Americans for Tax Reform : Obamacare’s Tax Hike Train Wreck

Americans for Tax Reform : Obamacare’s Tax Hike Train Wreck

Obamacare’s Tax Hike Train Wreck

The most destructive Obamacare tax increases are just around the bend

SICK: 42% UNAWARE OBAMACARE IS LAW

Asked about Senator Max Baucus’s (D-Mont.) recent “train wreck” comments, President Obama today said, “A huge chunk of it [Obamacare] has already been implemented.” Unmentioned was the wave of destructive Obamacare tax increases that will begin to hit Americans during the 2014 tax filing season and beyond:

Starting in tax year 2013:

Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income:  A new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This tax hike results in the following top tax rates on investment income:

	Capital Gains	Dividends	Other*
2013+	23.8%	43.4%	43.4%

*Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations.  It does not include municipal bond interest or life insurance proceeds, since those do not add to gross income.  It does not include active trade or business income, fair market value sales of ownership in pass-through entities, or distributions from retirement plans. (Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 87-93)

Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Increase:

	First $200,000 ($250,000 Married) Employer/Employee	All Remaining Wages Employer/Employee
Pre-Obamacare	1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self-employed	1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self employed
Obamacare	1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self-employed	1.45%/2.35% 3.8% self-employed

(Bill: PPACA, Reconciliation Act; Page: 2,000-2,003; 87-93)

Obamacare Medical Device Tax:  Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year.  In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will make everything from pacemakers to artificial hips more expensive. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,980-1,986)

Obamacare High Medical Bills Tax: Before Obamacare, Americans facing high medical expenses were allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceeded 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI).  Obamacare now imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI.  Therefore, Obamacare not only makes it more difficult to claim this deduction, it widens the net of taxable income. According to the IRS, 10 million families took advantage of this tax deduction in 2009, the latest year of available data. Almost all are middle class. The average taxpayer claiming this deduction earned just over $53,000 annually. ATR estimates that the average income tax increase for the average family claiming this tax benefit will be $200 - $400 per year. To learn more about this tax, click here.  (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994-1,995)

Obamacare Flexible Spending Account Tax:  The 30 - 35 million Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs face a new Obamacare cap of $2,500. This will squeeze $13 billion of tax money from Americans over the next ten years. (Before Obamacare, the accounts were unlimited under federal law, though employers were allowed to set a cap.) Now, a parent looking to sock away extra money to pay for braces will find themselves quickly hitting this new cap, meaning they would have to pony up some or all of the cost with after-tax dollars.

Needless to say, this tax will especially impact middle class families.

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. Nationwide there are several million families with special needs children and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,388-2,389)

Starting in tax year 2014:

Obamacare Individual Mandate Non-Compliance Tax:  Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance – as defined by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services -- must pay an income surtax to the IRS. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that six million American families will be liable for the tax, and as pointed out by the Associated Press:  “Most would be in the middle class.”

In addition, 100 percent of Americans filing a tax return (140 million filers) will be forced to submit paperworkto the IRS showing they either had “qualifying” health insurance for every month of the tax year or they obtained an exemption to the mandate.

Americans liable for the surtax will pay according to the following schedule

	1 Adult	2 Adults	3+ Adults
2014	1%AGI/$95	1%AGI/$190	1%AGI/$285
2015	2%AGI/$325	2%AGI/$650	2%AGI/$975
2016	2.5%AGI/$695	2.5%AGI/$1390	2.5%AGI/$2085

(Bill: PPACA; Page: 317-337)

Obamacare Employer Mandate Tax:  If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2,000 for all full-time employees.  This provision applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3,000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer). (Bill: PPACA; Page: 345-346)

Obamacare Tax on Health Insurers:  Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year.  The tax phases in gradually until 2018.  Fully imposed on firms with $50 million in profits. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,986-1,993)

Starting in tax year 2018:

Obamacare Tax on Union Member and Early Retiree Health Insurance Plans:  Obamacare imposes a new 40 percent excise tax on high cost or “Cadillac” health insurance plans, effective in 2018. This tax increase will most directly affect union families and early retirees, who are likely to be covered by such plans. This Obamacare tax will be levied on insurance policies whose premiums exceed $10,200 for an individual and $27,500 for a family.  Middle class union members tend to be covered by such plans in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  Higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family) for early retirees and high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,941-1,956)

Click here for a printable PDF

Posted by John Kartch on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 4:20 PM EDT

Blog: How to respond to being called 'judgmental'

April 28, 2013

How to respond to being called 'judgmental'

Joan Richardson

We've all heard it, right? This is the accusation slung at almost anyone in this post-modern culture who dares to look askance at problem behavior. Parents, traditional clergy and conservative politicians are frequent targets, and too often, these well-meaning people feel defenseless against this diatribe. After all, being judgmental is bad, right?  

