual harassment - does not apply to unpaid interns because an unpaid intern is not an “employee.” The New York case involved a Syracuse University student who claimed she was sexually harassed, kissed and groped by a supervisor at her media company internship who later retaliated against her for rebuffing his sexual advances.
“The recession has forced young people to rely on these unpaid positions to build resumes and contacts in an incredibly competitive job market,” Skinner said. “Employers owe them a safe and fair workplace.”
Likewise, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) protects employees from sexual harassment, but does not specifically include unpaid interns.  Furthermore, a recent state court decision held that FEHA does not apply to “volunteers.” Assemblymember Skinner’s new legislation will change that.
According to a 2008 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 50 percent of graduating students held internships, up from the 17 percent shown in a 1992 study by Northwestern University. Women are significantly more likely than men (77 percent versus 23 percent) to be engaged in unpaid internships, according to a 2012 survey of college students by Intern Bridge, a consulting firm that specializes in college recruiting.
Assemblymember Skinner's bill would explicitly ban workplace sexual harassment and apply general workplace civil rights protections to unpaid interns. Skinner’s new legislation will be introduced when the Legislature reconvenes on Jan. 6, 2014.
Elected in 2008, Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) represents the 15th Assembly District, which includes Hercules, Pinole, El Sobrante, San Pablo, Richmond, El Cerrito, Kensington, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Piedmont and parts of Oakland. Skinner serves as Chair of the Assembly Budget Committee.
www.asmdc.org/Skinner

The Pit at the End of the Rainbow

The Pit at the End of the Rainbow

DOMA’s demise means nation-wide gay marriage.
By 6.27.13
Wednesday’s results at the Supreme Court confirmed yet again that America has become a government of, by, and for judges. It is hard to imagine a more hapless outcome for the people: the justices at once gave themselves authority to determine a case that they had no right to hear while denying standing to the people of California in another case, thereby giving the pols who put the people in that spot (by refusing to defend Proposition 8) an opening to impose a lower-court ruling on them.
The upshot of the rulings is that 5 judges have now imposed gay marriage on 300 million people. It is no longer a question of if that imposition will happen but when. As Justice Scalia pointed out in his dissent from the majority’s rejection of the Defense of Marriage Act, the Court has effectively taken the issue away from the people:
It takes real cheek for today's majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here -- when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority's moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress's hateful moral judgment against it. I promise you this: The only thing that will "confine" the Court's holding is its sense of what it can get away with.
The same willful disdain that the Court applied to DOMA can be applied to every prohibition on gay marriage within the states. Scalia even diagrammed how it will be done. He took passages from the majority’s opinion and inserted state-related language where federal mentions now exist.

He also emphasized that the Court’s disclaimer of restraint is worthless, since Justice Kennedy had issued the same disclaimer when he struck down state sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas — a ruling on which he leaned in this one, writing that DOMA “demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects.”
By “Constitution,” Kennedy means a ruling he made up out of thin air. That he would piggyback off it completes the picture of brazen activism.
The DOMA decision is a monument to the Court’s caprice, no more authoritative than the nonsense Kennedy uttered in Lawrence v. Texas: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and the mystery of human life.”
In this decision, Kennedy adopts a tone of smarmy opportunism, advertising his concern for the children supposedly damaged by DOMA: “The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” Of course, if anybody had shown concern for these children before they were plucked from orphanages or labs and placed in these perplexing situations Kennedy would regard those people as bigoted. Were the “children” consulted before they were deprived of a father and mother? Do they have any rights? In Kennedy’s define-reality-any-way-you-wish country, children will have no rights. They are simply the accessories of adults.
Kennedy tried out other lines of propaganda, relying upon the same sort of soft babble that he previewed in Lawrence v. Texas: DOMA “demeans” people, makes couples feel “less worthy,” spreads a “stigma,” and so on. None of this is even remotely jurisprudential. But since all this pro-gay marriage spinning is now sealed in a Supreme Court decision, lower courts eager to overturn state bans will make ample use of it. Don’t kid yourselves, said Scalia. It is over at the judicial level: “By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition.”
The only question now is: How long will the people endure this tyranny of judges? The lawlessness that they exhibit in these rulings will one day catch up with them. If the rule of law is nothing more than the rule of the powerful, what is to stop the people from marching on court houses and throwing judges out on the street? Why is Justice Kennedy’s bogus reading of the Constitution any more binding than the real one? The Court will one day find itself no more protected than marriage.

