Russia and al-Qaida Has Our Number And They Are Only The First

Some might say that Russia has our number. First they refuse to return Snowden (regardless of the legality of the US's charges) and now they are tripling the cost of getting our astronauts to the Space Station. This might be the beginning of other nations doing the same.

You see we have become the paper tiger, the toothless lion who roars but cannot enforce its threats. We have seen how we  reacted to the supposed al-Quaida threatened actions. We jump, close embassies and nothing happens. Other nations are watching and some might be enjoying the decline we are facing.

It will only get worse, when the once  former dominant lion no longer can enforce his will, the younger males (in this case nations) will decide to challenge the older one.  We can expect more countries to push us around, to not follow our lead and to find new alliances.  

Meanwhile, as things are going badly in foreign affairs, the leaders will make every effort to "win a few."  Their only choice will be to make things worse for Americans. Expect more regulations, less freedom and more surveillance of your daily activities. It will all be couched in "protection" however, in reality it is just the opposite. The psyche of the leadership of a country in decline demands they take greater control of the population regardless of end results. They feel they must win--at any cost.

So as we watch Russia take our leadership to the woodshed, our leaders are increasing spying and ignoring our rights as Americans. We are looking at our future and it is not pretty.

Conservative Tom 

$71M: Russia Triples Price to Fly U.S. Astronauts to Space Station

August 2, 2013 - 11:11 AM

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By Barbara Hollingsworth

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Russian flight engineers perform maintenance on the Int'l. Space Station. (AP Photo/NASA)

(CNSNews.com) –  Russia will charge the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)  $71 million to transport just one American astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard its Soyuz spacecraft in 2016.

That’s more than triple the $22 million per seat the Russians charged in 2006, according to a July 8 audit report by NASA’s inspector general. (See NASA IG-13-019.pd)

NASA spent $60 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars to help build the ISS and that figure would increase to $100 billion if the cost of using space shuttles to assemble the ISS was factored in, the IG report noted.

NASA still contributes $3 billion annually to cover the space station’s operating costs, and signed an agreement to provide the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space an additional $15 million annually “to manage non-NASA research on the ISS.”

But NASA has little choice but to pay Russia's inflated ticket prices. Ever since August 2011, when the U.S. space agency mothballed its 30-year-old space shuttle program, NASA has had no way of getting American astronauts to the space station. The Russian Soyuz is now “the only vehicle capable of transporting crew to the ISS,” the IG report noted.

Space shuttle Atlantis is retired on Nov. 2, 2012 in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo)

Monopoly has its advantages. In 2006, the price tag for the one seat NASA purchased on the Soyuz was $22 million. Four years later, the Russians increased the cost to $25 million. It went up again - to $28 million - in the first half of 2011.

“During the second half of 2011, the price per seat jumped to $43 million. The price has continued to increase. For example, the price of purchased seats for launches in 2014 and 2015 are $55.6 million and $60 million, respectively,” the audit report noted.

“In April, NASA signed another deal with Russia valued at $424 million for six additional seats to carry NASA astronauts to the Station during 2016 through June 2017, and the price per seat has increased to $71 million” – more than triple what the Russians charged in 2006.

NASA’s attempts to “end its reliance on the Soyuz for crew transportation to the ISS” is not only due to concerns about the escalating costs, the IG noted. “Reliance on the Soyuz limits the amount of research conducted on the ISS because the Soyuz does not have the capacity to support the maximum number of crew members that can inhabit the Station.”

Because of the Soyuz’s three-person capacity, and the need to keep two Soyuz capsules at the ISS at all times in case the need for emergency evacuation arises, only six crew members can safely live aboard the ISS at any particular time. But this greatly limits the amount of time the space station crew is able to devote to scientific research, the main mission of the ISS.

“According to the ISS Program Office, a seventh crew member could potentially add about 33 hours per week to the current amount of crew time devoted to research – a 94 percent increase,” according to the report.

But CASIS was only able to enroll 50 paid members in fiscal year 2012, collecting “a total of $3,200 in membership fees.” And NASA’s attempts to enlist commercial partners through its 2010 Commercial Crew Program has had only limited results thus far.

Attracting private investment for the ISS is proving difficult, the IG noted, in part because “less costly ground-based research options may be available in some cases,” and “potential users may be reluctant to allocate funds towards research when the likelihood of profitable results is risky.”

