A federal audit into the spending by Baltimore City Public Schools revealed that the district was using millions of dollars in federal stimulus and Title I funds to fund dinner-cruises, meals, theatre performances and makeovers.

According to The Baltimore Sun, $4,000 was used by two BCPS elementary schools to fund dinner cruises in the city’s Inner Harbor, another $2,400 was spent on meals for a parent-teacher association meeting, an additional $1,300 was used to attend a theatre performance viewing and $500 was spent on a mother-daughter makeover.

The funds were given to the district to fund programs for at-risk youth and to improve the schools in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

“Anytime there’s an audit of Title I dollars, you’re going to see errors at the school level because schools spend money for what they need, and then sometimes they worry about if it fits the parameter of the grant later,” Baltimore City Schools CEO Andres Alonso told CBS Baltimore.

“We’re talking $15 million out of $112 million, and what we see are school events to engage parents, but when the auditors came to look at it they said, ‘Wait a second. This should have been paid out of general funds, rather than Title I’,” he added, trying to play down the amount of money the school district spent inappropriately.

Those attempts didn’t do much to comfort parents or state lawmakers across the political spectrum, however.

“I’m appalled this sort of stuff is going down because you can’t educate the children by taking things for your own pleasures,” George Downs, the parent of a student in a BCPS school, said to CBS Baltimore.

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) also echoed Mr. Downs’ outrage in a statement.

“I supported federal stimulus funding to create jobs by putting more teachers in classrooms and avoiding the layoffs of others — not for harbor cruises, catered dinners and theater tickets,” he said in a statement. “Funding for some of Baltimore’s neediest children was simply squandered and transparency requirements were completely disregarded. This abuse of tax dollars is one example of why many Americans m istrust government.”

The audit, which was conducted by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S Department of Education, also discovered a misuse of federal funds by Prince George’s County Schools in suburban Washington, D.C.

This line, of course, isn’t anything new to conservatives, who have uttered it almost as long as Obama’s been in office. Unfortunately, it’s taken the reveal of three major scandals in a single week to spread the message to the American people that a smaller federal government is more effective than the mess we now have.

Certainly this is a teachable moment for Americans. But there are still larger and louder voices in the mainstream media who wish to drown out Johnson and others like him, who wish to mitigate the Internal Revenue Service’s abuse of its authority as nothing more than an instance of “low-level” indiscretion. If the Democrats and the mainstream media succeed in selling the American people this fallacy, the lesson will be lost.

The IRS scandal was not an unfortunate anomaly, but rather the predictable fallout of the explosion of new government powers under the Obama administration. Power concentrated in just the hands of a few tends to become corrupted, a fact that the nation’s Founding Fathers were aware of when they drafted the Constitution. That’s why they included the concepts of checks-and-balances and democratically elected representative leaders in our Constitution – so that no one in the federal government could become too powerful.

But this wisdom is completely nullified when the government becomes so swollen and so complex that it’s nearly impossible to hold anyone accountable for anything. And yet the federal government, as Johnson pointed out in his speech, is about to get much larger when Obamacare is fully implemented in January 2014 – bringing with it the largest sex of new tax law changes in 20 years. No wonder the U.S. Supreme Court called it “the biggest tax on the American public in history!”

Not only that, but we get to relish the fact that the IRS will soon enjoy a far greater role in the daily lives of Americans than it was ever meant to, thanks to President Obama and his Democratic cronies. And when you add in the fact that the former head of the IRS’s tax-exempt division now runs the agency’s Obamacare office, it really makes you wonder: Could there be a more explicit violation of the principle of accountability in government?

The simple truth is that when the government expands, its accountability contracts. In a sprawling bureaucracy, it is much easier to dodge responsibility for misconduct. “Plausible deniability” is the name of the game, as we have seen with Jay Carney’s admission that senior members of Obama’s White House staff refused to apprise him of the IRS’s wrongdoings, for fear he might be implicated in them. In such a massive establishment as the IRS, it can be very difficult to find out. And when those at the top feel confident in their ability to deflect or otherwise completely evade any sort of incrimination, power will inevitably be abused at the expense of the American taxpayers.

Companies like Stag Arms, PTR Industries and Sturm Ruger & Co, which have long provided a large number of jobs to the state’s labor force, have either already made plans to move to other states, or are heavily considering it now that selling their products in-state is much more difficult. 

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which just so happens to be in Newtown, Conn. – the sight of last December’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings – gun manufacturers in the state of Connecticut account for 2,899 jobs, which increases to 7,340 when you take businesses like suppliers into account, and has a $1.7 billion economic impact within the state.

“Connecticut isn’t getting any easier to do business in,” Mark Malkowski, the owner of Stag Arms, told the New York Times. His company produces AR-15 assault weapons, which were recently banned in Connecticut by the law signed by Gov. Daniel Malloy last month.

He added that they were trying to do “what’s best for the company and put the employees and customers ahead of everything else,” and that he had been approached by Texas Gov. Rick Perry at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Houston earlier this month to see if he would consider relocating his operations to the Lone Star State.  

The state’s tough laws aren’t the only obstacles that Connecticut gun makers are facing, however. Mr. Malkowski also told the Times that he has received threats from buyers who plan to boycott any gun products made in Connecticut, adding that some customers have said that they will flat-out refuse to do business with a gun maker from Connecticut.

Connecticut is just one of a handful of states with gun manufacturers considering running for the hills. Magpul Indutries in Colorado has already said they will move their manufacturing industries out of the state, while Beretta in Maryland is also considering a move in light of their state’s new restrictive gun policies.

A Kansas elementary school teacher, Daniel Nagel, was arrested earlier this week for possession of an unloaded firearm while on the grounds of White Elementary School in Wichita, Kansas. Police officers took the 31-year-old physical education teacher away in handcuffs as students, parents and teachers looked on.

Nagel has since been suspended with pay by the school district.

According to CBS Wichita, one of Nagel’s family members said he brought the gun to school to help protect his students and had no intention of hurting them. While Nagel does have a concealed carry permit for his firearm, schools are considered to be gun-free zones in the state of Kansas.

Only law enforcement officers are allowed to carry a firearm on school property in the state of Kansas. Earlier this year, however, the state legislature passed a law that allows school districts the authority to appoint one staff member to carry a gun on campus as well. Nagel’s school district has yet to act on the new law, and the entire school board is heavily against the idea of a school employee carrying a gun.

“It’s up to the school district to decide if they wish to do that,” Wichita Police Department Lieutenant Randy Reynolds told Red Alert Politics. Reynolds didn’t elaborate further on Nagel’s case.

Possession of a firearm in Kansas is considered to be a misdemeanor, and the first time penalty for that offense is a fine of $50.

In the meantime, watch the original report from ABC affiliate KAKE below.

h/t The Blaze

A new study by Wells Fargo found that one in three Millennials regret attending college and would have instead preferred to work instead of rack up debt they will be paying off for decades to come.

The study also found that nearly half of the 1,414 respondents took out loans to pay for their education, which was likely a key factor in their decision to regret going to school. In 2012, student borrowing topped $100 billion for the first time, while overall outstanding student loans topped $1 trillion in 2011. The situation has gotten so bad that Americans today owe more in student loan debt than they do in credit card debt.

American schools are already feeling some of the effects of students forgoing the books in favor of the paycheck. College enrollment is down 2.3 percent this spring compared to 2012, according to a new National Student Clearinghouse study, as greater numbers of teens opt for the workforce instead of school. 

