How do you get “increase efficiency and cost savings?” According to our community organizer president, you do it by increasing labor cost on contractors. You heard it right. You save costs, by raising them. By Executive Order 13568. But only to contractors doing business with the federal government. According to Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, the executive order, which will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2015, will benefit “hundreds of thousands of workers.” A little over two of them. The president says 2,000,000 but, you have to consider the source.
What this amounts to is political fluff, throwing a bone to the low-information crowd, giving the appearance that he’s helping the “working people.” There’s no point in trying to improve the economy now. There never was. There’s an election coming.
It is no longer even arguable that this administration is hell-bent on not securing our border while telling us that it’s never been more secure. One day after posting this On Immigration, Show Me The Metrics, there were four terrorists caught on the Texas border, two each from two different locations. That was on Septermber 10th. One day before the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack.
It was that attack that begat the Department of Homeland Security cabinet position. The purpose of that multi-billion dollar bureaucracy was to streamline communication on threats or potential threats, and to protect the country. So one would think that the capture of four terrorists would elevate to the level and interest of DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson to jump on the details and tell his boss, the president. No way.
His response at a House Homeland Security meeting yesterday was . . .
Chaffetz: “Since you took office, Secretary Johnson, on December 23, are you aware of any apprehensions of suspected or known terrorists who were trying to come to our country illegally?”
Johnson: “Umm. That’s an important question. Uh, attempting to come to this country?”
Chaffetz: “Who came across our border illegally. Did you ever apprehend anybody who was a known terrorist, a suspected terrorist, somebody who had ties to a terrorist organization?”
Johnson: “Sitting here right now, um, no specific case comes to mind; that doesn’t mean there is none. Um, uh, perhaps, perhaps Director Comey can think of one. Siting here right now none comes to mind but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Nor does that mean there’s no investigation of one either.”
Chaffetz: “I have reason to believe that on September 10th there were actually four individuals trying to cross through the Texas border, who were apprehended at two different stations that do have ties to known terrorist organizations in the Middle East. Are you aware of that?
Johnson: “Uh, I’ve heard reports to that effect. Uh, I don’t know the accuracy of the reports, or uh, how much creedence to give them. But I’ve heard reports to that effect.
As if that incompetence isn’t enough, an internal (as in we’re not supposed to know the truth) DHS report shows these disturbing metrics.
During the 351 days of fiscal year 2014, there were 466,000 apprehensions of illegals, also 157,012 illegals that “got away,” and 142,630 individuals that were reported “turn backs”. The compilation of apprehensions represented people from 143 different countries. Additionally, the sensors that are placed in locations primarily in the southwest, recorded a jump of over 1,000,000 hits from fiscal year 2013 until now.
Think that’s bad? It’s worse. Much worse.
According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report mentioned by Congressman Chaffetz, there is only a 6% operational control of our border. Which means, the numbers quoted above are likely only a very small representation of the real traffic of illegals from all across the world, including the Middle East, which are easily gaining access to our country.
Chaffetz: “Previously the GAO had indicated that there was only a 6% operational control of the border. What percentage, what is the operational control of the border at this time?”
Johnson: “Um, I don’t have that number off-hand. I do agree with you that the challenge of those coming from countries other than Mexico, particularly into the Rio Grand Valley sector is one I’m very concerned about. It’s something I’ve been concerned about since taking office in January. I’ve seen it myself at our detention center in Brownsville when I visited there in January. There were something like 80 nationalities of illegal migrants present there.
Not only is the administration not taking their job seriously, in the last 13 years, they’ve made no attempt to secure the border.
The explanation is horribly simple. The protection and security of the country is secondary to the protection and security of the Democratic party.
Remember how quick the Obama administration was to tout the Obamacare enrollment numbers, that they wanted to? Of course, they still don’t know (or are not saying) how many new insureds there are as opposed to those who bought into the plan because they could not keep the policy they liked.
Now the house of cards is beginning to fall. Out of the eight million enrollees, 2.5 million are in limbo due to incomplete immigration and/or income status verification.
The Obama administration on Monday said 115,000 people in 36 states could lose their private health insurance under Obamacare after Sept. 30, because of unresolved data problems involving their citizenship or immigration status.
Another 363,000 people could see their insurance costs change, due to problems involving income data that is used to determine whether enrollees qualify for federal subsidies to help pay premiums on health plans obtained through the federal insurance marketplace, according to the administration.
