Stop OgbjmaCare's Individual Mandate, It's A Tax : Tax Bill Must Repeal The Mandate!

Now that the Senate is moving forward with the tax reform bill, the pressure from the progressive socialist liberal democrats will become much stronger, more depraved and more pathologically divisive. It's just who the are and always been and will always be. They are not nice people. The wish to do us harm just to get and keep power. They are the enemy of the people.

The main thrust of the liberals democrats agenda in attacking the tax reform bill, and what the fear the most is a Republican success story. If the bill finally is passed into law and the economy actually can be seen as rebounding  to help everyone's personnel financial situation, even more then it is right now, the socialist democrats are toast in 2018 and for decades to come.

And as a side note, if Supreme Court Justice Kennedy retires and Trump gets to pick another member of the high court, the fall-back position of having the courts to do their bidding when the legislature fails to enact socialist laws and regulation, the liberal socialist democrats will know their chances for destroying the country as founded, and rebuilding it as Barack envisioned, will be gone for generations.

And that's a good thing for national unity and national security.

Why Eliminating Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Should Be Part of Tax Reform
Rachel Greszler / November 27, 2017

Obamacare’s individual mandate survived the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling on the Affordable Care Act solely because the court interpreted the insurance requirement as a “tax.”

But now that Republicans in the Senate have included repealing—or zeroing out—this “tax” as part of tax reform, Democrats are crying foul play, accusing Republicans of trying to wrongly include their health care goals in tax reform.

As a “tax,” it makes sense for Congress to address Obamacare’s individual mandate within the context of tax reform. “The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress’s power under the commerce clause,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the Supreme Court’s decision, because Congress can only regulate interstate commerce—not order individuals to engage in it. Roberts added:

In this case, however, it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.
A primary goal of tax reform is to let Americans keep more of their own hard-earned money. After all, most Americans will agree that they can spend their own money better than government can.

Zeroing out the individual mandate would put between $695 and $13,100 of individuals’ and families’ earnings back into their pockets if they decide it is not beneficial for them to purchase the type of health insurance that Obamacare requires.

Tax reform is also about reducing the government’s undue influence over people’s personal choices, so that they are freer to work, invest, and spend more of their own money based on what’s best for them.

For many individuals, buying overpriced and highly regulated health insurance through Obamacare is not a sensible use of their hard-earned money. That’s why, according to the IRS, 6.2 million Americans decided to pay Obamacare’s uninsured penalty, or “tax,” in 2015; and 12.7 million obtained exemptions from it. Another 4.3 million people refused—without consequence—to tell the Internal Revenue Service whether or not they have insurance coverage.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that repealing or zeroing out the individual mandate penalty would increase the number of uninsured individuals by 13 million in 2027, but less than half of that increase—5 million—would come from people abandoning their individual and Obamacare plans. Another 5 million would drop their virtually free Medicaid coverage, and 2 million would choose to give up their employment-based coverage. (Figures don’t add due to rounding.)

Those decisions are for individuals to make, absent government-imposed penalties or “taxes” on their personal choices.

The individual mandate has a particularly disparate impact on lower-income Americans. Of those who paid the individual mandate penalty in 2014 and 2015, 42 percent were families making less than $25,000 a year, and 82 percent made less than $50,000 a year.

Since this is a regressive “tax” that forces individuals to buy something they don’t want, tax reform aimed at providing lower- and middle-income tax relief is the perfect place to fix the problem.

Congress should eliminate Obamacare’s “tax” on uninsured individuals and use the additional $338 billion in revenues to reduce rates across the board, so that all Americans can keep more of their own money.

Senate Republicans Move Tax Reform Forward : Debate Starts Now

As of the news of yesterday, the Republicans in the Senate, on a straight Republican vote, no socialist liberal democrat soldiers, have actually taken the first step to pass the tax reform bill by bring it to debate.

But what I want to see is spending cuts as well. Make it mandatory, for every two dollars of spending proposed, allocated, one dollar must be targeted as a reduction. Along with the spending cuts, the OgbjmaCare mandate to buy healthcare provision must be added to this reform. 

And if this isn't brought up during debate, them someone has to step forward to demand this catastrophic nightmare be eradicated for the good of our healthcare system and the country.

After Months of Inaction, Senate Republicans Must Seize Chance to Pass Tax Reform

Mike Needham / @MikeNeedham / November 28, 2017

After nearly 11 months of careening from one disappointment to another, Congress is on the verge of a major breakthrough on tax reform.

I won’t begrudge you if you’re pessimistic, but past performance does not always indicate future results. And when it comes to the aptly named Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, there is reason for legitimate optimism.

Heritage Action for America intends to key vote in favor of the Senate proposal, as currently drafted, that has been ably constructed by the Senate Finance Committee with input from a broad spectrum of the Senate Republican Conference.

By now, the arguments in favor of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are familiar: tax cuts for most Americans, including a big win for the middle and working class; increased long-run gross domestic product by 2.8 percent with the potential for nearly 1 million new jobs; the elimination of the unfair and misguided state and local tax deduction; and the elimination of Obamacare’s draconian individual mandate.

