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Walker guided the crowd through a brief history of his tenure as Wisconsin governor, punctuating the story with suggestions about what his reforms in back home might mean if he were to attempt something similar as president. “Washington is 68 square miles surrounded by reality,” he said, adapting a popular conservative appraisal of Madison. Walker expanded the stump speech he had given in Iowa back in January, a coming out party of sorts, that propelled him to co-frontrunner status in national and early-state polling. The new content made clear that Walker is a hawk and that in a Walker presidency the United States would not only reengage with the world but would project its power without reservation. He called the war on radical Islam and “generational” war and scorched Barack Obama for his ambivalence on the threat. “We’re going to bring the fight to them and fight on their soil and not ours."Todd Beamon at NewsMax provides some highlights from the speech:
More than half of some 770,000 soldiers are pessimistic about their future in the military and nearly as many are unhappy in their jobs, despite a six-year, $287 million campaign to make troops more optimistic and resilient, findings obtained by USA TODAY show. Twelve months of data through early 2015 show that 403,564 soldiers, or 52%, scored badly in the area of optimism, agreeing with statements such as "I rarely count on good things happening to me." Forty-eight percent have little satisfaction in or commitment to their jobs. [snip] The Army offered contradictory responses to the findings obtained by USA TODAY. Sharyn Saunders, chief of the Army Resiliency Directorate that produced the data, initially disavowed the results. "I've sat and looked at your numbers for quite some time and our team can't figure out how your numbers came about," she said in an interview in March. However, when USA TODAY provided her the supporting Army documents this week, her office acknowledged the data but said the formulas used to produce them were obsolete. "We stand by our previous responses," it said in a statement.So over the past six years, the time that Obama has been in office, the taxpayer has forked out $287 million in an "optimism" program for the army. This is the same army that ignored dangerous warning signs that Nidal Hasan was a terrorist-in-waiting, the same army that then declared the Fort Hood terror attack "workplace violence," and the same army that also refused--for six years--to pay benefits to those injured or to the families of those lost?
The Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the Medicaid expansion is divided and complicated. The bottom line is that: (1) Congress acted constitutionally in offering states funds to expand coverage to millions of new individuals; (2) So states can agree to expand coverage in exchange for those new funds; (3) If the state accepts the expansion funds, it must obey by the new rules and expand coverage; (4) but a state can refuse to participate in the expansion without losing all of its Medicaid funds; instead the state will have the option of continue the its current, unexpanded plan as is. [emphasis added]It is quite surprising, then, that the Obama administration is trying to use federal low-income pool (LIP) funding to, according to Governor Scott, "coerce" Florida into accepting the short-term federal funding of the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion. There are a number of good reasons for refusing the Medicaid expansion: Not only are health outcomes under Medicaid substantially less than those under any other health care or health insurance program, but this federal funding effectively runs out in only three years, leaving states to foot the hugely-expanded Medicaid bill. Governor Scott has said that he is unwilling to pile such crushing debt on the backs of Florida taxpayers:
The New York Times reported last week on Reid’s “brutish style” and “uncompromising control” over the amendments process in the Senate. Why are more people finally catching on to Reid’s flagrant disregard for Senate customs? In part because conservatives aren’t the only ones complaining. Democrats such as Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota — who wants to repeal Obamacare’s medical-device tax — and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — who has waged a highly publicized campaign to reform the way the military handles sexual-assault cases — have been denied votes on their proposed amendments to various bills. Gillibrand had hoped to attach her sexual-assault amendment to the defense-appropriations bill that passed in December, but no amendments were allowed. Klobuchar has called for “a more open amendment process” because she’d like a vote on repealing the medical-device tax.We all watched as frustrated politicians on both sides of the aisle complained that there were more than 300 bills "sitting on Harry Reid's desk," so it seems less than reasonable to focus on legislative accomplishments by first-term GOP senators who were apparently very busily working on legislation that then ended up mired down by Reid. Even House Dems were urging Reid to pass their bills in the Senate. To no avail.
Big government, middle class struggles, food stamps, culture war, Hillary edits, Cold War over?...
The well monied former New York mayor and head honcho of Everytown for Gun Safety is holding his own event in Tennessee to focus attention on politicians who aren’t willing to sign on to ever increasing restrictions of the rights of gun owners.This is just the sort of attention that Democrats are not eager to bask in. According to the Washington Times:
The near unity among Republicans on gun rights contrasts with the Democratic divide on the issue, underscoring how the politics appear to have swung in the GOP’s favor. “It is a loser for the Democrats and so they shy away from it — except in Washington, D.C., or New York, where they have a strong liberal constituency and where it is not going to cost them votingwise,” said Robert A. Levy, of the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.
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The former Florida governor is confronting a conservative backlash for his positions on education and immigration. This week, he’ll turn to an issue on which he garners much higher marks from the right: guns. Key to his appeal is the 2005 decision to sign a bill, among the most sweeping of its kind, that expanded protections for Floridians who use deadly force against home intruders or people who attack them in their cars, workplace or even on the street. The law has since become a touchstone in a broader debate about the use of deadly force, following the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager.