Another contributing factor could be that college students aren’t often employed in their chosen field of study post-graduation anymore. A report from the Federal Reserve of New York found that only 27 percent of college grads have jobs closely related to their majors, while a recent study of law school graduates found that more than half of them weren’t working in a law-related career – a big letdown after you’ve spent nearly $100,000 on top of what you paid for your bachelor’s degree to become the world’s next big-shot attorney.

Employers aren’t necessarily viewing a college diploma as good preparation for the workforce anymore, either. A new poll by Rasmussen Reports found that 48 percent of Americans don’t think college graduates have the requisite skills to get a job.

It seems that Millennials are starting to doubt the necessity of higher education, and who could blame them with today’s college tuition fees and lack of available jobs post-graduation!

The commander in chief congratulated the 1,047 midshipmen graduating at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, telling the 841 men and 206 women that they have proven themselves morally by meeting rigorous standards at the academy. But their commencement celebration came in the midst of reports of widespread sexual assault throughout the military, and Obama ended his 20-minute address by recognizing “how the misconduct of some can have effects that ripple far and wide.”

Read more at The Washington Post.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said that he will always welcome President Obama to the Garden State with open arms, regardless of the political flak it could cause him within his own party. 

He made the remarks while co-hosting NBC’s “TODAY” show Friday, which he was doing as part of the state’s effort to reopen the Jersey Shore after it was devastated by Superstorm Sandy last October.

“The fact of the matter is he’s the president of the United States,” Christie, a Republican, said on the show. “If he wants to come here and visit the people of New Jersey, I’m going to be here to welcome him.”

The show’s longtime host, Matt Lauer, then asked Christie why he didn’t just “tweet some photos” of the relief efforts from last October’s Superstorm Sandy to Obama, rather than risk his political career for another publicity stunt with the president.

“No,” Christie quickly retorted back. “Because I think what people in my state want more than anything else is for me to do my job, and the president wants to come back here and see the progress and look at it himself…I never worry about that stuff, I’m only doing my job.”

“You know, the bottom line is that you can’t experience it as you’re experiencing right now unless you’re here and you see it for yourself,” Christie added. “And the fact of the matter is he’s the president of the United States, and he wants to come here and see the people of New Jersey, I’m the governor and I’ll be here to welcome him.”

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Many Republicans have heavily criticized Christie for working so closely with the president in the days following Sandy’s landfall on the Jersey Shore, going so far as to blame him for the eventual loss by Republican nominee Mitt Romney to President Obama. Christie was also infamously snubbed from speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference in March over his ties with the president.

Lauer also tried to grill Christie on climate change, referring to a comment the governor made earlier in the week in which he said that there hasn’t been “any proof thus far that Sandy was caused by climate change.”

“All I said was I haven’t been shown any definitive proof yet that that’s what caused it,” Christie told Lauer. “This is a distraction. I’ve got a place to rebuild here, and people want to talk to me about esoteric theories. 

Later on in the show, Christie and his family cut the ribbon on the Jersey Shore’s famous boardwalk signaling that the beach is open for business just in time for Memorial Day.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Not everyone is thrilled that Christie is going out of his way to promote Jersey Shore tourism right now. National and state Democrats have cried foul at the television ad for the state’s $25 million “Stronger than the Storm” marketing campaign, which features Christie and his family, arguing that the free media he gets from the campaign puts his likely opponent, Democratic State Sen. Barbara Buono, at an unfair disadvantage.

Recent polls have Christie leading Buono by more than 30 points headed into November’s election.

According to a recent Gallup study, 42 percent of Americans think the IRS is doing a poor job of handling the federal government’s tax collection – more than double what it was the last time the poll was conducted in 2009.

In total, the agency’s overall net rating, which is the number of Americans who have a favorable opinion of the agency minus those who have a negative opinion, has dropped 35 points since 2009. Much of that shift came from people who no longer have a positive opinion of the agency, as only 27 percent of Americans today reported having a positive opinion of the agency – down 14 points from the 2009 study.

Republicans, unsurprisingly, are the most dismayed with the government agency, as the net rating for the organization among GOPers is now at -38 percent.

The IRS has come under major scrutiny over the past few weeks after several top officials admitted to improperly targeting conservative groups and other organizations for extra scrutiny, looking for words like “tea party” and “patriot” in their tax filings and holding up their applications for non-profit status. On Thursday, the agency put Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS division in charge of the department that targeted conservative groups, on administrative leave with pay after she “pled the fifth” in her testimony before Congress earlier in the week.  

The study also looked at the favorability ratings of several other top government agencies. Americans were most favorable toward the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Shockingly, Americans only ranked the IRS as its third least-liked agency, besting the Federal Reserve Board and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Gallup telephone study of 1,016 adults nationwide was conducted from May 20-21, 2013. It has a margin of error of +/- four percent at a 95 percent confidence level.

The scientists derived their findings by analyzing data from 14 different intelligence tests conducted between 1884 and 2004 that measured the time subjects took to push a button following a stimulus, with the reaction time supposedly a measure of intelligence.

Their analysis revealed that the visual reaction times for those taking the test in the late 19th century averaged around 194 milliseconds, compared to the 275 milliseconds it took an average person in 2004 to react.

“The reduction in human intelligence (if there is any reduction) would have begun at the time that genetic selection became more relaxed,” Dr. Gerald Crabtree, professor of pathology and developmental biology at Stanford University, told The Huffington Post via email. “I projected this occurred as our ancestors began to live in more supportive high density societies (cities) and had access to a steady supply of food. Both of these might have resulted from the invention of agriculture, which occurred about 5,000 to 12,000 years ago.”

The study’s findings counter the modern perception that intelligence, as measured by I.Q., has increased over time, a phenomenon known as the “Flynn Effect.” Dr. Jan te Nijenhuis, professor of work and organizational psychology at the University of Amsterdam and a co-author in the study, argues that this phenomenon better reflects one’s environment and education, but does not address heritable intelligence passed down from parents to children.

He also attributes the decline in intelligence to the well-documented tendency of wealthier, better-educated women to have fewer children than poorer, less-educated women.

The scientists’ findings also eerily echo the premise of the 2006 film “Idiocracy.” In the film, a man of average intelligence from the present is frozen and then unfrozen into a future world where the less-educated have vastly outbred the better-educated, ultimately resulting in a crumbling infrastructure, limited intelligence and a base culture.

Let’s hope that’s not what we should be looking forward to!

h/t Huffington Post

The 42-year-old singer and her husband, Martin Isaacs, are facing a $3.4 million tax lien on their New Jersey home.

Court documents show that the Internal Revenue Services filed the federal tax lien against Blige on Feb. 7. The IRS document showed that as of that date, Mary J Blige owed more than $574,000 in 2009, more than $2.2 million in 2010 and more than $647,000 in 2011.

A representative for the singer told the Associated Press Thursday that Blige was working “with her new team to resolve all these issues as soon as possible.”

But the “Real Love” singer may have to work a lot harder if she wants to escape her legal and financial troubles any time soon.

Other than the steep bill that the “No Drama” singer faces to the IRS, Blige also allegedly owes $900,000 in back taxes to the state of New Jersey, according to documents acquired by TMZ. In addition, over the past year she has also faced nearly $3 million in lawsuits for accrued bank loans and received a notice back in February for not paying back rent on her New York City Apartment.

Blige acknowledged back in 2012 that her finances were not being handled correctly and took full responsibility for it.

“The problem is that I didn’t have the right people in the right places doing the right things,” Blige told TMZ. “This should have never been allowed to happen, but it did and now we are fixing it.”

Hopefully things will be handled better by the singer and her financial team this time around!

