World News Korner

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RELATED: Shock: Rush Limbaugh Guest Host Goes Birther; Obama & Cruz British Subjects - CLICK HERE.

CLASS: CDR Kerchner; It's all about allegiance -- sole allegiance to the USA at birth. The founders did not wish to allow anyone after the founding generation was gone (they had a grandfather clause in Article II for the original citizens) to service as President and Commander in Chief of our military who was born with foreign influence or allegiances by birth. A person born with dual-allegiance or tri-allegiance at birth is not constitutionally eligible to serve as Commander in Chief/President. One can brush up on the founders' intent and constitutional meaning of "natural born Citizen" here: http://www.art2superpac.com/issues.html





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(Jan. 1, 2014) — Within the last week, a posting at Patriots for America titled “Operation American Spring” went “viral” on the internet via email, blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

Patriots for America was founded by Col. Harry Riley (Ret.), who has been seeking redress of grievances from Washington, DC for the last several years for a variety of perceived constitutional violations.

Riley served in the U.S. Army for more than 34 years. His official biography reads:

Name: Harry G. Riley, Colonel, U. S. Army

Official retirement date: 30 September 1992

Total years of federal service: 34 years, 5 months 20 days.

Military unit: HHC, 704th Military Intelligence Brigade, George G. Meade, Maryland 20755

Colonel Riley graduated from Capon Bridge High School, Capon Bridge, WV; received his BA in Political Science with a minor in Education (teaching certification) from Park College, Parkville, Missouri; and continued graduate work with the University of Oklahoma in International Relations.
Military service Biography: He is a graduate of the Department of Defense Junior Officer Cryptologic Career Program and the Army Command and General Staff College.

Colonel Riley was commissioned a Second Lieutenant, Military Intelligence, in 1966 through Infantry Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Bennlng, Georgla. Prior to commissioning he served eight years as an enlisted soldier in various Military Intelligence assignments, entering OCS as a noncommissioned officer. He was promoted to Colonel on 01 May 1989.

His assignments include Executive Officer and Commander, Signals Research unit 2, Zweibruecken, Germany (1966-1968); II Corps Military Intelligence Detachment Advisor, and Combat Assistance team Commander supporting Army of Vietnam 1st Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment Vietnam (1969-1970); Staff Officer and Commander, 2d Operations Battalion, U. S. Army Field station Augsburg, Germany (1976-1979); Staff Officer for the Assistant Chief of Staff Intelligence and Management Directorate, Office of the Chief of Staff Army, Pentagon (1979-1984); Division Chief, National Security Agency, Fort Meade Maryland (1984-1986); Commander, 712th Military Intelligence Battalion, Augsburg, Germany (1986-1988); Division Chief, National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland (1988-1991); and Deputy Offlce Chief National Security Agency, Fort Meade 19Q1-1992). Colonel Riley also served additional tours ln Germany (1956-1959); Vietnam (1962); and Thailand (1962-1963) as an enlisted soldier.

He is the recipient of the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (3 awards), Air Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal; Army Achievement Medal{ Meritorious unit Award, Air Force Outstanding unit Award, Army Good Conduct Medal (2 Awards), National Defense Service Medal (2 awards), Vietnam Service Medal (5 Campaigns), Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon (5), the Army Staff Identification Badge, Parachute Badge, Combat Infantry Badge, and Republic of Vietnam awards to include the Cross or Gallantry with Silver Star.

As one of the organizers of Operation American Spring (OAS), Riley told The Post & Email that he “wasn’t the first person to talk about such an endeavor. We had a piece that somebody wrote outlining all of the problems and issues that we were facing as a nation over the last four, five, six years. I’ve been posting the question, “Does this justify an ‘American Spring?’”

The OAS announcement begins:

TO: Patriots (black, white, male, female, civilian, military, truckers, bikers, militias, veterans, old, young, every American that loves freedom and liberty)

Mission: Restoration of Constitutional government, rule of law, freedom, liberty “of the people, for the people, by the people” from despotic and tyrannical federal leadership.

and goes on to assert that “corrupt and criminal leadership must be removed.”

Riley and his team are seeking “millions” of people to gather in Washington, DC beginning on May 16, 2014 and to stay, or replace themselves, for as long as is required “to draw the line and bring to a conclusion a decision on the out of control government.” The declaration states that actions will be taken “Not with guns, but with millions of Americans demanding a return to constitutional government and the resignation of Obama, Biden, Reid, McConnell, Boehner, Pelosi, and Holder as a start…then the constitutional restoration process can begin. An AMERICAN SPRING can be avoided only if the above mentioned officials resign.”

