WASHINGTON DC – The Treasury Department rolled out Monday afternoon more tweaks to the health care law’s requirement that all large employers–those with 50 or more workers–provide insurance coverage to their workers. This is the part of Obamacare was supposed to take effect at the start of 2014, but was delayed by the White House this past summer as the White House was facing significant push back from employers.

In today’s final rule, the Obama administration is essentially relaxing the employer mandate for 2015–in a big way for medium-sized businesses, and a smaller way for the largest employers. Here’s a rundown of the key changes.

1. Employers with between 50 to 99 employees get another year of transition. The Obama administration will give medium-sized businesses another year’s pass on providing insurance coverage to workers. Treasury estimates that about 2 percent of American businesses fall into this category, but does not have numbers on how many people work for businesses of this size. For these companies, the employer mandate does not take effect until 2016. […] (more…)

ROSIE O’DONNELL: Parker is 18. There he is in his military uniform. He’s been accepted to the Citadel. He’s very into the military because, you know, how do you annoy your left-wing liberal pacifist mother? You become a big military man. He’s the number one cadet at his school, Valley Forge Military Academy. He’s very interested. When he was really, you know, I said to him, “Why, honey? Why do you want to do –’ He said, only in America, mom, could somebody like you who came from a horrible childhood, grow up and adopt kids like me who needed a family and I owe something to this country.” And I said, “No, my son. You owe something to me.”

The Washington Free Beacon has a great outline worth spending some time digesting:

The Clinton Files

On May 12, 1992, Stan Greenberg and Celinda Lake, top pollsters for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, issued a confidential memo. The memo’s subject was “Research on Hillary Clinton.”

Voters admired the strength of the Arkansas first couple, the pollsters wrote. However, “they also fear that only someone too politically ambitious, too strong, and too ruthless could survive such controversy so well.”

Their conclusion: “What voters find slick in Bill Clinton, they find ruthless in Hillary.”

The full memo is one of many previously unpublished documents contained in the archive of one of Hillary Clinton’s best friends and advisers, documents that portray the former first lady, secretary of State, and potential 2016 presidential candidate as a strong, ambitious, and ruthless Democratic operative. (more…)

David Simon, a former police beat reporter in Baltimore, MD and creator of the popular television series, “The Wire” implies that Libertarians in America are “greedy” and decries Libertarianism as a “juvenile” idea that he “just can’t get past….”  

Clearly upset that Fabian ideology is not taking root in the 20-somethings community, while the Libertarian movement is growing as an identified political affiliation in the cohort,  he gave a speech in Australia in November, 2013 at the “Dangerous Ideas” conference declaring “Libertarianism in my country is now being taken seriously as an intelligent mode of political thought… it’s astonishing to me… ” (around the 8:00 – 10:00 mark) and then goes on a screed to deliberately disparage and attempt to dismiss the Libertarian school of thought – including the assertion that Libertarians are “anti-government” (as Moyers chuckles along in agreement…)  Fraidy cat!

(more…)

Just like everything from this administration, their leadership boils down to: “trust us”.

WASHINGTON DC – Does President Obama’s nominee for ambassador to Argentina, a campaign bundler who has never visited the country, even speak Spanish? The State Department doesn’t know.

“I don’t have his personal biography in front of me, but what I will convey is that,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki replied when asked by ABC’s Jon Karl if Noah Mamet, whose nomination to the crucial diplomatic post was considered by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, speaks Spanish.

“Judging somebody’s effectiveness, or what role they’ll play, or how strong of an ambassador they’ll be — you can’t do [that] until they’ve spent some time working in the job in the country,” she added.

In other words, you have to confirm the ambassador to Argentina to know what’s in the ambassador to Argentina.  (READ MORE)

Shortly after a congressional hearing yesterday morning, True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Elijah Cummings. The complaint alleges the Congressman intimidated her and and her group. The Congressman had done some cable news shows alleging incorrect facts about True the Vote. In the hearing yesterday, Cummings accused True the Vote of racism saying that they were trying to suppress the vote.

“Franky, Megyn, the thought of having to sit before my accuser and be silent in the face of what he did was unconscionable. He [Cummings] filed over a period of months in 2012, he filed three letters that he sent to me asserting that he was opening an investigation. He sent this on House Oversight and Government Reform letterhead.”

It’s obvious what is happening within the Texas gubernatorial race and Democrat candidate Wendy Davis.     Sunlight upon the “real” life story of Ms. Davis has shown her life story narrative was foundationally false, so now she is obfuscating and trying to find niche issues which will afford her some electoral support.

The humorous aspect is all the new platform adjustments, the politically convenient changes, are diametrically opposite from the party she is a member of.  She is floundering aimlessly, and trying to position herself in favor of the voters. 

(Via The Hill) How desperate has Wendy Davis become? This desperate:

Rising Democratic star and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis has joined her top Republican rival in supporting a proposed “open carry” law. It would allow people with concealed handgun licenses to wear a pistol on their hip, in full view, while in public.

Davis has said she supports expanding gun rights in Texas. But in a statement to The Associated Press, she said that includes open-carry — a position that puts her at odds with her own party but could keep her from alienating gun rights advocates in a deeply conservative state where the Second Amendment is sacrosanct.

This is remarkable, the latest in a string of rightward moves that must have the more honest among Davis’s backers wondering why they’re bothering. (more…)

[HatTip GatewayPundit for some particulars] – I hope EVERYONE watches the accompanying videos.  It is imperative that EVERYONE understands the full-throated attack currently underway by our own government.   Only by fully understanding the scope of the issue can you fully absorb the danger in front of us. 

The testimony today on capitol hill was blood boiling to say the least. During hearings about IRS targeting of conservative groups, which unlike President Obama’s claim appears fraught with political scandal, some of the victims began to lay out the details of the attacks they have endured.

One of those victims is Mrs. Catherine Engelbrecht. Catherine Eghelbrecht is a conservative activist, Tea Party member and founder of True the Vote. Mrs. Engelbrecht, outlined how she has been the specific target of FOUR federal agencies (The FBI, IRS, ATF and OSHA) along with one Texas State agency (EPA).

Prior to her founding of True The Vote, as a simple business person, she was never on the federal radar. However, as soon as she engaged in advocacy for her beliefs she was targeted by the “weaponization of government”. 14 IRS audits of personal and business finances, 4 times visited by the FBI as a ‘domestic risk’, 3 times visited by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, and two audits by The Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (more…)

He didn’t pay the: “may I please protect myself tax” !   So now the victim is a criminal.

CHICAGO – A 44-year-old man on crutches fatally shot one of two intruders who came charging at him Friday morning in the Heart of Chicago neighborhood, according to police.

Mario Viramontes, 31, was declared dead on the scene in 2000 block of West 21st Street at 9:22 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Police were called to the scene at 9:09 a.m. for a burglary, and when they arrived, they found that a “male offender” who had been trying to commit a burglary had been shot by the homeowner, said Police News Affairs Sgt. Antoinette Ursitti.

The 44-year-old homeowner was sleeping when his frightened 18-year-old daughter woke him up, then told him that she heard noises and thought someone was breaking into the apartment behind theirs, according to a police report. (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – The Democratic Party’s biggest Super PAC, recently retooled as an early pro-Hillary Clinton effort, will sit out the midterm elections this year.

A spokesman with the group, Priorities USA Action, confirmed to BuzzFeed on Wednesday night that it would not be involved in House or Senate campaigns.

“House Majority PAC and Majority PAC are doing everything right and making a real difference. We fully support their efforts,” said the spokesman, Peter Kauffmann, referring to the main groups supporting Democratic congressional candidates. (more…)