GOP congressman favors use of ‘tactical nuclear weapons’ on an uncooperative Iran

GOP congressman favors use of ‘tactical nuclear weapons’ on an uncooperative Iran

By Meredith Jessup
Via Defense News:
A hawkish US House Republican says the United States should use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities if war with the Islamic republic becomes necessary.
House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., threw down that bold gauntlet Wednesday morning during a C-SPAN interview in which he also suggested Middle East “culture” fosters dishonest negotiators.
Asked if war with Iran is inevitable, Hunter replied: “I sure as Hell hope not.”
But if push came to shove and US officials deemed strikes necessary, Hunter turned hawkish.
He said any American strike would be a “massive aerial bombing campaign,” adding that such a mission should not feature any “boots on ground.” Then, Hunter said the US should use its “tactical nuclear weapons” on Iranian targets.
I’m not sure that threatening to use nuclear weapons is the most effective way to dissuade Iran from trying to develop their own… just sayin’.
Read more stories from TheBlaze
Sparks Fly as Wasserman-Schultz Clashes With RNC Chair Reince Priebus in Heated TV Segment
A Lie About Obama’s Past Relationship With Family Member Revealed?
Incredible and Eerie Video: Just Listen to the Haunting Sounds Coming From the New World Trade Center
Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity Talk ‘Progressive Republicans’ and the Big Ideas That Could Save the Country
<a target=_self class="title" rel="bookmark" title="‘Are You Aware Your Daughter Is With Two Black Men?’ Police Accused of Racial Profiling After Taking White Teen From …read more
Source: The Blaze

Hagel announces $1B in Pentagon staff cutbacks, amid budget talks

Hagel announces $1B in Pentagon staff cutbacks, amid budget talks

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Wednesday that he's cutting his Pentagon staff by 20 percent in an effort to save at least $1 billion over five years, as part of broader across-the-board cutbacks at the Defense Department.
Hagel, at a news conference with Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, urged Congress to avoid another year of mandatory budget cuts known as sequester. The military already is cutting tens of billions from its budget projections over the next decade, but the sequester made the cutbacks even deeper. Sequester supporters argue that the mandatory cuts are critical to getting the nation's debt and deficits under control.
Regardless, Hagel laid out the details of the plan for his Pentagon staff, which was announced in broad terms last summer.
"Much of these savings will be achieved through contractor reductions, although there will be reductions in civilian personnel," Hagel said. "Ultimately other headquarters elements will be implementing similar" cuts.
The plan is part of a larger proposal to reorganize his staff and trim the budgets of various civilian defense headquarters.
Congress, meanwhile, is trying to hammer out a new spending bill for 2014. With lawmakers facing a Jan. 15 deadline, some are pushing for yet another short-term measure. Whether lawmakers will keep in place the sequester remains unclear.
Hagel has said that forced reductions in 2013 have put at risk the military's ability to carry out its future missions.
"Congress must be a full partner in our efforts to responsibly bring down defense spending and to implement needed institutional reforms that maximize the use of our resources," Hagel said.
Dempsey also addressed the controversy over a proposed security pact between the United States and Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has resisted signing the agreement for various reasons, and Dempsey acknowledged that a failure to strike a deal could result in no U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014.
"I have not been told to plan for a zero option but clearly I understand that it is a possibility given the current impasse," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Obama's Real Reason He Wants Your Guns

Obama's Real Reason He Wants Your Guns

Obama's Real Reason He Wants Your Guns
Christopher Greene examines the "real reason" President Obama wants your guns and while doing that he explicitly claims the following:
In many ways America seems to be making the same mistakes as Germany did prior to the outbreak of World War II. Since taking office in 2008, on the promise of hope and change, president Barak Obama has launched an aggressive assault on America's liberty.
He has armed America's enemies, violating his oath of office, by sending money and weapons of war to insurgents in Syria led by Al-Qaeda terrorists.
He has violated federal law by overseeing a cover-up surrounding attorney general Eric Holder's operation "Fast and Furious", in the running of guns to Mexican drug cartels.
He has lied to the American people by overseeing a cover-up of the September 11 Benghazi terror attack in Libya which led directly to the deaths of four American citizens.
He has bypassed Congress using executive order prior to the attack on Libya, insisting that congressional approval was not necessary.
He has signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act which includes provisions to permit the abduction and military detention without trial of all US citizens, violating "Habeas corpus" - the right to a fair trial.
And on January 16th 2013, surrounded by children, he has signed twenty three different executive orders for broader gun control in the United States.
Watch the full documentary now -