First off, let's dismiss the myth that tolerant people don't judge. Bull. If you are human, you are judging all day, every day. We all make distinctions about comfort, convenience, humor, flavor, cost, attractiveness, appropriateness, health, ethics and yes, morals. One of the marks of humanity is the ability to make these distinctions based on higher order thinking. So, don't apologize for being judgmental. Own it. Take pride in being a thinking human.

Second, let's look closer at the person who is making the accusation. That person is simply attempting to divert attention away from his or her behavior--after all, the best defense is a good offense. Instead of taking responsibility for their actions, these people want to engage in the classic Freudian defense mechanisms of displacement and projection. To avoid the social consequences of their unhealthy behaviors, they counterattack. They use displacement and projection to try to avoid shame, guilt, and anxiety. They exert social pressure on conservatives in the attempt to avoid social consequences like rejection and isolation. This tactic often works to silence the opposition.

When we understand the motivation of the defensive person, we can mobilize strategies to respond in powerful ways. At least two approaches are possible: conciliatory or confrontational. With a conciliatory response, we empathize with the defensive person and try to establish a mutually respectful relationship. We realize that people are generally reactive when they feel vulnerable and threatened. A cornered beast bares teeth and claws.  And nothing triggers a reaction like shame and guilt.

So, to diffuse this reaction, one approach is to validate the inherent worth of the person independent of his or her choices. "Hey," you say, "If I thought you were a helpless victim, I wouldn't expect more of you. But I think you are better than this. You don't have to stay stuck in this behavior."  If you want to show unconditional acceptance of the person as a human (a key to establishing an authentic relationship) you can add, "No matter your decision, I regard you with a great deal of respect because you are a fellow human being--And every human being deserves dignity." This unconditional positive regard frees the person from having to defend his or her worth and may open a path to future communication about the behavior.

If, by some miracle, a dialogue opens immediately, you can say, "It's natural to try to avoid the social consequences of our actions--we all do it to some extent. But that doesn't eliminate all consequences. Those consequences will occur whether you want them to or not. You can try to ignore the law of gravity, but you will still fall if you jump from a cliff. I am reminding you about cliffs and gravity even though you don't want to hear it. Calling me 'judgmental' does not change the cliff. It just makes it harder for me to keep warning you. If I didn't care about you, I would walk away when you attack me, and let you self-destruct. But I do care about you. I care enough to endure the reactions you are showing." Further, "Being accountable and living with consequences can be daunting. But I'm here for you. We can face those cliffs together and figure out a way to navigate them."

So much for conciliation. What if you are in an confrontational relationship and trying to score points in a debate or to deal a blow to the confidence of an aggressor? Here are some approaches.

Them: "You're being judgmental!" You: "No, you are being judgmental. You can't read my mind. You don't know my inner thoughts. You are totally judging me. You are just trying to divert attention to the fact that you feel guilty and ashamed about your behavior. This is simply a case of projection and displacement to avoid anxiety--Freud would be proud of you!"

Them: "You're being judgmental." You: "Where is it written that I can't be judgmental? You judge a thousand things a day - so do I. What's the big deal? Who said not to judge?" Them, "Uhh, it says in the Bible that you shouldn't judge." You, "The Bible? Are you invoking the Bible? I don't think you want to go there because the rest of the Bible is on my side, not yours. If you want to obey everything in the Bible, I'll accept that, but you can't cherry pick when it suits your fancy. Either you embrace it or you don't. So, which one is it, the Bible or not?"

Them, "But you are the one that is the Christian - not me. I don't have to obey the Bible, but you do!" You, "Again, I don't think you want to go there, because if I obeyed the whole Bible I would have to stone you here and now. So don't go around talking about things of which you have absolutely no context and very little knowledge."

Them: "You're being judgmental!" You: "Don't try to change the subject and avoid the real issue. The issue is that your behavior (or opinion) is unhealthy and you don't want to be accountable for your actions. Stop trying to use thug tactics to quash a logical argument. It won't work on me."

So don't be cowed by the possibility that you may, in fact, be judgmental. Just make sure your judgment is superior to that of your opposition.