As the Senate prepares to vote this week, there are a variety of small issues that could be tweaked or fine-tuned to make the bill even better. However, there are two broad issues that have the potential to delay or even grind legislative progress to a stop.

Most notably, a handful of senators are raising concerns about the impact of tax cuts on our nation’s $20 trillion debt. Even if you assume zero economic growth—a laughable assumption given that prominent economists believe these reforms could boost economic growth by 3 to 4 percent in the long run—the Senate bill would reduce federal tax confiscation by less than 3.5 percent over the next decade.

When economic growth is taken into account, that number shrinks dramatically. But the larger point is that the federal government cannot tax its way to fiscal responsibility.

Reining in profligate spending ranging from old-age entitlements and mandatory programs to hundred billion-dollar annual budget deals is the only way to restore fiscal sanity. Conservatives are eager to work with congressional deficit hawks to do just that, but the American people will be reluctant to go along until they feel economically secure in a way they have not since the Great Recession.

Passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act can help make our economy great again, allowing for a robust discussion of America’s costly and ineffective social safety net.

Another issue is the treatment of small businesses. As my Heritage Foundation colleague Adam Michel explained last week, small and pass-through businesses are not being left behind in the Senate’s tax reform proposal. Pass-through entities not only receive a rate cut, but most will be offered a 17.4 percent deduction.

Michel notes that “[a]round 86 percent of pass-through businesses are taxed at the new 24 percent rate, putting their effective tax rate after the deduction at 19.8 percent.”

We would love to see larger tax cuts, but the constraints imposed by the budget process and the aforementioned deficit hawks require trade-offs.

While not perfect, this bill most certainly represents what President Ronald Reagan would call “half a loaf.” Many politicians invoke our nation’s 40th president as an intellectually lazy crutch, but considering the last major reform of our tax code occurred at his behest, it’s worth considering his “half a loaf” comment in context:

I’m not retreating an inch from where I was. But I also recognize this: There are some people who would have you so stand on principle that if you don’t all that you’ve asked for from the legislature, why, you jump off the cliff with the flag flying.

I have always figured that half a loaf is better than none, and I know that in the democratic process you’re not going to always get everything you want. … [A] little delayed in starting, was better than going down fighting and not getting anything at all.

He made those comments in 1983, discussing the negotiations leading to the enactment of his 1981 tax cuts. Reagan also added, “I [can] come back and I ask for more the next time around.” And we know he did, multiple times, culminating in the 1986 tax reform package.

Republicans have had unified control of the federal government—the House, Senate, and White House—for only seven years since the 1930s. To say this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity is an understatement.

America cannot afford for congressional Republicans to miss this opportunity by careening down another legislative canyon.

The ''Deep State'' Revealed At The CFPB : A Self Directed, All Powerful Entity

The corruption in our government seems to be systemic and pervasively dangerous. And it seems the slide from just the normal what is understood to be a dysfunctional government of a public organization, has become a rogue national security risk. 

It  really started with the election of ''The One'' who whose campaign back in 2008 was 'change we can believe in', Barack Ogbjma and the religious insurgence of the progressive socialist liberals.

Barack's election released the darkest elements of the progressive socialist liberals that have for decades, for the most part, had been operating in the shadows, reeking havoc in all departments and agencies of the government, the 'shadow government' with past entrenched socialist soldiers.

But once the 'most transparent president' in history took office, the socialist criminal element came out into the open believing they had a mandate and didn't need to hide any longer, to ''transform'' the country as Barack said he would and did. 

What we see now, along with a corrupted government, is also an unhinged media that can be seen as mentally diseased, morally corrupted by Barack's religious jihad to change the country and a willingness for his socialist disciples embedded in the mainstream media, as well as in all government agencies, to carry on his work to bring down the republic as founded that is the foundation of  our Constitutional government.

And then Barack plans when he becomes Sectary General of the United Nations,  to replace it with a centralized all powerful religious theocracy led by Barack and his ilk in the socialist collective and from believers around the world as directed from the United Nations.

Individual freedom will be seen as a corruption that needs to be eradicated.

This Obama-Created Agency’s Power Shows the Danger of the Deep State
Jarrett Stepman / @JarrettStepman / November 28, 2017

Never let a crisis go to waste. The kerfuffle at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB—an often overlooked consumer watchdog agency created during the Obama administration—is a perfect illustration of how the administrative state has become a menace to constitutional government.

The CFPB re-emerged as a focus of controversy last week when its director, Richard Cordray, stepped down to run for governor in Ohio. President Donald Trump then nominated Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, a longtime critic of the CFPB, to replace Cordray temporarily until a new permanent director could be selected. The problem was that Cordray had picked his own successor, Leandra English, to serve out the rest of his term. He cited a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act that says the deputy director “shall … serve as the acting director in the absence or unavailability of the director” until such time as the Senate confirms a new director.

Mulvaney arrived at the CFPB on Monday and assumed control as acting director. English responded by suing him and the president.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has been one of the CFPB’s key champions, essentially called Trump’s Mulvaney appointment lawless and claimed that the agency has the right to choose its own director under the Dodd-Frank Act. But this isn’t so. Heritage Foundation’s John Malcolm writes that the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 ensures that the president “can designate any Senate-confirmed official (which would include Mulvaney) to perform the duties of a vacant federal office in an acting capacity for a statutorily limited period of time.”