On Thursday, state law enforcement authorities detailed Operation Swill, which identified 29 restaurants around New Jersey, including a dozen TGI Friday’s locations, that were alleged to have filled bottles of premium brand liquor with cheaper brands.

No administrative charges have been filed against the businesses pending the outcome of the still-ongoing investigation, said Michael Halfacre, director of the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Penalties could include suspension or revocation of a liquor license.

Read more at Detroit Free Press.

The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists.

“I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable,” Obama said. “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.”

Read more at NBC News.

]]> http://redalertpolitics.com/2013/05/24/holder-okd-search-warrant-for-fox-news-reporters-private-emails-official-says/feed/ 1 http://redalertpolitics.com/2013/05/24/watch-gregory-brothers-awesome-music-video-for-youtubes-comedy-week/ http://redalertpolitics.com/2013/05/24/watch-gregory-brothers-awesome-music-video-for-youtubes-comedy-week/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 14:23:10 +0000 Laura Byrne http://central.washingtonexaminer.com/red-alert/?p=50398 No amount of seduction will convince this DJ to play your favorite song.

No amount of seduction will convince this DJ to play your favorite song.

Autotune masters the Gregory Brothers - otherwise known as Schmoyoho – released the music video “DJ Play My Song” on Thursday in honor of YouTube Comedy Week. As of press time, it has already been viewed by more than 227,000 people.

PSY is in it, so you know it’s good (Don’t worry, you will get to see his infamous “Gangnam Style” dance).

The video opens with a disc jockey interviewing for a new job.  After covering all of the basic interview questions – the DJ admits his biggest weakness is “working too hard” – he then admits to the interviewer (PSY) his sob story about why he’s not doing what he loves – DJing – anymore.

Like most jerk-off DJ’s, he never allows requests, but this one divalicious woman just wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Oh, DJ, play your song now,” she sings while gyrating throughout the club and stalking him at his house and office.

Obviously, he’s not very amused by this.

Watch this “creepy” girl stalk the DJ below.

]]>

The fast food company also donated $10,000 to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the names of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight, the three women who were held hostage for years.

Thousands of people took to Twitter in the days after the rescue, urging McDonald’s(MCD, Fortune 500) to respond to Ramsey’s Big Mac close-up.

Read more at CNN.

This is no philosophical experiment Friday when, thanks to sequestration, the IRS, EPA, HUD and OMB turn a normal workday into an unpaid holiday for nearly all of their employees.

In all, about 115,000 people — roughly 5 percent of the federal workforce — won’t be on the clock for the day. Staffers for the Labor and Interior departments will also get an extra unpaid day for their Memorial Day weekend.

It’s an important moment for Congress and the Obama administration as they continue to battle over mandatory budget cuts, that Democrats continue to warn will mean real consequences while most Republicans claim Democrats are just crying wolf.

Read more at Politico.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul delved into the world of classic children’s nursery rhymes Thursday as he sang a revamped version of “Old MacDonald” on Fox News’ “Hannity” Thursday night.

“We have sort of ‘Old MacDonald’s Farm’ of scandals – here a scandal, there a scandal, everywhere a scandal,” Paul told host Sean Hannity. “So we’re not sure which scandal to even talk about.”

The Republican senator was referring to the trifecta of controversies that have beleaguered the Obama Administration over the past few weeks. First, an ABC News report showed that the Administration had edited several of its talking points on the attack at the Libyan Embassy in Benghazi last September. Next came the Internal Revenue Service scandal, where top administrators acknowledged that they had been improperly targeting conservative organizations by applying extra scrutiny to their tax filings and holding up their applications for tax-exemption status. Just days later, the Associated Press announced that the Department of Justice had illegally subpoenaed the phone records of nearly two dozen reporters and editors for counterterrorism purposes.

Paul also noted that the current actions the Obama Administration is taking to get to the bottom of the various scandals aren’t working.

“I don’t think this will work because he is putting off really the ultimate reckoning,” he added. “He’s saying in 30 days we’ll do this and 90 days we’ll do this. The IRS scandal has been going on for over a year. The report is out there. I think they know who is responsible but he is not getting anybody.”

Earlier in the day, Paul released a statement in response to the president’s major counterterrorism address from the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. Paul has been one the leading advocates in Congress for the president to come clean on his Administration’s drone policy, and even launched a 13-hour filibuster on the subject back in March in trying to push things along.

“I’m glad the President finally acknowledged that American citizens deserve some form of due process,” Paul said. “But I still have concerns over whether flash cards and PowerPoint presentations represent due process; my preference would be to try accused U.S. citizens for treason in a court of law.”

Watch Paul’s updated version of “Old MacDonald” below.

New York State Senator Patrick Gallivan (R-59th District) New York State Assemblyman Robin Schimminger (D-140th District) are sponsoring a bill that would cover bowling shoes.  The bill in the assembly is co-sponsored by Assembly members Brian Kolb, Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Jane Corwin.

It would require alley owners to post signs, warning keglers not to wear bowling shoes outside, lest they become wet and increase the likelihood that a bowler could slip and fall when they come inside

Bowling shoes, designed to slip on the lanes, can become extremely slippery when wet.

Read more at WRGZ.

Members passed the Smarter Solutions for Students Act, H.R. 1911, in a 221 to 198 vote. The bill won the support of just four Democrats, while eight Republicans voted against it.

The legislation is the Republican answer to a problem both parties are trying to solve — how to stop federally backed student loan interest rates from doubling from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1.

The Democratic-led House temporarily lowered rates in 2007, and for the last few years, Congress has struggled to deal with the reality of having the rates snap back to the higher level.

Read more at The Hill.

Sources confirmed to Fox News earlier Thursday that Lerner, the head of the IRS division that oversaw the unit targeting conservative groups, had been placed on administrative leave, with pay.

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, claimed she was only put in that status after refusing to step down.

He said the commissioner was in his right to demand her resignation, and said taxpayers should not continue to pay her salary indefinitely.

Read more at FOX News.

According to several investment bankers on a panel hosted by the Council for Economic Education Wednesday, Americans that were born between the early 1980s and early 2000s, are actually better savers than other generations.

Millennials are “the second-most conservative group of investors, right behind their grandparents,” panelist Sallie Krawcheck, former president of global wealth and investment management for Bank of America Corp. said during the panel.

It seems that Millennials are learning through experience – or rather through watching their parent’s experiences.

It’s because “they saw their parents take such financial setbacks during the crisis and the subsequent recession,” panelist Mellody Hobson, the president of Ariel Investments added.

It doesn’t help that Millennials are projected to live and work longer than their parents, thus they are forced to think differently about saving for retirement.

“More students say they’re talking about economics with their friends and family,” than they were before the downturn, Jack Buckley, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, told The Wall Street Journal. “Economics is more a part of their lives than it was in 2006.”

They may be more aware of the financial crisis but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re better informed about economics, however. The Wall Street Journal reports that while more students are taking economics classes than they were six years ago, test scores have not improved much since 2006.

With half of today’s recent college graduates unlikely to find jobs in their chosen field and unemployment among those under the age of 30 still above 11 percent, it’s even more important that Millennials learn how to save now – so that they can have a solid chance at a future down the road.

h/t Wall Street Journal

The article even goes so far as to suggest that the president told them to put Post-it notes on their computers that read ‘CC POTUS’ as a reminder.

“Look, I know a lot of you think I’m really busy and you don’t want to bother me,” the President reportedly told his staff in an Oval Office meeting, according to the article. “But cc me anyway. It’s good for me to keep up on what’s going on around here.”

