Politics

The state of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is slowly getting worse … and the government has no plan to fix it

The foundation of America’s nuclear arsenal is fractured, and the government has no clear plan to repair it. The cracks appear not just in the military forces equipped with nuclear weapons but also in the civilian bureaucracy that controls them, justifies their cost, plans their future and is responsible for explaining a defense policy that says nuclear weapons are at once essential and excessive. It’s not clear that the government recognizes the full scope of the problem, which has wormed its way to the core of the nuclear weapons business without disturbing bureaucracies fixated on defending their own turf.

Obamacare Architect: ‘Lack of Transparency’ Was Key To Fooling ‘Stupid Americans’

In a newly uncovered video, Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber admits that a “lack of transparency” was key in getting the Affordable Care Act passed because “the stupidity of the American voter” would have otherwise killed the bill. From 2009-2010 Gruber, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, served as a technical consultant to the Obama Administration during which time he helped craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. During a recent panel discussion, Gruber explained that the characterization of the individual mandate as a tax, which led to the Supreme Court upholding it as such, was not actually a tax at all.

Election analysis: Now Obama truly is a lame duck

Now, President Barack Obama must limp into his final two years in office. All second-term presidents lose considerable clout at this mark. But Obama’s time as a lame duck comes amid a political climate so fractured that compromise with Congress is all but impossible.

Feds Release ‘Election Eve Dump’: 64,280 Pages From Fast and Furious

The Justice Department has handed over to House investigators 64,280 pages of documents related to the notoriously botched Operation Fast and Furious — data President Barack Obama had claimed was exempt from congressional review. Calling the information an “election eve dump,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa on Tuesday hailed the hand-over. “This production is nonetheless a victory for the legislative branch, a victory for transparency, and a victory for efforts to check Executive Branch power,” Issa said in a statement.

Boehner: ‘Jobs and Energy Bills’ Come First; No Mention of Obamacare

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), declaring himself “humbled” by Tuesday night’s many Republican wins, says it’s not time to celebrate, it’s time to pass jobs, energy, tax and regulatory reform bills: “It’s time for government to start getting results and implementing solutions to the challenges facing our country, starting with our still-struggling economy,” Boehner said in a statement. “Americans can expect the new Congress to debate and vote soon on the many common-sense jobs and energy bills that passed the Republican-led House in recent years with bipartisan support but were never even brought to a vote by the outgoing Senate majority, as well as solutions offered by Senate Republicans that were denied consideration.

Scorecard: How The Candidates Who Hillary Clinton Campaigned For Did At The Polls

Likely Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton actively supported more than 25 candidates in the midterms, but half of those candidates found themselves on the losing side of their races by the end of Tuesday night. In some cases, Clinton made public appearances with the candidate; in others, she attended fundraisers. The most stinging losses for Clinton were in Kentucky and Arkansas, where both Democratic Senate candidates relied on Clinton to get southern Democrats to the polls.

IRS Commissioner Predicts Miserable 2015 Tax Filing Season

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen warned that close to half the people trying to reach the IRS by phone might not get through during the upcoming 2015 tax filing season. “Phone service could plummet to 53%,” he told an audience of tax practitioners at the AICPA National Tax Conference in Washington, D.C.

Touch Screen Flips Votes in Key Senate Race

The trustworthiness of electronic voting machines has once again come under scrutiny after a touch screen in North Carolina flipped a man’s vote from Democrat to Republican in a key Senate race. “Percy Bostick, 69, of Greensboro said he tried casting a vote for Democrat Kay Hagan at the Old Guilford County Courthouse, only to have the machine register Republican Thom Tillis as his choice,” reports the News-Record. Bostick was forced to vote four times before the machine accurately recorded his choice.

Cybersecurity Experts: ‘Donald Duck Could Be Elected’ Because Of Shoddy Electronic Voting System

Cybersecurity experts have warned that a highly flawed and vulnerable electronic voting system in Alaska could, by itself, swing the entire outcome of the mid-term elections and decide whether Democrats remain in control of the Senate. A report from The Intercept highlights how easy hackers could intercept and change electronic ballots before they are counted by county elections departments in the Last Frontier State. The report notes that thousands of voters will register electronically to receive a PDF ballot on their computer.

Former CBS News Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Says That Obama Has An Enemies List

Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative journalist who became the story when she quit CBS News after two decades amid allegations that the network refused to run some of her stories that were critical of President Barack Obama. Ahead of the Tuesday release of her book Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington, she spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about her struggles with CBS executives and her assertion that her computers were hacked, possibly by Obama operatives.

The Case Against Gun Control – Part I

(The following is a guest commentary contributed by J.Vanne) “Quemadmoeum gladuis neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.”(A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killer’s hands.

Obama Orders Insurance Industry to Withhold New Prices Until AFTER Midterm Elections

There is also something different with these cancellations, something that has never happened before in the healthcare insurance industry. Past practice has always been that the next year’s new rates are released 60 days before the first day of the next year. But Obama has mandated that companies hold back on that normal practice so that he can shield Democrats at the polls.

Undercover video shows North Carolina poll workers offering ballots to ineligible impostor – TWENTY TIMES – putting voter ID battle on the front burner

North Carolina election officials repeatedly offered ballots last week to an impostor who arrived at polling places with the names and addresses of ‘inactive’ voters who hadn’t participated in elections for many years. No fraudulent votes were actually cast: It was the latest undercover video sting from conservative activist James O’Keefe, whose filmmaking résumé reads like a target list of liberal causes.

10 Examples Of The Extreme Incompetence That Now Pervades The Federal Government

There has always been a substantial level of incompetence at federal agencies, but under the Obama administration incompetence has risen to unprecedented levels. This year the incompetence of the Secret Service, the Veterans Administration, the Department of Homeland Security and the CDC have all made national headlines. And it is hard to forget how the launch of Obamacare was such a failure that it became a global joke.

Quarantined Nurse Kaci Hickox Misled Public – Works for CDC – Her Attorney was White House Visitor

Kaci Hickox has gotten a lot of mileage out of her emotion-packed description of her ordeal with screening and monitoring of individuals entering or returning to this country from Ebola stricken West Africa, her criticism of forced quarantine and the claim of civil rights violations. But, it might be more mileage than she originally intended. In her article for The Dallas News, Hickox claimed that she worked with Doctors Without Borders caring for Ebola stricken individuals in West Africa.

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