- See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/71m-russia-triples-price-fly-us-astronauts-space-station#sthash.uuYcGm7X.dpuf

Will Democrats Be The Key To Ending ObamaCrapCare

Priebus: Democrats Divided on Obamacare, Not Republicans

Sunday, 11 Aug 2013 11:24 AM

By Greg Richter

.

Forget Republican division over how to get rid of Obamacare, says Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. The real story, he says, is that Democrats who are vulnerable and want to be re-elected "have turned their back on the president."

"If this was such a great idea, then all of these senators who are vulnerable in 2014 would have voted for it, and they didn't," Priebus said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

The media have focused on Republican divisions over tactics, but the GOP has "total unanimity" on getting rid of Obamacare, Priebus said. It's the Democrats, he said, who are fighting each other over whether to keep Obamacare in place.

Some Republicans from the tea party wing are calling for defunding Obamacare in the 2014 fiscal year budget. Most party leaders say that will force a government shutdown, and the public will blame Republicans.

But Priebus noted that 30 Democrats voted against Obamcare. The true division is on Democratic side, he argued. He said it was "very obvious" the delay in the employer mandate is about getting Democrats elected.

"People know what Obamacare is," Priebus said. "It's European socialist-style healthcare, and people don't want it."
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Obama's Plan Stop As Many Jobs As Possible Regardless Of Results

Tim Scott: Obama Blocking Jobs with Energy Policy

Saturday, 10 Aug 2013 12:07 PM

By Sandy Fitzgerald

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President Barack Obama is "out of touch" because he does not take seriously the jobs that would be created through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project, South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott said Saturday.

“The President is so out of touch with unemployed Americans that he thinks tens of thousands of Keystone XL construction jobs are a ‘blip,’ and ‘not a jobs plan,’" the senator said in Saturday's GOP address, in which he slammed Obama's strategy for energy production.

"Opening access to responsible energy production will lower prices, create jobs, grow our economy, decrease dangerous dependence on foreign oil and lower the deficit by adding much needed revenue to the Treasury," Scott, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said.



But Obama is blocking efforts being made through his committee, Scott said, and the EPA is also hindering opportunity.

“Meanwhile, the new head of the EPA [Gina McCarthy] said she doesn’t want to talk about jobs anymore as she writes new job killing regulations that will put tens of thousands of Americans out of work," Scott said. “That’s not leadership."

Instead, Scott said, Obama's "failed leadership" on the nation's energy policy will cost all Americans more "when you buy food at the grocery store, take a family vacation, or turn your air conditioner on this summer."

But the government is wasting billions of taxpayer dollars trying to pick through the energy strategy, Scott said, and "this mindset disproportionately affects lower-income Americans, as energy costs consume a quarter of after-tax income for families making $30,000 or less."

It doesn't have to be this way, said Scott.

"When it comes to resources, no nation on Earth has more options at its disposal than America," he said. "Oil and natural gas alone support over 9 million American jobs and contribute more than $1 trillion to U.S. GDP per year."

However, the Obama Administration has "actively blocked and delayed" new energy production, which continues the nation's dependence on dangerous foreign countries, Scott said.

The Keystone pipeline is one such way the administration is blocking energy production, along with jobs.

"The Administration continues to block projects such as the Keystone XL pipeline, which could support 40,000 new jobs," Scott noted.

Further, energy production is down on federal lands and waters, he noted.

"When President Obama took office in 2009, nearly all of our offshore areas were newly open to American energy production," the senator said. "Today, President Obama has effectively re-imposed an offshore moratorium, blocking access to American oil and natural gas resources, preventing the creation of tens of thousands of American jobs and continuing our reliance on foreign oil.

Blocking offshore drilling is hindering job growth, said Scott, pointing to his own state, where offshore drilling would have the potential to create more than 7,500 new jobs and bring in $87.5 million in new state revenue, creating a statewide impact of more than $2.2 billion annually.

But on private lands, energy permits can be approved in just a few weeks, compared to more than 300 days for public lands becuse of "President Obama's anti-energy red tape."

“The cost of that delay means less job creation, less economic activity and less American energy," said Scott.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has a plan to jumpstart the economy with energy, "instead of playing politics" with it, said Scott.

“We want a true all-of-the-above energy strategy, because a diverse, market-based energy portfolio of nuclear, wind, solar and other renewables means more competition and lower prices for consumers," said Scott. "Republicans will work to stop government policies that are driving up energy costs preventing businesses from hiring new employees."




© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

New Exercise Program

For all of those who want a new exercise program, we would suggest the following. We have been doing it for a week, haven't lost a lot of weight, however, getting this much exercise builds muscles, right?

Conservative Tom

Global Warming Problem--China

Global warming issues are very complicated. As in most things in this world, one positive plan has negative consequences on others.  So it goes with wind turbines. These machines are destroying birds and bats.  Will these animals acclimate themselves to these windmills or not? We would suspect they will.

However, our interest was peaked by the closing paragraph of this article. It is:

"Yet "sacrificing hundreds of millions of American birds and bats would do nothing to impact global temperatures," Taylor adds, pointing out that China alone emits more carbon dioxide than the entire Western Hemisphere."

Isn't it time that we address the real creators of carbon dioxide rather than other false targets?  China, Russia and India are the problems yet we are not asking them to improve their environmental impact. China contributes the most of any nation, 23% of the world's CO2 while India and Russia contribute and another 10%.  Yet none of these nations are doing anything to reduce the impact of the gas. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions)

If one third of the world's CO2 in not being addressed, why should we handicap ourselves in international competition by taking all sorts of punitive actions against our businesses? We must not pretend that we must be the good guys and do what is in the best of the world while our neighbors don't care about global warming and are winning the competition battle.

Additionally, our economy has not been doing well for years (some say as long as a decade.) Imposing business killing global warming regulations is the worst thing that we could be doing at this point of the business cycle.

Conservative Tom

Obama's Climate Plan Could Lead to 'Aviary Holocaust'
American wind turbines kill 1.4 million birds and bats each year, a new peer-reviewed study discloses — while producing just 3 percent of U.S. electricity.
The numbers indicate that President Obama's global warming plan will kill hundreds of millions of birds and bats — with dire consequences — "while doing little if anything to reduce global temperatures," energy and environment writer James Taylor observes in an article for Forbes.com.
Even if no new wind turbines are built, turbine blades will kill 14 million birds and bats during the next decade, according to the study published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin.
Yet the Obama administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind farm for killing eagles and other protected bird species, although each death is a federal crime and the administration has prosecuted oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits and power companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines, Fox News reported in May.
Obama has championed a $1 billion-a-year tax break to the industry that nearly doubled the amount of wind power in his first term. And his recently announced campaign to reduce global warming may seek to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 80 percent. Since climate change alarmists oppose nuclear, coal, and natural gas power, reducing emissions would require a 25-fold increase in the production of electricity from wind power.
That would lead to the deaths of 350 million birds and bats in the United States each decade, Taylor surmises.
"How would bird and bat populations be able to sustain themselves under such an onslaught?" Taylor writes. "The answer is, most bird and bat populations likely couldn't sustain themselves, and President Obama's climate plan would initiate an open-ended aviary holocaust the likes of which we have never before seen."
Since birds and bats are vital in controlling insect populations, the deaths of so many birds and bats would lead to an increase in insect-borne diseases and a decline in crop production, requiring farmers to use more and stronger pesticides.
Yet "sacrificing hundreds of millions of American birds and bats would do nothing to impact global temperatures," Taylor adds, pointing out that China alone emits more carbon dioxide than the entire Western Hemisphere.

ObamaCrapCare Hits Another Rock, No Small Bump

ObamaCare ‘death panel’ faces growing opposition from Dems

By Elise Viebeck - 08/08/13 05:00 AM ET

ObamaCare’s cost-cutting board — memorably called a “death panel” by Sarah Palin — is facing growing opposition from Democrats who say it will harm people on Medicare.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean drew attention to the board designed to limit Medicare cost growth when he called for its repeal in an op-ed late last month.ca

Dean was quickly criticized by supporters of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), who noted his ties to the healthcare industry as an adviser to a major D.C. lobbying firm.

But the former Vermont governor is not the only Democrat looking to kill the panel.

A wave of vulnerable Democrats over the past three months has signed on to bills repealing the board’s powers, including Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Reps. Ron Barber (Ariz.), Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Elizabeth Esty (Conn.).

All five are considered vulnerable in next year’s elections, highlighting the stakes and the political angst surrounding the healthcare measure.

The four House Democrats faced criticism from their party in July after voting with Republicans to delay ObamaCare's individual and employer mandates — moves widely interpreted as political positioning ahead of 2014.

