Obamaphones: Rife with Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

Matthew Sabas

November 24, 2013 at 2:01 pm

UPI/Kevin Dietsch

Free cell phones for low-income Americans, one of the fastest growing welfare programs in the United States, is—by the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) own admission—rife with “waste, fraud and abuse.” And who is paying for these free Obamaphones? If you have a phone subscription, you are.
The program, officially called Lifeline, predates Obama’s presidency but has earned the colloquial name “Obamaphone” after nearly tripling in cost since 2008.
Almost everyone who pays a phone bill has an extra monthly charge that contributes to the Universal Service Fund, which covers Lifeline access. The government pays companies $9.25 for every person connected through Lifeline. Recipients typically receive a free wireless phone and a certain amount of airtime.
These Obamaphones aren’t iPhones, but they typically have nearly all the capabilities offered through a standard phone contract.
SafeLink, for example, offers government-sponsored plans that not only include basics like local, long distance, and emergency calls, but other amenities such as international calls, 1,000 texts, carry-over minutes, call waiting, roaming, and a choice of 67, 125, or 250 minutes—all at no cost and contract-free. If 250 monthly minutes are not enough to call potential employers, no problem! Referring a friend for a free cell phone will score an additional 100 minutes.
A comparable paid plan available at SafeLink’s parent company, TracFone Wireless, would cost almost $400 annually per phone.
By law, Lifeline is restricted to one phone per household and only available to those who have an income below 135 percent of the federal poverty line or enrolled in a means-tested entitlement program. In practice, it is simple to obtain multiple Obamaphones: The FCC announced that duplicate Lifeline subscriptions topped 2 million, warranting millions in fines to companies for failing to verify recipients’ income.
Jillian Melchoir of the Franklin Center wanted to find out just how easy it would be. She managed to collect three of her very own Obamaphones, even though her income disqualifies her from any government support.
Melchoir is in the company of millions: According to figures supplied by the FCC to The Wall Street Journal, 41 percent of subscribers were unable to prove their eligibility for the program.

More here.......

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/11/24/obamaphones-rife-waste-fraud-abuse/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline&utm_campaign=saturday131130

Rumor Check: A ‘Messianic’ Obama Depicted in Book for Grade Schoolers?

Nov. 29, 2013 10:38pm Dave Urbanski

You may have caught a glimpse of this eye-opening cover artwork for yet another President Obama-related book directed toward elementary schoolers:

Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope

The scuttlebutt is that the poetry-based mini-biography “Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope” paints the president with a “messianic” brush and is reportedly a Common Core fave.

Gateway Pundit noted “Common Core kid’s book teaches 3rd graders that Barack Obama is honest, kind, fair and godlike.” It went on to quote EAG News:

… a new lesson that casts America’s 44th president in a messianic light. Literally.

And – surprise – it’s Common Core-aligned.

EAG called attention to a teacher’s guide for “Son of Promise” which is titled “Barack Obama Lesson Plan and Prezi,” authored by Sherece Bennett, and is for sale at TeachersPayTeachers.com.

TheBlaze picked up a copy of “Son of Promise.” Here’s what we found out:

More here.....

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/29/rumor-check-a-messianic-obama-depicted-in-book-for-grade-schoolers/# 

Question for Liberals: What’s Wrong with “Old White Males”?

