Muslim Silence! Department of Relevance!

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Dick
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A response from a very dear and old friend and fellow memo reader regarding the previous cartoon showing Obama as clueless: "He is not clueless at all.  He is Moslem using Communist tactics. He knows very well what he is doing to destroy America and us.

And now he is young and we will be paying him for the rest of his life.

My only revenge will be that he will see America as Phoenix for the rest of his life when we become again what we were before him.

Pray to God that Hilary is dumped.

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A response to the Gaza Girl video from another dear and long time friend and fellow memo reader and my own response back: 

"Apparently the Gaza Girls us a spoof on Jihadi's. Done in bad taste and by no less than an Israeli...."

"Yes it was a spoof and in bad taste but it highlights a subtle realty."

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I make no bones about the fact that I am Jewish. Being Jewish, however, does not conflict with my being an American and speaking out when I am moved by circumstances that insult my sensibilities.  My American and Jewish values provide me an excellent backboard against which I test my reactions to such  events.

Consequently, when I observe  little if any  response, vocal or otherwise, by Muslims, American or otherwise, to tragic and despicable events perpetrated by their own, I remain unsympathetic and discouraged

Yes, I understand there are risks for Muslims to speak out just as there are for American Blacks to challenge their own radicals, AKA  the Sharptons etc, and it causes me to have less respect for them as well. The same was true of my own people when they did not speak out about segregation during Birmingham's dark days.

As Americans we have God given rights.  One of which is free speech. When we do not exercise this right to protest actions that offend our sense of right and wrong we are guilty of cowardliness at the very least.

Free speech demands Americans speak out, against those whose actions we find reprehensible.

Muslims, where are you?

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Democrats love attacking anyone who believes the government is spending too much money, is wasting tax payer money spending it in areas that government has no business supporting.

If I were Ryan, I would go even further and propose the complete shutting of the Department of Commerce, Education, OSHA and Energy and any truly worthwhile undertakings be transferred to a new department entitled Department of Relevance! (See 1 below.)

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Will the Republican controlled Senate save America, Israel and the world from Iran's mission to  possess nuclear bombs? (See 2 below.)

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More hypocrisy:

What about Obama's IRS collecting some money from Al 'Sharpie' Sharpton!? (See 3 below.)

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Dick

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1)PAUL RYAN'S PROPOSED BUDGET CUTS

A List of Republican Budget Cuts

Notice S.S. And the military are NOT on this list.

These are all the programs that the new Republican House has proposed cutting.

Read to the end.
* Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy -- $445 million annual savings.
* Save America 's Treasures Program -- $25 million annual savings.
* International Fund for Ireland -- $17 million annual savings.
* Legal Services Corporation -- $420 million annual savings.
* National Endowment for the Arts -- $167.5 million annual savings.
* National Endowment for the Humanities -- $167.5 million annual savings.
* Hope VI Program -- $250 million annual savings.
* Amtrak Subsidies -- $1.565 billion annual savings.
* Eliminate duplicating education programs -- H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon , eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.
* U..S. Trade Development Agency -- $55 million annual savings.
* Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy -- $20 million annual savings.
* Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding -- $47 million annual savings.
* John C. Stennis Center Subsidy -- $430,000 annual savings.
* Community Development Fund -- $4.5 billion annual savings.
* Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid -- $24 million annual savings.
* Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half -- $7.5 billion annual savings
* Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20% -- $600 million annual savings.
* Essential Air Service -- $150 million annual savings.
* Technology Innovation Program -- $70 million annual savings.
*Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program -- $125 million annual savings..
* Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization -- $530 million annual savings.
* Beach Replenishment -- $95 million annual savings.
* New Starts Transit -- $2 billion annual savings.

* Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts -- $9 million annual savings
* Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants -- $2.5 billion annual savings.
* Title X Family Planning -- $318 million annual savings.
* Appalachian Regional Commission -- $76 million annual savings.
* Economic Development Administration -- $293 million annual savings.
* Programs under the National and Community Services Act -- $1.15 billion annual savings.
* Applied Research at Department of Energy -- $1.27 billion annual savings.
* Freedom CAR and Fuel Partnership -- $200 million annual savings..
* Energy Star Program -- $52 million annual savings.
*Economic Assistance to Egypt -- $250 million annually.
* U.S.Agency for International Development -- $1.39 billion annual savings..
* General Assistance to District of Columbia -- $210 million annual savings.
* Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority -- $150 million annual savings.
*Presidential Campaign Fund -- $775 million savings over ten years.
* No funding for federal office space acquisition -- $864 million annual savings.
*End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.
* Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act -- More than $1 billion annually.
* IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget -- $1.8 billion savings over ten years.
*Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees -- $1 billion total savings. WHAT'S THIS ABOUT?
* Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees -- $1.2 billion savings over ten years.
* Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of -- $15 billion total savings.
*Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress. WHAT???
* Eliminate Mohair Subsidies -- $1 million annual savings.
*Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- $12.5 million annual savings.WELL ISN'T THAT SPECIAL

* Eliminate Market Access Program -- $200 million annual savings.
* USDA Sugar Program -- $14 million annual savings.
* Subsidy to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) -- $93 million annual savings.
* Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program -- $56.2 million annual savings.
*Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs -- $900 million savings.
* Ready to Learn TV Program -- $27 million savings..
* HUD Ph.D. Program.
* Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.
*TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten YearsWhat is all this doing in the budget in the first place?!

Maybe this is why the Democrats are attacking Paul Ryan.

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2)

2)  The Senate Should Wipe the Smile From Zarif’s Face

By Jonathan S. Tobin 

Secretary of State John Kerry returned to Geneva this week where he met again with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to discuss the ongoing effort to forge a final agreement on that country’s nuclear program. But not even the secretary of his State Department spin masters tried to represent this latest effort to cajole the Iranians into giving the Obama administration a much-needed diplomatic triumph as anything other than just one more scene in a long-running play directed by the Islamist regime. That the Iranians have the patience and the confidence to wait out the administration until it is willing to give them whatever they want is no longer in question. But as Congress prepares to consider new sanctions legislation that could strengthen the hands of Western negotiators, the spectacle of Kerry scurrying to and from Geneva, in vain attempts to convince Zarif to play nicely while Iran proceeds with building new nuclear infrastructure projects, should only reinforce their resolve to stick to their guns despite threats of a presidential veto.

While Kerry was in Geneva, the Iranian media was trumpeting the fact that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced plans to construct two new nuclear power plants in the southern province of Bushehr. The supposed moderate claimed that this shows that Iran was only interested in peaceful uses of nuclear power, but the massive investment in nuclear infrastructure for a country with some of the largest oil reserves in the world is inherently suspicious. Western intelligence agencies have already conceded that they have little confidence about their ability to detect any secret military nuclear programs hidden throughout the country. The decision to build more expensive nuclear plants at a time when the country is financially pressed demonstrates that their commitment to expanding their capability is about more than clean energy.

We can’t know exactly what the Iranians are up to in Bushehr. But the brazen nature of this effort while they continue to stall the Geneva talks speaks volumes about their belief that they can tell the Americans anything they like and still expect Kerry to keep crawling back to see them in the vain hope that next time they’ll gratify his zeal for a deal.

Indeed, by talking about the need to pick up the pace of the talks, Zarif was teasing Kerry as if he was handing a ball of yarn to a kitten. As CBS News reported his remarks:

Zarif was coy when asked if he thought the deadline could be met and what particular issues were most vexing.

“We’ll see,” he said. “All issues are hard until you resolve them and all issues are easy if you resolve them,” he said. “I believe all of them are easy anyway.”