Two of the lawmakers explained their opposition by suggesting the board would limit care for Medicare patients.

But the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) blasted the four Democrats for “desperately trying to jump off the ObamaCare train.”

The cost-cutting board has been dogged with controversy over the last three years.

Major healthcare interests like the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and the pharmaceutical lobby have supported IPAB repeal, saying the panel would cut providers' pay arbitrarily.

Public awareness of the board shot up last year when Palin called it a “death panel,” connecting the IPAB to her previous attacks on a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning in the Affordable Care Act.

“Though I was called a liar for calling it like it is, many of these accusers finally saw that ObamaCare did in fact create a panel of faceless bureaucrats who have the power to make life and death decisions about healthcare funding,” Palin wrote on Facebook.

This claim experienced a revival on the right after Dean published his op-ed, which argued that the board would ultimately ration care for Medicare patients.

“The IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them,” Dean wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

“Getting rid of the IPAB is something Democrats and Republicans ought to agree on.”

The piece quickly went viral, prompting conservative bloggers and Fox News hosts to cheer: “Dean confirms that Sarah Palin was right!”

The IPAB is designed to kick in when Medicare cost growth grows above a specified rate. It is charged with making recommendations on how to reduce Medicare spending, and its proposals are required to be fast-tracked through Congress.

The Affordable Care Act prevents the IPAB from making recommendations that would directly ration care. But critics say reducing provider reimbursements would have the same result by making it difficult for healthcare professionals to make money in Medicare.

While it's unlikely the board will be convened soon — Medicare cost growth is not high enough to trigger its work, and any nominees will face long confirmation fights in the Senate — Dean's op-ed renewed focus on bills to repeal the IPAB.

The Senate and House measures currently have 32 and 192 cosponsors, respectively, including 22 Dems in the House. Cosponsors include lawmakers like John Barrow (D-Ga.), a longtime GOP target.

But calls for repeal are not taking up the whole debate.

Dean’s piece also drew strong arguments in favor of the panel from supporters like Peter Orszag.

The former White House budget director said the IPAB is necessary in light of Medicare’s transition to new payment models that are meant to lower costs while improving care.

It's preferable to the “old way,” which saw Congress “simply slash Medicare payments” to providers, Orszag wrote in a column for Bloomberg.

“The point of having such a board — and here I can perhaps speak with some authority, as I was present at the creation — is to create a process for tweaking our evolving payment system in response to incoming data and experience, a process that is more facile and dynamic than turning to Congress for legislation,” he wrote.

In the meantime, the Democratic National Campaign Committee (DCCC) is warding off criticism of the anti-IPAB Dems with a push to turn the ObamaCare tables on the GOP.

The committee pointed to evidence Wednesday that resisting the healthcare law could hurt Republicans in the next election.

A new poll commissioned by the Service Employees International Union found that undecided voters prefer an anti-repeal Democrat over a pro-repeal Republican in a generic match-up.

“Instead of fighting old political battles on healthcare, polling shows that Americans want Republicans to work with Democrats to implement Obamacare and move on to focus on creating good jobs,” said Emily Bittner, a spokeswoman with the DCCC.

“The public strongly disapproves of Republicans’ plan to give insurance companies free rein over our health care.”

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/316045-obamacare-cost-cutting-board-faces-growing-opposition-from-democrats#ixzz2bO9xAf00 
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Why Are Republicans So Afraid Of Success

Please, Governor Christie: Shut Up!

August 9, 2013 by Chip Wood 

What is it with Republicans anyway? Why, when public sentiment is shifting in their favor, do they form a circular firing squad and begin taking pot shots at each other?

Let’s begin the sad survey with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s needless denunciation of the “dangerous” tilt toward libertarianism represented by Rand Paul, the junior Senator from Kentucky.

Sitting on a panel with other Republican Governors last month, Christie fired the first shot when he said: “This strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines I think is a very dangerous thought.”

He went on to say: “I love all these esoteric debates that people are getting in.”

Asked if he was referring to Paul, who is often mentioned as a potential rival for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2016, Christie replied, “You can name any number of people who have engaged in it, and he’s one of them. I mean these esoteric, intellectual debates.

Christie suggested that anyone who opposes National Security Agency surveillance efforts should talk to the families of those who died in the 9/11 attacks. “I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and orphans and have that conversation,” he declared. “And they won’t. ’Cause that’s a lot tougher conversation to have.”