Not only that, but preventing the president from determining his own appointment, in this case, would likely violate Article II of the Constitution, which gives the president ultimate authority to hire and fire executive branch officials. In other words, the president is fully within his rights to choose who serves under him, at least at the agency head level.

This assessment proved to be true on Tuesday, when a federal court threw out English’s case against the administration. Let’s take a moment to assess the absurdity of this situation.

Not only did the executive branch basically sue itself, but English essentially argued that the CFPB can be self-replicating and can choose its own director, outside of the president’s (or basically anyone’s) control. For a day it appeared there were essentially two acting CFPB directors, which a Wall Street Journal editorial mockingly compared to the Catholic Church having two popes in 1378 due to internal squabbles.

This should all be eye-opening to those who don’t believe that unaccountable, bureaucratic governance is not an inherent threat to the American constitutional order.

While there are certainly plenty of policy grounds for attacking the CFPB, this situation opens up the larger question of whether we really live in a system of limited government as created by the Founders. English’s presumption of authority, and even the CFPB’s very existence, show how far we’ve drifted from the Founders’ vision of government that is accountable to the people.

The CFPB is operating as if a single agency can be created, dropped into the executive branch, imbued with an extraordinary and sometimes nearly absolute power over the everyday lives of Americans, and be made entirely immune from both the democratic will of the people and their elected leaders. This isn’t some crazy scenario cooked up by conservatives who don’t like what the CFPB does. One of the CFPB’s chief architects basically admitted this is the case.

“When we wrote the law creating the CFPB … we deliberately tried to give it some protection from the normal political process,” former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said on CNN. “Because we knew that fighting the large financial interests on behalf of consumers was going to put you in the battlefield everyday, so we did do deliberately special protections,” Frank said.

This is putting policy above the Constitution.

As The Federalist’s David Harsanyi wrote, the CFPB was created to “circumvent” the checks and balances of our government. It was then “stacked with partisan ideologues and allowed to conceive its own arbitrary and wide-ranging rules.” James Madison must be rolling in his grave.

If anything, the CFPB’s overreach and exposure as an anti-democratic, unaccountable, and hyper-partisan appendage of the Democratic Party will hopefully open the eyes of the American people to just what a menace the so-called “fourth branch” of government has become.

The CFPB needs to go, but it is only one of many egregious elements of the modern administrative state.

Perhaps we should start looking at more aggressive solutions that shackle the administrative state through the power of the constitutionally elected branches or through civil service reform, and give the president more leeway to fire bureaucrats, who are currently almost impossible to get rid of.

The administrative state’s abuses are now acutely apparent to the public. Now is the best time to reform it, for the good of our republic.

Black Kids Trapped In Poor Schools : NAACP And Others Doubfounded

The question that must be answered is what can the black community do to turn the educational system around so that black youth have a chance at a becoming productive? As it stands now many in the community at large and especially the black community fall back on the old ways of demanding more money for education and better teachers in schools that are predominately black located in urban problem neighborhoods. 

                  Actually having to take a stand before the cameras and say boldly 'this problem is   fundamentally a black problem and we must stand together to solve it or all is lost for the black community.' In realty this person wouldn't survive the day without being attacked where the live.

As with most problems, it always someone else's fault for chaos, not the those on the other side of the mirror. 

Here's a suggestion to help solve the problem. Why don't all those NFL players that are taking a knee during the national anthem because of police brutality against blacks, get together and go to these troubled neighborhoods and work to solve problems that are systematic to crime and pestilence.

Wouldn't that be common sense having professional football players bring some real help to troubled youth they see these players as icons of success? Everyone is dumbfounded as to why?

Why Black Kids Get Trapped in Failing Schools

          Walter E. Williams / November 29, 2017
         

The educational achievement of white youngsters is nothing to write home about, but that achieved by blacks is nothing less than disgraceful. Let’s look at a recent example of an educational outcome all too common.

In 2016, in 13 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient on the state’s mathematics exam. In six other high schools, only 1 percent tested proficient in math.

In raw numbers, 3,804 Baltimore students took the state’s math test, and 14 tested proficient. Citywide, only 15 percent of Baltimore students passed the state’s English test.

Last spring, graduation exercises were held at one Baltimore high school, 90 percent of whose students received the lowest possible math score. Just one student came even close to being proficient. Parents and family members applauded the conferring of diplomas. Some of the students won achievement awards and college scholarships.

Baltimore is by no means unique. It’s a small part of the ongoing education disaster for black students across the nation. Baltimore schools are not underfunded. Of the nation’s 100 largest school systems, Baltimore schools rank third in spending per pupil. Baltimore’s black students receive diplomas that attest that they can function at a 12th-grade level when in fact they may not be able to do so at a seventh- or eighth-grade level.

