The tax agency has stopped requiring individual filers to indicate whether they maintained health coverage or paid the mandate penalty as required under the law
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Major Blow to Obamacare Mandate: IRS Won’t Reject Tax Returns That Don’t Answer Health Insurance Question – Hit & Run : Reason.com
15 FebTrump promises Israel that Iran will never get bomb
15 FebPresident Donald Trump hailed the United States’ “unbreakable” bond with Israel on Wednesday and promised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran would never be permitted to build a nuclear weapon. Trump’s vow was designed to address Israeli concerns over the nuclear deal between
Former Obama Officials, Loyalists Waged Secret Campaign to Oust Flynn
14 FebThe abrupt resignation Monday evening of White House national security adviser Michael Flynn is the
Source: Former Obama Officials, Loyalists Waged Secret Campaign to Oust Flynn
Doug Smith: Discrimination versus Prejudice
13 Feb
Doug Smith: Author, historian, patriot and lead contributor to Free State Patriot
February 13, 2017
When I was a wee lad, I once ate food off a dirty dish that had sat overnight. I took a brief, disgusting sip of turpentine. When I was a foolish lad of 16, one of my friends decided the time had come for me to experience a new vista. He bought me a bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple “wine” and a pepperoni and banana peppers pizza from a Huntington, WV pizza shop who shall remain nameless and blameless for what occurred. The wine, by courtesy only, in that it does derive from fruit, is more closely associated with embalming fluid and starter fluid, with artificial flavorings. Someday I hope to repay him for the favor, and the next day’s misery, and the violent rejection of all that horrible combination in my stomach. With a hammer.
Some years later, when I was actually old enough to do so, I bought for myself a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild Bordeaux, 1976. Produced in the Bordeaux Region of France from a mix of cabernet, merlot, and Malbec grapes, it has a high tannin content for a rich, fruity flavor and pairs nicely with lamb or beef dishes, and pungent cheeses. I enjoyed a few glasses of it with a filet mignon, rare, coated with blue cheese crumbles, and slices of aged Sharp Cheddar.
Mind you I have not shifted from writing about politics, social issues, and history and taken up the Food Critic chair at Free State Patriot. This is personal history, and illustrates a point I wish to make.
In both cases I drank some wine and ate some food. While the latter was a gastronomic delight, the other was an object lesson on foolishness, or “Why we do not treat 16 year olds as adults. “ My stomach and head made the point very succinctly, both times.
In one case a friend paid 5 dollars for that foul liquid and the pizza (Ok, this was 1972) with a nefarious purpose. In the other, I paid, well, quite a bit more for an excellent meal.
The difference in the two experiences was my discrimination, born of experience and study. Because I had learned to be discriminating.
In our modern and poorly used lexicon, “discrimination” has become a bogey man, a veritable evil and flaw in character. But that is the result of poor understanding of the word, its meaning, and its vital importance in becoming an adult.
We all need to learn to discriminate between better and worse, wrong and right, wise and foolish, dangerous and safe, nurturing and destructive. Otherwise, not only do we miss out on some wonderful meals, but we continue to act from the same foolish notions as a child, with the same unfortunate results.
One discriminates between foods that are tasty and nutritious compared with that which is vile, and so eat better as we learn. I would happily have subsisted on peanut butter and chocolate ice cream when I was 8. I would not eat asparagus or okra, and wanted only the drumsticks from a turkey. Now, I understand that peanut butter is fine, but not the only real food on my menu. Chocolate Ice cream is wonderful, as an occasional dessert, but moderation is called for. Grilled asparagus is wonderful, and the breast meat from that bird is perfect for those after Thanksgiving sandwiches.
Okra, of course, is still a vile, slimy disgusting weed, that falls into the genre of food reviews by Dr Johnson who wrote in his dictionary “ Oats: a grain, eaten in England by horses, but in Scotland by people.”
But I digress. Where was I? Oh yes. Mature, adult humans learn to discriminate. On the food front, we learn, and in the arenas of life we learn as well. Or we stay children.
We learn that the man who lies to us about the little things will likely lie about anything. So we discriminate, based on experience, as to which people we will trust to repay a loan, or return a tool, or show up on time. Or we suffer the results.