Paul responded via Twitter.

Regarding Christie’s comments, Paul told Newsmax: “It’s a low blow to anyone to use someone’s tragedy.”

Could the debate sink any lower? Well, yes, it could. And it did, when Representative Peter King (R-N.Y.) decided to pile on. He declared that his fellow Republican (Paul, not Christie) would have favored a policy of appeasing Adolf Hitler if he had been in Congress in the years leading up to World War II.

Turns out that both Christie and King are still annoyed at Paul for not agreeing to all of the Federal aid they wanted in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Paul tried to set the record straight on that one.

“I actually supported giving them one year’s worth of funding and then offset the spending that we spent on Sandy — offset it with spending cuts with money that we’re spending overseas giving to countries that are burning our flag,” he told Newsmax.

But the argument over government snooping on our emails and phone calls is just one of the battlegrounds dividing Republicans in Congress. Immigration is another big one. So is the coming battle over raising the debt ceiling.

But the biggest one right now is on efforts to defund Obamacare.

While no one thinks that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act can be repealed in the current Congress, Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are leading efforts to cut off the money to implement it. Doing that is “the single best opportunity to defeat Obamacare,” Cruz says. And he adds, “The fight we are engaged in in the next 60 days is the most important fight of this Congress.”

Not every conservative agrees with him. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who can usually be counted on to support any effort to trim Federal spending, has been outspoken in his opposition to the defunding efforts. He’s called the proposals “hype,” “dishonest” and “impossible.”

“I’m getting phone calls from Oklahoma saying ‘Support Mike Lee,’” Coburn has said. “And I’m ramming right back: Support him in destroying the Republican Party?”

Those are unusually harsh words from the normally mild-mannered Coburn. They earned him some applause from Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), who once dubbed his libertarian colleagues as a bunch of “wackobirds.” McCain sent out this tweet:

And Richard Burr (R-N.C.) called the defunding proposal “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

What’s got them all so upset? It’s the idea that if Congress doesn’t pass a continuing resolution by Oct. 1 to fund the Federal government, the government will have to shut down. And the Democrats have said they won’t approve any measure that doesn’t include money for Obamacare.

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer has made it clear that he does not agree with the GOP insurgents:

This is nuts. The president will never sign a bill defunding the singular achievement of his presidency. Especially when he has control of the Senate. Especially when, though a narrow 51 percent majority of Americans disapproves of Obamacare, only 36 percent favors repeal. President Obama so knows he’ll win any shutdown showdown that he’s practically goading the Republicans into trying.

Never make a threat on which you are not prepared to deliver. Every fiscal showdown has redounded against the Republicans. The first, in 1995, effectively marked the end of the Gingrich revolution. The latest, last December, led to a last-minute Republican cave that humiliated the GOP and did nothing to stop the tax hike it so strongly opposed.

Karl Rove has also joined the “don’t defund” side of the debate. In his column last week inThe Wall Street Journal, the Republican bigwig warned:

For congressional Republicans, the challenge is to keep the upper hand provided by their strategy of passing continuing resolutions at current levels to fund the government. They must not overreach. For it’s an iron law that Republicans get blamed for any government shutdown, no matter who controls the White House or Congress.

So Mr. Obama is baiting Republicans to overplay their hand by forcing a government shutdown or failing to offer a constructive conservative agenda.

Daniel Horowitz, policy director for the Madison Project, is one of many conservatives who disagree. He has called for a “fight to the death” over this issue:

We stand today at the precipice of enacting the worst government program ever. We have two choices: we can continue funding Obamacare, only to find ourselves discussing modest tweaks to the law in 10 years from now — not unlike the way we are forced to approach Medicare now. Or we can end the cycle of big government by forcing a fight to the death over this cancer to our country before it take effect. It is that simple. There are no other options. Anyone who opposes the defund effort before the law takes effect is essentially admitting that Obamacare will become enshrined into the welfare state forever.

Cruz agrees. “If we don’t stand and fight now,” he said, “we never will. If we don’t stand and defund Obamacare today, we are saying we surrender.”

So the battle lines have been drawn. Expect the war of words to escalate dramatically when Congress comes back from its August recess. The pressure to cave will be enormous.

Do you know where your Congressman stands on this issue? If you don’t, this would be a mighty good time to find out. And help stiffen his backbone, if he needs it.

Until next time, keep some powder dry.

–Chip Wood