These students and their families have little reason to suspect that their diplomas are fraudulent. Thus, if they cannot land a good job, cannot pass a civil service exam, get poor grades in college, and flunk out of college, they will attribute their plight to racism. After all, they have a high school diploma, just as a white person has a high school diploma. In their minds, the only explanation for being treated differently is racism.

Let’s look at math.

If one graduates from high school without a minimum proficiency in algebra and geometry, he is likely to find whole fields and professions hermetically sealed off to him for life. In many fields and professions, a minimum level of math proficiency is taken for granted.

Let’s look at just one endeavor—being a fighter jet pilot.

There are relatively few black fighter jet pilots. There are stringent physical, character, and mental requirements that many blacks can meet.

But fighter pilots must also have a strong knowledge of air navigation, aircraft operating procedures, flight theory, fluid mechanics, and meteorology. The college majors that help prepare undergraduates for a career as a fighter pilot include mathematics, physical science, and engineering.

What’s the NAACP response to educational fraud?

At a 2016 meeting, the NAACP’s board of directors ratified a resolution that called for a moratorium on charter schools. Among the NAACP’s reasons for this were that it wanted charter schools to refrain from “expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate” and “cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.”

Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys is a charter school. In 2016, 9 percent of its students scored proficient on the state’s math test. This year, over 14 percent did so.

It’s in the interest of black people for more of our youngsters to attend better schools. However, it’s in the interest of the education establishment—and its handmaidens at the NAACP—to keep black youngsters in failing public schools.

Few people bother to ask whether there’s a connection between what goes on at predominantly black high schools and observed outcomes. Violence at many predominantly black schools is so routine that security guards are hired to patrol the hallways.

The violence includes assaults on teachers. Some have been knocked out, had their jaws broken, and required treatment by psychologists for post-traumatic stress disorder. On top of the violence is gross disorder and disrespect for authority.

The puzzling question for me is: How long will black people accept the educational destruction of black youngsters—something that only benefits the education establishment?

The Benefits of Marriage : A Life Together Works.

Interesting. But what is worrisome is that so many among us are more interested in looking at a 3 inch screen for communication rather then having a face to face discussion as to what their future will be.

Staring at an electronic device 50 times a day has no real future for developing a satisfying life. Unfortunately too many will discover this when also it's to late to come back to reality.

The Benefits of Marriage
Rachel Sheffield / @RachelSheffiel2 / November 27, 2017

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2014, and is being republished in light of the announcement that American actress Meghan Markle is engaged to Britain’s Prince Harry, and the two will be married next spring. But it’s not just royals who benefit from marriage.

Thirty-two percent of the growth in family income inequality since 1979 can be linked to the decline in the marriage rate. That’s according to a study from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies, authored by W. Bradford Wilcox and Robert Lerman. Marriage’s economic benefits are numerous, according to the study. Being raised by married parents is connected to better economic well-being for young adults. So is being married as an adult.

“These two trends reinforce each other,” Wilcox and Lerman explain. “Growing up with both parents increases your odds of becoming highly educated, which in turn leads to higher odds of being married as an adult. Both the added education and marriage result in higher income levels.”

Young men and women raised by married parents earn an average of $6,500 more annually and $4,700 more annually, respectively, compared to their peers from single-parent families.

Additionally, married men have higher average incomes. This isn’t just because men with higher earnings are more likely to marry, but because married men generally seem to be more productive at work. They work more and earn more.

Married men between 28 and 30 make about $16,000 more on average, and middle-aged married men make about $19,000 more on average compared to their single peers. While women don’t experience this “marriage premium” in their personal incomes, they don’t experience a “marriage penalty” either, and both spouses enjoy higher household incomes compared to their unmarried counterparts.

The benefits of marriage extend across education level and racial background.

It’s often asked whether marriage rates have declined because fewer good job opportunities exist for working-class men. But while it’s true that research shows men with higher earnings are more likely to wed, marriage also seems to encourage employment among men. In fact, the researchers estimate that 51 percent of the 1980-2008 decline in male employment (and 37 percent of the decline between 1980 and 2013) is due to the drop in marriage rates.

Since the 1970s, the decline in male employment has been highest among unmarried men. As the researchers point out, between 1979 and 2008 married fathers between 25-50 years old have had a fairly consistent rate of employment. As of 2013, 90 percent of married 25 to 50-year-old men were employed or serving in the military—compared to only 75 percent of unmarried men.

The differences in employment rates among married and unmarried men aren’t simply due to education levels or race either. Eighty-four percent of men with a high school degree or less were employed, as of last year, compared to only 67 percent of unmarried men.

Marriage plays a major role when it comes to economic prosperity. Its decline and the subsequent rise of unwed births, which stand at 41 percent currently, should be of great concern.

Even getting the conversation started is an important start. As Wilcox and Lerman express, “Making family patterns a central topic could itself alter the narratives that affect individual and policy decisions and thus limit the damage.”

Promoting the importance of marriage, looking for ways to reduce marriage penalties in current means-tested welfare programs, and engaging leaders at every level to find ways to strengthen marriage in their communities are other critical steps to take to restore a culture of marriage.

Sen.Tom Cotton Explains How to Stop democrat Stonewalling : Will Republicans Follow?

