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Thursday, December 22, 2016

BOOMERS' SOCIAL SECURITY CHECKS BEING GARNISHED FOR UNPAID STUDENT LOANS

BOOMERS' SOCIAL SECURITY CHECKS BEING GARNISHED FOR UNPAID STUDENT LOANS
BY BOB ADELMANN
 
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its report on student loan repayments on Tuesday, revealing that 114,000 Americans age 50 and over had their Social Security checks garnished (the GAO calls them “offsets"), including 38,000 over age 65. In total the government recovered $171 million from this group last year, putting many of them into poverty.
Under the law, students loans cannot be washed away in a bankruptcy, with rare exceptions. When a loan goes into default, the government has the power to reduce a person's Social Security checks by up to 15 percent, or about $140 every month.
That’s enough of a reduction to push some Social Security beneficiaries below the official poverty level of $990 a month.
In other words, the promise of the student loan program — that workers with new degrees and better skills would help the economy by making them more productive, allowing them to obtain better paying jobs — is instead impoverishing an increasing number of those borrowers who bought the line.

The GAO reports that the student loan program has loaned $1.3 trillion to borrowers. Now, however, the Department of Education, which oversees the program, is caught trying to balance the needs of the borrowers increasingly defaulting and the taxpayers who are on the hook when they do.
Liberal politicians have gotten into the act, specifically Senators Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Upon reading the report, McCaskill stated, “The growth [in the number of seniors defaulting on student loan debt] is stunning. I believe this is the tip of the iceberg of what may be to come if we don’t work harder on the problem.”
Warren called the garnishments “predatory” and said that she would offer legislation next year to end them altogether.
These, it must be said, are the typical responses to problems created by the politicians themselves.
Of the $140 taken from their checks, 70 percent goes to fees and interest, with the remaining 30 percent being applied to the outstanding balance. This guarantees that many Boomers will die long before their student loans are paid off.
This is another example of the unintended consequences of a government program allegedly designed to help people but winding up hurting them instead — while also exceeding the bounds and limits set by the Constitution. Nowhere in that document is there mention of any powers given to the national government to offer student loans to young people seeking better opportunities.
But the new reality leaves an increasing number of Boomers impoverished and creates an increasing risk to taxpayers backstopping student loan defaults.

NEW YORK TIMES' FAKE NEWS THAT ELECTORAL COLLEGE WAS CREATED TO PROTECT SLAVERY

NEW YORK TIMES' FAKE NEWS THAT ELECTORAL COLLEGE WAS CREATED TO PROTECT SLAVERY 
BY STEVE BYAS
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
In its zeal to abolish the Electoral College, the New York Times has chosen to repeat the falsehood that the institution was created to protect the interests of the slave-holding states.
In a December 19 article entitled "Time to End the Electoral College," the newspaper argues that the Electoral College is an “antiquated mechanism” for electing the president. And of course in support of its position, it makes the usual arguments, such as that Americans would prefer to elect the president by popular vote. “For most reasonable people, it’s hard to understand why the loser of the popular vote should wind up running the country,” the Times insists.
Taking that sentence apart, the writer insinuates that anyone who favors keeping the Electoral College is not a “reasonable” person. Second, the writer implies that Democrat Hillary Clinton, the Times' preferred candidate, won the popular vote. Considering that candidates — including Clinton — are not campaigning to win the popular vote, but rather the Electoral College vote, the “popular vote” is not necessarily indicative of what it would have been if the candidates were trying to win it. After all, a football game plan would be quite different if field goals counted four points instead of three, or if total yardage were the way a winner was determined, rather than touchdowns, field goals, and safeties. Besides all that, it takes a majority of the electoral vote to win the presidency, not just a plurality. Clinton did run first in the popular vote, but she did not win a majority of the popular vote. If the country opted to go to a popular vote system, one would think that we would want a candidate who actually won a majority of that vote, that is, if the “will of the majority” is considered so important to detractors of the Electoral College, such as the New York Times.