Blog: How to respond to being called 'judgmental'

Articles: The Brothers Tsarnaev and the Danger Whose Name we Dare not Speak

Articles: The Brothers Tsarnaev and the Danger Whose Name we Dare not Speak

The Brothers Tsarnaev and the Danger Whose Name we Dare not Speak

By Clarice Feldman

April 28, 2013

We now have had a number of terrorist attacks on the homeland -- though the administration often refers to them in ridiculous euphemisms like "workplace violence" -- and the behavior of the administration, including our lavishly funded FBI and Homeland Security Administration, and our richly rewarded media stars remains so predictable I've decided to spare you the time it takes to unravel the unending lies and poppycock we are regularly fed about these horrors, lies, and blundering that only increase our danger.

This week's bombing of civilians at the Boston Marathon in which three people, including an 8-year-old child, perished upon being torn to bits and 250 were wounded, some most grievously, followed the template set by the other Islamist incidents on Obama's watch. The media stumbles over itself trying not to see why we were attacked while glorifying terrorists, showing them in the most innocent-looking youthful pictures they can find, interviewing irrelevant credulous neighbors and school chums and blaming innocents (us) for the acts of terror. The federal government in large part, starting with the White House, is no better. HSA Secretary Napolitano urges us, "see something, say something" but the major media and all the president's men (and women) seem to operate under a different order, "See, hear, and speak nothing of the Islamist evil that threatens us."

A. The Media

1. Making Celebrities of Terrorists

If you've never read Sultan Knish's blog, you ought to. He's one of the brightest stars of the internet and his comments this week on the media treatment of terrorists could not be more acid nor accurate.

The media's coverage is weighed down by its old fetish of murder as celebrity. The media covers murderers and celebrities in the same way. It writes exhaustively about them, but rarely meaningfully. The murderer, like the celebrity, is famous for being famous. And fame clips context and suppresses meaning. It becomes its own reference. A thing is famous for being known. It is known for being famous. It enters the common language as a reference. A metaphor.

In the case of the Tsarnaevs, the surface coverage, the endless rounds of interviews with friends and relatives, with anyone who ever met them or retweeted them, is mandatory because it avoids the more difficult question of why they killed.

[snip]

Prisons are full of 300 pound men who beat their 90 pound wives to death in self-defense and spree killers who felt bullied and misunderstood and defended themselves with killing sprees. The kind of evil we see in movies, the serial killer who gleefully whisper about demonic pacts and the joy of killing, are a rarity. Even human monsters are human. They explain things in terms of their egos. They are always defending themselves against some form of oppression and looking for someone to sympathize with their outrage.

Muslim terrorists are no different.

[snip]

Islam, as one of the great world religions, has a long history of needing to be defended against small boys, blind female poets and elderly cartoonists. Sometimes Muslims have to defend Islam against each other, the way they are now doing in Syria. Other times defending Islam requires demolishing its archeological sites, the way that the Saudis are doing. Either way defending Islam is difficult work.

Sultan Knish (Daniel Greenfield) deftly explains that there is a private Islam, which guides the daily life of its practitioners, and a "public Islam" which would force us all to follow the same proscriptions. That Islam, the public Islam, "must be defended by bombs", he argues. Both the media and the administration refuse to acknowledge that distinction.

Why did Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev detonate bombs at the Boston Marathon? They were engaged in an old disagreement over political systems. Terrorists of the left set off bombs to force a political revolution. Their Islamist fellow-travelers are doing the same thing. Dig away enough of the trappings of the celebrity murderer and you come to the ideas buried underneath all the rubble.

[snip]

[The media] wants us to speak of foreign policy as an isolated American act and of random violence as arising from thin air. It does not want us to understand the nature of the struggle. It does not want us to know why we die. It is determined to keep from us the reason why Muslims kill.

Sulltan Knish's article is something that should be read in its entirety, but if you want a short form of the media celebrity treatment of Islamist thugs he describes, Iowahawk provided it in a tweet:

"When I tweeted [Guy sends 268 people to the hospital, and the NY Times want to rewrite him as the new Holden Caulfield. #BomberInTheRye] last night, it was in response to the Times' bizarre stream of 'poor little misfit alienated immigrant teen' profile puff-pieces. It was (as satire is suppose to be) an intentional exaggeration meant to make a point. As God is my witness, I swear I had no idea they would ACTUALLY LIKEN HIM TO HOLDEN CAULFIELD."