Oh my goodness - a voice for common sense and logic along with intellectual reasoning. But not to worry, these are Republicans that Cotton is taking about that the have the power to take control of the Senate nomination procedure, so it's guaranteed nothing will happen.

Many of them are hiding under their desks, trembling in terror that the progressive democrat cameras will find them and demand answers as to why they're hiding. It would be very telling for them to have to explain how it's just their nature of not having the ability to lead would be detrimental to their reelection chances and therefore would be counterproductive. Hiding is just easier and less stressful.

Sadly, it isn't only about the money and the inability to stand on principle for many Republicans, but  about an overpowering need to hide from their responsibility to their oath of office that fundamental to the nation. It's just easier for them to stand aside and let others do the heavy lifting while they just whither on the vine, twist in the wind not having to solve problems, but then take the money and run.

It's really about the ''McCain Syndrome'' of being labeled a ''maverick''. McCain was told by the progressive press he was able to reach across the isle, agreeing with what ever the democrats wanted, and then vote like he was told by the democrats.

A voice of reason and logic in situation of chaos.

Sen. Tom Cotton: Here’s How to End Democrats’ Obstruction of Trump’s Nominees

Casey Ryan / November 22, 2017

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., says Democrats have forced the Senate into 47 cloture votes this year alone on President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, compared with just six cloture votes in the first years of the four prior administrations combined. Cotton said Senate Democrats are abusing procedures that allow them to stymie Trump’s executive branch nominees. He said that allows career bureaucrats to run their agencies anyway they want, “without any political accountability.”

The freshman Arkansas senator leveled the charge in remarks to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, on Nov. 16 in Washington. Cotton said it’s time for those abuses to end, and he offered three proposals to set the nomination process back on track.

The first proposal is to end the use of so-called “blue slips” to block judicial nominees. Under Senate tradition, hearings aren’t held for a judicial nominee unless and until his or her home-state senators submit blue slips showing their consent to advancing the nomination.  Cotton cited how Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., has delayed hearings for David Stras, Trump’s pick to serve on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, by refusing to return his blue slip. Stras is currently a justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court.

The Arkansan praised Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, for deciding last week to go forward with the nomination process for Stras anyway on Nov. 29.
“The Democrats are claiming that the blue slip should operate as a unilateral veto,” Cotton said. “That is a gross abuse of the blue slip custom, and remember, it’s nothing more than that, a custom, a courtesy. It is not a rule.”

Cotton also called for diminishing the role of the American Bar Association in the judicial nomination review process.  He said Democrats want to wait until the ABA evaluates nominees, but the ABA is a “left-wing” organization that has already declared four of Trump’s nominees to be “unqualified” in the first year alone, while never having characterized a nominee of President Barack Obama as unqualified in eight years.

Cotton described the ABA as a “democratically unaccountable, special-interest organization.”

He also urged an end to Democrats being able to use cloture votes to stall nominations. Cotton explained the process by saying that the majority party files a “cloture petition to end debate on a nomination,” which is then followed by an intervening day before the vote is held for cloture.
After the cloture vote, he said, there are up to 30 legislative hours of debate before the Senate goes through with the confirmation vote, and Democrats are often using those entire 30 hours to stall Trump nominees.

He said Democrats should agree to “30 hours of debate for Cabinet, and Supreme Court, and circuit court nominees; eight hours for all sub-Cabinet positions; and two hours for district court nominations.”

“Either they accept those exact same terms [that Republicans agreed to when they were in the minority], or the Republicans, by a simple majority vote, will change the rules of the Senate,” Cotton said. “We will eliminate cloture votes for all nominations, and we’ll set debate for every nomination for all offices to two hours.”

CFPB - A Rogue Progressive Agency : Can It Be Fixed?

More light being brought to bear on a criminal progressive socialist liberal democrat organization that is seen as just another arm of the liberal democrat collective. And as the entire agency is staffed by mostly progressive democrat soldiers, little to wonder then why a total overhaul is long over due and the agency is understood to be out of control.

Congress must act to clear out the progressive liberals from this organization  or get rid of it.

A rogue agency dedicated to a progressive socialist agenda and ideology. As history has taught us, when progressive socialist are in charge, individual freedom and liberty are relegated to the dumpster. 

To understand how this agency was organized and brought to life is not rocket science. With the far leftist disciple Elizabeth Warren as the force to make it happen, and then the last 8 years of Barack's religious jihad for transformation, the only result that was possible was abject corruption of the rule of law. 

Finally bringing light to darkness.

New Director Alone Can’t Fix ‘Rogue’ Consumer Agency

Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH / November 27, 2017

A new director, short or long term, won’t be enough to address accountability problems at the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, critics said as a legal fight broke out over who will run the agency with the departure of its first leader. “The agency should be professional, not political,” @ronaldLrubin says.

The consumer agency’s legal counsel sided with President Donald Trump’s authority to name his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, to replace Richard Cordray in an acting capacity, Reuters reported.
Still, Cordray’s hand-picked successor, Leandra English, who served as his chief of staff, sued Sunday to block the Mulvaney appointment. “Rumors that I’m going to set the place on fire or blow it up or lock the doors are completely false. I’m a member of the executive branch of government,” Mulvaney said at a press conference Monday.