We discriminate, based on experience and reading, the areas in a town that are safe or not to walk about at night. Or we suffer the results.
We discriminate about which places we would like to visit on vacation. I would love to travel to Ireland, but would never willingly fly to Iran or Somalia. Does this mean I hate Persians and Somalis? No. It means I can discriminate between a place where I can walk about and see sights and share meals and stand next to Molly Malone ( well, her statue), and places where warlords attack UN convoys of food and steal them, or Western citizens are imprisoned routinely and held for ransom. I discriminate between a country that is friendly and has good ties to my own, and those which demonstrate their hatred of my country, and by extension, me.
Common sense, or wisdom, or, discrimination, tells me I will never drink Boone s Farm, or eat okra (ok, on that one I concede some may differ with me, but yuck!) or put myself at the mercy of people who hate my country and my countrymen. To do these things would be foolish.
To avoid those places and people who hate me, to seek to keep them away from me and my countrymen, to love my own country and people, and put our interests foremost, these things signal reasoned, sober, discrimination.
They do not signal hatred, or unreasoned fear, or some character flaw.
These are the reasoned thoughts and actions of an adult. Those who insist on moral equivalence in everything and everyone, and refuse to learn and practice discrimination are still eating cold eggs from that dirty dish, and calling it steak.
Playing games with the words will not change what ends up in their stomach. Or their community.
How Obama is scheming to sabotage Trump’s presidency | New York Post
11 FebWhen former President Barack Obama said he was “heartened” by anti-Trump protests, he was sending a message of approval to his troops. Troops? Yes, Obama has an army of agitators — numbering
Source: How Obama is scheming to sabotage Trump’s presidency | New York Post
Report: 72 convicted of terrorism from ‘Trump 7’ mostly Muslim countries | Washington Examiner
11 FebSince 9/11, 72 individuals from the seven mostly Muslim countries covered by President Trump’s extreme vetting executive order have been convicted of terrorism, bolstering the administration’s immigration ban. According to a report out Saturday, at least 17 claimed to be refugees from those nations, three came in as students, and 25 eventually became U.S. citizens. The Center for Immigration Studies calculated the numbers of convicted terrorists from the Trump Seven: — Somalia: 20 — Yemen: 19 — Iraq: 19 — Syria: 7 — Iran: 4 — Libya: 2 — Sudan: 1 The Center’s director of policy studies, Jessica M. Vaughan, based her blockbuster report on a 2016 report from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, then chaired by new Attorney General Jeff Sessions, that report found that 380 out of 580 people convicted in terror cases since 9/11 were foreign-born.
Source: Report: 72 convicted of terrorism from ‘Trump 7’ mostly Muslim countries | Washington Examiner
Mark Caserta: Liberals trying to slow down the Trump train
10 Feb
Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot Editor
February 10, 2017
Winning the 2016 presidential election was possibly the single most important conservative victory in my lifetime, for many reasons. But paramount to the win is the pending balance of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Liberals, having been reduced to lamenting, ad nauseam, the election of Donald J. Trump, will no doubt seek to bog down the pace at which our new president is working to re-align our nation with our founding fathers’ original intent.
And look for them to do so using the federal court system.
The progressive movement has been notorious for attempting to fundamentally change interpretation of the U.S. Constitution for political gain. The assertion that “any” individual, regardless of religious affiliation, has a constitutionally protected right to enter our country illegally, without comprehensive vetting, is fundamentally and constitutionally unsound.
Citing the First Amendment as justification for violence, property damage and rioting in the streets is simply unabashed lawlessness and nothing short of domestic terrorism.
Understand, our nation’s top security leaders already have told us we don’t have an adequate system of vetting individuals from terror-ridden countries. Last year, FBI Director James Comey told a congressional committee that we could “query our database until the cows come home” but if Syrian terrorists have never been on the law enforcement radar, it won’t do any good.
As a candidate, Trump pledged to protect Americans through “extreme vetting” of people from countries representing significant terror concerns. His recent executive order temporarily banning travel from these countries was simply fulfilling a promise to the American people.
But despite the fact voters decisively elected a president willing to compromise Washington political correctness rather than the lives of Americans, some on Capitol Hill are willing to stay the course.