by David L. Goetsch

Liberals are fond of calling the GOP the party of old white males.  When liberals use this term they are not simply commenting on Republican demographics.  Rather they are using the term in the pejorative sense as if there is something wrong with being old, white, and male. I find this both an odd and an inaccurate description of the GOP.  Since I frequently speak to Republican groups, I have a pretty good feel for the make-up of the Party.  When I speak to these groups, the audience in front of me invariably looks pretty much like a cross-section of America.  When I look out at the audience I see old people and young people, black people and white people, Hispanic people and Asian people.  I also see both men and women. What I don’t see is a crowd of old white males.
Admittedly I am an old white male, and I am a member of the Republican Party (although the GOP continually disappoints me with its propensity to lean ever farther to the left).  As an old white male and a member of the GOP, I have a question or two for liberals: First, what’s wrong with old white males?  Most of the greatest contributors to world civilization, philosophy, art, literature, science, technology, and government were old white males.  Second, what do you have against those of us who are old, white, and male?  Your disdain for us makes no sense.  Think about it.  Take old white males out of American history and you lose such noteworthy individuals as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Ronald Reagan and many others who contributed immeasurably to the freedom, liberty, and prosperity enjoyed by Americans.
When liberals use the term “old white male” to criticize the Republican Party they are trying to conjure up an image of grouchy old codgers who are out of touch, set in their ways, and one step away from Eldercare. This makes me wonder what liberals think about their own parents.  I also wonder if it is the old, the white, or the male in old white male that bothers liberals.  After all, I never hear liberals disdainfully use such terms as old black males, old Hispanic males, or old Asian males.  Ironically, some of the liberals who use the term old white male in the ad hominem sense are themselves old white males (e.g. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Chris Matthews of MSNBC).  But then when have liberals ever let a little irony, accuracy, or logic stand in the way of their attacks on those who refuse to toe the line of liberal orthodoxy?
According to conservative columnist Dennis Prager (The Washington Times, October 14, 2013), “Low regard for the old is also a major factor in the left’s dismissal of the Founders and of the original intent of the Constitution.  Talk about ‘old white males,’ the Founders are white males who are now over 200 years-old.  What could they possibly have known or understood that a progressive living today does not know more about or understand better?”  Prager has a good point.  Historical revisionism—a favorite tactic of liberals—is easier if you simply ignore or at least discredit the old white males who lived and made history.
Prager offers two answers concerning why liberals have such low regard for old white males: “One is the yearning for utopia.  Since Marx, the left has sought utopia in this world.  By definition, those who seek to transform (the ever-present goal of liberals) consider the old essentially worthless.  The other answer is self-esteem.  The left began the self-esteem movement in large measure because of its own high self-esteem.  Those on the left are certain they are smarter, kinder, more moral and more compassionate, and in every way superior to their opponents.”  Prager nails it when he writes: “If the old is great, then they (liberals) and their new ideas are probably not that great.”  Thank you Dennis.  I agree.  This old white male feels better already.

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Obama: Deviant In Chief

by Janna Brock President Obama’s legacy will be one defined by deviance. His unbridled support for homosexuality and abortion is unsurpassed, unmatched, and unrepentant. Never has a president at any point in history openly celebrated deviant behaviors, showering praise on those who partake in the abomination that is homosexuality, and the murder of the unborn. This man is reckless, dangerous, and above all, a progressive so militant, he will single handedly take down an entire nation with him. He already has.
On November 20th, he presented Medals of Freedom to LGBT rights activist Bernard Rustin and Sally Ride, the first known homosexual astronaut. Both are deceased. It is worth noting that Bernard Rustin was a national chairman of the Social Democrats USA. According to LGBTQNation.com in a November 20th piece, Rustin was hailed as a “an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights. He was a leading activist of the early 1947–1955 civil-rights movement. Rustin was a gay man who had been arrested for a homosexual act in 1953.”
Rustin was a sexual predator. On August 29, 2013, thegrio.com interviewed his “partner” Walter Naegle where it was reveled that, “The couple met in Times Square in 1977 when Naegle was 27 and Rustin was 65. Naegle describes himself as an old soul, and said Rustin was eternally young. Together, Naegle said, they met at the spiritual age of 40.” When Rustin died in 1987, Naegle was referred to as his adopted “son.”
Rustin had a homosexual relationship with a man nearly forty years his junior. He was a reprobate, but somehow deserving of the Medal of Freedom. In 2013, America the Depraved welcomes sexual deviants. Sally Ride was the first American woman astronaut. When she died in 2012, her homosexuality was not known to the public at large. But accepting her Medal of Freedom was her “partner” of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy, who was honored as a husband would be for his deceased wife. LGBTQNation.com quoted Obama as saying, “Today our daughters, including Malia and Sasha, can set their sights a little bit higher because Sally Ride showed them the way.”
Sally Ride shows America’s daughters what way? Her achievements as the first American woman in space are noteworthy, but in today’s American, she will be lauded as a heroine for the poisonous gay agenda. A woman forced to hide her sexuality, just as Rustin was forbidden to live his life openly. It’s deviance disguised as martyrdom. Sin disguised as basic human rights.
President Obama’s uproariously support for abortion activists is appalling. As the leader of the free world, one would expect that he would encourage life instead of willfully try to snuff it out. In March 2008, before he was elected President, he was reported as saying, in regards to his daughters and sex education, “But it should also include — it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” The non-response by Americans after such a comment proved that the country was ready for a deviant President, void of principles and scruples.

Read more.....

http://patriotupdate.com/articles/obama-deviant-chief/

Republican doctors running for Congress amid ObamaCare rollout fiasco

December 01, 2013, 06:00 am

By Alexandra Jaffe

Eleven Republican doctors are running for the Senate, hoping that voters will see their medical expertise as an asset amid the administration’s botched rollout of ObamaCare.
“Doctors are in a very unique position to look at the financing of healthcare,” Rep. Paul Broun, a family physician running for the GOP nomination for Georgia’s open Senate seat, told The Hill.