Mulvaney, when serving as a congressman from South Carolina on the House Financial Services Committee, called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau a “joke.” Other Republicans, including Trump, have been sharply critical of the agency. “The Trump administration can’t eliminate the CFPB, but it can stop it from being a rogue agency,” Ronald L. Rubin, a former enforcement attorney there who has advised the Financial Services Committee on regulatory policy, told The Daily Signal.

Mulvaney is unlikely to be in the director position for the long term. Names mentioned as a Trump nominee include Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, current chairman of the Financial Services Committee; former Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas; Keith Noreika, acting comptroller of currency at the Treasury Department; and Jared Sawyer, a deputy assistant secretary at Treasury.

“A new director can create procedures to make the bureau more transparent,” Rubin said. “It would be hard for his successor to go back to operating in secret, like the last six years.” Rubin has been highly critical of the agency since leaving it, writing several op-eds highlighting problems there.
“The most important fix is personnel. Right now, almost all the employees are Democrats,” Rubin added. “The agency should be professional, not political, which means the staff should include something like a representative proportion of Republicans.”

Conservatives’ long-standing critique of the agency is its lack of accountability as it makes and enforces rules governing banks, credit unions, securities firms, mortgage companies, and other financial institutions with little oversight from the legislative or executive branches. The agency has more than 1,600 employees and a budget topping $605 million.

Created by the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, the second year of Barack Obama’s presidency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is an independent agency with guaranteed funding through the Federal Reserve. “We intend to execute the laws of the United States, including the provisions of Dodd-Frank that govern the CFPB,” Mulvaney told reporters.

Democrats pushed the new agency as a response to the 2008 financial crisis, brought on after banks issued irresponsible loans. However, Republicans contend the agency has too much independence from elected officials, and abuses its unchecked powers. The director of the agency is subject to presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, but the president may fire the director only for cause.

A panel of federal judges on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals held in October 2016 that the agency’s leadership structure was unconstitutional. The agency has appealed to the full court.

Trump was correct to reject Cordray’s appointment of English as acting director, said C. Boyden Gray, who was White House counsel for President George H.W. Bush. Still, Gray added, it’s not enough to rein in the agency.

“As acting director, Mulvaney can begin to roll back the CFPB’s unlawful regulations and abusive enforcement actions,” Gray said in a public statement. “But he cannot solve the underlying problem of the agency’s unconstitutional structure, which makes it unaccountable to oversight by the president or Congress, a set of issues which are currently in litigation.”

In June, the House passed legislation to significantly weaken the agency by taking away rulemaking authority and turning it into an enforcement-only body. (The bill was called the CHOICE Act, the acronym standing for Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers, and Entrepreneurs.)

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined Monday to talk about the House bill, or to support new reforms. But Sanders did say the agency would move in a different direction under Mulvaney, who remains fulltime director of the Office of Management and Budget while in the interim role at the consumer agency.

“This is Director Mulvaney’s first day,” Sanders told The Daily Signal during a press briefing at the White House. “We’ll let him get settled in before we start announcing new policies.” Sanders later added: “I think consumers should be glad that they finally have somebody in there that actually wants to fight for consumers and not fight for their political ambitions like we’ve seen in previous leadership, which will be a very different change under Director Mulvaney.”

Rubin says it’s very doubtful Mulvaney would leave his post as budget director to take the post at the consumer agency full time. The agency’s move to litigate who its acting director would be hardly dispells the notion of a rogue agency, Rubin said. “This lawsuit speaks volumes about how Democrats view the CFPB—they think they own it,” he said, adding:

President Trump has been in office for a year. He didn’t fire the director, he waited until he resigned, but Democrats are still trying to control the agency. I’ve never seen anything so outrageous in government.

Replacing the “strong director” system at the CFPB with an appointed commission—similar to the Security and Exchange Commission or the Federal Election Commission—has been considered as a reform, said Norbert Michel, director of the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.
However, both this idea and that of turning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into an enforcement-only body are nonstarters among Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who was a key proponent of the agency, Michel said.

Changes to an agency created by Congress will require congressional action, Michel said. He said lawmakers should use the Congressional Review Act to reverse the agency’s payday lending rule, which Cordray pushed through just before leaving.

Another adverse court ruling on the constitutionality of the agency’s structure could force the Senate to take up the House-passed bill, if Democrats see this as an avenue for keeping the agency, he said.
“Right now we say it’s doing well or doing poorly—depending on your perspective—depending on what the director does, and that needs to change,” Michel told The Daily Signal. “A new director is not going to fix that. Even a full-time director can’t just get rid of previous actions.”

Ken McIntyre contributed to this report.

New CFPB Director Takes Charge : Dodd/Frank Cockroaches Run For The Exits

Goodness, how the cockroaches are running for the exits once the light of transparency is turned on exposing the nest of corruption that has infest all corners of a worthless organization that is dedicated to one thing and one thing only, driving out the free market.