It Turns Out Obama Was Nothing But a Community Organizer All Along

It Turns Out Obama Was Nothing But a Community Organizer All Along

It’s fitting that on the same day President Obama’s latest health-care offensive began, the Washington Post featured a story on its front page reporting that that healthcare.gov is making frequent enrollment errors affecting up to one-third of the people who have signed up for the health plans since October 1. The mistakes include failure to notify insurers about new customers; duplicate enrollments or cancellation notices for the same person; incorrect information about family members; and mistakes involving federal subsidies.
This comes on top of the fact that we’ve learned that officials at the Department of Health and Human Services warned in September that the security of the site had not been properly tested before it opened, creating “a high risk,” and that online security experts are warning that it could take a year to secure the risk of “high exposures” of personal information on the federal ObamaCare online exchange.
And you can add to all this rising costs for premiums and deductibles and the fact that due to the Affordable Care Act, around five million people have lost their private health insurance, with estimates that as many as 80 million people with employer health plans could find their coverage canceled next year because they are not compliant with the ACA.
Yet the president is betting that three weeks of his speeches, spin, and PR events will undo the damage; that his reassuring words and assault on the GOP will make up for his epic governing incompetence.
This is a delusional hope.
The problem Mr. Obama faces isn’t a communications failure; it’s a facts-on-the-ground failure. He is the author and architect of a perfectly awful law. A few clever lines delivered from an increasingly unpopular and discredited president won’t make any difference. The public is both turning on the president and tuning him out.
Americans are tired of Mr. Obama; and they are tired of the pain and trauma, the ineptness and dishonesty, of his presidency.
Maybe he was just a Chicago community organizer after all.
Topics: ,

Chinese general’s ‘awkward’ demands on U.S. Army base sparks internal review Comments (11) Size: + / - Print | Reprints By Douglas Ernst - The Washington Times Tuesday, December 3, 2013 CAC Commanding General, Lt. Gen. David G. Perkins, exchanges a gift with Maj. Gen. Chen Dongdeng, the Director of Military Management of the Department of General Staff from the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China. (Image: U.S. Army) Enlarge Photo CAC Commanding General, Lt. Gen. David G. Perkins, exchanges a gift with ... more > Related Stories China sends warplanes into air defense zone Story Topics Politics War_Conflict Army Chen Dongdeng Fort Leavenworth Follow Us On facebookFacebook Question of the Day Should drones be used to make commercial deliveries in residential areas? Yes No Undecided Other Login to Vote View results A Chinese delegation visiting Fort Leavenworth, Kan., might be the first to ever raise spying fears over its desire to obtain documents that were publicly available. In September, Maj. Gen. Chen Dongdeng, the PLA’s director of “military engagement,” began aggressively asking his U.S. counterparts for open-source documents pertaining to U.S. military doctrine. His odd behavior prompted the Army to launch an internal review of it administrative practices, Foreign Policy reported. SEE ALSO: China sends warplanes into air defense zone The incident “raised eyebrows and came off as awkward,” officials familiar with investigation said. “What we’re looking into is the process of foreign delegations coming to military posts,” Army spokesman Lt. Col. Don Peters told Foreign Policy. “We’re looking for internal administrative procedures on how to better to do this, how we can do things better.” A Congressional Research Service report from November sums up the dilemma for policy makers: “Skeptics and proponents of military exchanges with the PRC have debated whether the contacts achieve results in U.S. objectives and whether the contacts contribute to the PLA’s warfighting capability that might harm U.S. and allied security interests. Some have argued about whether the value that U.S. officials place on the contacts overly extends leverage to the PLA.” © Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Chinese general’s ‘awkward’ demands on U.S. Army base sparks internal review

A Chinese delegation visiting Fort Leavenworth, Kan., might be the first to ever raise spying fears over its desire to obtain documents that were publicly available.
In September, Maj. Gen. Chen Dongdeng, the PLA’s director of “military engagement,” began aggressively asking his U.S. counterparts for open-source documents pertaining to U.S. military doctrine. His odd behavior prompted the Army to launch an internal review of it administrative practices, Foreign Policy reported.


The incident “raised eyebrows and came off as awkward,” officials familiar with investigation said.
“What we’re looking into is the process of foreign delegations coming to military posts,” Army spokesman Lt. Col. Don Peters told Foreign Policy. “We’re looking for internal administrative procedures on how to better to do this, how we can do things better.”
A Congressional Research Service report from November sums up the dilemma for policy makers: “Skeptics and proponents of military exchanges with the PRC have debated whether the contacts achieve results in U.S. objectives and whether the contacts contribute to the PLA’s warfighting capability that might harm U.S. and allied security interests. Some have argued about whether the value that U.S. officials place on the contacts overly extends leverage to the PLA.”
© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.