In answer to his own question about whether or not an “American Spring” is warranted, Riley continued:

The more I thought about that, I said, “We have tried everything. We have paper-shuffled the Congress for five years; we have paper-shuffled the media; we have faxed and phone-called and sent letters, and we just keep going backwards. It keeps getting worse and worse. Then the thought entered my mind about the Egyptian spring and how people finally said, “Enough is enough,” and they hit the streets by the millions and millions and millions and stayed there until there was some sort of a solution. We are basically modeling what the people of Egypt did. We’re not modeling their government; we’re not modeling their military; we’re modeling their action.

Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was deposed on July 3, 2013, after his seizure of new, unconstitutional powers drove thousands into the streets

The Post & Email asked Riley if he was referring to the “Arab Spring” of 2011 involving several Middle East nations or the uprising of this past summer which ousted former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, to which he responded:

Morsi. They tried what was supposed to be a democratic movement in the Morsi regime, and it turned out to be worse than before. So they went back to the streets, and they got rid of him. We believe it’s relative to our nation in that we have elements in leadership, with Obama being the chief, that reflect an attitude of tyranny, betrayal, deception, and deceit. We just decided that we’ve tried everything else. We’ve tried to go from the bottom up; we’ve tried to get states to do something, to exercise Tenth Amendment responsibility; but when you have a lawless federal government which ignores the laws, writes its own laws, modifies existing laws; refuses to obey existing law; the attorney general refusing to enforce existing law, picking and choosing what they will and what they won’t enforce…when the leadership in a government becomes lawless, what are the people supposed to do? Who can we turn to? Who can we rely on to believe that anything will be favorable to We the People?

We’re not suggesting that our government structure is bad. We’re not even suggesting that the principles which the Founding Fathers gave us are bad or wrong. What we’re saying is that the people who now occupy positions of power have betrayed the Constitution, have betrayed the Founding Father principles, and have betrayed We the People in seeking power and greed in an incestuous operation in Washington. They just feed one another, whether Democrat or Republican…they all put up a little show as if there’s some difference. There really isn’t. They’re all up there to stay, to eat at the trough of the American people and basically have their own world, and we’re down here wondering what’s going on. We’ve had enough; we’ve just had enough.

How do you think we arrived at this point?

I think the American people were totally captured by a fraud. We have an individual who spoke well and talked to people, particularly those who were seeking free stuff, had an emotion going, and everybody else saying, “Well, maybe this guy is on to something…he says he’s going to be transparent; he says he’s not going to be involved with lobbyists, and he’s going to put trust back in government…” It all rings true; it reminds me of other dictators and tyrants around the world who took the same approach.

Remember all of those shovel-ready jobs? None of these things that Obama promised ever came to fruition. The people were just sucked in, and at this point, I think they have finally realized – even the most left of our nation – that this guy is a fraud.

I can think of one recently who testified to the House Judiciary Committee, an attorney over at Georgetown…

Jonathan Turley?

Yes. Jonathan Turley is a completely loyal Obama supporter. He believes in Obamacare. But he testified, “I really have great trepidation about where we are headed…” and he said, “We’re creating a new system here….the center of gravity is shifting, and that makes it unstable.” I believe his final word was, “The situation was the most serious constitutional crisis in our lifetime.”

I recall that in 2008, he wrote an article asking if John McCain were constitutionally eligible to run for president, but he notably did not write the same kind of article about Obama.

He was almost a permanent fixture on MSNBC and the mainstream media during the Bush administration. This is an example of how far this has gone, that even the left-leaning liberal minds are testifying in open Congress about their extreme concerns about the direction of the nation.

You were asking how we got here. We had a pied piper who had a message to which he had no intention of adhering but knew that the people’s ears would be perked up, and they would be itching, and they were, and they sucked it up, and here we are.

For more than five years, many Americans have asked, “Who is this man?” because Obama’s history and documentation have been occluded from scrutiny. His long-form birth certificate and Selective Service registration form have been determined to be “computer-generated forgeries”

Something The Post & Email has focused on is the forgery posted on the White House website. As you said, Obama deceived us about health care, the stimulus dollars, the shovel-ready jobs, transparency, “hope and change,” and a criminal investigator has said that the image was posted “with the intent to deceive.” My readers wonder why a forgery needed to be created if Obama was born in Hawaii and is constitutionally eligible.