And know this, if ''Pocahontas'', Elizabeth Warren is involved at any level of an organization, let alone she being the instigator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau(CFPB), it is for a reason, and you have know that the reason was not to aid consumer with problems, but to be a driving force for a leftist progressive socialistic agenda which demands organizations and industry to heel to the power of the government which she believes must control all aspects of the ''free'' Market.

CFPB Deputy Director Is Challenging the President’s Authority. Here’s Why Her Arguments Are Flawed.

John G. Malcolm / @malcolm_john / November 27, 2017

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been a political hot potato since the day it was created as part of the legislative response to the 2008 financial crisis.

A brainchild of then-Harvard law professor (now U.S. senator) Elizabeth Warren, the bureau was established in 2010 as an independent agency through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It was intended to serve as a consumer watchdog, investigating consumer complaints and regulating banks and other financial institutions, among other things.

In January 2012, President Barack Obama installed Richard Cordray via a recess appointment to serve as the bureau’s first director. Obama’s action was highly controversial (and likely unconstitutional in light of a later Supreme Court ruling) because the Senate was not in recess and was still holding pro forma sessions at the time.

The Senate ultimately confirmed Cordray in July 2013.

Since its inception, there have been, and continue to be, numerous legal challenges to the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is run by a single person who, unlike in other agencies, can only be fired by the president for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” and whose budget comes from the Federal Reserve and is not subject to approval or disapproval by Congress.

Critics charge that this violates constitutional separation of powers principles and enables the bureau to function like an unaccountable, unauthorized separate branch of government.

It had long been rumored that Cordray, the former attorney general and state treasurer of Ohio, would resign in order to run for governor of Ohio when John Kasich’s term expires next year. Cordray informed the bureau’s staff of his intention to step down in mid-November, leaving the precise date of his departure a mystery. It had also been rumored that President Donald Trump would designate Mick Mulvaney—the director of the Office of Management and Budget—as interim director of the bureau once Cordray left the agency.

Mulvaney is a longtime critic of the agency, having referred to it as “a sick, sad joke” and a “wonderful example of how a bureaucracy will function if it has no accountability to anyone.”
Mulvaney has called for an overhaul of the agency and a diminution of its budget. The president appears to agree, tweeting on Saturday that the agency “has been a total disaster as run by” Cordray.

As a parting gift, and in an attempt to stymie the president, Cordray suddenly announced last Friday that he would be leaving at the end of the day and that he was promoting Leandra English—who is said to be close to Warren—to the position of deputy director, replacing acting Deputy Director David Silberman, who had been serving in that capacity for two years. Cordray said she would assume the position of acting director upon his departure.

In doing so, Cordray cited a position in the Dodd-Frank Act that states the deputy director “shall … serve as the acting director in the absence or unavailability of the director” until such time as the Senate confirms a new director. Within hours after Cordray’s announcement, Trump named Mulvaney as acting director of the agency.

Not going down without a fight, English has now filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in federal court in Washington, D.C. Calling herself the “rightful acting director” of the bureau, she contends that Trump’s “purported or intended appointment of defendant Mulvaney as acting director of the [bureau] is unlawful” and has asked the court to enter an order preventing Mulvaney from assuming the position and establishing her authority as acting director. It is, of course, highly questionable both from a legal and policy standpoint whether an unaccountable director of an independent federal agency should even be permitted to appoint his own successor.

In this case, though, there is no need to address these knotty questions because the president is on firm legal ground by naming Mulvaney as acting director of the bureau.

The Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 provides—with limited exceptions not applicable here—that the president can designate any Senate-confirmed official (which would include Mulvaney) to perform the duties of a vacant federal office in an acting capacity for a statutorily limited period of time.

This law provides the exclusive means for filling such vacancies, unless some other statutory provision provides an alternative method or “designates an officer or employee to perform the functions and duties of a specified office temporarily in an acting capacity.” It is this language that English and her supporters are relying upon.

Such reliance is misplaced, however.

On Nov. 25, the Office of Legal Counsel—the office within the Justice Department that serves as a legal adviser to the president and all executive branch agencies—issued a legal memorandum supporting Trump’s ability to designate Mulvaney as acting director, concluding that Trump has the authority to name an acting director under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

While acknowledging that the Dodd-Frank Act permits the deputy director to serve as temporary director, the Office of Legal Counsel memo concludes that the statute “doesn’t displace the president’s authority” to appoint an acting director under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

Just because another statute—in this case, the Dodd-Frank Act—provides an alternative means for temporarily filling a vacancy does not mean that the president cannot do so utilizing the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. All that would mean is that the act would not be the “exclusive” means of filling that vacancy.

As the Office of Legal Counsel memo states:

If Congress had intended to make the Vacancies Reform Act unavailable whenever another statute provided an alternative mechanism for acting service, then it would have said so. It would not have provided that the Vacancies Reform Act ceases to be the ‘exclusive means’ when another statute applies.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s general counsel also issued a legal memorandum over the weekend siding with the president and determining that the arguments advanced by English in her lawsuit are “unpersuasive.”