Long story short, the fraud that was perpetrated both by the administration and those lying about their income and immigration status is bubbling to the top. Let’s not forget whose problem this is. It is ALL Democrats that voted for it. ZERO Republicans. Americans deserve better. We deserve an honest, open, and transparent government, and this bunch is not delivering. Not only are they not delivering, they have ruined the best (albeit not beyond improvement) health care delivery system and health insurance industry in the world, just for the sake of their ideology of having a single-payer (socialized) health care system.
What’s astonishing (not really) is the media’s take on this. The WSJ video in the link below, says “immigrants” have “missed the deadline” to verify their status. There is no deadline that an illegal alien can make. Ever.
Waiting with baited breath to hear from the CDC, the answer to these two questions. Is this strain of the subject virus found in any of the Central American countries? If you don’t know, then is there an effort being made to do the testing down there to find out if that strain exists down there?
Since we’re dealing with the Obama administration, I’m really not expecting a truthful response, if I even get a response. Regardless, there ought to be some biologists, or whatever they are called, that can go to Guatamala, Equador, Mexico, and the rest of the countries that are illegally flooding our borders, and do the science to see if this strain exists there.
The Connecticut Department of Public Health reported that there have been 97 confirmed cases of EV- D68 across the U.S. since mid-August, FOX CT reported.
“We’re starting to see a few just in the last day or so, where I’m really suspicious that’s what’s happening,” Dr. Nicholas Bennett of the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, told FOX CT. “I guess the concern about the virus is how quickly and how severely the kids have been affected with their breathing.”
The NYS Department of Health also revealed in the statement that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC has been closely working with health departments in several states “to investigate suspected clusters of respiratory illness.”
One thing is certain. There seems to be zero reporting about any connection of this “new” disease with the new illegals that Barack (the Coyote) Obama is shipping all over this country.
UPDATE 9/19/2014: I did receive a reply from the CDC today.
What it says to me is that an inquiry to the Pan American Health Organization is in order. The international program set up to find and report infectious diseases is voluntary. And according to the CDC, no country in Central America has the technology to test for EV- D68. Only labs in the United States do. Which would explain why there are no reported cases in Central America. It does not mean that there are none.
What I do not know at this time is whether any Central American countries have requested the services of the PAHO “to perform enterovirus typing.”
The pull quote from their email is this . . .
[I]t is most likely that the virus could be circulating there but in low numbers, undetected.
Below is the reply from the CDC.
Hi Ross,
Thank you for your inquiry. From the scientific publications published to date, we are not aware of any EV-D68 detection in countries from Central America. However, it is most likely that the virus could be circulating there but in low numbers, undetected. The Pan American Health Organization has enlisted the help of our laboratory here at CDC to perform enterovirus typing for any country in South or Central America that requests it. In addition, CDC currently has developed the Global Disease Detection Program to help other countries identify and detect new illnesses.
You can find more information about CDC’s Global Detection Program and our site in Guatemala here:
Great find Cosmic Girl. If news reporting (or lack thereof) of EV-D68 is any indication, apparently not. But with the open borders agenda of this administration, and the passing of illegals (children included) from one coyote to another, this administration knows this, and is mute about it. Especially before the mid-terms. Because sacrificing America’s health is second string to Democrats retaining political power and control. No price is too great for that.
Charles Schumer (D-NY), No. 3 leader in the Senate’s Democratic majority, is working on a tax provision designed to discourage companies from moving their tax domiciles overseas, where the tax liability is lower than the U.S., that has the highest corporate tax rate in the world.
Which is exactly what is wrong with the current IRS tax code. It is used by politicians as a tax hammer to either reward or punish economic activity. In this case, Schumer is upgrading to a sledge-hammer, by attempting to grab business profits retroactive to 1994. It’s the Democrat’s version of an Occupy Wall Streeter’s wet dream. And would most certainly fire up the wealth-envy part of their party’s base.
The proposal would cut the amount of deductible interest for inverted companies to 25 percent of U.S. taxable income from 50 percent, according to a draft obtained by Bloomberg News.
There is only one tax code that is economically stimulative. Not just for business, but for the middle class and the poor. It’s called the FairTax. And it does not have tax hammers. If fact, the FairTax can not be manipulated by politicians to pick winners or losers. On the contrary, it couldn’t be more open and transparent, or fair. And instead of being an incentive to move out of the country, the FairTax would be the incentive for corporations to being their assets back home and be put to work here. And the only employment problem we would then have is finding enough people to fill the jobs that would be created by the economic recovery that would result in all sectors of the economy.
