Obama's Vision Of The World Was A Mirage ➡ He Doesn't Know What To Do Next ➡ Smoking Hot Kelly File

This video has Obama saying the world will come together with his election..............That never Happened! He must have thought he was a Messiah? 



“This is a man, Megyn, whose vision of the world he had when he took office has turned out to be a mirage and his own sense of the world and how it would react to him has also turned out to be a mirage.”

http://barracudabrigade.blogspot.com/2014/09/obamas-vision-of-world-was-mirage-he.html

Amid re-election fight, Quinn pushes through a tax on business

This Clown wants re elected and he is doing this to Buisness?  Any Non Democrat can do better. I would trust a business man any day. He would know how to run the State!

Despite protests from business and the bill's own sponsors, Gov. Pat Quinn recently signed an obscure change in state insurance law, quietly taking away a distinct tax advantage the state offered for large companies headquartered in Illinois.

Drafted by the Department of Insurance, the bill's innocuous technical language apparently masked its real impact—an estimated tax hike of at least $100 million a year, according to a business group—until after the House and Senate passed it unanimously.

Some of the state's largest companies, such as United Continental Holdings Inc., Boeing Co. and Archer Daniels Midland Co. are now complaining that the Quinn administration pushed through a big new tax in such a way that it drew no opposition. Even the bill's sponsors asked the governor to veto it, saying they were surprised to learn that the new tax hits the many firms that insure themselves using wholly owned “captive” insurance subsidiaries.

Mr. Quinn, who signed the measure Aug. 15, is in the midst of a fierce election battle in which Republican challenger Bruce Rauner has argued that Illinois needs to be a more competitive place to do business, while Mr. Quinn has said the state needs more revenue.

In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Quinn defends both the tax hike and the administration's role in promoting economic development.

“Illinois leads the Midwest by a large margin in business creation,” according to the statement. “As Illinois' economy is driving forward under Gov. Quinn, we are pleased that new sources of job growth and innovation are emerging, such as biotech, advanced manufacturing and clean energy.”

The state's new 3.5 percent premium tax on payments to captive insurance subsidiaries—which in some cases could be as high as 4.6 percent—”easily” will raise at least $100 million a year for the state, according to an estimate by Mark Denzler, a lobbyist at the Illinois Manufacturers' Association.

Previously, there was no tax at all, making Illinois one of a few tax-free states for the use of captives, which large companies commonly set up to self-insure their risks.

Initially, the Insurance Department said the state had no revenue estimate for the tax hike. A spokesman later said the law would raise $5 million to $15 million a year, based on a Department of Revenue estimate. He declines to elaborate.

“It's just another frustration companies have with Illinois,” says Mr. Denzler, IMA's vice president and chief operating officer. “They're saying, 'Now I have to pay $5 million or $10 million more a year than my competitor in Indiana or elsewhere.' “

The association is a major supporter of Mr. Rauner, but criticism of Mr. Quinn's action is coming from all the major business groups in the state as well as the nonpartisan Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois, a business-backed group.

VETO URGED

Even the Council on State Taxation, a Washington-based business group that promotes tax fairness among states, urged a veto.

“It was positioned as a technical amendment when, in fact, it was a tax increase,” says Douglas Lindholm, the council's president and executive director.

The bill's chief sponsor, Sen. William Haine, D-Alton, chairman of the Insurance Committee, was “surprised to learn” the bill taxed payments to captives, according to his spokesman.

Click for a timeline showing how an obscure bill became law

A Department of Insurance memorandum urging support of the bill in the House, which the governor's office provided to Crain's, says nothing about closing loopholes or taxing payments to captive insurance companies.

“It was several weeks after it passed before somebody caught it,” says Carol Portman, president of the federation, who ruefully recalls not seeing any red flags when she briefly looked at the bill.

Mr. Haine, along with former Rep. JoAnn Osmond, R-Gurnee, the sponsor in the House (who retired July 1), asked Mr. Quinn to veto the bill entirely or issue an amendatory veto excluding captive insurance companies from the tax.