What an embarrassment.
2. The Media Act as if We Are Murderous Thugs
It may be that the media dissembles concerning the impetus for these murderous acts because it knows no better. Certainly they give evidence everyday of their thin knowledge of the world outside their pressroom cloisters. But one cannot help but feel that from 9/11 on the media has treated Americans as if WE were the murderous thugs who must not learn of the Islamist nature of the slaughterers lest we grab our pikes and scimitars and start off to mosques to behead the innocent.
Brendon O'Neill at the Telegraph captured my puzzlement at this continued inexplicable treatment of the media's audience:

Clearly, some observers fear ordinary Americans more than they do terrorists; they fret more over how dangerously unintelligent and hateful Yanks will respond to bombings than they do over the bombings themselves. But where is this Islamophobic mob? Where are these marauding Muslim-haters undergoing a post-Boston freakout? They are a figment of liberal observers' imaginations. In the years since 9/11, the American public has been admirably tolerant towards Muslim communities. According to federal crime statscollected by the FBI, in 2009 there were 107 anti-Muslim hate crimes; in a country of 300 million people that is a very low number. In 2010, a year of great terrorism panic following the attempt by Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in NYC, there were 160 anti-Muslim hate crimes. In 2011, there were 157. To see how imaginary the Islamophobic mob is, consider a state like Texas, fashionably mocked as a backward Hicksville full of Fox News-watching morons: there are 420,000 Muslims in Texas, yet in 2011 there were only six anti-Muslim hate crimes there. It simply isn't true that mad racist Yanks are biting at the bit to attack Muslims.

There were similarly wrongheaded fears of an outburst of mass Islamophobic hysteria in the wake of the 7/7 bombings in London, too. Policemen were posted outside mosques. NHS trusts encouraged doctors and nurses to keep their eyes peeled for anyone whoexpressed anti-Muslim hate. Trade union officials warned of a "backlash" against Muslims. But the backlash never came. Brits did not rise up in spite and fury against Muslims. Crown Prosecution Service crime figures for 2005-2006, covering the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks, showed that only 43 religiously aggravated crimes were prosecuted in that period, and that Muslims were the victims in 18 of those crimes. Eighteen prosecutions for anti-Muslim crimes -- all those crimes are unfortunate, of course they are; but this was far from an "Islamophobic backlash". As the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, said: "The fears of a [post-7/7] rise in offences appear to be unfounded." Time and again, Left-leaning campaigners and observers respond to terror attacks in the West by panicking about the possibly racist response of Joe Public -- and time and again, their fears prove ill-founded and Joe Public proves himself a more decent, tolerant person than they give him credit for. What this reveals is that liberal concern over Islamophobia, liberal fretting about anti-Muslim bigotry, is ironically driven by a bigotry of its own, by an deeply prejudiced view of everyday people as hateful and stupid. The anti-Islamophobia lobby poses as the implacable opponent of bigotry, yet it spreads a bigoted view of ordinary white folk as so volatile, so brimming with fury, that they are one terrorist bombing away from transforming into an anti-Muslim pogrom. Yes, some prejudiced things have been said about Muslims post-Boston; but far more prejudiced things are being said or implied about ordinary Americans.

This contempt for the innocent victims of Islamic terrorism permeates the International set of anti-democratic American and Israeli haters. Princeton Professor Richard Falk who sits on the preposterously named and constituted UN Human Rights Commission is an exemplar of this caste of blinkered mandarins. He publicly blamed the bombing on U.S. foreign policy and its support of Israel. Just as he has earlier suggested our government had a hand in 9/11.

As the NY Post's Michael Goodwin observed, Falk's fault finding error is shared with the president:

Yet Falk is not the only one with warped views. His praise for President Obama's apologies to Muslims should give the president reason to pause, but the White House is too busy making sure it passes the test of the Boston bombing trial.

Not so much the test of whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is guilty, about which there seems little doubt. Rather, the trial is a test of American values, according to all the president's men.

Obama himself still refuses to cite Islam as a motive for the bombing, despite the copious evidence investigators and the media have produced. He rushes to judgment only when it suits his worldview.

[snip]

The dynamic is bizarre. Americans are attacked and, in return, are warned by their president to behave. Obama used that formula to defend the proposed mosque at Ground Zero, saying it was important that "we stay focused on who we are as a people and what our values are all about."
Apparently, the president sees the Constitution as a suicide pact.