That is all part of it, because back in 2008, even before Obama was even a candidate, it didn’t take rocket science to understand what he was about. Many of us, you included, were screaming to high heaven: “Who is this guy? What has he done? Where did he come from? Are we going to entrust our national defense to a person we don’t even know?” And we still don’t.

I remember people wrote to judges, attorneys general, congressmen, state legislators, governors, members of the Electoral College, and nothing was done. And then he was allegedly elected a second time. Would you say that everyone in Congress is criminally complicit at this point?

There are people in Congress who have principles we need in government and as leaders. I outlined some of those on our page: the Wests, the Dr. Ben Carsons, the Cruzes…they are standing up. But for the most part, the leadership is clearly involved in it. They’re part of it: John Boehner, Pelosi, McConnell, Reid…even the Supreme Court: to come out and twist themselves into believing or making the case that Obamacare was constitutional. John Roberts became part of the establishment and contorted himself.

John Boehner is the leader of the House. He knows what’s right and he knows what’s wrong, or, God help me, I hope he does. He has been taken in and is just part of the problem. That’s why we say that all of those guys need to go.

Do you think blackmail could have been carried out against members of Congress?

Obviously, that is always a potential, but my gut feeling is that they’re just cowards, protecting their own positions. I think they would rather be a congressman than serve the American people, go out on a limb, be truthful and say, “I’m opposing this because it’s wrong, and if I get defeated in an election, so be it.” I’m positive that every single one of them is a millionaire; it’s not as if they would be paupers if they weren’t re-elected.

Most of them become very wealthy while in Congress.

Yes, and they stay there forever. Look at this recent example of the National Defense Authorization Bill (NDAA) where they took away some compensation from disabled veterans and rewarded illegal aliens. Most of them followed the lead of the establishment, voted for that thing and passed it. Even my representative here in Florida voted for it. Now he comes back home and tries to convince us that “We need to create legislation to reverse what we did to the veterans,” because they get back home and the veterans start stomping all over them. Now they’re trying to say, “We’ll create legislation and reverse that.” Well, they know very well in their heart that they’ll go up there, and they may create legislation, but it will go nowhere and die.

They can draft anything, but it might never get out of committee.

Yes. These are just examples. I have some examples of people who have joined our site. As they come in, they said, “This is not the Constitution I fought for; it is changing. I want to protect the Constitution of the United States as it was intended to be. It’s hanging by a thread and we need to do something to save it. I’m a military veteran who fought for my country who knows to protect the U.S. Constitution.” It goes on and on. “Because it is my responsibility and obligation as a citizen of this Republic to ensure the survival of our Republic, enforce constitutional law, restore our Bill of Rights, secure our borders, remove the illegals, arrest the traitors.” “I don’t remember living under that; I want the role of the federal government back to 1791.” There is a whole series of these short statements. This is why I want to support this; I want to do whatever I can to bring my country back to the constitutional republic that our forefathers meant it to be.

Do you know of any specific groups which will be working with you, or would you rather not name them?

We’ve had some local-level Tea Party groups, but we’ve not had any national-level support that I’m aware of. I know we’ve had some general officer support out there, and we’ll have to see in the days ahead who comes up and says what about what. But every feedback I’m getting is that there’s a surge of energy behind this.

It’s been on blogs, distributed to email lists, and you have time to get the word out more widely before May.

If we last that long. On Sunday, before I went to church, I typed “Operation American Spring” into a search, and the first thing that popped up was Erik Rush. He took everything verbatim from our front page and put it on his website. That was the only thing on his page!

I know he has been tweeting it quite a bit, as have others.

I’m not savvy to do Facebook or tweet it, but a lot of people are, and we’re encouraging all of our people to do it.

If people don’t do Facebook or Twitter, what else can they do to spread the word?

We’re putting out flyers right now, at least three or four versions, that we encourage everyone to attach as a jpeg and go on Facebook or wherever. They can write letters to the editor and use their email list to copy off a portion or the whole thing of what our mission is about and send it out to their email lists. Use social media as much as possible. If anybody wants to talk to a member of our staff on any media, go do it. We need innovation. This is going to be an effort that is not going to be easy. It’s going to take commitment because we’re going to DC, and we don’t intend to go up there for another one-day or two-day thing.