The number of Illinois companies that use captive insurers could not be determined, but many midsized firms also use the strategy. Captive insurance often is cheaper than policies purchased from outside insurers.

Illinois has hundreds if not thousands of firms using captives, says Michael Mead, president of M.R. Mead & Co., a captive consulting and management firm in North Riverside. “Any business of any consequence in Illinois has a captive.” But he says enforcement will be difficult and the new tax probably will bring in more like $25 million to $30 million.

Ostensibly, the measure was aimed at companies that don't use a broker to buy special kinds of insurance from companies that are not licensed in Illinois. These “nonadmitted” insurers commonly cover large, nonstandard risks, and the policies they issue are called surplus lines.

CLOSING LOOPHOLE?

In Illinois, surplus line brokers pay the premium tax, which then can be passed on to the company paying for the insurance. The bill was supposed to make it clear that if no broker is involved, the company that buys the insurance still owes the tax. The problem is that the bill applies the 3.5 percent tax to all transactions with unauthorized insurers, which also includes captives.

The Quinn administration calls the exemption for captives a “loophole,” which the law closes.

In a separate statement, the Department of Insurance says, “This law requires corporations to pay the same taxes on certain special insurance policies that individuals and small businesses in Illinois currently pay.”

The law puts Illinois on an equal footing with other states that have similar taxes, the department says.

For Mr. Haine, chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee, the goal now is to nullify the new law in this fall's six-day veto session, his spokesman says. But no one can predict whether the governor, post-election, win or lose, will sign a measure to repeal a bill he just signed.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140830/ISSUE01/308309964/amid-re-election-fight-quinn-pushes-through-a-tax-on-business

GENEROUS TEACHER PENSIONS CONTINUE AS ILLINOIS’ FINANCIAL CRISIS WORSENS

Pat Quinn has an ad out saying he has more work to do. He is not done  yet. Elect me. Illinois is still in the tank and this Clown wants re elected....to do what? More of the Same!

This article was written by Kelly Riddell and featured in the Washington Times on September 1, 2014.

If the Illinois Teachers Retirement Service (TRS) had to pay out all of its pensions today, it could only afford to give its members 40 cents on the dollar.

Yet the number of six-figure pensions TRS has been doling out has increased 24 percent this year compared to last, with about 6,000 retired educators collecting more than $100,000 annually, according to records obtained by Open the Books, an online aggregator of local spending that tracks educator salaries, pensions and vendor spending.

The group’s Labor Day report found more than 100,000 retired Illinois educators had been paid back what they invested into the system just 20 months after leaving work, a financial burden linked to union collective bargaining, which can cost taxpayers $2 million or more per teacher over the course of retirement.

“For most school districts pension payments are one of the top five annual expenses,” said Adam Andrzejewski, founder of Open the Books. “Are we going to educate children or provide lavish lifetime benefits for administrators and teachers? There’s not enough taxpayer money to do both.”

Without reform, TRS’s pension plan could go bust by 2029, the fund’s executive director Dick Ingram told The State Journal-Register back in 2012.

Even though Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and the state legislature pushed through legislation aimed at overhauling the pension fund last year, a court challenge brought by organized labor threatens to stymie that progress. In May the court decided to issue a temporary injunction against the new law — leaving the fund’s solvency in limbo.

Meanwhile, the Illinois financial situation is only worsening. Creditors have found the state and its largest city, Chicago, to be on the same path as Detroit. In March Moody’s cut Chicago’s credit rating to Baa1 from A3, giving it the lowest credit rating of any major U.S. city other than Detroit. Illinois has the worst credit rating of any state in the nation.

TRS is Illinois’s biggest retirement reserve, making up half the state’s pension funds. For years the state legislature allowed the pension to go underfunded so it could spend money on other things. State educators and union executives used the borrowed cash to hire more teachers, boost salaries and improve local facilities.

As a result, the pension is about $54 billion underfunded, according to Ted Dabrowski, vice president of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank. Compare that number to the state’s annual budget of $35 billion and the situation looks even more desperate.