B. The Administration Shares the Media and Mandarins' Distorted View and Exacerbates the Danger
There was little doubt as the week ended that the FBI and HSA both seriously blundered in their treatment of the terrorists and their family, in the lies they told to us about what they had done and why, and there can be little doubt that, absent a sea change, we are in far greater danger now than we were before Obama was elected, a time when we had a president who thought us worthy of defending. Apart from the president's history outlined by Goodwin, we have seen unfolded a series of acts that could only have maximized our peril and that could be directed only from the top levels of the administration.

1. It has stripped the FBI manual of relevant information and blinded it to the danger of Islamism:

As The Washington Examiner's Mark Flatten reported last year, FBI training manuals were systematically purged in 2011 of all references to Islam that were judged offensive by a specially created five-member panel. Three of the panel members were Muslim advocates from outside the FBI, which still refuses to make public their identities. Nearly 900 pages were removed from the manuals as a result of that review. Several congressmen were allowed to review the removed materials in 2012, on condition that they not disclose what they read to their staffs, the media, or the general public.

With the recent proliferation of revelations about FBI blindness on the Brothers Tsarnaev, a comment made last year by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, to Flatten now has a tragic resonance: "We've got material being removed more because of political correctness than in the interest of truth and properly educated justice officials. We are blinding our enforcement officers from the ability to see who the enemy actually is." The Boston bombing showed the tragic consequences of that.

Even if they are made aware of the danger, the FBI fails to act against Islamists, undoubtedly because it is a certain career ender.

The Russian FSB (the successor to the KGB) warned us about the bomber, the CIA brought this information to the FBI which performed a perfunctory interview, never looked at the bomber's Facebook page, and no one seemed to have noticed that he went to Russia for 6 months, doubtless meeting with Islamist Chechen terrorists. Even the Obama-loving Washington Post found the FBI performance remarkable:

there are reasons for concern about the two agencies' performance, based on what is known so far about their tracking of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The older and more radical brother was first identified as a possible extremist by Russia, which asked the FBI to investigate him in early 2011. Later that year, also after prompting from Russia, the CIA asked that his name be added to a watch list maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, The Post's Greg Miller and Sari Horowitz reported. His subsequent departure for Russia in early 2012 resulted in "a ping" to customs officials, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress on Tuesday. However, it appears the FBI never learned that Tamerlan had left the country and was not informed when he returned in July.

2. The FBI seriously interfered with the interrogation of the Dzhokhar Tzarnaev.

Dzhokhar was apparently wounded in the leg and neck by Boston police officers when, after firing hundreds of rounds, made Swiss cheese of the Boston whaler in which he was hiding unarmed.

Despite his throat wound and under a special exception set by the Attorney General, FBI agents were given 48 hours in which to question him without Mirandizing him, the questioning was slow going because of his wounds, especially the throat wounds which we'd earlier (falsely) been told were self-inflicted. But after only 16 hours and while the FBI was still questioning him and reportedly getting "crucial information," another FBI agent filed a criminal complaint in Boston and a magistrate accordingly appeared, told the terrorist he had a right to remain silent and Dzhokhar availed himself of the proffered privilege and stopped talking. 

Whether this was just another in a series of blunders or a deliberate act to keep him from revealing more, I am sorry to say I don't know. Given all that preceded this -- including a litany of bald-faced lies megaphoned by the press -- no conspiratorial explanation seems unthinkable.

3. Federal agents were clearly the sources of repeated early claims the brothers were self trained lone wolves, and they did so without evidence of that and at a time when they couldn't possibly know that to be true. In fact, the evidence indicates they were not.

The nature of the bomb shows they had some assistance in bomb making. Friday afternoon FNC reported the FBI is now considering there was a third bomber whose identity we do not know.

There's also a report that the terrorists' mother, wanted for shoplifting in Boston, was also on a terrorist watch list and that Tamerlan's wife played some role -- if only to tip them off they were being watched. The mosque in Boston which they attended has radical ties and been associated with other terrorism suspects.

4. There is more than a small hint that other federal agencies were involved in getting a Saudi injured at the scene of the blast and tagged a "person of interest" off a watch list and perhaps even spiriting him out of the country.

• A Saudi national originally identified as a "person of interest" in the Boston Marathon bombing was set to be deported under section 212, 3B -- "Security and related grounds" -- "Terrorist activities" after the bombing on April 15

• TheBlaze received word that the government may not deport the Saudi national -- identified as Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi -- as the story gained traction on April 18.

• Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answerquestions on the subject by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) on Capitol Hill on April 18, saying the inquiry was "so full of misstatements and misapprehension that it's just not worthy of an answer."

• An ICE official said April 18 that a different Saudi national is in custody, but that he is "in no way" connected to the bombings.

• Key congressmen of the Committee on Homeland Security request a classified briefing with Napolitano on April 22

• New info provided to TheBlaze reveals Alharbi's file was altered on the evening of April 17 to disassociate him from the initial charges

• Sources said on April 22 that the Saudi's student visa specifically allows him to go to school in Findlay, Ohio, though he appears to have an apartment in Boston, Massachusetts. A DHS official told TheBlaze that Alharbi properly transferred his student visa to a school in Massachusetts

• TheBlaze sources reveal April 22 that Alharbi was put on a terror watchlist after the bombing, and Napolitano confirms he was on a "watchlist" April 23.

By week's end, Beck's story, now confirmed after an early denial by Secretary Napolitano, grew even more shocking:

• At the time the event file was created for Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, it indicated he was "armed and dangerous"

• Alharbi was admitted into the country under a "special advisory option," which is usually reserved for visiting politicians, VIPs, or journalists. The event file cover page indicates he was granted his status without full vetting.

• One of the first excuses given by law enforcement when confronted about Alharbi's pending deportation was an expired visa. But according to the event file, his visa is good until 11-NOV-2016.

• The event file indicates he entered the U.S. on 08/28/12 in Boston, MA but says he is a student at the University of Findlay, in Findlay, Ohio. He has an apartment in Boston, and doesn't seem to have been a full-time student in Ohio.

• When a file is created in the system the author(s) are notified via email when it is accessed, and given the email address of the person accessing, so there is a record within the government data system of who deleted them. It was amended to remove the deportation reference, then someone later went in and tried to destroy both the original event file and amended versions. Copies had already been made.

• The original event file was reviewed and approved by two high level agents -- Chief Watch Commander Maimbourg and Watch Commander Mayfield.

Sure looks like a cover-up. Since there are pictures of Michelle Obama visiting Alharbi in his hospital room, since the Administration has been lying about him repeatedly and altering official records, and since there's as yet no answer as to how and why he was admitted under a "special advisory opinion" and since we do not yet know if he's still here or was spirited out of the country, we have good reason to be suspicious.

Articles: Radical Christianity vs. Radical Islam

Articles: Radical Christianity vs. Radical Islam

Radical Christianity vs. Radical Islam

By Trevor Thomas
April 28, 2013

Finally, Bill Maher got something right.  Following the Boston bombings, Maher responded to Brian Levy, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino (a great example of needed reforms in public higher education), "[T]here's only one faith, for example, that kills you or wants to kill you if you draw a bad cartoon of the prophet.  There's only one faith that kills you or wants to kill you if you renounce the faith."

There you have it.  Even a flaming atheist can recognize the difference between a religion of peace and one full of bloodlust.  The Tsarnaevs are just the most recent example of the tragic bitter fruit produced by radical Islamists.  To further Maher's point, consider and contrast the efforts of radical Islamists with those of radical Christians.

Just what is a "radical Christian"?  Some might call them (with apologies to DC Talk) "Jesus Freaks."  Examples are all around us, and most are virtually unknown outside their home towns (mainly because they don't make the news by killing people).  They plant churches, feed the poor, heal the sick; they open orphanages and pregnancy resource centers; they visit prisoners and deliver the oppressed; in other words, they have sold themselves out to be the hands and feet of the One they worship.

Some popular examples would include men like the late Jim Elliot, who served and evangelized the Quechua Indians, even though it cost him his life. Countless Christians have forsaken the comforts of Western civilization to go and fulfill the call of Christ.  In other words, Christianity exports its radicals to bring life and hope, while much of Islam does so to bring death and despair.

Radical Christian and Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller and his wife Linda started an organization "that has helped build or repair more than 600,000 houses and served more than 3 million people around the world."  The organization began in 1968, and the Fullers moved to Mbandaka, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1973 to spread their mission of affordable housing to developing countries.

Meanwhile, Muslims in Pakistan recently burned nearly 200 Christian homes over the alleged blasphemy against Muhammad by a Christian sanitation worker.  Coptic Christians continue to suffer under the "reforms" taking place in Egypt.  The Coptic minority have been murdered and seen their homes, businesses, and churches looted and burned.