The lack of communication among senior staffers in the Obama administration became blatantly clear over the past few weeks through the revelation of several different scandals, including the editing of the Benghazi attack talking points to cover up terrorism references, the Internal Revenue Service improperly targeting conservative organizations and the Justice Department illegally subpoenaing the records of several Associated Press journalists and editors.

Obama has previously been quoted as saying he ‘didn’t know anything about’ the leaked Inspector General report of the IRS scandal in which the agency targeted conservatives, despite his counsel being informed of the audit weeks before. The President also supposedly only became aware that the Justice Department issued a subpoena for Associated Press journalists’ phone records at the same time as the public – when the news surfaced in the media last week.

The New York Times recently claimed that GOP Congressmen and Governors are spitefully refusing to fund or participate in Obamacare implementation solely to make the President look bad. On Monday, they argued that conservatives are harping on the Internal Revenue Service scandal just so they can delegitimize the IRS — and block its assigned role of determining citizens’ income eligibility for insurance subsidies or who must pay a fine for not purchasing health insurance.

In the Times’ fantasy world, Republicans are going after former IRS tax-exempt division head Sarah Hall Ingram just so they can stall her installation as head of the IRS’s health care office. The Times also claims conservatives are spotlighting Department of Health and Human Services Head Kathleen Sebelius’s improper Obamacare lobbying efforts so the law will fail.

Meanwhile, The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn complained that fast food restaurant owners, nursing home operators and other low-wage employers are trying to “weasel out” of complying with Obamacare — as though it were every businessman’s patriotic duty to mindlessly accept intrusive, expensive regulations. Or as though thousands of Democrat-connected organizations hadn’t already been granted waivers to evade the plan’s dictates.

Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, admitted that Obamacare may be unsustainable, because it forces young, healthy people to pay disproportionately large premiums to subsidize sick, older people — an arrangement that the former won’t stand for and the latter can’t support.

His solution? A massive public relations blitz that reminds the Millennial generation just how much they love Obama and that urges them to buy Obamacare health plans even if it makes no economic sense.

In a hilariously naïve editorial, Emanuel preached, “Young people believe in President Obama. He won by a 23 percent margin among voters 18-29 — just the people who need to enroll. He needs to get out there to convince them to sign up for health insurance to help this central part of his legacy. Every commencement address by an administration official should encourage young graduates to get health insurance.”

Every commencement address should also explain to young graduates where they’re going to find a job in the Obama economy so they can purchase said insurance.

If I understand Emanuel’s appeal correctly, twenty-somethings should subsidize Obama’s legacy, and in return they won’t look like fools for having voted for him if his plan miraculously succeeds.

Good luck with that. Most young people who voted for Obama and supported Obamacare are learning that the penalty for not having health insurance is lower than the actual cost of health insurance, and are acting according to their rational self-interest by declining to purchase it. We should expect young adults — who earn the least of all adult age groups — to do no less.

More broadly, we shouldn’t be surprised when other age groups, and small business owners, and large business owners, and private citizens, and unions, and — yes — Congressmen and their staffers to try to find a way to get out of a plan they know costs more than it’s worth and unacceptably limits their options.

As Obamacare implementation stumbles on, more and more stakeholders are realizing that not only is it not their duty to make the plan succeed, it is in their strong interest to help it fail.

A committee in the Oregon state senate is currently debating a bill that would make it mandatory for community colleges and public universities to question students and staff about their sexual orientation.

The bill would require public universities and community colleges in the state to list questions about one’s sexual orientation on forms used by the school to collect demographic data. Prospective and enrolled students, as well as school faculty and other staff members, would all be asked to disclose the information. 

Answering the questions, however, is completely optional, and the data would be used solely to collect information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students to help universities and colleges better address issues that they may face on campus.

The bill came about after an Oregon State University graduate student, Steven Leider, was conducting research on information surrounding LGBT students and found that there was little data on college campuses about LGBT students. Leider proposed the idea of the bill to Rep. Sara Gelser (D-Corvallis), who then sponsored it in the state house.

The bill, which passed the House by a vote of 40-19 on April 17, was not popular among some Republican lawmakers, however, who took to the House floor to debate the implications of passing the measure.

“I don’t think my children need to be subjected to it when they attend school,” Rep. Tim Freeman (R-Roseburg) told the Salem Statesman Journal.

He also added that he thought that questions about sexual orientation is information that should be kept private and not asked in public universities.

“Without standardized data collection, Oregon colleges and universities won’t be able to accurately assess and appropriately address the experiences of LGBT students, faculty and staff,” Dave Coburn, the Associated Students of Portland State University Legislative Affairs Director, said in his testimony to the Senate Committee on Education and Workforce Development during a public hearing on the issue earlier this month.

If the bill passes the Democratic-leaning state senate and is signed into law, Oregon public universities and community colleges will be following in the footsteps of the University of Iowa and Elmhurst College, both of whom already ask prospective students about their sexual orientation.

h/t NWWatchdog.org

Bonner, 53, has served in Congress since 2003.

His sister, Judy Bonner, is currently president of the University of Alabama. There is a vacancy in the job of Vice Chancellor for Government Affairs and Economic Development for the state’s entire university system – a probable landing spot for Bonner.

Read more at The Washington Post.

The County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health announced this week that it will be sending a 40-foot-long bus filled with free condoms throughout the city of angels, encouraging them to “suit up” with condoms to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

“Suit Up” was the winning theme from the city’s condom wrapper design competition. All condoms distributed by the city’s condom bus will feature the bow-tie logo.

LA residents can also check the condom mobile’s website to find a stop nearest them.

The health department’s goal is to not just distribute one million condoms, but rather one million and one before the bus’s tour is finished. The health department has also partnered up with local LGBT sports leagues to help spread awareness.

“Gay athletes have always been in sports and we’re delighted some professional athletes have made steps to live their life honestly in the public’s eye,” Garsten Bergguist, vice president of Lambda Basketball, said in a press release.

The state of California also has its own free condom initiative. The Condom Access Project sends ten free condoms per month to 12-to-19-year-olds living in areas with high rates of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancy who request the contraceptives online.

California isn’t the only state encouraging safer sex, either.  Twenty-two high schools in Philadelphia actually have dispensers installed which distribute free condoms to the students, while students in some New York City public high schools can get the morning-after pill and other birth control drugs for free from their school nurse.

If Los Angeles really wanted to promote safe sex, however, they really should just ask Coach Carr from “Mean Girls” to help out.

That was the major finding from the latest edition of ALEC’s  “Rich States, Poor States,” which chronicles just how much taxes and economic policies affect economic growth in the United States and ranks the states based upon their own economy policies.

“We’ve seen some big movements across the states,” Jonathan Williams, one of the publication’s three authors, said on a conference call discussing the report.

According to the report’s authors, this transformation is part of an overall trend that has developed over the past few years as a result of the differences between the taxing and spending  policies in those states.

“States like Texas and Tennessee, states with no income tax at all, are real winners. States especially in the south are seeing a real radical transformation where a few states tried to abolish income taxes,” Stephen Moore, an economist and the founder of the Club for Growth, said on the call. 

“The difference in policies is that states like Illinois, California, New Jersey, the Northeast states—Maine and Vermont, have been perusing Obamanomics.  States in the south and in the Sunbelt have been pursuing Reaganomics,” he added, noting that the difference between the two provides for a big difference in results.

While Moore did concede that it wasn’t a one-to-one ratio between the regions, he did say that the report has found that nearly one million jobs have left California and nearly one million jobs have shown up in Texas.

“There’s a massive shift in economic power and wealth to states like Texas and away from California,” Moore said.