“You’d have to close down the entire state government for more than a year to just pay TRS out,” Mr. Dabrowski said. “This situation is obviously extremely unhealthy.”

More than half of Illinois state educators retire at age 59 or younger and receive $2 million in benefits after their career ends, the institute estimates. Because of a guaranteed cost of living adjustment of 3 percent annually after 25 years in retirement, many of these individuals are earning more than double what they were making at the height of their career, the institute found.

Unions unapologetically defend the system and its pay increases.

“It should be remembered that Illinois TRS members are not in Social Security,” said Charlie McBarron, a spokesman for the Illinois Education Association, a union representing more than 130,000 Illinois education professionals. “Their pensions are, for most, their life savings.”

After the court issued its injunction on pension reform — which was led by the unions because it included modifying benefits for current retirees — the Chicago Teachers Union exclaimed, “The law in Illinois is now crystal clear: Politicians cannot break the promises made to Chicago teachers and other city employees. Recently passed laws to cut promised retirement benefits are clearly unconstitutional.”

Whatever the outcome of the case, pension benefits for Illinois teachers trump what they would receive in the private sector, experts say.

The teacher pension’s 3 percent annual increases aren’t tied to inflation — meaning they cannot fluctuate up or down depending on the economy or budget pressures. Also, while Social Security cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) are capped at $456 annually, there’s no such limit on TRS’s plan.

Illinois public sector workers will receive, on average, a $1,906 annual cost of living adjustment this year — nine times more than the average Social Security beneficiary, according to calculations done by the Illinois Policy Institute.

“The 3 percent compounded increase is far more generous than any Social Security benefit would provide. It’s very expensive and needs to be paid out regardless of inflation and regardless of the state’s ability to pay,” said Laurence Msall, president of The Civic Federation, a nonpartisan research organization. “It’s one of the biggest drivers of the pension cost.”

Illinois union officials deferred all questions on the pension’s solvency and potential reforms to TRS.

If the state continues to make its legal contribution to the fund on time, it will never go broke, said David Urbanek, a spokesman for TRS. Part of the reform passed last December included a strict payment plan.

“If the state cannot sustain the legally required payments, then an estimate can be made for insolvency,” wrote Mr. Urbanek in an email to The Washington Times. He declined to speculate when that would be and deferred all calls for pension reform to the Illinois General Assembly.

“Reforms are the responsibility of the General Assembly, not TRS,” Mr. Urbanek said. “As the fiduciary entity that is legally responsible for administering teacher pensions in Illinois outside of the city of Chicago, TRS cannot propose or enact reforms or solutions to the financial problems faced by the system.”

Along with the annual cost-of-living adjustment, teacher salary spikes are also putting pressure on the pension system, watchdog groups warn.

In the final four years of her career as Butler School District Superintendent, Sandra Renner saw her salary spike 31 percent to $288,240 — giving her a starting pension of $210,480, upon retirement, according to Open the Books data.

Because of that spike, Ms. Renner’s pension is higher than her salary for all but five of the years she spent working as a professional, the group reported.

Ms. Renner didn’t respond to calls for comment.

Two years ago school administrator Mohsin Dada also received a nice pay boost. His income jumped 137 percent from $156,160 to $358,750 in his final year before retirement — giving him a pension of $254,700.

However, Mr. Dada decided retirement wasn’t for him, because that same year he was appointed as chief financial officer of the North Shore School System — collecting a $239,895.95 salary, according to Open the Books. Between his pension and salary, Mr. Dada is clearing near a half-million dollars annually.

North Shore Superintendent Michael Bregy didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“Under state law, it is legal for Mr. Dada to collect his TRS pension and be employed in a school district in a position that is not covered by TRS,” said Mr. Urbanek. “Since this situation is legal, TRS has no authority to investigate Mr. Dada’s situation or to seek changes in his pension.”

Salary increases haven’t gone unnoticed in the Hinsdale school district. The school board put a “stop pension spiking” referendum on this year’s November ballot. On average, its teachers were receiving a 24 percent salary lift in the final four years of their careers, according to Open the Books data.