President Obama gave the much-touted prime time address to the nation. After more than six months of watching ISIS convoys roll into Iraq from Syria, and watching ISIS take back city after city in Iraq that our men and women and their families sacrificed so much for, President Obama now says he has a plan. This, two weeks after saying he had no plan for ISIS, and after watching two American journalists get beheaded, and after seeing his job approval rating fall to an all-time low, he had a conversation with the American people.
For the first time that I can recall, he used the L-word. Lead, as in leadership. Oh, did I mention his poll numbers for his ability to lead are also at an all time low?
What President Obama did is this. He told the enemy that he was coming for them. Gave them the heads up to move their assets around, spread them out, and not be an easy target. And to give cover for his piss-poor execution, he asked Congress to join him, even though he said he had the authority, and didn’t need them.
There isn’t war general, and has never been a Commander-in-Chief that will telegraph what the next move is, and what options he won’t use, like President Obama. And, appearing like a guest speaker at a VFW convention, he makes his speech behind a podium from a hallway in The White House. Not from his chair, behind his desk, in the oval office. Apparently, a well-financed and equipped Islamic terrorist organization that already controls half of Syria and Iraq, beheads Americans on video, that has declared war on us, isn’t important enough to come from there, the most un-used room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
After all that, he can’t bring himself to declare war on them. A real leader, one committed to protecting and defending the people of the United States and all that the people of the United States already fought for, would have told the American people something like, “tonight the United States, with the help of our Joint Chiefs of Staff, have waged a massive attack on ISIS strategic locations inside Syria and Iraq . . .”
He needs to get the hell out of Washington, play golf, and leave the war fighting to the adults in the Pentagon. He’s a joke on the world stage. Anything but a world leader. Can’t be trusted at home or abroad. And an embarrassment to the nation.
From the start of his first term, President Obama has pushed his idea of immigration reform. Since that time, everyone knows that by “reform” he means not enforcing the immigration laws and accepting as many illegals as humanly possible, and spreading them around the country.
Refuting the obvious, the DHS and ICE say that the border is as secure as ever. If trainloads of illegals being escorted through Mexico and delivered by coyotes to the Coyote-in-Chief Obama is their idea of “as secure as ever,” then we’re in big trouble. In so many ways.
For example, the President says that his directives on immigration are not causing more illegals to come. He says because he’s been deporting more illegals that he is stemming the tide. That’s about as big a lie as the Affordable Care Act was going to be affordable.
Unfortunately, Americans are used to being deceived lied to by this president and his administration. Like his statement on Meet the Press the other day. He told host Chuck Todd that the delay of using executive actions on immigration until after the 2014 elections was not for political consideration, but to make sure “the public understands what the facts are on immigration.” He said . . .
“It’s going to be more sustainable and more effective if the public understands what the facts are on immigration,” Obama said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I want to spend some time, even as we’re getting all our ducks in a row for the executive action … to make sure that the public understands why we’re doing this, why it’s the right thing for the American people, why it’s the right thing for the American economy.”
If the president is interested in making sure the public understands what the fact are, then why does it take a FOIA request to find out the statistics surrounding immigration? The facts not only show that more illegals are coming, and that fewer minors are being sent back, but that we are being lied to again.
It’s long past time that the administration be forced into being open and transparent (like they say they are) before ANY legislation is passed. On immigration, let’s see stats on number of illegals crossing the border. Let’s see the stats on deportations. Let’s see the stats on visa overstays. Let’s see all that, and let the American people (Congress) decide when America is secure enough to pass any legislation.
Doing what they do best, the DNC begins their campaign to take down all possible republican challengers for the 2016 presidential campaign. Casting the “Christie administration” as the demon.
“Gridlock,” the ad begins, according to a transcript.
“That’s what happened one year ago in Fort Lee, when the Christie administration shut down lanes to the George Washington Bridge. But it’s also what Chris Christie has brought to New Jersey — wrecking our economy and losing our trust.”
Of course, you can see the similar attacks brought against the “Obama administration” so what’s the big deal?
What’s the difference?
As far as is known, Christie was not responsible for the traffic slowdown that “wrecked” NJ’s economy, losing “our trust.” Obama IS responsible for wrecking the nation’s economy, and his habitual lying to the American people speaks for itself about trust.