He’s right about that in the sense that since the prelude to the weak interim deal signed in November 2013, the Obama administration’s approach to resolving issues with Iran is to simply gradually concede all points to them. That’s how Iran got Kerry to tacitly recognize their right to enrich uranium and to allow them to hold onto their stockpile of nuclear fuel that could easily be re-activated and converted to use for a weapon in a breakout scenario. That’s also how they have managed to move the position of the U.S. from President Obama’s 2012 campaign pledge to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program to today’s laughable goal of lengthening a potential breakout period.

Zarif was also coy about whether he and Kerry could come to an agreement by the time the latest deadline for the end of the talks expires in July. But since two such deadlines have come and gone without this failure prompting Obama and Kerry to issue ultimatums to the Iranians, there is no reason for Zarif to think they will behave any differently in the future. He can merely wait for them to come to him. That means he thinks he can insist on a deal that will give an international seal of approval and end of sanctions while Iran is permitted to retain the infrastructure and capability to be a threshold nuclear power. Moreover, Zarif also has figured out that the president’s real goal is not so much an acceptable nuclear deal as a new détente with Iran. Since he knows the Americans fear offending him, that gives him the power to be as obdurate as he likes without fear of any consequences.

Obama and Kerry may seek to portray such a disastrous result as the best the West could get in much the same manner as the way they claimed the interim deal was an imperfect yet acceptable bargain. But what these talks desperately need is a change in the dynamic that will wipe that Cheshire cat smile off of Zarif’s face and inject some doubt into Tehran’s calculations about America’s willingness to swallow any Iranian demand or delay. Only more sanctions legislation will do that. The Senate should proceed accordingly.

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3)Doom: IRS Complains About Budget Cuts, Forgets The Back Taxes IRS Employees Owe

By Katie Pavlich 

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, infamous for his defiant congressional testimony about the inappropriate targeting of conservative tea party groups, is warning that budget cuts to the agency will cause delayed refunds, more identity theft, long wait times for help and a possible shut down of the agency. More fromForbes: 

With a week to go before tax season opens, taxpayers were already bracing for a potentially “miserable” filing season. It turns out that it could live up to the hype.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Koskinen has advised employees that the budget cuts will result in reduced services to taxpayers. In an email to employees sent earlier today, Commissioner Koskinen advised that “realistically we have no choice but to do less with less.”

Notice how Koskinen doesn't mention the extra hell Obamacare rules are putting tax filers through this year...

Maybe Koskinen should ask IRS employees who owe back taxes to pay up in order to help fill the gap. Or how about avoiding handing out bonuses worth millions to employees who owe back taxes to the federal government? 

Commissioner John Koskinen announced the bonuses in an email to employees on Monday, saying they were a way to reward long-suffering staffers who have put up with budget and workforce cuts and are still keeping the agency humming.

But the payout, worth millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money, isn’t sitting well with congressional critics, who said it sends the wrong message at a time when the agency is reeling from several scandals, and when even staffers who are delinquent on their taxes can collect bonuses.


“It’s no wonder the American people find it hard to believe the IRS needs more money when the agency fails to collect back taxes from their own employees and instead rewards them with bonuses,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who is poised to become chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance next year. “American families have been doing more with less for far too long now, and it is time the IRS [does] the same.”

Oh, and then there's the $3.3. billion federal government employees owe in back taxes.

Federal employees owe a total of $3.3 billion in back taxes to the federal government, according to Internal Revenue Service data released Thursday.

In all, 318,462 federal employees owed back taxes as of last Sept. 30 — an increase of 2.6% from the previous year. That puts the average tax bill at $10,391, according to IRS data obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act.

Further, the IRS budget has increased over past years. 

Before Koskinen whines about Americans getting a break through less funding of the IRS, he should demand employees within his agency are held to the same standards as the rest of us. For some context, Americans spend 6.1 billion hoursper year preparing their tax returns at an average cost of $168 billion. If they don't, they get fined and threatened with prison.

Long-term tax reform is the only real solution to IRS budget problems, but imagine Koskinen's outrage over that proposal. 

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