And what’s this about “running the country?” Certainly, the president of the United States is a powerful figure, but he or she is not given the power in the Constitution to “run the country.” The president is the chief executive of the U.S. government and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but that person has no more power to tell a private citizen what to do than anyone else. There are fortunately still many things that happen in our society that neither the president nor any governmental person, at any level has any authority to decide. However, the desire for a president chosen by national popular vote is quite compatible with the modern drift toward an imperial presidency. Witness how many civilians routinely refer to the president as “my commander-in-chief,” even though that term refers only to the president's role in command of America’s armed forces.
But perhaps the worst argument made by the Times in its denunciation of the Electoral College — and really about the founding of the country itself — is that the Electoral College was created to perpetuate the institution of slavery. The newspaper calls it a “living symbol of America’s original sin.”
The Times argues, “When slavery was the law of the land, a direct popular vote would have disadvantaged the Southern states, with their large disenfranchised populations. Counting those men and women as three-fifths of a white person, as the Constitution originally did, gave the slave states more electoral votes.”
The reality is that the creation of the electoral vote system was to protect states with smaller populations from domination by states with larger populations. The writer of the Times’ editorial is either historically ignorant, or is deliberately deceptive. Virginian James Madison was among the leaders at the Constitutional Convention in bringing forth a plan for congressional representation that would give more votes in Congress to the more populated states, replacing the system then in use by the Articles of Confederation, in which each state had one vote in Congress, regardless of its population.
The proposal was, in fact, called the “Virginia Plan.” It would have created a two-house legislative branch, with both houses chosen according to a state’s population. At the time, Virginia was by far the most populous state, with 747,610 persons counted in the first federal census of 1790. Even if the slave population had been subtracted from this count, Virginia still had 454,983 persons, far greater than Massachusetts, the next most heavily populated state with 378,787.
Yet, the Times falsely asserts that “a direct popular vote would have disadvantaged the Southern states.” But the two largest states, Virginia, which had almost 300,000 slaves, and Massachusetts, which had none, both favored the Virginia Plan in the early days of the convention. Clearly, slavery had little to do with the Great Compromise, which created one house (the House of Representatives) wherein a state's number of representatives would be determined by population.
Another common misunderstanding, repeated by the Times, is that the Constitution counted slaves as three-fifths of a “white person,” and that this provision “gave the slave states more electoral votes.” The apportionment of representatives in the House of Representatives was determined by all persons — not just voters — living in a state, which would include all legal residents, whether man, woman or child, citizen or non-citizens, white or black, who were living within the borders of a particular state. The states with large slave populations wanted all the slaves counted, so as to give themselves a greater representation in the House of Representatives. In contrast, it was the states with smaller numbers of slaves (only two states had no slaves at the time of the first federal census) that objected to counting any of the slaves.
So the Three-Fifths Compromise was not to give the slave states more representation, but rather to reduce some of the impact of counting larger slave populations found in the South. And it is also important to note that the wording of the Constitution was not “three-fifths of a white person,” but rather three-fifths of non-slaves. At the time of the Constitution’s adoption, there were thousands of free blacks, whose numbers were not fractionalized by that compromise.
What does all this have to do with the Electoral College?
Under the Constitution, no national elections were contemplated — not for Congress, and not for the president. Because the government created by the Constitution was to be a federal republic, the states were expected to elect both the Congress and the president. The selection of the president by electors followed the pattern of the people in the states electing members of the House of Representatives and the state legislatures of each state choosing the members of the Senate. Each state would be entitled to two U.S. senators, regardless of its population, and each state would be allowed to choose a number of representatives, according to its population determined after each decennial federal census.
The delegates did not want Congress to choose the president because this would make him a creature of that body, and would lessen his ability to check its power. Therefore, the delegates created a system wherein the states would choose electors who would then choose the president. How many electors would each state receive? It was determined, in keeping with the Great Compromise earlier in the Convention, that each state legislature could choose, by whatever method they so determined, a number of electors equal to their combined numbers of representatives and senators. The electors would not meet as a national body, but rather in their state capitals. The term “Electoral College” was a later invention. Over the course of time the system has evolved, and today presidential electors are chosen by state popular vote, and not by a national popular vote. The election of the president is just as democratic as the election of the House of Representatives, or the election of the Senate. In short, it is a good example of the form of government created by the Constitution: a federal republic.
Writing in the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton described the system devised for electing the president through electors, though not perfect, as “excellent.” He stated, “The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents.”
And it had nothing to do with slavery.