The traffic study initially cited by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as the reason for the lane closures proved a bogus explanation amid media probes. Exactly like the Obama administration’s bogus explanation of the IRS scandal blaming a few rouge agents in Missouri. But, a trove of leaked emails indicated an official in Christie’s administration (not Christie) along with one of his Port Authority appointees had ordered the shutdown as retribution against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, who refused to endorse Christie’s re-election campaign. They didn’t lose their emails. Months after the IRS “investigation” started, testimony brought the blame to Washington, to IRS official Lois (I pled the Fifth) Lerner. Her emails, and the emails of 6 other people involved, have somehow magically disappeared.
Christie fired the aide and her supervisor, and the scandal led to the ouster of several Christie appointees at the Port Authority. President Obama has fired no one at the IRS. His story continues to be there wasn’t a smidgen of corruption. And he’s sticking to it.
The campaign tactic of marginalizing your opponent to the point of eliminated them is what the leader of the Democrat party, President Obama, does. It is all he knows. That’s what is unfolding in this ad targeted at Christie today. Don’t be distracted by it. You can bet that Christy won’t.
Here we go again. A labor union advocate riding on the coattails of fifty and a hundred years ago. There’s a reason union membership is declining. They’re no longer needed in most cases. Especially so in the public sector.
Due to Big Labor’s successes in the last century, employers learned from them. They learned how to treat their employees so that there’s no longer a “need” for a union to step in and demand you pay them dues for protecting you from something that you don’t need protecting from or negotiating for. They want you to believe you have no power. You have all the power. It’s called “two feet.” And you can use them to leave an employer that you aren’t comfortable with, for whatever reason you choose. And, you have a voice. Use it yourself. Don’t feel you need a union representative to act or speak on your behalf. If you do, you’ve already surrendered your freedom.
Now it’s Big Labor’s turn to learn something. Be competitive or go out of business. I use the term “business” in an odd way because labor unions produce nothing. They are a leech on business. They are the reason that some businesses have gone out of business, or moved to another state.
Big Labor should put their theory to the test. Let them start a business that produces something (other than marijuana) and sell it on the free market (not to the federal government), and pay their employees two or three times the market value of a comparable private sector job, and see how long they stay in business. Without a government bailout of course. Go for it.
Here’s a fact for those Big Labor acolytes like Aaron Wazlavek who squawk class warfare about those evil 1 percenters. Under Obama’s economy, the top 10 percent, not 1 percent, are doing just fine. It’s the other 90 percent, the so-called working people (as if the top 10 percent don’t work), that have seen their incomes shrink. That median family income has fallen every year since Obama’s “economic recovery” began has nothing to do with labor union membership being low.
Wazlavek proffers . . .
A solid majority of U.S. workers consistently tell pollsters that they would like to join a union if their employer would simply not interfere.
Problem with this propaganda is this. When U.S. workers have a private vote on whether they want to join a union, they vote NO. That’s not a poll, which can be manipulated to get a desired result. That’s a private vote, and the right to a private vote is not negotiable. “Card Check,” a union scheme to strip U.S. workers of their private vote, is government-sanctioned interference. Boosting labor union membership is not the responsibility of our government. Labor unions can succeed or fail on their own.
Another “hot button” of Big Labor is the minimum wage.
Big Labor advocates will say that raising the minimum wage to $15/hr or to what they call a “living wage,” which a starting salary was never intended to be, will cause the economy to grow because people will make more and therefore, be able to spend more. And (here’s the kicker) they’ll also say that it will reduce the deficit by decreasing welfare because, ostensibly, people will be making more money.
Here’s what really happens. Raising the minimum wage automatically gives labor union members, whose contracts are tied to the minimum wage, a raise. You know, the ones already making over $20/hr. The main reason President Obama wants it. His quid pro quo for Big Labor helping him get elected, twice. By arbitrarily raising the cost of labor employers must pay, employers will be forced to do with less of it (if not just go out of business) AND be forced to increase the price of their products, goods, and services to cover it. The result of that is, fewer people working, higher cost of living for everyone, including the long-term unemployed and the ones that just lost their job due to reductions in force, AND an increase in people dependent on government welfare. The second reason Obama wants to increase the minimum wage.
Bottom line, labor union membership is totally dependent on Big Labor learning something from their shrinking influence. Not the federal government and Card Check. And, hiking the minimum wage would have the reverse effect of what the proponents are saying.
Belly up to the counter. Politics are on the menu and Ross is on the grill.