Reid scandals, more laws than sense, your tax dollars at work, "tiny house" trend...
Ted Cruz has the big momentum following the official announcement of his candidacy last week. His support has increased from 5% to 16% in just over a month, enough to make him one of three candidates in the top tier of GOP contenders, along with Scott Walker and Jeb Bush.PPP goes on to observe that "Cruz has really caught fire with voters identifying themselves as 'very conservative' since his announcement. After polling at only 11% with them a month ago, he now leads the GOP field with 33% to 25% for Walker and 12% for Carson with no one else in double digits." It seems that despite early predictions, Ted Cruz as presidential candidate is, as Jazz Shaw at Hot Air notes, "stubbornly refus[ing] to implode":
Even after he won his seat, the media was keeping up the drumbeat, frequently abetted by senior members of his own party. (Wacko Birds, anyone?) But long before it was certain that Cruz might run for the White House, he began defying the narrative media formula. Those of us who didn’t know him were expecting the avalanche of stories which would erode his status as a serious politician. The problem is, they didn’t happen. Where were the “gaffes” we were all promised? He was supposed to come out and immediately begin screaming about the President being from Kenya, saying that women should enjoy being raped and calling for the South to secede again. Unfortunately for the cable news talking heads, it never happened. Cruz staked out a number of domestic and foreign policy issues and began beating the drum with his own proposals for how to meet those challenges. The media seemed to shoot themselves in the foot by tripping over each other to give the Senator air time, waiting for the expected crazy to emerge. There were times when his tactics were fairly brought under scrutiny, such as his approach to the budget battles / government shutdown situation, but that was a difference in opinion on legislative strategy, not the hoped for wild man moments. In the end, all they came up with was a recitation of a Dr. Seuss book during a filibuster, but anyone who looked briefly beyond the dishonestly edited clips on TV saw that it was actually a short message to beloved children. Not exactly the stuff of which career crashes are made.
Ted Cruz, Supreme Court term limits, AGW-caused prostitution, O'Malley threatened (or offered a job?)...
Iran and six major powers were exploring possible compromises to break an impasse in nuclear negotiations on Sunday, but officials cautioned they were unable to move on several sticking points. The news came as Israel said the details of a possible agreement emerging from talks in Lausanne, Switzerland were worse than it feared. In a significant development in talks aimed at securing a preliminary nuclear deal, several officials told Reuters Tehran had indicated a willingness to accept fewer than 6,000 nuclear centrifuges and to send most of its enriched uranium stockpiles for storage in Russia. Western powers, on the other hand, were considering the idea of allowing Iran to conduct limited, closely-monitored enrichment-related work for medical purposes at an underground facility called Fordow, the officials added on condition of anonymity. Iran had originally insisted on keeping in operation the nearly 10,000 centrifuges it currently uses, but said in November that Washington indicated it could accept around 6,000. Iranian officials say they had been pushing for 6,500-7,000. The officials said all parts of an emerging nuclear deal were interrelated. "Everything could still fall apart," a Western official told Reuters, adding that the talks could drag on to Tuesday, the self-imposed deadline for a framework agreement.According to The Telegraph, a pro-Rouhani Iranian journalist covering the P5 + 1 talks has sought asylum in Switzerland following frustration that he "could only write what he is told":
What many observers say will be Hillary Rodham Clinton's final paid speech before she begins a presidential campaign was addressed to the American Camp Association. Everyone loves summer camp, and the former secretary of state didn't talk about anything controversial. "We have a huge fun deficit in America, and we need to figure out how to fill that fun deficit," she said, suggesting summer camps for adults (presumably in jest) .When I first heard about this, my immediate thought was, as is parenthetically noted above, she must be joking. She notes in this speech that "as a society we are much less racist, sexist, homophobic . . . but we sure don't want to spend any time with anyone who we disagree with politically," and goes on to suggest that her fun camps for adults would have "red cabins" and "blue cabins," and that their inhabitants would have "to come together" and "actually listen to each other." Watch the video clip from CNN:
Sen. Ted Cruz's presidential campaign had a goal after it officially launched Monday: raise $1 million in a week. Turns out it only took a few hours. The Texas Republican's campaign says it met its fundraising goal at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday -- just a little more than 24 hours after he announced via Twitter that he would be running for president. Cruz made a formal announcement Monday morning at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. As of Thursday night the campaign has raised $2 million, about $500,000 of which came from large-money bundlers. The rest came from online donations.This is quite remarkable given that the donations are pouring in from average Americans who respond to Cruz's message of adherence to the Constitution, a limited federal government, a strong economy, substantial tax and other needed reforms, and a coherent foreign policy that foregrounds America's interests. He touches on each of these points in his first full-length campaign ad:
Because "coded sexism"...
Many of you may recall Oprah's recent comments regarding her sense that Americans disrespect Obama because he is black. In response, Mark Joseph, writing in his USA Today column, "No, Oprah, America isn't racist," argues that she's "living in another era" and illustrates his point...
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