LIBERALS STOCKPILING GUNS, AMMO IN PREPARATION FOR "TRUMP APOCALYPSE"

LIBERALS STOCKPILING GUNS, AMMO IN PREPARATION FOR "TRUMP APOCALYPSE" 
 Anti-Trump left joining gun clubs out of fear of Trump!
BY JAMIE WHITE
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
The election of Donald Trump has prompted panicked liberals to stockpile guns and ammunition in anticipation of “societal collapse.”
Lara Smith, national spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club, says her organization has seen a “huge” rise in enquiries since November’s election and a 10% increase in paid members.
US gun sales hit record levels in October amid fears a Hillary Clinton election victory would lead to draconian gun control measures.

The election of Donald Trump, who was backed by the National Rifle Association early on, was thought to bring an end to panic buying. Shares in gun manufacturers even dropped by as much as 18% following his victory.
Instead, FBI background checks for gun transactions soared to a new record for a single day – 185,713 – during the Black Friday sales on 25 November, according to gun control news site The Trace.
Since November’s election, 28-year-old nursing student Clara has started going to gun ranges and is shopping around for a semi-automatic pistol.
“I’ve been seeing the way that Trump’s election has mobilized a lot of the far right and given them hope,” she said to BBC, claiming that neo-Nazi activity is on the rise. “Things are already escalating and they will continue to do so and me not engaging or being prepared to defend my friends by force… isn’t going to stop people from being attacked or harassed.”
Ironically, liberals are beginning to realize that guns are a reasonable measure of defense, even though their belief that a Trump presidency endangers their lives is mistaken.
Indeed, they probably believe they should be able to buy up all the guns they want while also demanding the disarmament of white people.
Considering the deluge of death threats from liberals that President-elect Trump received with no repercussions, the idea of liberals suddenly buying up guns is a concerning development.

JUDAS GLENN BECK MAKES ANTI TRUMP ALLIANCE WITH FAR LEFT

JUDAS GLENN BECK MAKES ANTI TRUMP ALLIANCE WITH FAR LEFT

Glenn Beck Exposed as Obama Agent 

 Published on Apr 26, 2014

Alex takes on the Leftist media that is cowardly attacking patriots across the country and the plan to demonize those who lean towards patriotism. http://www.infowars.com/judas-goat-gl...

Judas Goat Glenn Beck Works For Obama and CFR 

Published on Apr 26, 2014
Judas Goat Glenn Beck Colludes With CIA and CFR to Take Down Patriot Movement
Glenn Beck, who fancies himself a libertarian, is working with corporate media insiders and a former CIA employee who flaunts his membership in the globalist Council on Foreign Relations. The objective of this group at the very heart of Beck's operation, now readily apparent following the Cliven Bundy standoff, is to portray the Nevada rancher as a racist zealot, a member of a dangerous and outlaw sovereign citizen movement, and inseparable from violent and conspiracy crazed "militia" domestic terrorists. Beck's campaign mirrors that of the Obama administration, Eric Holder's Justice Department and the liberal media intelligentsia.
MORE
http://www.infowars.com/judas-goat-gl...

 


PLANNED PARENTHOOD "VIOLATED LAW" SAYS TEXAS

PLANNED PARENTHOOD "VIOLATED LAW" SAYS TEXAS 
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
breitbart.com

The State of Texas gave Planned Parenthood the boot on Tuesday saying it would no longer allow it to participate in the Medicaid program in the Lone Star State. The agency supervising the program ripped the abortion provider for its stated violations of state and federal law and ethics, including deviating from acceptable medical standards and procedures to procure research samples, and stated “a willingness to charge more than the costs incurred for procuring fetal tissue.”