In addition to salary spiking, Hinsdale teachers are also nicely paid. Although their union has been threatening a strike if they don’t get a salary boost, the teacher income in that district has outpaced inflation by 76 percent since 2001, according to Open the Books.

With an average salary of $111,000, the teachers at Hinsdale out-earn the average professor at the University of Illinois by more than $10,000, according to Open the Books.

Because local school systems are only on the hook to pay an increased salary for a few years, there’s a big disconnect when it comes to who really is footing the bill and the impact it is having on the pension system, Mr. Dabrowski said.

Many unions try to make these spikes part of the teachers’ salary negotiations, and the school systems oblige, knowing they will only be responsible for four years of higher salary. Then the burden shifts to the state pension system, where it will be responsible for footing the higher salary for the entirety of the retirees’ lifetime — plus the 3 percent annual increase.

Many times, school districts agree to pay these higher wages because it actually costs local taxpayers less than what it would if the teacher opted to take an early retirement, said Ben Schwarm, deputy executive director of the Illinois Association of School Boards.

When the Illinois General Assembly allowed teachers the option of an early retirement, it required local school districts to put 20 percent of the teacher’s salary into the retirement fund for each of the next five years if the teacher took that option.

Often, the board found it cheaper to get the teachers to stay longer and then give them 20 percent raises in the final two years of their term, Mr. Schwarm explained.

All pension reforms, enhancements and modifications need to go through the state legislature. Local schools and districts need to deal with the hand they’re dealt and haven’t been able to exert much influence over the process, he said.

“Local school boards didn’t create this — in most part we’ve opposed all pension enhancements. But we get rolled over in the general assembly because they’re trying to make the teachers and the unions happy,” Mr. Schwarm said.

As a way to solve the pension crisis, the Illinois Association of School Boards’ main concern is that the state legislature will try to shift the pension costs from the state to the local level, which “would be devastating to the local school districts,” because the districts have no revenue streams to pay for the additional costs, Mr. Schwarm said.

Two-thirds of local school funding is being paid through property taxes, and those rates have been consistently climbing in recent years. Right now everyone is crossing their fingers that pension reform will be declared constitutional by the courts, Mr. Schwarm said. The reforms include salary capping, an increased retirement age and a COLA tied to inflation.

Yet higher taxes will be the answer if the court rules against the bill and compromises can’t be made politically, Mr. Dabrowski said.

“The stage has been set for a big political battle between the unions, government workers, taxpayers and the poor and disadvantaged, who will see some of their benefits cut as pension costs climb,” he said.

“The state is on the verge of economic collapse, and the alternatives are massive tax increases or massive cuts in services that the state can’t support,” Mr. Dabrowski said. “It’s unfair to ask taxpayers to pay more if you still have workers who can retire in their 50s on $2 million pensions without trying to reform those things first.”

More here.  

http://www.illinoispolicy.org/news/generous-teacher-pensions-continue-as-illinois-financial-crisis-worsens/

Biden Takes Back ‘Take Back America’

Someone needs to tell this Dumbass that him and his Sidekick has been in charge for six years and have claimed they have been defending the Middle class? What an Idiot! The GOP or Bush has nothing to do with degrading the middle class. These Clowns ar it! Also it was racist for the conservatives to say this and this IDIOT says it and its not Racist! This kind of Crap is what these Clowns do for Votes and the Clueless Numbnuts eat that crap up. Also in the video he refers to himself as middle class Joe!What a Clown!

Vice President Joe Biden just made a populist appeal to America that would probably anger MSNBC hosts and other liberals were it said by anyone else.

“It’s time to take back America!” he yelled during a speech in Detroit Monday.

Variations of that phrase, popularized during the Tea Party swing that led to a smashing Republican victory in the 2010 midterm elections, have been criticized by progressives as racial dog whistles.

PoliticsNation host Al Sharpton, as a video posted at Power Line noted, once told Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly that “there was a racial component” when people talked about wanting to “take back” America. MSNBC analyst Angela Rye declared the Tea Party’s use of the expression “very, very racial,” and fellow analyst Eugene Robinson said that kind of talk “certainly had a racial dimension.” MSNBC contributor Bob Shrum, after the 2012 re-election of President Obama, remarked that talking about wanting to back the country reflected a “paranoia about the changing composition of the country.”