As far as the overall rankings, Utah kept its hold on the number one spot from the fifth edition. Maryland was considered to be “one of the biggest losers” in this year’s report, thanks in part to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) raising taxes a whopping 32 times over the past year. It dropped 15 spots from its 2012 ranking.

‘Girls Gone Wild’ founder Joe Francis is sorry for calling the jurors who convicted him “mentally f-ing retarded” in a press interview — well, sort of.

Francis issued a statement apologizing to the jurors on his recent trial, where he was convicted on charges of assault and false imprisonment, for the extremely offensive remarks he made to the The Hollywood Reporter while still maintaining that he is “completely innocent of the charges” and intends to appeal them.

“I deeply regret the remarks attributed to me in the interview with the Hollywood Reporter,” Francis wrote in a statement published by the website Thursday. “They were hurtful and do not reflect my true feelings.”

While the ‘Girls Gone Wild’ creator’s apology statement was mostly a plea of innocence, he did admit that his remarks were “appalling,” adding that “anyone who has ever been wrongfully convicted of a crime that they did NOT commit would be as frustrated as I am.”

Francis also places a great deal of the blame on The Hollywood Reporter for failing “to include one shred of evidence from the trial that proved beyond a reasonable doubt my innocence.”

According to Francis, he spent six hours talking with a reporter from the website, and yet “all that was publicized were my most intemperate remarks.”

Francis was found guilty earlier this month on three counts of false imprisonment, one assault likely to cause bodily injury and one count of dissuading a witness from reporting. He faces up to five years in prison.

“I’m not, nor have I ever been a violent person,” Francis wrote in the statement.

One of his jurors on his trial, however, was reported as saying the conviction rested on the “emotional testimonies” of the women, adding, “the 911 calls from that night, the several of them, would be harrowing for a lot of people to hear — not necessarily the jurors or people in the courtroom, but people in general.”

Obviously, Francis’ comments about the jury, that they “should be lined up and shot,” definitely did not help his case!

Medea Benjamin, an anti-war activist, interrupted the president’s speech from the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. Thursday shortly after he began discussing the proposed closure of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Benjamin was trying to draw attention to the 102 prisoners engaged in a hunger strike at the base after military authorities decided to end the practice of communal housing at the detention facility in April as the audience began to applaud.

“You are commander-in-chief,” Benjamin exclaimed. “You can close Guantanamo today, you can release those 186 prisoners currently detained by your government today.”

Obama had pledged during his 2008 campaign to close the base, stating in his speech that it is was a “facility that should have never been opened.” He also stated that there was no “justification beyond politics” for Congress to prevent him from closing the facility.

The president later went off-teleprompter to discuss the tête-à-tête between himself and Benjamin after she was removed from the auditorium, adding that they both agree on the closure of Guantanamo Bay.

“The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to,” he told the crowd. ”Obviously I do not agree with much of what she said, and obviously she wasn’t listening to me in much of what I said. But these are tough issues and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong.”

Watch footage of Obama being heckled by Benjamin below.

Congressional Republicans have waited since Obama delivered his State of the Union speech in early February to learn the administration’s answer on drone strikes. Not even Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) 13-hour filibuster back in March, which was on the topic of drone strikes on American citizens, could sway the administration to be follow through with its promise of transparency.

“This week, I authorized the declassification of this action, and the deaths of three other Americans in drone strikes, to facilitate transparency and debate on this issue, and to dismiss some of the more outlandish claims,” Obama said during a speech from the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. Thursday. “For the record, I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen – with a drone, or a shotgun – without due process. Nor should any President deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.”

He added as well that drones help prevent unnecessary deaths and helped the military capture and kill al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden back in 2011.

The president neglected, however, to apologize for the inadvertent deaths of three Americans by drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan while conducting counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda and its allies, as confirmed in a letter sent to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) by Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday.

“It is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war,” the president said. “Conventional airpower or missiles are far less precise than drones, and likely to cause more civilian casualties & more local outrage.”

According to Holder’s letter, one of those killed, Anwar al-Awlaki, was targeted by the administration. Al-Awlaki had incited several attacks of terror against the United States, including the Fort Hood mass shooting and foiled “underwear bombing” of a U.S.-bound plane in 2009, and the failed Times Square bombing in 2010. The other three were casualties of strikes aimed at non-citizens.

“Since entering office, the president has made clear his commitment to providing Congress and the American people with as much information as possible about our sensitive counterterrorism operations,” Holder said in the letter. “To this end, the president has directed me to disclose certain information that until now has been properly classified. The administration is determined to continue these extensive outreach efforts to communicate with the American people.”

Paul, who introduced his “Preserving Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act of 2013” in the Senate Wednesday, was glad that the president finally discussed the drone strikes on Thursday, but still isn’t convinced he’s doing enough to protect American citizens.

“I’m glad the President finally acknowledged that American citizens deserve some form of due process,” Paul said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “But I still have concerns over whether flash cards and PowerPoint presentations represent due process; my preference would be to try accused U.S. citizens for treason in a court of law.”

And just like he has with the various other scandals ravaging the administration now, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney attempted – but failed – to defend his boss’s inaction during Wednesday’s press briefing.

“But this is a matter that, as I said before and as the President has said, he thinks is an absolutely valid and legitimate and important area of discussion and debate and conversation, and that it is his belief that there need to be structures in place that remain in place for successive administrations so that in the carrying out of counterterrorism policy, procedures are followed that allow it to be conducted in a way that ensures that we’re keeping with our traditions and our laws,” Carney told reporters.

Even after the president’s remarks, it’s still too much, too late from a president who is not very good at being honest with the American people.

This article was updated to reflect comments made by President Obama’s remarks at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. Thursday, as well as a statement from Sen. Rand Paul regarding the remarks.

The CEO was being questioned by the committee on Tuesday for Apple’s tax avoidance project that moved billions of dollars away from U.S tax collectors.

Stewart said that the CEO was called in to face the “wrath” of Senators, but then played for his audience, the rather heartwarming words that the committee members offered to the CEO.

“I’m very proud of Apple” Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said. “…I harassed my husband until he converted to a Macbook… I love Apple… I love Apple.”

Michigan Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) echoed Sen. McCaskill proclaiming, “We love the iPhone and the iPad. I’ve got one right here!”

Even Arizona Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pitched in to praise the tech giant, though he did give them some heat on having to update the apps on his iPhone all the time.

“You’ve managed to change the world, which is an incredible legacy,” the Arizona Senator stated.

The Comedy Central host then berated the Senators for indulging the CEO by questioning his views on the current tax code and tax rate, stating that the hearing was less, “We’re mad at you for breaking curfew,” and more like “What time do you think you should get home?”

“If you were in our position,” New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) said, “how important do you think it is that we change the tax code? …What rate do you think we have to be at if we want to be competitive?”

In response, the CEO played on the simplistic designs that Apple boasts and denounced the complexities of corporation tax, recommending an elimination of all tax expenditures, lowering corporate income tax rates and the implementation of “a reasonable tax on foreign earnings that allows the free flow of capital back to the United States.”

Unlike the earlier remarks by Senators, Stewart did not hesitate to critique the CEO’s recommendations.

“Corporations are the only reason the tax code is so complicated in the first place!” he shouted. “Those offshore loopholes didn’t get carved out by poor people!”

And he has a point. But so does the Apple CEO. If the system was simplified and all those complexities in the tax code were out of the way, it would be better for businesses and boost profit, which would improve the economy.

Watch Jon Stewart’s remarks here.

Stephen Doran was charged with trafficking meth after receiving a package at Match Charter Middle School in Boston that allegedly contained two 280-gram heat-sealed freezer baggies with a white crystal-like substance that tested positive for methamphetamine.