A notice letter from the Office of Inspector General of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) sent to Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates on December 20 stated, “you are not qualified to provide medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner under the relevant provisions of state and federal law pertaining to Medicaid providers.”
The OIG writes the Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates saying, “The basis for your termination and the termination of your affiliates stems from an extensive undercover video obtained by the Center for Medical Progress at the Planned Parenthood Gulf Freeway facility in April 2015, which contains evidence that Planned Parenthood violated state and federal law. The evidence arises from detailed discussions with the Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s staff. In addition, the United States House of Representatives’ Select Investigative Panel (House Investigative Panel) uncovered evidence consistent with and supportive of this termination.”
The Investigative Panel referred the evidence it found to the Texas Attorney General on December 1, 2016, as reported by Breitbart News.
The OIG says the “unedited video footage indicates that Planned Parenthood follows a policy of agreeing to procure fetal tissue, potentially for valuable consideration, even if it means altering the timing or method of an abortion. These practices violate accepted medical standards, as reflected in federal and state law, and are Medicaid program violations that justify termination.”
The OIG said that the undercover video taken at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston “reveals numerous violations of generally accepted standards of medical practice.” They detail the examples in their letter saying the violations include:
  1. a history of deviating from accepted standards to procure samples that meet researcher’s needs;
  2. a history of permitting staff physicians to alter procedures to obtain targeted tissue samples needed for their specific outside research;
  3. a willingness to convert normal pregnancies to the breech position to ensure researchers receive intact specimens;
  4. an admission that “we get what we need to do to alter the standard of care where we are still maintaining patient safety, still maintaining efficiency in clinic operations, but we integrate research into it”;
  5. an admission that Planned Parenthood gets requests for “information from our study sponsor on what data they need that is not our standard of care,” and that you provide what is needed by creating a separate research protocol or template that can include medically unnecessary testing; and
  6. willingness to charge more than the costs incurred for procuring fetal tissue.
It is a violation of the law to sell fetal remains for profit. The sale or purchase of human fetal tissue is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to $500,000 (42 U.S.C. 289g-2), as previously reported by Breitbart News.
The damning letter of the OIG also stated that “HHSC-IG has evidence that you engaged in misrepresentations about your activity related to fetal tissue procurements, as revealed by evidence provided by the House Investigative Panel.”
As reported by Breitbart Texas, the OIG sent the final notice letter to: Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas/Planned Parenthood of North Texas, Planned Parenthood in San Antonio and Cameron and Willacy Counties, and the Planned Parenthood South Texas Surgical Center. The letter has been attached below.
The OIG of the HHSC issued an order in October 2015, banning Planned Parenthood from participating in Medicaid programs, as reported by Breitbart Texas at the time. The action notified Planned Parenthood that its affiliates in Texas would have their Medicaid participation cut-off for alleged Medicaid violations. The letter also called for the end to funding by state and local taxpayers of other abortion providers.
Last fiscal year (FY2015) Planned Parenthood affiliates across Texas received $4,223,598.69 in Medicaid funding.
The termination of Planned Parenthood’s enrollment in Texas means, as set out in the OIG’s letter, that Planned Parenthood’s contract with the Texas Medicaid program is “nullified on the effective date of the termination.”
Breitbart News reported on August 4, 2015, that “A video just released by the Center for Medical Progress taken undercover in Texas shows a Planned Parenthood research director discussing the sale of whole intact aborted babies to a company that resells them to medical researchers.” The video was of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s Director of Research Melissa Farrell. PPGC is a mega-abortion facility located in Houston. One of the claims that Farrell makes on the tape is that PPGC in Houston has more revenue from research proceeds than all the other Planned Parenthood facilities combined.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick publicly condemned the video, and asked Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson to conduct an investigation, as reported by Breitbart Texas. Anderson never brought an indictment against the mega-abortion provider; instead, the grand jury indicted the undercover videographers David Daleiden and Susan (Sandra) Merritt for felony tampering with a government record (a false drivers license). Daleiden was also indicted for the misdemeanor charge of offering to buy fetal tissue. The charges were later dismissed by a judge. Anderson lost her election in November 2016 after she had offended pro-lifers and jailed a rape victim in order to guarantee her testimony at trial, as reported by Breitbart Texas.
Planned Parenthood may appeal the Medicaid enrollment termination if it files a written request with HHSC-IG asking for an administrative hearing on or before the 15th day after they received the final notice of termination. If HHSC-IG does not receive a timely written response from them by that date, the final notice of termination will be unappealable.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD FACING CRIMINAL PROSECUTION BY TRUMP'S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