This even extends to the Obama administration.

In an interview aired on This Week in July, Attorney General Eric Holder spoke of a “certain level of vehemence” directed at him and President Obama stemming from their race.

“People talk about taking their country back,” Holder said. “I can’t look into people’s hearts, look into people’s minds, but it seems to me that this president has been treated differently from others … There is a certain racial component to this for some people. I don’t think this is a main driver, but for some, there is a racial animus.”

As for the president himself, National Review reports:

And Obama agrees, or seemed to think so in 2011, according to U.S. News and World Report’s Ken Walsh.

“A guest suggested that when Tea Party activists said they wanted to ‘take back’ their country, their real motivation was to stir up anger and anxiety at having a black president, and Obama didn’t dispute the idea,” Walsh wrote. “He agreed that there was a ‘subterranean agenda’ in the anti-Obama movement — a racially biased one — that was unfortunate. But he sadly conceded that there was little he could do about it.”

Could Joe Biden be a racist as well?

http://freebeacon.com/culture/biden-takes-back-take-back-america/

http://www.bizharmony.com/blog/2014/5/13/Free-Enterprise/us-middle-class-falling-further-behind.aspx

http://townhall.com/columnists/wayneallynroot/2014/08/12/obama-is-about-to-experience-the-revenge-of-the-middle-class-n1877737/page/full

Blacks Target Whites with BB Guns in Central Park; Obama, Holder, Other Race Hustlers Silent

Incidents of racially motivated crimes against Whites by Blacks seem to be on the rise, especially since the race hustlers descended upon Ferguson, Missouri playing judge, jury and executioner against Officer Darren Wilson. 
In the wake of the death of Michael Brown, Eric Holder, the first sitting attorney general of the United States to be held in contempt of Congress, visited Ferguson and made statements of solidarity with the rioters and looters in Ferguson and those calling for the arrest of Wilson prior to an investigation being completed.

MSNBC’s Al Sharpton has done his usual rabble rousing, stirring the unrest with incendiary statements. The Communist Party USA, the New Black Panthers, and others have fueled the fire of racial unrest with accusations that police around the country are gunning down innocent black people in the street simply because of the color of their skin.

Since Ferguson, former Marine Ralph Weems was brutally beaten by a group of blacks out of revenge for the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson. Weems simply made the mistake of the ‘the wrong color’ at the ‘wrong restaurant.’ Left unconscious after the beating, he was placed in a medically induced coma and it is feared that he will have brain damage.

Recently, a report came out of New York of the NYPD’s Hate Crime division investigating numerous incidents of white people being attacked by black people wielding BB guns and shouting anti-white statements.

One victim, a 36 year old woman, was shot in the back of the head as she jogged through Central Park after midnight. The victim said there was a group of five black people, three men and two women, who were laughing and pointing when she turned around after being shot. According to police sources, one of the perpetrators said, “You white bitch.” The victim, who has been told the BB must remain permanently lodged in the soft tissue of the back of her head because it is too difficult to remove, said the attackers yelled other things including, “White people must die.”

The New York Daily News reports that two of the attackers, Edward Fall and Antwan Ross, have been caught. Fall faces charges of assault and reckless endangerment. He is being held on $200 bail which his attorney said he cannot afford. Ross has been charged with assault, criminal possession of a weapon and reckless endangerment. He has been released on his own recognizance. The other suspects are still at large.

WATCH BELOW:

NYPD Hate Crime Unit Investigating Central Park Attack

NYPD Hate Crime Unit Investigating Central Park Attack

 http://www.tpnn.com/2014/09/02/blacks-target-whites-with-bb-guns-in-central-park-obama-holder-other-race-hustlers-silent/

‘You, Sir, Are the JV Team’: Open Letter from Parents of Slain Navy SEAL Rebukes President Obama

The parents of slain Navy SEAL member Aaron Carson Vaughn have reacted publicly to the spectacle of President Obama giving a press conference shortly after the brutal beheading of American photojournalist James Foley, only todepart hastily to the golf course (instead of to a war room).