The police also found 38 grams of crystal meth, $10,000 in cash, a digital scale and packaging material at his Dorchester, Mass. home.

He was arraigned Thursday morning in Roxbury District Court on a charge of trafficking Methamphetamine. While the prosecutor on the case asked the judge to set the bail at $500,000 dollars, Doran’s defense attorney, Vincent Murray, was able to get it lowered due to his failing health.

“His life on the line here, literally,” Murray told the court. “This a man being treated for stage three cancer at the Mass General Hospital.”

Doran’s bail was ultimately set at $10,000. If he makes bail, he will be ordered to wear a GPS monitoring anklet and remain on house arrest, outside of attending medical appointments, in advance of his June 24 court date.

The former Massachusetts state legislator and Bank of America vice president will also face charges on a second count of methamphetamine trafficking, for the meth found at his apartment, in Dorchester District Court at a later date. According to Roxbury District Attorney Spokesman Jake Wark, Doran could be looking at eight to 20 years in jail if convicted.

Match Charter Middle School has also severed its ties with Doran.

“We have no knowledge, nor any reason to believe, that any staff, teachers, or students are involved in this matter or in danger in any way,” Michael Larsson said in an e-mailed statement to Boston.com. “We are cooperating completely with the police investigation, and we are conducting our own internally.”

“We will share all appropriate information with our staff, students and families to assure them of the safety of our school,” he added.

John Miles, a neighbor of Mr. Doran, told ABC Boston that he was shocked and upset by the allegations against Doran, as he always considered him to be a quiet neighbor who never caused any problems.

“We certainly are amazed and disgusted that this sort of situation could affect us and bad enough that it would affect the children at the school,” another neighbor told ABC Boston.

This is not the first time Doran has had a run in with the law. Doran was arrested for driving under the influence in 1979 and for marijuana possession in 2001, however both cases were eventually dismissed.

“This Dunlap thing is the last straw,” said Tancredo in a message.

Tancredo, a Republican, referred to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s decision on Wednesday to grant a temporary reprieve on the execution of death row inmate Nathan Dunlap. Dunlap was convicted of killing four people at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese in 1993.

Several Republicans castigated Hickenlooper on Wednesday for the move that halts Dunlap’s date with death that was scheduled for August.

Read more at The Denver Channel.

The twelve free issues to their magazine in either print form or the downloadable iPad version is the perfect way to get rid of the rooming-with-your-parents blues and perhaps spark “original ideas and actionable insights they can use to get hired, get promoted, and most importantly, get their own place.”

With only 16 percent of students graduating in 2013 proudly proclaiming that they have already found a job, that leaves a lot of college graduates who will have time to sit back and relax with their free copy of the magazine and one of Mom’s sandwiches. Reading about successful entrepreneurs and the latest billionaires is sure to do the trick to get those twenty-somethings out from their parents’ homes.

Bloomberg Businessweek is even offering family and friends the option to send out ecards with the subscription to their favorite jobless college graduate.  The cards, which rival Hallmark’s sentiments, range in encouragement from “We’re not ashamed of you, but we’re getting there” to “I never thought I’d go for the tall, dark and unemployed type.”

For those parents who don’t know how to work the Internet, the ecards will eventually be available in hard-copy forms from stationary company Papyrus.

But don’t worry: Bloomberg Businessweek isn’t exactly blaming these home-bound college graduates for their situation.

“While giving millennials grief is highly entertaining, we want to acknowledge that the woeful state of the economy is not their fault,” the website reassures. “These free issues and ecards are intended to help a generation that could sure use a hand, not blame them. Millennials are, however, entirely to blame for saran-wrap-tight jeans.”

But perhaps the recent corruption that has descended upon Washington can teach young Americans an important lesson: big government inspires the abuse of power.

The simultaneous unveiling of the IRS targeting conservatives and Justice Department’s Associated Press phone record subpoenas has sparked outrage from many Americans who seem to recognize that with great power comes great responsibility. Why can’t young adults see that?

In a November 2012 Pew Research Center survey, 59 percent of voters between 18-29 said government should do more to solve problems. Fast forward six months to a May 2013 survey through the Young America’s Foundation that revealed 61 percent of college-age students oppose the government taking an active role in their day-to-day lives.

Millennials seemingly realize the detriments of too much power, but a decade free of blatant government scandals may have lured them into a false sense of security. That is, of course, until now. The current scandals and abuse of government power are an opportune occasion to teach young adults an important lesson on responsibility.

When one receives a drivers license at the age of 16, an assortment of responsibilities ensue. Society expects drivers to travel within the speed limit and turnover their keys when they’ve had one too many glasses of wine. Just as the speed limit exists to protect the safety of individuals against reckless drivers, the Constitution exists to protect the individual’s rights from a tyrannical government.

Suffice it to say, the Obama administration has been caught driving 85 mph in a 60 mph zone.

The IRS scandal, Benghazi and the Justice Department’s clandestine attempt to subpoena AP phone records illustrate an imperious government and administration drunk on power. The bigger the government gets, the better chance it will attract corrupt, dishonest and power hungry people. It is not cynicism or pessimism that leads to that conclusion, but rather an examination of history and human nature.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) put it well in a recent column.

“The more power any government has, the more power it will abuse. The more money it spends, the more money it will mis-spend. It has nothing to do with party or ideology — it has to do with human nature,” Lee wrote.

Fortunately, America’s forefathers anticipated the potential for corruption and so created a government that protects personal liberties.

“The Founders knew that over time, either the people would control the government, or the government would control the people,” Lee wrote in his column. “That’s why they bequeathed to us a constitutionally limited government — a republic, if we could keep it.”

No matter one’s political affiliation, Americans want honest and virtuous people running the country.

In order to make that happen one must remember: Big government is bad government.

Just read last week’s headlines.

President Barack Obama’s proposed media shield law wouldn’t actually shield the media for government overreach and abuse. The law is really more a show of good faith than an aggressive attempt to protect the nation’s reporters, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney essentially admitted Wednesday.

During his daily press briefing Carney inadvertently confirmed what reporters and legal scholars have been saying for days – President Obama and Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) media shield law wouldn’t have stopped the federal government from conducting secret surveillance on reporters at the Associated Press, nor would it have prevented DOJ’s investigation into Fox News’ James Rosen.

“I’m not suggesting that the media shield law if it were to pass tomorrow and be signed into law next week would end the discussion or would solve the challenges that this issue represents and contains within it, but he does believe that more needs to be done,” Carney said. “That’s why he has long supported a media shield law.”

The bill, which is similar to the one Schumer co-sponsored with former Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) in 2009, would require prosecutors to take every possible action to obtain the information it needs before violating reporters’ privacy. It would also require a court to sign off on a prosecutor’s effort to subpoena a reporter. But there’s a catch: if the Attorney General deems the investigation a matter of  ’national security,’ then the government is free to violate reporters’ First Amendment rights.

The legislation made it out of committee in ’09 but was never brought to the Senate floor, in part because the Wikileaks scandal took place soon after. Obama requested that Schumer introduce the bill into the Senate last week after the Associated Press told Congress DOJ had secretly subpoenaed reporters’ phone records.

One can only hope that the bill’s reincarnate won’t even make it that far. The legislation will not protect journalists. It merely changes the method in which the federal government can obtain the information, a fact that The Washington Post pointed out earlier this month.