Radical Christians build hospitals.  Radical Muslims seek to fill them up.  Christians have led the world in caring for the sick and dying among us.  As Virginia Health Information notes, "[s]ome of the earliest hospitals existed in ancient Rome in 100 BC as important centers for the emergency care of sick and wounded soldiers. With the spread of Christianity, hospitals grew as part of the church's mission and became part of the community as they tended to health care not only for soldiers but also for all who needed it."

The first hospital in North America, the Hospital de Jesus Nazareno, was founded by Cortés.  The first hospital in the U.S, Pennsylvania Hospital, was founded by a Quaker, Dr. Thomas Bond (with the aid of Benjamin Franklin).  The Catholic Church alone operates over 1,100 hospitals and long-term health care facilities in the U.S.  What's more, a 2010 study revealed that Christian hospitals in the U.S. outperform all others.

Radical Christians build schools.  The world's first university, birthed in 1088, was The University of Bologna in Italy.  It was founded to teach canon (church) law.  The second-oldest university, The University of Paris, grew out of the cathedral schools of Notre-Dame and soon became a great center for Christian orthodox studies.  Dr. Alvin J. Schmidt, in his book Under the Influence: How Christianity Transformed Civilization, points out that every college established in colonial America, except the University of Pennsylvania, was founded by some denomination of Christianity.  He adds that, preceding the Civil War, 92 percent of the 182 colleges and universities in the U.S. were established by some branch of the church.

Radical Muslims attack young girls who merely want an education.  In 2012, Taliban forces in Afghanistan were responsible for what was described as "an intentional act to poison schoolgirls."  More than 150 girls in northeastern Afghanistan suffered in the attack.  "Every day [in fact, just the other day], you hear that somebody's thrown acid at a girl's face ... or they poison their water," moaned the founder of a girls school outside Kabul.

According to the U.N., there were nearly 200 attacks on schools and hospitals in Afghanistan in 2011.  In addition, radical Islamists also attack administrators who don't conform to their ideas of what constitutes a proper education.  According to Reuters, "[r]adical Muslims burst into a Tunisian school ... and assaulted [nearly killing] its chief after he barred entry to a teenage girl wearing a niqab."

Car bombs detonated by Muslim radicals have killed dozens in Somalia and Nigeria this year alone.  Just last month, Muslim suicide bombers in Pakistan and Syria killed well over 100 people.  Whether it's bombing, burning, beheading, hacking, poisoning, or shooting, the list of Muslim violence is long and obscene.

Of course, the proper Christian response to such violence is never revenge.  (However, justice is another matter.)  As we look to be salt and light to those outside Christianity -- whether they be violent, mocking, or merely apathetic -- we must never forget that Christ came not to destroy lives, but to save them.  This is why, when it comes to comparing radical Christians to radical Islamists, there is no comparison.

Trevor Grant Thomas: at the Intersection of politics, science, faith, and reason.www.trevorgrantthomas.com

"180" - An award-winning documentary!

Even Big Labor Unions Are Dropping Support For High-Cost Obamacare - Investors.com

Even Big Labor Unions Are Dropping Support For High-Cost Obamacare - Investors.com

Even Big Labor Unions Drop Support For Obamacare

 Posted 04/26/2013 06:35 PM ET

Health Care Politics: As ObamaCare rolls out, some of its biggest backers from labor to D.C. lawmakers are having second thoughts. It's a sign that the idea of ending this national nightmare isn't about to go away.

Late last week, the 22,000-member United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers dropped a bombshell on the Obama administration, not only withdrawing its support for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but also demanding its repeal.

The reason: ObamaCare subsidizes low-paid non-union workers in small companies that don't insure their employees, while leaving union shops with ObamaCare's higher health care costs and a 40% tax on Cadillac plans by 2018. That's a "death warrant" for unions, as the Atlantic's Megan McArdle noted.

"These provisions jeopardize our multiemployer health plans, have the potential to cause a loss of work for our members, create an unfair bidding advantage for those contractors who do not provide health coverage to their workers and, in the worst case, may cause our members and their families to lose the benefits they currently enjoy as participants in multiemployer health plans," said union President Kinsey Robinson.

It's the latest shoe to drop in the Great Buyers' Remorse of ObamaCare's biggest backers.

The call from the roofers was hardly the first shot fired on this terrible piece of legislation.

Last January, Sheet Metal Worker Local 85 in Atlanta asked for new subsidies for lower-paid union members.