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“We go into medicine for one reason, and one reason only: Because we care about people, we want the people who we serve to have a productive, happy, healthy life,” he added. “That’s the kind of policymaker we should have in place in dealing with healthcare policy.”Doctors running in Senate races from North Carolina to Oregon are all pitching voters on their experience in the medical field.
It’s not unusual for doctors to seek elected office. But it’s not necessarily typical for them to win, however. The Senate counts only three physicians in its ranks. Last year, former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, a Democrat who ran largely on his record in medicine, lost to now-Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).
A 2012 Gallup survey rated medical doctors as the third most-trustworthy profession, below only nurses and pharmacists.
In contrast, members of Congress were second from the bottom, considered more trustworthy than only care salespeople.
That makes physician candidates well poised to hammer home a main Republican narrative that has emerged in recent weeks — that Democrats who pledged to Americans they could keep their insurance under ObamaCare are untrustworthy.
John McDonough, director of the Center for Public Health Leadership at Harvard University’s School of Public Health, said simply having an “MD” by a candidate’s name boosts their credibility.
“A physician license is almost always a plus in the public's mind in terms of one's credibility,” he said.
He noted that on the healthcare law, in particular, “people would probably listen more closely to an office holder or a candidate's position” if he or she is a physician or a nurse.
The physician candidates interviewed by The Hill touted personal skills they had acquired over years of medical practice.
Monica Wehby, a pediatric neurosurgeon running for Senate in Oregon against Sen. Jeff Merkley (D), said physicians’ problem-solving skills make them well suited for elected office.
“For doctors, instead of arguing about things, the whole goal is to find an answer,” she said. “We're trained to be logical thinkers, making our decisions based on evidence as opposed to ideologically, or based on emotion.”
Republican Annette Bosworth, an internist running for Senate in South Dakota, likened Congress to a team of doctors and nurses in an Intensive Care Unit, where communication among those caretakers is key to keeping a patient alive.
“The reason we are broken is the communication that should be happening on Capitol Hill isn’t. The country is in serious trouble because those leaders are stuck,” she said. “But what is the advanced skill of physicians? We’re master communicators. We’re always thinking, how can I navigate through this while still keeping my eye on the goal?”
Bosworth has an uphill battle for the Republican nomination against GOP establishment pick former Gov. Mike Rounds (R).
Rep. Phil Gingrey (R), an OB-GYN running in Georgia’s open Senate race, said that doctors are looking to elected office because they’re worried about the consequences of the Affordable Care Act.
“A lot of doctors are so frightened by ObamaCare, and if it gets roots, and if it becomes eventually a single-payer system, that these doctors would no longer enjoy the practice of medicine. They don’t want to practice for the government, they want to practice for their patients,” he said.
Bosworth said she was alarmed by her interactions with government health programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, calling them“bureaucracy gone wrong.”

Read more and watch video......

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/191621-gop-doctors-run-for-congress-amid-obamacare-fiasco

WTF-'Humans evolved after a female chimpanzee mated with a pig': Extraordinary claim made by American geneticist

• Dr Eugene McCarthy points to features that distinguish us from primates
• He says that the only animals which also have these features are pigs
• Controversial hypothesis has been met by significant opposition

By Damien Gayle
PUBLISHED: 04:45 EST, 30 November 2013 | UPDATED: 05:49 EST, 30 November 2013

The human species began as the hybrid offspring of a male pig and a female chimpanzee, a leading geneticist has suggested.
The startling claim has been made by Eugene McCarthy, of the University of Georgia, who is also one of the worlds leading authorities on hybridisation in animals.
He points out that while humans have many features in common with chimps, we also have a large number of distinguishing characteristics not found in any other primates.

The origin of the species? A remarkable new theory advanced by a leading geneticist suggests that human beings may have originally emerged as the hybrid offspring of a male pig and a female chimpanzee

Dr McCarthy says these divergent characteristics are most likely the result of a hybrid origin at some point far back in human evolutionary history.
What's more, he suggests, there is one animal that has all of the traits which distinguish humans from our primate cousins in the animal kingdom.
'What is this other animal that has all these traits?' he asks rhetorically. 'The answer is Sus scrofa, the ordinary pig.'
Dr McCarthy elaborates his astonishing hypothesis in an article on Macroevolution.net, a website he curates. He is at pains to point out that that it is merely a hypothesis, but he presents compelling evidence to support it.