I noticed that you said you will stay for as long as it takes.

We’re going to come up with a system where we can keep the flow in there. We’re going to have a rotating system; we’re going to hopefully have a program where people will be asked to take a week. For instance, we might use the alphabet: people with a last name starting in “A” will take one week; with “B,” your week is “this.” Once we get the initial millions there on the 16th and 17th of May, some people will have to go home, but then they can come back.

So people will be replacing themselves, so to speak.

Correct.

What made you choose the date of May 16?

Rolling Thunder’s mission is to bring the attention of the public to the matter of MIAs and POWs

For one thing, we felt we needed some time, even though we feel that the condition in the nation is critical. Congress is in session; it’s Armed Forces Day weekend, and the next weekend Rolling Thunder will be coming through, then Memorial Day. We have a prayer warriors group on our site; we have a lot of people bathing this in prayer. There is no agenda on the part of any of us; we simply are looking for one thing: constitutional restoration, liberty, freedom, and leadership removed that is taking that away from us.

As you mentioned in your post, this would be a first of its kind: unlike the American Revolution, but you want to get the point across.

Yes. For those of us who have been in combat – I have been in a foxhole and in nations where we have been at war – we don’t want that in America if we can stop it. It destroys everything: the infrastructure, the carnage of people, and we don’t want that. That’s why we’re going up there as non-violent, unarmed, except for our Constitution and biblical principles. We’re just going to stay there, and we will try to make our case.

We’re going to have to have another tier of leadership to conclude Phase 2 and Phase 3. We will get up there; we will provide the million that we need up there; we’re going to have to have help to navigate through to help force the resignations that we’re asking for. It’s in both parties. This is not just against Republicans or Democrats. It’s against leadership that is corrupt, immoral, and feeding off of the American people for their own personal purpose.

Gen. [Paul E.] Vallely has called for resignations, including Obama’s.

Yes. Obviously, Gen. Vallely is one of the very few general officers who is calling it what it is. We wonder: where are all of these officers that have been deposed by Obama? Some say it’s upwards of 200.

The Post & Email has written about Adm. Charles Gaouette and Gen. Carter Ham. Are you alarmed by what you see with the alleged 200 purged military officers?

Yes, I am. If a leader has intentions that are less than honorable with regard to power grabs, he wants to eject the leadership that is driven by the Constitution. He wants those who will say, “Maybe the Constitution is out-of-date, and we need to do other things…” …wishy-washy people.

Such as “follow Obama?”

Yes. I feel bad for all these people [purged officers], but on the other hand, I wonder: What more could they lose? Couldn’t they stand up and say, “It was wrong what he did?” I don’t know. I don’t travel in admirals’ or generals’ channels. They may be doing some wonderful things…

Many of The Post & Email’s readers have asked for the last five years why the generals are taking Obama’s orders when we don’t know if he’s constitutionally eligible to even give them. Perhaps birthplace is only one consideration, but the Cold Case Posse has determined that a forgery has been created to deceive. Perhaps one reason the generals are taking his orders is because of what happened to Lt. Col. Terry Lakin.

Sad. John McCain, when he was running against Obama and people were questioning Obama’s legitimacy, said, “You’re all out to lunch; he’s a good man.” He was feeding right into what the left and the media wanted to hear: “A Republican says he’s legitimate…” It’s been a terrible nightmare the last five or six years.

It seems as if everyone is pretending that Obama is legitimate when they know he most likely isn’t, but it’s the elephant in the room. However, I understand that the gathering you are planning is about more than just that issue.

Oh, yes. It’s about total destruction of the nation, the Constitution, and all of the elements of a government that we’ve had established for 237 years. Obama is just totally ripping it apart. You can’t have an executive who says, “I’m going to run around Congress” or “I’ll just take a piece of legislation I don’t like and modify it to suit what I want to do.” This is the worst example of a tyranny, a dictatorship. There are no longer three branches of government with equal status.

What are some specific things driving you to Washington in May?

It’s all of the waste, supporting The Muslim Brotherhood. It’s Holder and the Justice Department ignoring critical things such as Benghazi and Fast & Furious. The National Security Agency used to be focused on the enemy; now’s it’s focused on the American people. Our freedom is being absorbed by a tyrannical regime. Almost everything that is happening in America now is no longer what the Constitution calls for. No one can depend on anything, and anything could happen.