In an open letter published at the World Tribune (via BizPacReview) the grieving parents excoriated the president for his lack of leadership:

As Commander-in-Chief, your actions — or lack thereof — Mr. President, cost lives. As you bumble about in your golf cart, slapping on a happy face and fist-pounding your buddies, your cowardly lack of leadership has left a gaping hole — not only in America’s security — but the security of the entire globe. Your message has come across loud and clear, sir: You are not up to this job. You know it. We know it. The world knows it.

Please vacate the people’s house and allow a man or woman of courage and substance to seize the reigns of this out-of-control thug-fest and regain the balance we, America, have provided throughout our great history.

Thanks to your “leadership” from whatever multi-million dollar vacation you happen to be on at any given moment, the world is in chaos. What’s been gained, you’ve lost. What’s been lost, you’ve decimated. You’ve demolished our ability to hold the trust of allies. You’ve made a mockery of the title “President.” And you’ve betrayed the nation for which my son and over 1.3 million others have sacrificed their very lives.

Image of Aaron Carson Vaughn courtesy of the Vaughn family via WJLA.

The parents, Billy and Karen Vaughn, put into context why their son became a Navy SEAL:

Many times over the past three years, I have been asked what drove my son to choose his particular career. What made him want to be a Navy SEAL? My answer is simple.

Aaron Vaughn was a man who possessed the courage to acknowledge evil. And evil, once truly acknowledged, demands response. Perhaps this is why so few are willing to look it in the eye. It is much simpler — much safer — to look the other way.

Image of Aaron Carson Vaughn via Molon Labe Industries.

Aaron Carson Vaughn was killed in action when a CH47D Chinook military helicopter transporting him and 21 other SEALS was shot down in eastern Afghanistan in August 2011. Significantly, the Vaughns express the real danger posed from the U.S. being led into decline:

Never in my lifetime have I witnessed such despair and such growing fear that the world’s last best hope, America, has finally been dismantled. Perhaps the better word is transformed — fundamentally transformed. Come to think of it, it’s become difficult — if not impossible — to believe things haven’t gone exactly as you planned, Mr. President.

Amazingly, in five short years, your administration has lurched from one disaster to another. You spearheaded the ambitious rush to end the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan — with no plan on how to do so effectively. Also, the release of “the Taliban five” in exchange for one American — without consulting Congress — is also on your shoulders.

You have been at the helm during unprecedented national security leaks — including, but not limited to the outing of SEAL Team VI on the Bin laden raid, the outing of the Pakistani doctor who provided the intelligence for that raid, the outing of Afghanistan’s CIA station chief, and the outing of your personal “kill list” to make you look tough. In addition, 75 percent of American deaths in Afghanistan and 83 percent of Americans-wounded-in-action have occurred on your watch, according to icasualties.org.

Image of Navy SEAL Aaron Carson Vaughn via Molon Labe Industries.

Finally, the Vaughns sum up what they think of the president’s leadership with a remark alluding to his comment about the terrorist army ISIS being a supposed “JV team“:

You, sir, are the JV team. It’s time for you to step down and allow a true leader to restore our honor and protect our sons and daughters.

America has always been exceptional. And she will be again. You, Mr. President, are a bump in our road.

The Vaughns are credited in the article as “Gold Star parents of Special Operations Chief (SEAL) Aaron Vaughn, KIA 6 Aug 2011. Billy is the author ofBetrayed: The Shocking True Story of Extortion 17. Read more athttp://www.forourson.us.”

The last known photograph of Aaron Carson Vaughn, taken with his wife Kimberly and his two children. Image via DVIDShub.net.

Aaron Carson Vaughn left behind his wife Kimberly and two young children. If you would like to donate to Vaughn’s family, you may find the mailing address through the endorsed Facebook page.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/09/173422-sir-jv-team-open-letter-parents-slain-navy-seal-rebukes-president-obama/