 

Scientists currently suppose that chimpanzees are humans' closest living evolutionary relatives, a theory amply backed by genetic evidence.
However, as Dr McCarthy points out, despite this genetic similarity, there are a massive number of divergent anatomical characteristics distinguishing the two species.
These distinguishing characteristics, including hairless skin, a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, light-coloured eyes, protruding noses and heavy eyelashes, to name but a few, are unmistakeably porcine, he suggests.
There are also a number of less obvious but equally inexplicable similarities between humans and pigs in the structure of the skin and organs.
Indeed, pig skin tissues and heart valves can be used in medicine because of their similarity and compatibility with the human body.

read more......

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515969/Humans-evolved-female-chimpanzee-mated-pig-Extraordinary-claim-American-geneticist.html 

President for Life: The Push Begins

by Norma Brown Did your anti-threat antenna fully extend the other day when Obama told Bawbaw Wawa of the State Propaganda Machine that he might just hang around DC for a few years after his term ends? He sounded amazingly life-like when he expressed concern that his younger daughter be allowed to finish school there. What a hoot. He wanna make sure rich girl get to finish rich girl school paid for with (dirty) cash money, not the vouchers he won’t allow to the poor students in DC’s failed schools. Of course that’s a bunch of hooey. Rich girl can go to any rich girl school anywhere. The very kindest interpretation you can find is that this slug in a suit has found a place even more corrupt than Chicago. Leaving DC voluntarily would be like walking out of a candy store before you’ve emptied the shelves directly into your pockets.
Here is the key thought in all the family fluff: stay in DC beyond term completion.
The day after that 2012 election that burdened America with another four years of criminal government, I wrote an article for my blog entitled Four More Years (or Forty). I made predictions about the changes the Marxists would be trying to make over the ensuing four years and so far, I’m right on target. But there is one piece that has yet to be put in place: jettisoning of the two-term limit on presidents. Well, guess what? Here it comes.
I immediately smelled a rat when the big O suggested he wasn’t ready to leave Washington. This would be upending all previous tradition in which the man who completes his service goes back home or anywhere else but Washington. Even the corrupt Clintons adopted a state at a respectable distance where they could buy a seat in Congress for Hillary. Home for Obama logically is Kenya or Indonesia (just ask foreign exchange student Barry Soetero), but we could hardly get that lucky. The least one would expect would be a flight back to Chicago. Not so. Apparently our first Marxist president thinks of the nation’s capital as his home now, and tough luck for anybody who is allowed to follow in his shoes. At a minimum he’ll have the capacity to use his adoring black throngs to make trouble for whatever white guy is sitting in the Oval Office. But that assumes he has no ulterior motives and just loves DC. And why shouldn’t he? Big house, limousines, endless vacations, unmerited adulation, and NO WORK! Anybody could be homesick for such a place. But I’m not buying that load of horse-manure. Obama’s handlers don’t seem to care that he is as popular as smallpox and are trying to find a way to extend his term in office until those of us who would like to see him punished for his sins change our minds or have them changed for us.
No sooner were the president’s words of warning out of his mouth than a fellow traveler, one Jonathan Zimmerman from the ultra-left New York University, wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post arguing that two terms are not enough for this man from nowhere. According to the Daily Caller, here is what he proposed:
Zimmerman argues that the president would enjoy more deference on such unpopular initiatives as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the recent nuclear-arms deal with Iran if he had a legal opportunity to seek additional terms in office.
“Or consider the reaction to the Iran nuclear deal,” Zimmerman continues. “Regardless of his political approval ratings, Obama could expect Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and John McCain (Ariz.) to attack the agreement. But if Obama could run again, would he be facing such fervent objections from Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.)?”
Let me sort through this: if the president is allowed to rewrite every founding document and jettison every governing precedent in America to ensure him a Presidency for Life, then he can intimidate and silence any critic with the unfettered power of his dictatorship and thus will societal peace and harmony be obtained. Golly. This is something new in the world, right? A tyrant who thinks he has a Divine Right to rule in any way he chooses for as long as he wants, this right deriving not from God (in whom he most assuredly does not believe) but from the Divines themselves, the aspiring permanent power elite. Don’t care for Obamacare? See how much you like the medical care in the gulags, swine! Don’t like giving the nod to Iran to make nukes? See how much you like being subjected to a course of re-education, infidel

Read more........