Saul Alinsky is author of Rules for Radicals, which teaches community organizers how to “freeze” and “polarize” their political enemies

We have fought Obamacare from the beginning because we don’t want a government-run system. We want a system that is based on capitalist principles, but Obama is very focused on Saul Alinsky and communist underpinnings such that if you control the medical system of the country, you control the country. That’s what Obama is doing.

It’s hard to actually list everything.

I have a list of all the things he’s promised and hasn’t kept. It’s a philosophy of ignoring our basic constitutional rights and the Constitution itself. He’s said that the Constitution is “flawed” because it constrains him.

The compelling thing is to restore the Constitution and our liberty and freedom, which we really don’t have. You can’t do much now without worrying about somebody arresting you. It’s getting worse and worse. There’s just an intangible aspect to this that makes people say, “We’re going down the wrong road; I don’t want this anymore.” Jonathan Turley is a strong example.

It makes very little difference what states do these days, because they will not stand up for their position under the Tenth Amendment. If the federal government is going to say, “No, you can’t do that…” That was demonstrated when the Arizona governor tried to do what the federal government wouldn’t do to protect her people and pass laws that said, “We will do this in regard to illegal immigration.” The federal government, as you know, fought her and got her laws declared unconstitutional for the most part. She couldn’t take care of her own people because the federal government said, “No, you can’t do that.”

The federal government also sued Alabama for passing an immigration law as well as Texas, South Carolina and North Carolina over their voter ID laws. South Carolina is now poised to be the first state in the nation to pass a law nullifying Obamacare, with Georgia and Missouri possibly following suit.

Some have said to me, “How about if we include in this Operation American Spring an effort that everybody goes to his or her state capitols all over the country?” My position to them is that it’s a worthy effort, but it will strip off and detract from where the problem is. The problem is the federal government, not the states. We need everybody in Washington because we have to eliminate the leadership up there that is bringing all this pain down on the states.

One thing we’re not going to do, or at least I’m not proposing, is to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on stages or porta-potties. We’re going to Washington under the Constitution and freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. We’re not going under any official organization. It’s going to be a backpack with food and water. If somebody wants to buy porta-potties up there, that’s one thing, but we think that we just have to get people there. They can go to the motel at night or wherever they’re going to stay, camp someplace…Everybody is ready to go. As you say, it’s almost at the viral stage.

Is there any way to know how many might show up at this time?

Based on my observations, I was kind-of a key player in putting together a Gathering of Eagles of 2007 when we went up there and the anti-Vietnam folks were celebrating their 40th anniversary. They were planning on setting it up at the Vietnam Memorial, and we said, “No, you’re not doing that.” We put together about 30,000, and I didn’t see anything like what I’m seeing right now. We did that in a couple of months.

Right now, what I’m seeing is we’re going to put millions up there; no doubt about it. I feel confident about that.

Source link. © 2014, The Post & Email. All rights reserved.

PREVIOUS REPORTS: http://www.birtherreport.com/search?q=Harry+Riley





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Mark Steyn filled in for Rush Limbaugh yesterday and addressed a question about presidential eligibility which is something that is typically off limits on national airwaves. Steyn correctly asserts that Resident Obama and Senator Cruz were both British Subjects at birth and goes on to say if you are born outside of the United States you'd have to be born to two U.S. citizen parents. He says the "natural born Citizen" issue is controversial.


RELATED: National Review's Mark Steyn: Why I Never Dismissed Obama Birther Stuff - DETAILS HERE.

UPDATE: CDR Kerchner; It's all about allegiance -- sole allegiance to the USA at birth. The founders did not wish to allow anyone after the founding generation was gone (they had a grandfather clause in Article II for the original citizens) to service as President and Commander in Chief of our military who was born with foreign influence or allegiances by birth. A person born with dual-allegiance or tri-allegiance at birth is not constitutionally eligible to serve as Commander in Chief/President. One can brush up on the founders' intent and constitutional meaning of "natural born Citizen" here: http://www.art2superpac.com/issues.html



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Courtesy of Mediaite:

We are now into Day Four of Kierangate, the slow-news-fueled controversy surrounding an at-best tone deaf MSNBC segment that used a photo of Mitt Romney grandchild Kieran Romney as a vehicle to attack Republicans’ lack of racial diversity, and CNN has upped the ante by reporting that “some” are “demanding” that host Melissa Harris-Perry be fired. If you stay through the tease and the entire report, though, you might find the evidence of an angry, firing-demanding mob somewhat lacking.

