In the 18 months since the election, our new president seems to have undergone a 180 reversal in his politics. As well as reneging on nearly all his campaign promises, he has continued and expanded the pro-war, pro-torture, pro-covert assassination and anti-civil liberties policies of his predecessor George W. Bush. Eighteen months into Bush’s presidency, the major corporate players who influenced Bush and Cheney were blatantly obvious. Bush had extensive prior (family) ties with the oil industry and Cheney with both oil companies and defense contractors. While Obama also seems to be at the beck and call of corporate backers, exactly who they are is much less clear. The question has led many analysts on both sides of the political aisle – to take a closer look at his background before he came on the national stage as a US senator from Illinois senator in 2004.

Obama’s secrecy and evasiveness about his early life hasn’t helped. In fact there are gaping holes in his resume that have led to all kinds of (mainly right wing) conspiracy theories about the authenticity of his birth certificate, his secret adherence to the Muslim religion, a possible stint with the CIA during the years nobody remembers him at Columbia, and his allegiance to a secret international Marxist/socialist conspiracy. I think the birth certificate issue is a red herring to distract people from growing evidence that Obama has a past in intelligence. Likewise a so-called Marxist/socialist conspiracy would require financing – and wealthy elites are very reluctant to fund Marxist-Leninist groups that seek to deprive them of their wealth.

According to Obama’s unofficial biographer Webster Tarpley and Wayne Madsen, a former National Security Agency employee and member of the Association for Intelligence Officers, more and more credible evidence is surfacing that Obama had some type of intelligence career before entering public life. The Russians certainly thought he did when they detained Senators Obama and Lugar in 2004 following a three day fact finding mission related to disarmament talks. In fact they accused Obama of spying for the British (?) and demanded to search his aircraft (as he was leaving, not entering, the country).

More Via:noonehastodietomorrow

If it seems as if the tax code was conceived by graphic artist M.C. Escher, wait until you meet the new and not improved Internal Revenue Service created by ObamaCare. What, you’re not already on a first-name basis with your local IRS agent?

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, who operates inside the IRS, highlighted the agency’s new mission in her annual report to Congress last week. Look out below. She notes that the IRS is already “greatly taxed”—pun intended?—”by the additional role it is playing in delivering social benefits and programs to the American public,” like tax credits for first-time homebuyers or purchasing electric cars. Yet with ObamaCare, the agency is now responsible for “the most extensive social benefit program the IRS has been asked to implement in recent history.” And without “sufficient funding” it won’t be able to discharge these new duties.

That wouldn’t be tragic, given that those new duties include audits to determine who has the insurance “as required by law” and collecting penalties from Americans who don’t. Companies that don’t sponsor health plans will also be punished. This crackdown will “involve nearly every division and function of the IRS,” Ms. Olson reports.

Well, well. Republicans argued during the health debate that the IRS would have to hire hundreds of new agents and staff to enforce ObamaCare. They were brushed off by Democrats and the press corps as if they believed the President was born on the moon. The IRS says it hasn’t figured out how much extra money and manpower it will need but admits that both numbers are greater than zero.

Ms. Olson also exposed a damaging provision that she estimates will hit some 30 million sole proprietorships and subchapter S corporations, two million farms and one million charities and other tax-exempt organizations. Prior to ObamaCare, businesses only had to tell the IRS the value of services they purchase. But starting in 2013 they will also have to report the value of goods they buy from a single vendor that total more than $600 annually—including office supplies and the like.

Democrats snuck in this obligation to narrow the mythical “tax gap” of unreported business income, but Ms. Olson says that the tracking costs for small businesses will be “disproportionate as compared with any resulting improvement in tax compliance.” Job creation, here we come . . . at least for the accountants who will attempt to comply with a vast new 1099 reporting burden.