Last Friday, a federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary nationwide restraining order on Trump’s executive order, questioning its “rationale.” The Department of Justice is appealing the ruling, but this may be one of many such cases eventually decided by the Supreme Court.
Currently, the Supreme Court (operating shy one justice since the passing of Antonin Scalia) is fairly balanced. Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are arguably extremely liberal, while Samuel Alito, John Roberts and Clarence Thomas are widely considered conservatives. Justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy could be considered moderates.
But two of the justices (Ginsburg and Kennedy) are over 80 years of age, and Breyer is 78. The remaining justices range in age from 55 to 67. Besides the replacement of Justice Scalia, we could see any number of Supreme Court nominations by the current administration.
President Trump intends to nominate Supreme Court justices who will not attempt to “legislate” progressive views from the bench. And obviously, a GOP-controlled Congress and conservative-leaning Supreme Court would be beneficial to his cause.
Trump could, in fact, determine the court’s balance for decades!
So, while the left may be successful at “slowing down” the Trump train, Americans will ensure he succeeds.
Liberals can get on board, but they may have to “sit in the back seat,” just as President Obama suggested in 2010 that Republicans should do in likening running the economy to driving a car.
Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.
Soros Fingerprints All Over Anti-Trump Lawsuits | LifeZette
6 FebMore than a dozen lawsuits and counting have been filed against President Donald Trump’s executive order that temporarily blocks visas from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. Looking beyond the handful of emotional personal stories that are gaining the media’s sympathy, there is a more predictable political power dynamic at play. The lawsuits largely stem from organizations bankrolled by billionaire leftist George Soros and Democratic state attorneys general. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has carried out a political vendetta against Trump, led 15 other state attorneys general in a joint statement condemning what they called an “unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful executive order.” The Democratic AGs also said, “Religious liberty has been, and always will be, a bedrock principle of our country and no president can change that truth,” a curious statement from the party that targeted the Little Sisters of the Poor. “It shouldn’t surprise anyone that pressure groups funded by George Soros are litigating to keep U.S.
Source: Soros Fingerprints All Over Anti-Trump Lawsuits | LifeZette
Mark Caserta: Trump continues to work for the American people
3 Feb2.3.2017
“Political correctness” has seen its day in Washington. “America first” is the new defining vernacular on Capitol Hill, without regard to progressive disapproval.
Just as Donald J. Trump promised the American people, he is methodically addressing debilitating liberal policies which have been crippling our nation and making us increasingly vulnerable to terrorist attack.
Last week, President Trump continued his decisive approach to returning our nation to the rule of law by fulfilling his campaign pledge to fight illegal immigration, which arguably catapulted him into the GOP nomination and ultimately a monumental presidential victory.
Following the ceremonial swearing-in of Homeland Security Director, John Kelly, by Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s pen immediately went into action, signing two more executive orders protecting our nation’s sovereignty.
The president’s first executive order called for the construction of a wall along our southern, U.S.-Mexican border. It also provided the DHS additional resources, including 5,000 additional border agents, to stop illegals from entering the United States without “inspection” or “admission.”
Following Trump’s executive action, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted his praise of the president’s decision to build a wall along the border per a column in the Washington Post, by William Booth.
“President Trump is right,” Netanyahu wrote. “I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.”
Trump’s second executive order bolstered the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) branch of the U.S. government and its ability to enforce existing immigration laws.
Multiple news agencies, including CBS News, reported Trump’s order reinstated the Secure Communities Program, which ICE “uses to target undocumented immigrants, directs the State Department to withhold visas or take other measures to ensure countries take back” illegal immigrants.
The order also strips federal grant money from sanctuary cities that harbor illegal immigrants, despite opposition from liberal mayors across the United States who vow to maintain their sanctuary city policies.
Liberals have no justification for allowing unvetted, illegal immigrants across our borders – period. And subscribing to the progressive mantra of “compassion” and “inclusion” is dangerously nave.
Sadly, this counterfeit compassion is largely responsible for borders which may have already been breached by a terrorist cell intending mass casualties within the U.S.
The inconvenient truth of the matter is that progressives are willing to “bet your life” just for a vote, and Americans have had enough.
Liberal Democrats and the GOP establishment had better take note of the resounding message voters sent last November.
There’s a new sheriff in town and he’s working for the American people.
Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.
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