The current administration’s cabinet personnel are all so similar it becomes, well, actually odd.

‘When this job came available, it was such an incredible opportunity to work so closely with the president. But everything’s a cost-benefit, right? And the benefits of this and the influence of this job are sufficiently great that there were more costs I was willing to take on the family side.’
– Samantha Power

No Samantha, actually it’s not a “cost-benefit analysis”, not even close.  It is actually just a matter of priorities.   We do that which is important to us, and we avoid or postpone, if avoidance impossible, that which is not seen as important.

New York – United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power has said that it is the thrill of a lifetime to be working at the international organization that she has idolized for years, but that doesn’t mean that she won’t be happy it’s over. (more…)

The Washington Post has an interesting review of the company, CGI, who built the Obamacare web platform and the current employees. It appears the people who work for CGI are typical representative images of federal bloat.
CGI apparently prides itself on it’s liberal work policies and now their poor staff is stressed from all the deadline work….  “Stressed” says they….
WaPo […]  The healthcare.gov debacle has taken its toll on the working environment at CGI Federal’s 10-story complex in Fairfax, Va., according to a staffer working on a related project who asked not to be named. “There’s been a lot of agitation and anger, because CGI really prides itself on having family flexibility,” he said, noting the firm’s liberal telework policy.
Instead, the Obamacare contract has sucked more and more staff off other projects, and people have been working around the clock to first get the site ready for Oct. 1, and then fix it when things started to go wrong. “There’s a lot of frustration,” the staffer said. “People are getting sick, fainting in conference calls.” (more…)

.@corybooker Today is another example of how people of different parties can work together and accomplish big things. pic.twitter.com/sd2iGRtKTM

— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) October 17, 2013

When New Jersey Democrat Senator Frank Lautenberg died on June 3rd 2013, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had a decision to make. Generally speaking, Governors appoint interim representatives as replacement Senators to finish the term (through 2014) of the deceased. But this potential appointment held some *other* considerations. (more…)

Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul and a few others, did a better job at exposing the *real* side, the hidden side of the establishment Republicans, than ever before.
That –regardless of the pain in recognition– is a big win.
Rule #1 in any conflict is KNOW YOUR ENEMY.   I have personally always explained it a little further, saying:  Know your enemy, not as they wish to be known, but rather as they know themselves.

I do not believe that Senator McConnell was responsible for the "anomaly" earmark for the Olmsted Dam project in last night's budget deal

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) October 17, 2013

When you know your enemy as he knows himself – you are able to see all of the associations and intents clearly. The distant horizon gets much closer and you do not to spend time trying to analyze the back-lit shadow.
When the enemy is known as they know themselves – you can make strategic decisions in your own best interests, and you don’t have to waste time identifying all those angles normally considered when you are in a relationship of tenable trust.
Secondly, failure to accept the intent of the enemy does not protect you from it.   Being blind to the intentions of your opposition is automatic entry into a room of weakness because you will always be evaluating yourself from a position of risk management.
Being fully aware of the intents of the opposition allows you to draw bold distinctions based on principle; and empowers your decisionmaking from a position of strength.  There is, quite simply, no longer anything to fear, and solutions become far easier to determine.
Sarah Palin pens an article for Breitbart which outlines the following conclusion: (more…)

Now that we have affirmation on WHY the website does not work. Lets take a look at how it’s put together and follow the network.  (HatTip Fantasia for some links)

Sometimes looking into the engineering side of the new Obamacare Cyber Construction (Rabbit Hole) makes you wonder…..

In 2010 when the ACA (Obamacare) was passed it was 2,700 pages, 381,517 words, formulating a bill that no-one read before it was voted on; and “we’d have to pass it to see what’s in it”.
In 2013 Obamacare, and the accompanying regulation which compromise it’s construct, is now 10,535 pages long (11,588,500 words).  Thirty times larger than the initial construct and so massive that no-one knows what it all means in totality.
So a website to sign people up for it needed to be constructed.

Where did the feds turn?  To a previously authorized cyber engineering firm, CGI, who held a very special status –  “Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity.”   As the Washington Examiner outlined: (more…)

The American Spectator has in its possession a construct of an e-mail sent by President Obama and DoD Secretary Hagle to all military members attacking Republican opposition to his agenda and the Government Shutdown.  A clear violation of the Hatch Act.