What began as online criticism of a ham-handed cable news segment has now morphed into a full-blown public cable news flogging of Dean Obeidallah, Pia Glenn, and MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, who participated in said segment on Sunday’s episode of Harris-Perry’s show. MSNBC competitors Fox News and CNN each filled the desolate holiday weekend with multiple segments attacking the segment, while Harris-Perry and her panelists offered a round of apologies on Twitter, and elsewhere.

On Wednesday morning, CNN anchor Zoraida Sambolin teased a report on the uproar by telling viewers “Some people demanding MSNBC fire one host after she mocked Mitt Romney’s black grandson,” (Harris-Perry’s comment on the photo had to do with imagining a Mitt Romney/Kanye West-sponsored wedding in the future) and introduced the report, by Lisa Desjardins, by repeating that claim, and grouping Harris-Perry with recently-ousted MSNBC hosts Alec Baldwin and Martin Bashir.

Desjardin’s report, however, presents little evidence of such a groundswell. giving just one example of a person on Twitter who wants Harris-Perry fired. Even with more examples, a raft of tweets is an awfully low bar for a national news network to claim as a newsworthy movement to have someone fired. To this point, Harris-Perry’s critics from competing cable news outlets have not suggested she be fired, nor has anyone else in Desjardin’s report.

Let me just say that if MSNBC caves and allows this non-scandal to cost them yet ANOTHER host due to Right Wing outrage they will have finally lost me as a loyal viewer.

And for those who did not see the segment, MHP herself said NOTHING objectionable at all, and in fact referred to the child as gorgeous.

Here see for yourself.

Please MSNBC, do NOT let the Right Wing professional outrage machine steal away another talented member of your cable news family.

If you give in they will not stop until there is nobody left to compete against Fox News and CNN. And you know, perhaps THAT is the goal!

Source

Courtesy of Think Progress:

Obamacare’s detractors have argued that millions of Americans will lose their health coverage due to the changes introduced by Obamacare. But according to a new analysis, this ignores counterbalancing policies in the law. The report finds that less than 10,000 people will lose coverage coverage without an immediate and affordable replacement.

The paper, put together on behalf of ranking member Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and other the Democrats on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, takes as its starting point a recent Associated Press report that 4.7 million Americans will see their current coverage cancelled. Critics of Obamacare have used this and other reports to play conceptual games, allowing the technical “cancellation” of a plan to imply a consumer will lose all coverage entirely and be left out in the cold. But for the vast major that 4.7 million, the cancellation of a plan simply means a shift into a new and often better form of coverage. The report lays out three ways this happens.

First, there’s the extended grandfather period. Even before Obamacare was enacted, health plans on the individual market — which usually operate on year-long contracts — changed on consumers all the time. Benefits could be altered or premiums jacked up. In order to give consumers more reliability, Obamacare placed much tighter controls on how and why insurers may charge different customers different premiums, and mandated a core package of benefits all plans must provide. Unfortunately, this also meant many pre-Obamacare plans that didm;t meet those new qualifications would have to be cancelled. In order to smooth that transition, the law allowed insurers to “grandfather” in certain pre-Obamacare plans by allowing them to be renewed for one more year at any point in 2013.

(You can read more about this at the link.)

Second, there’s Obamacare’s subsidies and Medicaid. In order to help Americans better afford coverage on the individual, Obamacare provides tax credits to anyone on the exchanges making between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL). That’s between $23,000 and $94,000 for a family of four. Over half of all married couples made $75,678 or less in 2012. Obamacare also provided the states the resources to expand Medicaid to anyone making up to 138 percent of the FPL.

Citing analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Democrats’ report estimates that 60 percent of the 2.35 million who can’t take advantage of the extension will either qualify for subsidies or for the Medicaid expansion. That’s another 1.4 million out of the original 4.7 million cited by the AP. That number would be even larger if it weren’t for the states that refused the Medicaid expansion.

Third, there’s access to catastrophic coverage. Another failsafe built into Obamacare was the possibility of a “hardship exemption” for any American who faced serious hurdles in complying the law’s mandate that everyone purchase health coverage. In December, the administration decided that exemption applied to anyone who’d seen their previous coverage cancelled due to Obamacare’s policy changes. That means they won’t be subject to the mandate’s penalty, and that they’ll be allowed to purchase cheaper “catastrophic coverage” along with the Obamacare-compliant plans on the exchanges.

