The Right Lane update 6.04.13

The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, free markets and individual liberty

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

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Two-Thirds of Uninsured Not Sure They'll Buy Insurance Under Obamacare  By Greg Richter

Two-thirds of Americans currently without health insurance are uncertain they'll buy insurance under Obamacare once it is fully implemented in 2014. And if they don't, the Affordable Care Act could face trouble, CNBC reports. There are penalties for not purchasing health insurance under the law that takes effect Jan. 1, but in the first year, those penalties are much smaller than the cheapest health coverage plans. If too few people who are currently uninsured sign up it could raise costs for everyone else, said Laura Adams of InsuranceQuotes.com, which commissioned the poll. In the survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, 64 percent of the uninsured say they have not made up their minds whether they will buy health insurance by the Jan. 1, 2014 deadline. Ten percent say they definitely will not buy insurance, opting to pay the fine instead. Only 19 percent told pollsters they intended to comply with the law and buy health insurance.

"Many people are taking a wait-and-see attitude," said Amy Bach, executive director of the insurance consumer advocacy group United Policyholders. "People are still in the dark about what their options are going to be — and they're skeptical that the penalty for not buying insurance is going to be enforced, at least in the first couple of years."  In Obamacare's first year, the fine is $95 per adult or one percent of income, whichever is highest. The penalty is half the adult amount for children under 18. The penalty goes up every year, landing at $695 or 2.5 percent of household income in 2016.

Fewer than half of those surveyed believe they'll get better health care under Obamacare. Almost half think it will be harder to get tests and procedures performed in a timely matter. Although the law allows for tax credits to help pay for insurance coverage for those with low incomes, 68 percent believe they won't qualify.   Bottom line the American people DO NOT trust their own government to take care of their health needs. Surprised give what is going on with this Administration?

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IRS exempts terror front group over tea party Reinstated despite years of delinquent filings

At the same time the Internal Revenue Service delayed or denied requests for tax-exempt status from hundreds of conservative non-profit groups, it was quietly restoring the tax-exempt status of an Islamist front group accused of collaborating with terrorists. Last year, the politicized agency reinstated the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations’ tax-exempt status despite years of delinquent tax filings. CAIR officials had met with officials inside the White House before the decision was made.

Though Democrat-connected CAIR did not officially endorse Obama, many of its staffers helped turn out the Muslim vote for his re-election. CAIR boasted that its own polling showed more than 85 percent of Muslim-Americans voted for Obama.

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EPA honors fake employee as an ‘ethical scholar’  - Michael Bastasch

At the Environmental Protection Agency, employees don’t necessarily have to exist in order to be recognized for their accomplishments. “Richard Windsor,” the alias email account used by former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, was honored as a “scholar of ethical behavior” for three years. Windsor’s achievements don’t stop there. He also completed courses in management of email records, cyber security and what appears to be a counter-terror program to encourage federal employees to report suspicious activity. National Review reports that the EPA released the certifications in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Chris Horner. According to Horner, the EPA most likely issued agency-wide requirements for those maintaining an active email address without “contemplating a false identity or fake employee would be created.” “I’m unclear how grown men and women could think that it’s acceptable to have a nonexistent employee sign in as the test-taker [or to have an] administrator take required certification training in the name of a false identity,” Horner said. Last year, The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that Jackson had been using an alias email account under the name Richard Windsor, prompting concerns that she was skirting public disclosure requirements. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) later revealed that Jackson had used her alias account to correspond with environmental groups. “[The] EPA has shown an absolute disregard for transparency with their email practices, but this one is pretty bizarre,” said Vitter.  “We also know now that Lisa Jackson used the alias ‘Richard Windsor’ to correspond outside of the EPA, including with environmental activists.”

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Administration Betrays Israel: Secret Base Revealed

Obama has betrayed Israel. This is another scandal that won’t see the light of day since Obama is so buried in all his other lies. Israel’s military fumed Monday over the discovery that the U.S. government had revealed details of a top-secret Israeli military installation in published bid requests. The Obama administration had promised to build Israel a state-of-the-art facility to house a new ballistic-missile defense system, the Arrow 3. As with all Defense Department projects, detailed specifications were made public so that contractors could bid on the $25 million project. The specifications included more than 1,000 pages of details on the facility, ranging from the heating and cooling systems to the thickness of the walls. “If an enemy of Israel wanted to launch an attack against a facility, this would give him an easy how-to guide. This type of information is closely guarded and its release can jeopardize the entire facility,” said an Israeli military official who commented on the publication of the proposal but declined to be named because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the facility. He declined to say whether plans for the facility have been altered as a result of the disclosure. “This is more than worrying, it is shocking,” he said.

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Bombshell: 'Proof' IRS committed felony  Jerome R. Corsi

WASHINGTON — A witness at a congressional hearing today on IRS targeting of conservative organizations claims he has proof the agency illegally leaked confidential information.

“I would call the disclosure of our donor lists by the IRS a felony,” charged John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, or NOM, in Washington, D.C., in emotionally charged testimony Tuesday before the House Ways and Means Committee . Eastman testified that the organization’s IRS Form 990 tax return, which lists its donors, was published on the website of the Human Rights Campaign, a “gay-rights” advocacy group. He claimed to have proof the IRS leaked his organization’s confidential donor list under questioning by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. Eastman said “forensic” specialists within his organization had stripped layers from the document posted on the HRC website to identify “meta-data,” or unseen embedded code, that identified the document as having originated from within the IRS.