PLANNED PARENTHOOD FACING CRIMINAL PROSECUTION BY TRUMP'S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 By 
        NWV Senior Political News Writer, Jim Kouri 
Posted 1:00 AM EasternDecember 22, 2016
     Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter 
        to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey referring 
        four Planned 
        Parenthood affiliates in California and three fetal tissue brokers 
        for investigation and possible criminal prosecution. While the current 
        Attorney General Loretta Lynch isn't budging on the Obama administration's 
        disregard for the unborn, many believe that after the January 20 inauguration 
        of President Donald Trump there will be legal action against those involved 
        in the sordid practices of Planned Parenthood.
Following the investigation of Planned Parenthood as the result of the release of a series of videos by citizen journalist David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee obtained additional evidence revealing that Planned Parenthood, its affiliates, and the fetal tissue traffickers have violated the federal ban on buying and selling the body parts of unborn babies.
Moreover, the Judiciary Committee discovered that Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Department of Justice are refusing to enforce the federal fetal tissue trafficking statute, failing to prosecute even one entity under the law, despite substantial evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
The Committee's investigation found that the following entities engaged in the purchase and sale of baby body parts for profit: “I don’t take lightly making a criminal referral. But, the seeming disregard for the law by these entities has been fueled by decades of utter failure by the Justice Department to enforce it,” Grassley said. “And, unless there is a renewed commitment by everyone involved against commercializing the trade in aborted fetal body parts for profit, then the problem is likely to continue.”
StemExpress, LLC;
Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc.;
Novogenix Laboratories, LLC;
Planned Parenthood Mar Monte;
Planned Parenthood Los Angeles;
Planned Parenthood Northern California; and
Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest.
The Senate Judiciary Committee also found evidence of conspiracy between Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates, since PPFA knew about the violations and changed oversight procedures in order to allow the violations to continue. The Judiciary Committee's findings are available in a Majority Staff Report published this month.
Planned Parenthood Mar Monte is the largest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the nation, operating 33 facilities in California and Nevada and taking in over $96 million annually. The four affiliates referred for prosecution represent over $263 million in annual revenue.
"Life Legal Defense Foundation looks forward to the confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions as [President Donald Trump's] new U.S. Attorney General," stated the group's executive director, Ms. Alexandra Snyder. "Senator Sessions currently sits on the Judiciary Committee and we anticipate that he will thoroughly investigate Planned Parenthood's activities and prosecute the affiliates to the fullest extent of the law."
If not for David Daleiden's videos, Congress would not have initiated investigations into Planned Parenthood's business model that includes profiting from the sale of fetal organs and tissues. We would not have seen firsthand the cavalier and callous manner in which the abortion industry discusses the dismemberment of innocent human beings.
"Daleiden's heroic efforts to expose the multi-billion-dollar corporate abortion industry have not come without a great personal cost. He continues to battle four separate lawsuits filed against him by some of the very entities that are on the prosecution referral list," noted Life Legal's press statement.
Life Legal represents David in three lawsuits filed by StemExpress, the National Abortion Federation, and Planned Parenthood. All of the Planned Parenthood affiliates referred for prosecution are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, as is StemExpress. Another Planned Parenthood affiliate, PP Gulf Coast in Texas, is also a plaintiff and was referred for prosecution by the House Select Panel investigating Planned Parenthood's role in the fetal tissue trade.
While Hillary Clinton served as the Obama administration’s Secretary of State, Planned Parenthood, which is now in the midst of a gruesome scandal, had gone to Mrs. Clinton with their hats in their hands requesting and receiving millions and millions of taxpayer dollars from foreign policy agencies over the past few years, according to a news reports on Thursday.
As the nation’s top diplomat, Mrs. Clinton attacked government policies that ban federal funding of abortion overseas. As a result, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a major bureau within the State Department, funneled upwards of $100 million to Planned Parenthood and its international affiliates between 2010 and 2012, according to the Government Accountability Office. Pro-abortion organizations received up to 20 percent of the half-billion dollars received from taxpayers unbeknownst to the 52 percent of Americans who claim they are pro-life.
 “Mrs. Clinton knew darn well that federal funding of abortions is prohibited even under Obamacare which was passed in 2010. Yet, here we see money from the State Department — hardly a healthcare agency — channeling money to the liberal-left’s greatest achievement which is the killing of unborn and defenseless babies,” said former police officer and corruption investigator Iris Aquino.

Hillary Clinton has reportedly received close to $70,000 in campaign contributions from Planned Parenthood and its employees. Clinton has spoken to Planned Parenthood on a number of occasions. In 2014, Clinton was honored with the organization’s Margaret Sanger award. One of the biggest cover ups in U.S. history is the racism of Sanger and her ideology some compared to 1930’s European fascism.
Also, arguably one of the most liberal courts in the nation which is in the city of Los Angeles gave Stem Express — which has been identified as a company that procures body parts of aborted infants from Planned Parenthood — a temporary injunction forbidding the release of more videos obtained by undercover journalists from the Center for Medical Progress. CMP had recorded conversations with Stem Express officials at a meeting in a public restaurant during which the unborn babies’ body parts were discussed.