The president’s position, which was also advocated by the Obama and Bush administrations, was recently reinforced by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—long considered the most liberal federal appellate court in the country—in Hooks v. Kitsap. In that case, the court held that when both the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and another statute provide a mechanism for filling a vacancy, “the president is permitted to elect between these two statutory alternatives” when designating an interim director.

It has been reported that Mulvaney showed up at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this morning and immediately took charge, despite the ongoing legal dispute. The odds are extremely high that he will be allowed to remain there and that English will lose her attempt to frustrate the president’s appointment and his agenda.

Planned Parenthood Investigated by FBI : Light Brought to Darkness

Planned Parenthood has never been about life.

Any time a 'sweet heart' progressive liberal organization like Planned Parenthood comes under attack for being morally and ethically corrupt, the progressive socialist liberal democrat collective circle the wagons in preparation for their defense.

What is it about common sense and morality that escapes the liberal collective?

If you still don't understand what this is all about after all of the news coverage, that is, if you have been watching FOX you would know, rather then watching the lettered channels or most all printed news outlets that went dark on this subject, you have to change your information gathering system.

Really, ignorance is no excuse for not having an opinion.

Planned Parenthood Is in Deep Trouble With the Law. This Could Be a Turning Point.

Marjorie Dannenfelser / @marjoriesba / November 27, 2017

We are living through a remarkable time in history. Almost daily, those in influential positions who once appeared untouchable are falling out of popular favor as their abuses are exposed.
Earlier this month, one particularly corrupt institution was dealt back-to-back blows: Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business.

On Nov. 13, The Hill reported that the FBI may be investigating Planned Parenthood and its associates for the sale of aborted babies’ body parts for profit. It’s the latest development yet in a scandal that began in 2015 with the release of explosive undercover videos. Those videos showed abortion industry executives haggling over the price of hearts, livers, brains, and kidneys and describing, in chilling detail, their techniques for crushing late-term babies to get the freshest organs.

The Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives spent almost one-and-a-half years conducting a national investigation, reviewing 30,000 pages of documents, and hearing hours of testimony. They found enough evidence to refer several Planned Parenthood affiliates and tissue procurement companies for potential prosecution. Attorney General Jeff Sessions suggested this week that if the FBI concurs, charges might be filed.

Then came the second punch.

Just as news of the FBI inquiry broke, the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals declined to revisit its ruling that the state of Arkansas can redirect Medicaid funds away from abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood, which the state is completely justified in doing considering the ongoing baby parts scandal.

These two major breakthroughs would have been inconceivable under the Obama administration, which repeatedly abused federal power to prop up the abortion industry. President Barack Obama’s aggressively pro-abortion administration put the “bully” in “bully pulpit.” Under Obama, the Justice Department became a tool to harass and intimidate pro-life advocates, labeling them domestic terrorists alongside groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

Instead of investigating Planned Parenthood for the shocking, potentially illegal practices exposed in the videos, pro-abortion Attorney General Loretta Lynch decided to investigate the whistleblowers.

The Obama administration also actively interfered with state efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Kansas, Tennessee, Indiana, Texas, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina—all these states tried to get taxpayers out of the abortion industry, only to have the federal government bypass local officials to directly award lucrative contracts to Planned Parenthood or threaten to withhold federal Medicaid funds unless they kept tax dollars flowing.

As one last parting gift, during Obama’s final weeks in office, his administration issued an order banning states from defunding Planned Parenthood under Title X, which took effect two days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Through it all, Obama’s court appointees have generally been reliable backers of abortion. One Obama appointee even compared an abortion to a tonsillectomy in a recent case that would have created new “rights” to abortion on demand for illegal immigrants.

But there’s a new sheriff in Washington now, and a palpable sense of terror is gripping Planned Parenthood and its camp. Without their defender-in-chief or the courts to bail them out, they are finally being held accountable. Trump has busily set about undoing his predecessor’s destructive pro-abortion legacy. He has filled his Cabinet with pro-life officials, and has filled court vacancies with outstanding judges like Neil Gorsuch who faithfully interpret the Constitution.

Right away, Trump signed legislation (H.J. Res. 43) rolling back Obama’s parting gift to the abortion industry—something that, on a personal note, I was proud to witness in the Oval Office.

Trump’s strong commitment to pro-life policies has helped embolden state governors and legislatures. Texas has now applied to reclaim the federal funding it was denied under the last administration. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster in August successfully defunded Planned Parenthood and requested a waiver from the Trump administration so that the state can do the same with Medicaid, which is where the abortion business gets most of its taxpayer funding.

The next step is for the Trump administration to issue new guidance to the states restoring their freedom to prioritize Medicaid funds the way they believe will best serve their citizens. The administration must be prepared to defend that policy vigorously should the case go to the Supreme Court.

The pro-life majorities in both houses of Congress should also fulfill their promise to redirect half a billion dollars in annual taxpayer funding away from Planned Parenthood using budget reconciliation, where they have the best chance of succeeding.

Sometimes justice is a long time coming, but as two of our nation’s greatest thinkers—Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King, Jr.—pointed out, it “cannot sleep forever” and “the arc of the moral universe … bends toward justice.”

There are good reasons to hope that for America’s abortion giant, justice is right around the corner.