“Military and civilian employees of the federal government are absolutely prohibited from using government supplies, equipment, communication systems and facilities in any political activity.”   (DoD Memo)

The American Spectator has been provided with the text of a political message sent on Saturday evening, using Department of Defense communications systems, on behalf of President Obama and Secretary of Defense Hagel.
It is addressed to “all US government employees” and further specified by the DoD sender to go to “all subordinate commands,” in compliance with Hagel’s call for “the widest possible distribution.”
The message contains standard presidential lauding of public service, but goes on to attack the current government shutdown by specifically castigating the House of Representatives, saying that the House — which is unsubtle code for Republicans — should “follow the Senate’s lead…without trying to attach…partisan measures in the process.” (more…)

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and hence clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”…..H.L. Mencken

What if you turned on the television and suddenly there were no more countdown clocks….no more talking heads discussing doomsday scenarios predicting a crippling government default?  How many of us can even remember looking forward to being entertained and informed when we sat down after a hard day’s work? 
I came to a sudden realization this past weekend as I watched countless numbers of veterans take back their monuments in D.C.   Veterans who stormed beaches, fought in jungles, and endured desert heat thought nothing of a few hastily erected “Barry-cades”.  Many of these veterans, most now in their nineties, weren’t going to be stopped by Obama any more than they were by countless other autocrats.   I’m going to take a lesson from them….and stop being told what I have to fear.

(more…)

The Democrats want to add removal of the “Sequester Cuts” into the budgetary maneuvers.  Essentially, last year the Dem’s made a strategic blunder;  thinking they had the Republicans backed into a corner with the following proposition:  ‘Either raise taxes *OR* watch horrible cuts to Defense spending”.  
What Dem’s didn’t realize at the time was the strength of the conservative pressure on the traditional GOP.   As a consequence the “Sequester” was not seen as unpalatable as Harry Reid thought, the common sense conservative electorate shrugged off the threat and said fine let the future military spending shrink – and retain tax rates. 
The outcome was Dem’s proclaiming the Sequester was the end of the world.  It didn’t end.  And so today….. 

(Baseline for discussion stems from Reuters Article Outline ) – Some U.S. senators said they were closing in on a deal Monday that would reopen the government and push back the deadline on the hard Debt Ceiling/Spending decisions for several months, though many hurdles remained as a Thursday 10/17 deadline drew near. (more…)

One person, that’s ONE PERSON, said:  “that be like stealin'”.   Like stealing?

“Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd confirms they were called in to help the employees at Wal-Mart because there were so many people clearing off the shelves. He says Wal-Mart was so packed, ‘it was worse than any black Friday’ that he’s ever seen”.

Louisiana – The Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system allows recipients of government food stamps to purchase goods using a digital card with a set spending limit, but for a few hours over the weekend, that limit disappeared for many users visiting Walmart stores in Louisiana.

Walmart and local police in Springhill and Mansfield confirmed to CBS affiliate KSLA that officers were called into the stores to help maintain order Saturday as shoppers swept through the aisles at two stores and bought as much as they could carry.
Xerox, which hosts some of the infrastructure used by the EBT card system, told KSLA that a power outage during a routine maintenance test caused the temporary glitch.
Walmart workers phoned their corporate headquarters to ask how they should handle all the shoppers with unlimited, government-funded spending limits, and were told to keep the registers ringing. (more…)

Every time we see the media lie and hide behind this talking point…:

‘Obamacare is a law passed by congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court’.

….we will highlight the falsehood and update with recent events.

This week NBC’s David Gregory used it in an interview of Senators’ Dick Durbin-(D) and Rob Portman-(R):

Let me just raise this issue about ObamaCare, because I want to come back to that. One of the issues is that for conservatives, this has been such a huge issue, even though the law’s been passed and upheld by the court, they still argue, “No, there’s a basis to really try to make it better, to replace it, to get rid of it.” – David Gregory on Meet The Press

FIRST WATCH THIS VIDEO:  [<— It has not been seen enough]

(more…)