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Occupy IRS: Wife of Former IRS Commissioner Joined Occupy Wall Street  by Kerry Picket

Susan L. Anderson, wife of embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, was a supporter of, and active participant in, the Occupy Wall Street movement, attending and promoting Occupy DC in Oct. 2011.  In the fall of 2011, during the height of the global Occupy protests, Anderson tweeted out to her followers [making her participation very public] Anderson works for the Washington, D.C. based Public Campaign, a liberal group pushing for campaign finance reform. She also worked on the Obama re-election effort and in other left-wing causes. Ducks of a feather, flock together!?

More recently, Anderson posted a photo of a "Stop the NRA" rally in her Twitter feed.

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Kerry Says US Will Sign UN Arms Treaty, Ignoring Congressional Opposition

Secretary of State John Kerry says that the U.S. will sign a controversial United Nations treaty on arms control in spite of bipartisan opposition from lawmakers. Kerry released a written statement on Monday saying the U.S. “welcomes” the next phase for the treaty, which the U.N. General Assembly approved on April 2 but which gun rights advocates on Capitol Hill fear could lead to new gun control measures domestically. “We look forward to signing it as soon as the process of conforming the official translations is completed satisfactorily,” Kerry said, adding that the treaty is “an important contribution to efforts to stem the illicit trade in conventional weapons, which fuels conflict, empowers violent extremists, and contributes to violations of human rights.”  The treaty would reportedly require countries that ratify it to establish national guidelines to govern the transfer of conventional arms and components and to regulate arms brokers.

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Mission Accomplished: China Gets Half of Iraq’s Oil. by Gary North

You may remember the promise of the neocons in 2003: America’s war with Iraq would be paid for by Iraqi oil. Besides, the war would cost only $50 billion — $60 billion, tops. The war cost $2.2 trillion — $3 trillion, tops — and the oil is being gobbled up by China.

Oh, well, they shrug. Bygone are bygones. Win a few, lose a few. Better luck next time. Don’t blame us. Now let’s bomb Iran. The story of how China is buying almost half of Iraq’s oil has not gotten much attention. It does not seem to be consistent with President Bush’s war aims. But that’s how the fortune cookie crumbles. The war cost the Chinese government nothing. It is now using its newly printed counterfeit money to buy the oil that it could not legally buy under the Clinton Administration’s oil export restrictions on Iraq.

The war was fought over oil. A few of us said so in 2003. But what we did not understand was that it was fought to let China get half the oil. We thought it was fought to keep China from getting the oil. Silly us. China’s government is making deals with Mobil Exxon to produce more oil in Iraq. It is willing to do this at rock-bottom prices. It is buying up the output by co-funding the exploration and capital costs. American companies are priced out. They want a shot at profit. China’s government is interested in subsidizing its domestic manufacturing sector. So, it is under-bidding private oil exploration firms. The oil flows east. The New York Times reports:

Before the invasion, Iraq’s oil industry was sputtering, largely walled off from world markets by international sanctions against the government of Saddam Hussein, so his overthrow always carried the promise of renewed access to the country’s immense reserves. Chinese state-owned companies seized the opportunity, pouring more than $2 billion a year and hundreds of workers into Iraq, and just as important, showing a willingness to play by the new Iraqi government’s rules and to accept lower profits to win contracts.

“We lost out,” said Michael Makovsky, a former Defense Department official in the Bush administration who worked on Iraq oil policy. “The Chinese had nothing to do with the war, but from an economic standpoint they are benefiting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are helping to assure their supply.” This is not what the neocons spelled out in 2003. President Bush did not have this in his war aims. Call it the fog of pre-war.

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You're dangerous

You've been designated as such. I don't mean you're on some secret al-Qaeda list. I'm not talking about your name on a Taliban manifesto. I'm talking about our own federal government. The Obama administration. The United States Armed Forces. A recent U.S. Army Reserve unit briefing included examples of religious extremism, and the government included-guess who:

Al-Qaeda, yes. The Hamas terrorists, yes. But also: Catholics ... and Evangelical Christians. Faith in Christ can now be considered "radical" by our federal government

In yet another example of discrimination against Christians, an email from U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jack Rich to his subordinates stated: "Some of the groups out there do not share our Army Values." The email went on to list groups that most Americans would agree do not share any of our values. Groups like neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, white nationalists, the Ku Klux Klan and others. But the list of groups didn't stop there. Lt. Col. Rich went on to list the American Family Association--and Family Research Council.

This kind of outrageous distortion is one more sign--one more alarming proof--that President Barack Obama is leading literally the most extreme anti-religious freedom administration in our nation's history.

Need more proof?  We recently learned that the Obama Department of Defense is meeting with and heeding the advice of Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Why? He demanded that the military develop new policies on religious tolerance, including a policy for court-martialing military chaplains who share the Gospel during spiritual counseling of our troops. What did Weinstein call conservative Christians in a recent article? "Human monsters" and "evil, fundamentalist Christian creatures." What did he say motivates us? "Horrific hatred and blinding bigotry." The fact that military leaders even meet with him should concern every American. There is no question: These are dangerous times for those who believe our nation's Founders got it right ... for those who agree with Jefferson and Madison, who led the charge for religious liberty ... to position it as paramount--the very first amendment in the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution. The Obama administration is engaged in a systematic effort to undermine religious liberty, and they are attacking most aggressively where they have the greatest advantage: in the nationally symbolic and massive military establishment under the control of the President as Commander in Chief.

Bottom line: The Obama administration's attacks on religious freedom no longer know any boundaries. Biblical values do not endanger the Republic. They will preserve our nation, because they are the values upon which our nation was founded.

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"I often note with equal pleasure that God gave this one connected country to one united people -- a people descended from the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in manners and customs, who by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side through a long bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence." --John Jay, Federalist No. 2, 1787

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