“Now, it’s important to remember: virtually the only time the government subpoenas reporters, it involves leak investigations into stories by national security reporters. So it’s hard to see how this bill will significantly help improve press freedom,” Trevor Timm, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a board member of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, wrote in a blog post last week. “Worse, there’s a strong argument that passing the bill as it ended in 2010 will weaken rights reporters already have and make it easier for the government to get sources from reporters.”

President Obama and the White Press Secretary have refused to comment on the investigations. However, Obama said last week that he will make “no apologies” for DOJ’s pursuit of information it believes to be vital to keeping the United States safe. “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk, they can put men and women in uniform that I’ve sent into the battlefield at risk,” he said. “U.S. national security is dependent upon those folks being able to operate with confidence that folks back home have their backs, so they’re not just left out there high and dry,” he added.

The President also said a “balance” must be struck between liberty and security.

“We don’t question their right to conduct these sorts of investigations. We just think they went about it the wrong way — so sweeping, so secretively, so abusively and harassingly and overbroad that it is an unconstitutional act,” the Associated Press’ President Gary Pruitt said in response on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

The President is right that the security of the United States is sacrosanct. However, he and his administration are wrong to secretly investigate reporters or to punish them for doing their job, which is to report the news and protect their sources. If government officials fear they can’t privately report misconduct or important information the government is inappropriately keeping from the people, the rights and freedoms of all Americans will be in serious jeopardy.

The President’s media shield law is not a “balance” between Americans’ Constitutional rights and the government’s responsibility to keep Americans safe. It’s merely another attempt to make President Obama look good that really achieves nothing.

The first family is returning to the luxurious island this summer for the fourth time. The family vacationed here in 2009, 2010 and 2011. They did not vacation in 2012 during the presidential campaign, after Obama was criticized for vacationing instead of focusing on the economy.

This year, Michelle Obama and her two daughters will reportedly spend the majority of the summer at the vacation site. The Obama’s are looking to rent a home in the Farm Neck area of the Vineyard, as reported this week by the Boston Globe.

Their previous three vacations were spent at the Blue Heron Farm, a 28-acre estate with two full-sized homes, a boathouse, a reassembled 150-year-old barn, tennis and basketball courts, multiple gardens and an apple orchard. However, this home was sold in December 2011 to British architect Norman Foster for $21.9 million.

Martha’s Vineyard has consistently attracted presidents and other world leaders, such as Bill Clinton who visited the island during his presidency. Other residents of the island include the Kennedy family, filmmaker Spike Lee, CBS late night host David Letterman, singers Carly Simon and James Taylor, and journalist Diane Sawyer.

The amendment, which was put forth by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and agreed upon by unanimous consent, enacts a lifetime ban to those convicted of violent and serious crimes from enrolling in the nation’s food stamp program.  The amendment would also prevent states from being able to opt-out of the current food stamps ban for convicting drug felons.

“I hope, Mr. President, we can form a bipartisan consensus around this basic idea and put that basic fundamental limitation into law,” Vitter said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

The Senate farm bill is more than just agricultural regulations. In fact, the large majority of the bill revolves around funding for nutritional programs like food stamps. With food stamps costing on average $80 billion annually, preventing felons from having access to the government program will go a long way toward trimming federal spending.

The Senate plans to vote on the Senate farm bill Thursday.

Food stamps weren’t the only thing Vitter railed against on the Senate floor Wednesday, however. The Louisiana Republican also proposed an amendment that would end the government’s free cell phone program.

“I think the whole program is an entitlement mentality gone wild,” Vitter said.  “We have started the notion that folks are entitled to the government or taxpayer providing them everything under the sun,” Vitter said, adding that the program is filled with “widespread fraud and abuse.”

Vitter also condemned the rich owners of companies who profit from providing government cell phones as the real abusers of the system or “government welfare kings.”

Watch Vitter’s full floor speech below.

h/t Breitbart

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, published an eye-opening piece in the Washington Times this week which furthers the argument that Obamacare will not be the liberal utopia dream that President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats sold to the American people. In fact, he argues, Obamacare will be subject to the same economic principles that govern the everyday market.

The original goal of Obamacare was to expand health insurance for an additional 30 million Americans.  About 15 million of these people would purchase their insurance in “state exchanges” which can be thought of as state-based marketplaces where government-approved healthcare will be sold for individuals and small businesses to purchase. Government subsidies would assist insurance for those making under $90,000.

As the Supreme Court ruled last summer, those who do not purchase insurance will be subject to a penalty, or extra tax.

Key to the successful implementation and long-term success of Obamacare are young Americans aged 18 to 40. The law intends for this group to participate in the healthcare program in some way as they are faced with the decision of purchasing healthcare from the exchanges, or paying the tax penalty.  By having the young in the insurance pools, the insurance offered in the exchanges will be more attractive and affordable to older Americans due to the younger Americans being associated with less healthcare costs.

Basically, the idea is that the young must purchase healthcare in the government pool, and because they will not be in need of much healthcare, the costs for older Americans decrease.  As Holtz-Eakin puts it, “In effect, young Americans are supposed to be both key participants and the piggy banks of the expansion effort.”

What Obama, Pelosi, and Democrats have failed to account for is that consumers will approach healthcare in the exchanges just as they would with any other product.

When you are standing in the grocery store trying to decide which cereal to buy, you first go for your preference, and then you look at the price. There is a certain price at which you decide that Captain Crunch isn’t worth it, and you settle for the generic store brand.

The same will happen with younger Americans.  Lacking healthcare issues and the need for immediate insurance, there will be a price point at which Americans will decide that they are better off paying the penalty instead of purchasing healthcare.  Later on, if they are in a dire situation, they will purchase healthcare as needed. Empirical data provides evidence for this claim.

The American Action Forum sponsored a national poll of Americans aged 18 to 40 in March and April of this year and they were specifically interested in what effects various premium increases would have on a consumer’s willingness to purchase healthcare coverage. Respondents were those who already purchase insurance and were supplied with specific information regarding the various scenarios covered in the poll.

The results are astonishing.  Only 83 percent would still purchase insurance if premiums rise 10 percent.  Sixty five percent would continue to purchase if premiums rise 20 percent, and a mere 55 percent if premiums rise 30 percent.

As expected, there is a price point where consumers simply stop buying health insurance.  A law intended to generate an expansion of coverage will do exactly the opposite, by reducing the number of participants in the healthcare pools, further increasing the costs for those who do buy healthcare.

As the full implementation of Obamacare nears, a greater number of politicians, pundits, and analysts are casting doubts on the program.  Higher premiums are almost already guaranteed.  Faced with an ever-growing cost of healthcare coverage, it is completely rational to suggest that young Americans, who the program largely is designed to depend on, will simply choose not to participate in the exchanges.

The President and Congressional Democrats continue to assure us that Obamacare will be carefully and successfully implemented, but just like Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.”  We are beginning to see more and more that what’s in it doesn’t work, and the reforms it is designed to bring are not insured.

“(T)his ‘closing off’ that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of God,” Francis said Wednesday (May 22) in remarks at the informal morning Mass that he celebrates in the chapel at the Vatican guesthouse where he lives.

“Republicans are obsessed with the IRS and Benghazi and a host of other conspiracy theories, but the president and the American people know what’s really important,” Sharpton said on his MSNBC show “Politics Nation” Wednesday.

The Obama administration has come under intense scrutiny in past weeks after it was revealed that the IRS had been improperly targeting conservative organizations, applying extra scrutiny to their tax filings and even holding up applications for nonprofit status in some cases. The same day, it was revealed that the White House had altered several of its talking points on the terrorist attack at the Libyan Embassy in Benghazi back in September 2012, which resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Unfortunately, Sharpton’s not alone in this belief. Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff is convinced it’s just a big hoopla over nothing as well.