This past August, the Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers went on strike against Verizon over health care cutbacks that came as a result of the ObamaCare Cadillac tax, which Verizon has to prepare for now.

As unions peel away, Democrats who voted for "reform" are backing away from ObamaCare, too.

The New York Times reports that Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Benjamin Cardin of Maryland are hearing from constituents about rate hikes, difficulties complying with the law, and being swamped by the implementation requirements.

Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin is incensed by the Obama administration's decision to raid public health coffers of $332 million to pay for public relations for the highly unpopular health care exchanges.

"I just see a huge train wreck coming down," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who may be resigning to get out of the way. He gave ObamaCare "a failing grade."

What is one to make of this discontent in the ranks of ObamaCare's biggest backers?

For starters, it's the cold water of reality hitting those who must deal with the day-to-day costs.

It also shows the intransigence of America's leaders, at the White House and in Big Labor, who have shown indifference to the nightmare of ObamaCare as its measures begin to be implemented. With Democrats and their union backers calling for an end to ObamaCare and Republicans against it all along the government's medical takeover might not be here to stay.

Congress Asks Why DHS Buys More Bullets Per Officer Than U.S. Army - Investors.com

Congress Asks Why DHS Buys More Bullets Per Officer Than U.S. Army - Investors.com

Why Does DHS Need More Bullets Per Officer Than Army?

 Posted 04/26/2013 06:35 PM ET

Federal Power: Homeland Security's procurement officer is grilled in Congress on why federal agents who rarely fire weapons need several times more bullets annually than an Army officer. Who or what are they shooting at?

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz on Thursday asked Nick Nayak, DHS' chief procurement officer, a question we and others have been asking: Why has the Department of Homeland Security been buying so much ammunition?

Dismissed as a concern only of right-wing conspiracy theorists, the reported amounts as high as 2 billion rounds have varied and been explained not as a one-time purchase but a bulk buy over five years to reduce costs. It's one of the rare instances, apparently, a government agency has actually cared about such a thing.

Nayak appeared before Chaffetz's House oversight subcommittee to do what Obama administration officials are loath to do the actual math. Chaffetz has, and his number-crunching raises more questions than DHS has answered to date.

Chaffetz noted that the department currently has more than 260 million rounds in stock. He said the department bought more than 103 million rounds in 2012 and used 116 million that same year among roughly 70,000 agents.

Comparing that with the small-arms purchases by the U.S. Army, he said the DHS is churning through between 1,300 and 1,600 rounds per officer per year, while the Army goes through roughly 350 per officer.

Nayak, acknowledging that the five-tear potential bullet buy could be as high as 750 million rounds, did not contest Chaffetz's math and said the massive buys were needed for training. DHS has procured "approximately 120 million rounds of ammunition per year of all calibers and types and fired approximately the same number of rounds per year, almost exclusively for training purposes," according to Nayak's testimony.

"What does not make sense in the information you provided is that Customs and Border Control used (around 14 million) rounds for operational purposes when they rarely fire their guns," a skeptical Chaffetz said, citing just one example of a particular allocation.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which falls under DHS's jurisdiction, fired "less than 100 rounds" during 15 shooting incidents last year, according to Humberto Medina, assistant director of ICE's' National Firearm and Tactical Training Unit. By this criterion, the DHS stockpile should last a very long time.

Jonathan L. Lasher, the Social Security Administration's assistant inspector general for external relations, has previously explained the purchase of 174,000 hollow-point bullets by saying they were for the Social Security inspector general's office.

Its 295 agents investigate Social Security fraud and other crimes. When they say they are cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse, they apparently mean it.

Another question is why so many hollow-point bullets are being purchased?

As former Marine Richard Mason recently told reporters with WHPTV News in Pennsylvania, hollow-points (which make up the bulk of the DHS purchases) are not used for training because they are more expensive than standard firing-range rounds. "We never trained with hollow points. We didn't even see hollow points my entire 4-1/2 (years) in the Marine Corps," Mason said.

We'd like to think this is just another example of government waste. Some have suggested these massive ammunition buys are an attempt to dry up supply as part of the administration's push for gun control.

We have asked if this has anything to do with then-candidate Obama's proposal for a national security force as powerful as the U.S. Army.

In a July 2, 2008 speech in Colorado Springs, candidate Obama said: "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

The government that would limit law-abiding citizens to some seven bullets to defend their families and their homes still has some explaining to do.