http://patriotupdate.com/articles/president-life-push-begins/

Anti-gun ‘Moms’ rooted in inexcusably irresponsible ignorance

November 30, 2013

One of the more unpleasant tasks of gun rights advocacy is keeping up with what the other side is saying. It’s a necessary evil because knowing what they are planning is key to mounting an effective defense. That said, immersing in the stupidity and lies is not easy on the soul, and it doesn’t wash off.
Keeping apprised can be accomplished in many ways, from visiting anti-gun group websites, to following such groups on social media, to signing up for their email alerts, and by reading what citizen disarmament promoters are writing on “progressive” sites like The Huffington Post, Media Matters, Think Progress and the like, as well as in mainstream press editorials and purportedly “straight news” stories.
Another source is books, and an old one recently came to my attention that I’d missed, one that shows the profound ignorance and arrogance of those who would impose their silly and unschooled demands on the rest of us under force of law. That book is “Looking for a Few Good Moms: How One Mother Rallied a Million Others Against the Gun Lobby,” by Donna Dees-Thomases, with a foreword by Dianne Feinstein.
Dees-Thomases was founder of the Million Mom March, now merged with the Brady Campaign. She actually provided the template for the Mayors Against Illegal Guns-affiliated Moms Demand Action by purporting to be just a grassroots housewife who’d finally had enough, but who was then revealed to be a politically-connected CBS publicist, a Democrat donor, a former press flack for two prominent Democrats, and the sister-in-law of one of Hillary Clinton’s confidantes. Likewise, Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts is hardly your typical homemaker.
And as with Watts, known to make such brain-dead claims as “An assault weapon enables humans to shoot 10 rounds in one minute,” and "We understand about the Second Amendment, but it was written in 1791, before AK47s [Perhaps she’s been talking to Piers Morgan?]," Dees-Thomases set the bar for leadership ignorance, particularly as it relates to founding intent.

Read more......

http://www.examiner.com/article/anti-gun-moms-rooted-inexcusably-irresponsible-ignorance?CID=examiner_alerts_article

The Extra-Constitutional President

December 2, 2013 by Bob Livingston 

In delaying portions of Obamacare, President Barack Obama — the undocumented usurper currently occupying the people’s house — has taken on powers not granted him under the Constitution.
This is very simple to understand, yet most people seem to be turning a blind eye to the fact.
Congress and Congress alone is empowered under the Constitution with writing the laws. The President is charged through his oath to carry them out. Article II, Section 1 reads:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my Ability; preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Since Obamacare was signed into law, Obama has changed it no fewer than five times. In instances where Congress has proposed making the same the change to Obamacare in order to give it the imprimatur of law, Obama has threatened to veto the very the thing he wants done.
And it’s not just Obamacare that Obama violates. He has also ignored or selectively enforced the Defense of Marriage Act and Federal immigration laws while watching — if not actually sanctioning — his misnamed Department of Justice as it ran roughshod over laws related to firearms trafficking, voting and civil rights.
Additionally, Obama has plundered the Federal Treasury to give multibillion-dollar payouts to his cronies under the guise of stimulus and “green” initiatives. These monies were turned around and plowed back into his campaign fund while the corporations receiving the funds went bankrupt.
Article II, Section 4 says, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Congress is abdicating its authority by ignoring the serial lawbreaking of the chief executive and not bringing him up on charges. It is complicit in turning the U.S. republic into an authoritarian banana republic under the high-sounding name of democracy.

http://personalliberty.com/2013/12/02/the-extra-constitutional-president/

See the Compelling Gun Company Ad Rejected by the NFL - After it Ran Gun Control Ads Last 2 Years

I personally will boycott watching the Superbowl or any ads they run this year  because of the NFL stance on the Daniel Defense Ad. Join me to have an impact on this organization pushing their anti-gun agenda.

The National Football League has been infested with political correctness, and the league has decided that a punchy and poignant ad promoting self-defense just doesn’t make the cut.
While the rejected commercial doesn’t mention selling firearms (the end spot makes it clear what is being sold by Daniel Defense), the message of the ad that must have touched a nerve with the nanny staters.
“My family’s safety is my highest priority. I am responsible for their protection,” the ad says. “And no one has the right to tell me how to defend them. So I’ve chosen the most effective tool for the job.”
The NFL says that it cannot run the ad because the NFL prohibits advertising firearms, ammunition or weapons during televised games. However, Guns & Ammo says that the ad did not violate league restrictions.

Guns & Ammo noted that “according to these guidelines, Daniel Defense’s Super Bowl commercial does not violate NFL policy for two reasons: (1) Daniel Defense has a brick-and-mortar store, where they sell products other than firearms such as apparel; (2) The commercial itself does not mention firearms, ammunition or weaponry.

Read more .....

http://www.ijreview.com/2013/12/98364-nfl-refuses-air-gun-company-ad-one-year-running-gun-control-spots/