“We heard testimony yet again from the intelligence community today that there was no political spin, no bias, no effort to protect Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama…that the talking points were written by the intelligence community, there were revisions made under the supervising capability of the CIA and other intelligence agencies for legitimate, non-political reasons,” the California lawmaker told Sharpton. “So if anyone was still interested, once again debunk the whole idea that these were spun somehow and made very clear that this was an intelligence community-driven process.”

Sharpton also had his pal at MSNBC, analyst Karen Finney, confirm for the American people that the ‘Culture of Intimidation’ Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hinted at on “Meet the Press” last Sunday is far less worse than the Tom Delay/Jack Abramoff scandal back in 2005-2006.

“It’s so offensive, because clearly what they’re trying to do is link this all together, and by innuendo, make it seem as though this ‘Culture of Intimidation’ culture, they’re trying to even still ‘Culture of Corruption”… I would remind you that in 2005-2006 – because I was at the DNC at the time, I know this – we talked about a ‘Culture of Corruption,’ but we were talking about [former House Majority Leader] Tom Delay and his pay-to-play system which got in the way of the people’s business,” Karen Finney told the Rev. “When we were talking about a ‘Culture of Corruption,’ there really were links to the White House. There really were crimes being committed.”

Arguably the worst part, however, was when Sharpton and Schiff attempted to argue that Republicans don’t have any evidence tying Obama and his administration to the two scandals – since copies of emails and real apologizes from employees aren’t enough proof in their minds!

“That’s exactly right…They don’t have any evidence and they don’t have anyone whose even come forward to say ‘Oh yes, the White House instructed that we do this or we felt pressure to do that’,” Schiff said. “Even what we’ve gathered so far from the IRS isn’t suggesting any kind of direction from the White House or any ‘Culture of Intimidation’, which just seems ludicrous.”

“But it doesn’t matter anymore,” he added. “Here on the Hill it’s become such an antipathy toward the president that they’re willing to level any accusation, no matter how little or no proof whatsoever…it’s just now part of this institution which is tragic.”

Watch Sharpton’s denial segment in full below.

Emails seeking the information date back to September 2012, six weeks before the November election.

At that point, the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration had promised an update.

Based on other evidence provided to the committee, the inspector general was aware of the IRS practice of targeting conservative groups with names that included “Tea Party” and “Patriot” and “9/12.”

Read more at The Washington Examiner.

But don’t expect Game Change.

According to a source close to Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican is working with attorney Bob Barnett to release his first major book next year, and it’ll feature a mix of autobiography, political analysis, and policy prescriptions.

Read more at National Review.

Cruz’s remark came after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he thought it was “bizarre” that a member of his own party was objecting to forming a conference committee with the House to work out a budget.

McCain said the objections suggested Senate Republicans didn’t trust House Republicans to hold the party line in negotiations.

“Isn’t it a little bizarre, this whole exercise?” McCain said after Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) objected to going to conference. “What we’re saying is that we don’t trust our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol.”

Read more at The Hill.

“It’s pretty inconceivable to me that the president wouldn’t know,” Boehner said in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Greta van Susteren. “I’m just putting myself in his shoes. I deal with my senior staff every day. And if the White House had known about this, which now it appears they’ve known about it for about a year, it’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t have come up in some conversation.”

Read more at The Washington Post.

Initially, a total of 53 elementary schools were on the chopping block, but four of them were spared.

The closings are part of a plan for the Chicago Public Schools to plug a $1 billion budget deficit. The schools to be shut down were identified by CPS as having too few students or failing to meet academic standards.

One of the school closings will be delayed for a year, another will be delayed for two years, and a school not on the closing list will be spared from a major staff overhaul known as a “turnaround.”

Read more at CBS Chicago.

Jonathan Hampton, who teaches advanced, college-level courses at the high school was lecturing on the Freudian implications of Ken Kensey’s 1962 novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” when he allegedly used the banana to contact the student’s head.

On May 6th, three months after the incident allegedly occurred, the parents of the unidentified female student reported the incident to the school after their daughter had apparently claimed that it made her feel uncomfortable. It is unclear why the family waited so long to report the incident.

According to the teacher’s May 13^th discipline letter, he “rubbed a student’s head and neck area with a banana”  during a class discussion on “cylinder objects, phalluses and/or sex symbols.”

“That is disgusting, very disgusting,” Dale Johnson, a grandmother of a student at the high school told WKMG Local 6. “I don’t think he should be allowed to teach kids. You don’t do stuff like that and get away with it.”

Hampton refused to speak with local media but his attorney, Mark Fiedelholtz, who also happens to be his stepfather, denied the allegations.

In response to the report released on Saturday by WKMG Local 6, Mr. Fiedelholtz said that Hampton “doesn’t recall ever touching the student with a banana, but if he did it would be to get their attention.”

According to Ocala.com, he went on to add, “There was nothing else to it.”

The unidentified female student is not the only one to call the teacher’s behavior into question, however.

In the discipline letter sent to Hampton, the school district also stated that there have been other students who have found that his topics have been borderline inappropriate with “excessive frequency, causing discomfort to many of his students.”

Hampton has been a teacher at North Marion High School since 2007 and according to his Facebook, and other than some negative comments made online in 2009 about students and fellow staff members, has been an “outstanding teacher,” He even won the teacher of the year award  in 2011-2012, according personnel records collected by WKMG.

His suspension has since been completed and he has returned to class.

h/t The Daily Caller

Watch WKMG’s report below:

Ibragim Todashev, who died during the interview with authorities, not only confessed to his direct role in slashing the throats of three people in Waltham, Massachusetts, but also fingered Tsarnaev in the deaths, the official said Wednesday.

Todashev was being questioned about the slayings and his acquaintance with Tsarnaev.

Read more at CNN.

If you answered yes to any of these questions, boy, do I have the product for you.

Colgate-Palmolive has recently filed a patent application for a toothbrush — or similar oral care device — which could deliver various flavors, stimulants, or medications to your brain when you’re brushing your teeth.

According to the recently made public patent, “there is a need for a toothbrush that provides a biochemical sensory effect when in contact tissues of the mouth and supports a method to visually communicate the sensory effect to a user prior to use.” Who knew?

Read more at Policy Mic.

Shulman failed a mini U.S. history quiz given to him by Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.) during the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s hearing on the IRS controversy Wednesday, as he was unable to tell Bentivolio the rights given to Americans in the First, Second and Nineteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

“Did you study the Constitution?” Bentivolio asked Shulman.

“I went to law school,” Shulman answered.

“You went to law school,” Bentivolio continued. “Did you study the Constitution?” he asked, repeating his previous question.

“I believe I took Constitutional law, but I’m not prepared to take an exam at this time,” Shulman said jokingly. “Meaning I’ll answer any of your questions but I can’t promise that I’m an expert.”

“Well, you know the First, Second Amendment and one of my favorites, the 19th, right?” Bentivolio demanded. “You know those?”

Considering elementary school students can recite these Constitutional rights, it should have been an easy question for a lawyer to answer.

Yet, Shulman continued to struggle. “Excuse me,” he asked Bentivolio.

“You know those amendments,” Bentivolio continued his tirade. “The Constitutional amendments. You know the First, you know the Second, and you know the Nineteenth.”

“I don’t necessarily have the Constitution memorized, sir,” Shulman conceded.

“Ok, well, they’re pretty general in what each one is. Like the First Amendment is the freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. First Amendment, right?”

“I really can’t recite the Constitution, sir,” Shulman admitted.

Watch Bentivolio quiz the former IRS head below.

h/t The Blaze