The new report found that of the 2.35 million who can’t renew their pre-Obamacare plans through 2014, 99 percent will have the option to buy low-cost catastrophic coverage.

Put those three overlapping policies together, and “the actual number of individuals who receive a cancellation notice, do not sign up for new insurance in 2014, and lack the option to do so at affordable prices will likely be less than 10,000.” As the Democrats’ analysis notes, that’s less than 0.2 percent of the original 4.7 million cited by the AP.

Okay let me go ahead and play devil's advocate for a moment, and point out that this is a report that was requested by the Democratic minority in the House. Of COURSE they want to see the numbers come out a specific way.

However when it comes to math the Democrats are FAR more trustworthy than the Republicans, and when it comes to honesty (Fast and Furious, IRS targeting the Tea Party, Benghazi), well I think that speaks for itself.

Now let's see if the MSM picks this report up, and how the Republicans respond when they do.



My prediction is that it will be much like they reacted to the New York Times piece on Benghazi

Source

Iraq war veteran Sean Azzariti making Colorado's first legal marijuana purchase.

Courtesy of USA Today:

The new year got a little happier for pot smokers in Colorado on Wednesday as the nation's first retail outlets for recreational marijuana opened their doors.

"Marijuana does not have to be a burden to our communities," said Betty Aldworth, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association. "Today in Colorado we shift marijuana from the underground into a regulated market."

The first sale, orchestrated as a news media photo opportunity, was made to Sean Azzariti, an Iraq War veteran who has lobbied publicly for legalization and says pot helps mitigate problems stemming from his post-traumatic stress syndrome. Azzariti, who served six years in the Marine Corps and two tours in Iraq, spent about $60 at 3D Cannabis Center for an eighth of an ounce of "Bubba Kush" and a pot-laden truffle.

"Today I was fortunate enough to be the first recreational cannabis purchase in the world," Azzariti tweeted. "We did it!!"

Aldworth said pot sales in the state are expected to reach $400 million this year. More than $40 million in tax revenue is targeted for public schools. Dozens of shops are opened or will open soon. She spoke of jobs, tax dollars and peace of mind for marijuana smokers.

Hundreds of people lined up to purchase the newly legal pot.

Many of the customers turned up before dawn.

So much for the old adage about pot users being lazy.

This is actually one of the issues that I do not always see eye to eye with my liberal friends.

Personally I have never been a drug user.

Oh I dabbled a little when I was a young man, but it as never my thing.

I don't have any serious problems with it, however I did have a number of family and friends who started with pot before taking the plunge into more dangerous recreational drug use.

Some did not come out the other end.

However to be fair my family historically has a much bigger problem with alcohol than with drugs.

For me it is one glass of wine a night, and that is about the extent of it. Hopefully that does not damage my liberal creds too badly.

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Courtesy of the YouTube page:

I was surprised to find very few places where the math of Noah's flood was discussed, so I made this video to illustrate the scale of what the bible describes. Seeing it calculated out makes the myth seem a lot more fantastical and less feasible. After researching this video, it became clear to me that the people who wrote this myth originally did not understand how outlandish their claims were at the time, because they didn't know how big the planet was, or how tall the highest mountain was, or how many species there are, or what that much rain looks like. Once you do the equations, you can see that this is all made up. For the ignorant desert tribes during the time of Gilgamesh, there was no danger that anyone would call the authors out, but the people of modern times have no excuse for blindly accepting it.

The fact that the Creationist use Noah's flood to explain virtually everything about the fossil record, the geographical landscape, and the importance of avoiding sin, is mind boggling.

As the video demonstrates the facts simply do not support the possibility of anything like a great world encompassing flood ever having taken place. But beyond that, at least to me, the story demonstrates an almost psychotic rage on the part of God that he would drown potentially billions of people, many living in cultures that had never heard of the Jewish god, simply in response to the disobedience of a comparative few.

In my opinion anybody hoping to convince people about the compassion of the Christian, Islamic, or Jewish god would want to ignore this story, and multiple others, like the plague.

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This is how I raised my daughter.

In my opinion it is how all girls should be raised, though I recognize that some may not agree.

Of course I am Daddy, and as the father my main concern was to keep her safe.

Keep her strong.

Empower her to stand up to adversity.

I did all of that.

However she is also smart, kind, and giving.

I think I may have helped with that as well. At least I hope so.

(Source)

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