In a Monday letter, even Democratic Senators Mark Begich (Alaska), Ben Nelson (Nebraska), Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) and Evan Bayh (Indiana) denounce this new “burden” on small businesses and insist that the IRS use its discretion to find “better ways to structure this reporting requirement.” In other words, they want regulators to fix one problem among many that all four Senators created by voting for ObamaCare.

We never thought anyone would be nostalgic for the tax system of a few months ago, but post-ObamaCare, here we are.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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A recent report by the US Congress has found that private security contractors in Afghanistan are dying at 4.5 times the rate that US soldiers are in the nation. The report also found that the contractors’ deaths go virtually unreported internationally.

While most of the contractors are said to have been killed guarding convoys, though the exact details are largely unknown, and the deaths are scarcely investigated.

The number of security contractors has also risen precipitously, from 2,401 in September 2007 to 3,184 in December 2008. Since President Obama took office the number as increased more than fourfold, with 13,214 contractors now operating under the Department of Defense.

Despite the fact that there are nearly 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan, the death toll from the much smaller pool of contractors is actually not far from the same. 260 were killed from June 2009 through April 2010. There is no reliable data available since then.

[Via: AntiWar]

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday unanimously approved a major cybersecurity legislation that would structure how the federal government protects public and private sector cyber networks.

Senator joe Lieberman

Crafted by Ranking Member Susan Collins and Sens. Joe Lieberman and Tom Carper, the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 calls for the creation of a White House Office of Cyberspace Policy to spearhead federal and private sector efforts to secure critical cyber networks and assets. The office would be headed by a Senate-confirmed director who would be accountable to the public. The bill also creates a new center within the Department of Homeland Security to adopt  cybersecurity policies related to federal and private sector networks.

“Catastrophic cyber attack is no longer a fantasy or a fiction,” Lieberman said. “It is a clear and present danger. This legislation would fundamentally reshape the way the federal government defends America’s cyberspace. It takes a comprehensive, risk-based, and collaborative approach to addressing critical vulnerabilities in our own defenses.  We believe our bill would go a long way toward improving the security of our government and private critical infrastructure, and therefore the security of the American people.”

Collins said it is important to realize the threat of a catastrophic cyber attack is not theoretical, but very real. The sergeant at arms has reported the computer systems in executive branch agencies and in congressional agencies are now under cyber attack an average of 1.8 billion times a month, a number she called “extraordinary.”

“Cyber crime costs our national economy billions of dollars annually,” Collins said. “And intelligence officials have warned over and over again that these attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated. The fact is: We cannot fail to act. We can’t wait until there is a cyber 9/11 and say, ‘Why didn’t we act? We knew this was coming.’ The attacks are ongoing even as we meet. So we must act, and I believe we have drafted a responsible bill to do so.”

Although society has reaped enormous benefits from the use of the Internet, adversaries have identified cyberspace as an ideal 21st-century battlefield, Carper said.

“We have to take steps now to modernize our approach to protecting this valuable, but vulnerable, resource,” he said. “This legislation is a vital tool that America needs to better protect cyber space. It encourages the government and the private sector to work together to address this growing threat and provides the tools and resources for America to be successful in this critical effort.”

It’s official: An 800-foot stretch of Orlando road is now named “President Barack Obama Parkway.”

The City Council voted Monday to rename a short section of Mission Road between Cason Cove Drive and Conroy Road in Obama’s honor.

It was a unanimous vote, but not without debate. The original proposal would have left off the title “president,” because the city’s 911 computer system can only handle street names of 18 characters or less (not including “street,” “avenue,” etc.).

Commissioner Daisy Lynum insisted the title should be included. Mayor Buddy Dyer and Commissioner Robert Stuart — both of whom are Democrats — disagreed, pointing out that no other streets named for presidents carry the title.

“I think we all want to honor the current president, it’s just a matter of what to put on the sign,” Dyer said.

In the end, the title won. Commissioner Sam Ings, who pushed for the renaming, said the street will eventually be longer – and thus, a more fitting honor – when the city completes a road-extension project.