A.Word.A.Day
Government officials and political operatives working for Christie, for weird and petty reasons, chose to make traffic worse. That’s the takeaway. When they are reminded of the fact that people working on Christie’s behalf thought it was a good political game to mire tens of thousands of their fellow Americans in the nightmarish gridlock that is a daily dreaded prospect for tens of millions, they will be discomfited by that and by the politician in whose name it was done.And yet, you know what is also something everybody would find “relatable”? Politicians who sic the tax man on others for political gain. Everybody has to deal with the IRS and fears it. Last year, we learned from the Internal Revenue Service itself that it had targeted ideological opponents of the president for special scrutiny and investigation — because they were ideological opponents.
That’s juicy, just as Bridgegate is juicy. It’s something we can all understand, it speaks to our greatest fears, and it’s the sort of thing TV newspeople could gab about for days on end without needing a fresh piece of news to keep it going.And yet, according to Scott Whitlock of the Media Research Center, “In less than 24 hours, the three networks have devoted 17 times more coverage to a traffic scandal involving Chris Christie than they’ve allowed in the last six months to Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service controversy.”Why? Oh, come on, you know why. Christie belongs to one political party. Obama belongs to the other. You know which ones they belong to. And you know which ones the people at the three networks belong to, too: In surveys going back decades, anywhere from 80% to 90% of Washington’s journalists say they vote Democratic.
Scandals are not just about themselves; they are about the media atmosphere that surrounds them. They are perpetuated and deepened by the attention of journalists, whose relentless pursuit of every angle keeps the story going. That is exactly what has been missing from the IRS scandal from its outset; Republicans in Congress have been the dogged pursuers, not the press.
Youth enrollment at only 24 percent means the target was missed by 14 percent, yet the administration remains confident that these numbers will rise. They should hope so, because if not, it will prove what Republicans have warned since the beginning and what the media ignores altogether - Obamacare is too expensive.A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation said having younger adults make up only 25 percent of enrollees would present a "worst case" scenario. They found that costs then would be about 2.4 percent higher, but insurers would retain a very slim profit margin.
Senior UK Defense Advisor: Obama Is Clueless About ‘What He Wants To Do In The World’ - The Daily Beast:.gif)
"A program to refund insurance companies for losses incurred during the implementation of President Obama’s health care law could impose significant costs on American taxpayers, but under regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, those costs won’t be known until the summer of 2015.
House easily passes $1T omnibus spending bill with 359-67 vote | TheHill:
"WASHINGTON—U.S. consumer prices rose last month by the most since June, driven up by higher gas prices, but excluding energy, inflation was tame.
"The first is the Reinsurance Program under which large claims are capped for insurers offering individual plans under Obamacare.
"A study across the Texas Panhandle, using government statistics from 16 counties, found that the teen pregnancy rates among 13-17-year olds from 1994 through 2010 showed dramatic declines even as Planned Parenthood Federation of America facilities in the region shut down—dwindling from 19 family planning facilities to zero."
"DENVER - A one-month supply of marijuana edibles, gone in the first three days of January.
Lawmaker calls for Udall investigation over Obamacare numbers | The Daily Caller
were canceled under Obamacare. that is caught red-handed in a hostile phone call where they are trying to change what is recognized as legitimate numbers for political purposes, that’s an inappropriate use of government power,” Gardner told the Colorado Observer., he wanted to change the numbers so it didn’t look bad.”
Obama to Dems: I'll act with or without Congress - Yahoo News:
"(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Come
out to Pigeon
Creek Park and ski or snow shoe. Friday Jan 17 at 1:00p.m.
Terry Miller: America's Dwindling Economic Freedom - WSJ.com:
"Atlantic City's casino revenue fell below $3 billion last year for the first time in 22 years, as increasing competition in the northeastern U.S. continued to shrink the market.
"Amnesty boxes are going up at the Colorado Springs airport for those who didn't realize that it's illegal to carry pot on a plane.
7NEWS - CU sociology professor Patti Adler, who teaches deviant behavior class, is retiring - Local Story
Grand Rapids — The founder of a Michigan chair company is suing another furniture company after falling out of a chair and hurting his back.
"The problems with a politicized IRS may be far more serious than we have yet suspected. Sarah Palin's brother Chuck Heath, Jr. posted the following on his Facebook account January 11th:
In a shocking development, the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., has put its weight and prestige behind the bogus “news organization” Al Jazeera and its reporters, now jailed in Egypt, for associating with the pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood.
"Marcus Luttrell, former Navy SEAL and author of “Lone Survivor” and new movie featuring actor Mark Walhberg recently sat down to conduct a promotional interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
This means that Russia will help develop the entirety of South Africa's nuclear energy sector, including financing and training.
"There's just something about the Breslin Center.
The two charts above display some of the authors’ key findings on the high degree of income mobility for US taxpayers between 1996 – 2005, taken from Table 2 of their paper and summarized below for various income quintiles and income groups:
Only days after we learned the Obama administration had appointed an Obama donor to head investigations into the IRS targeting of conservative organizations, we now have a leak from law enforcement saying the FBI doesn’t expect to file criminal charges.
Some of Wright’s gems, provided by DiscovertheNetworks.org:
Birmingham schools suspend Mt. Holly trips after students fall from ski lift | The Detroit News:
The omnibus spending bill before Congress continues to fund U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) advertising programs for food stamps in foreign countries like Mexico, Breitbart News has learned.Requirements for the Secretary of Agriculture to help weed out and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in the SNAP program – including a directive to ban fraudulent vendors, and a prohibition on advertisements or outreach with foreign governments.
