[NYT] WASHINGTON -- President Champ, expanding his push to curtail severe penalties in drug cases, on Thursday commuted the sentences of eight federal inmates who were convicted of crack cocaine offenses. Each inmate has been imprisoned for at least 15 years, and six were sentenced to life in prison.
Clarence Aaron, among the eight to be freed, was sentenced to three life terms for his role in a 1993 drug deal when he was 22.
Wendy Evil with a photo of her sister, Stephanie George, who was sentenced to life for hiding a boyfriend's crack cocaine.
Continued on Page 49
#2
If the other 6 are similar to the 2 described, I don't think Zero is wrong on this - served 20 years of a 3 life term for a drug deal (did he kill someone during the deal?) and a life term for hiding her boyfriend's cocaine? While I am no fan of illegal drugs, the 'drug war' is seriously out-of-whack.
[NY Times] Senator Harry Reid ... the charismatic senator-for-life from Nevada, currently majority leader ... , the majority leader, was hospitalized Friday after falling ill in the morning, his office said.
Mr. Reid, who just turned 74, was going to remain in the hospital as a precaution. As a result, he will not be presiding over the Senate's final day of business this year.
The Senate, which has been going through a tumultuous last two weeks as Republicans and Democrats feuded over nominations and legislation, resolved the stalemate late Thursday night and agreed to finish up on Friday. Senators will return in early January.
Mr. Reid's front man, Adam Jentleson, said the senator's condition had improved.
"Early this morning, Senator Reid was not feeling well and as a precaution decided to go to the hospital," he said. "Tests have been conducted and everything is normal. He is alert, resting and feeling better.
"Doctors have asked that he remain in the hospital for observation so he will not be working today."
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12/21/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] U.S. President Barack Obama I am the change that you seek... on Friday shrugged off suggestions that 2013 has been his worst year in office but conceded frustration at the failure of Congress to tighten gun regulations.
In a final news conference before flying to Hawaii for the Christmas holidays, Obama said that "we have had ups and we have had downs" throughout his five years in the White House.
"I think this room has probably recorded at least 15 near-death experiences," Obama said when asked if 2013 was his worst year.
With surveys showing voter approval of him at below 50 percent in some of the lowest marks of his presidency, Obama said: "If you're measuring this by polls, my polls have gone up and down all throughout the course of my career. I mean, if I was interested in polling, I wouldn't have run for president."
But Obama acknowledged that he was stung by the failure to push through Congress measures to combat gun violence, such as background checks for weapons purchases, in the wake of the December 2012 massacre of 20 children and six school workers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
"There are areas where there have obviously been frustrations where I wished Congress had moved more aggressively," Obama said.
"Not passing background checks in the wake of Newtown is something that I continue to believe was a mistake," Obama said.
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#1
The Dems may lose 2014 iff California breaks up or secedes because the Obamacare website isn't up-n-running to speed after spending US$384.0Milyun to launch it!
To wit,
* DMEOCRATIC UNDERGROUND > TIM DRAPER WANTS TO SPLIT CALIFORNIA INTO [Six ea.]PIECES + TURN SILICON VALEY INTO ITS OWN STATE | [Tech Crunch] TIM DRAPER'S "SIX CALIFORNIAS" [Voter = Referendum]INITIATIVE TO CREATE SIX NEW US STATES.
Looks like CHINA may have one day six new potential sovereign Client-Countries in NORAM to provide PLA Second Arty = ICBM, SLBM nuclear protection to???
#3
He shrugs it off because things are going exactly as planned. He and his cohorts are neither stupid nor crazy; so, there's a method to all this madness.
#5
You know, if I had a time machine, it'd be funny to have Obama meet Andrew Jackson. And since I'd put it on pay per view, I'd be very rich after too.
These exemptions were supposed to go only to the truly destitute such as the homeless, bankrupts or victims of domestic violence. But this week a group of six endangered Senate Democrats importuned HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to "clarify" that the victims of ObamaCare also qualify. An excerpt from their Wednesday letter, whose signatories include New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen and Virginia's Mark Warner, is nearby.
HHS and the Senators must have coordinated in advance because literally overnight HHS rushed out a bulletin noting that exemptions are available to those who "experienced financial or domestic circumstances, including an unexpected natural or human-caused event, such that he or she had a significant, unexpected increase in essential expenses that prevented him or her from obtaining coverage under a qualified health plan." A tornado destroys the neighborhood or ObamaCare blows up the individual insurance market, what's the difference?
The other new tax, known as the Unearned Income Medicare Contributions tax, extends the 3.8% Medicare tax beyond wages and earnings to include investment income. In this case, the IRS will look at all of your income and determine how much of it pushed your income above the $200,000 limit for singles or the $250,000 limit for joint filers. To the extent that investment income reaches above those limits, you'll have to pay the new 3.8% tax on that amount. For instance, if you're single and had income of $205,000, $15,000 of which came from investment income, then you'd pay the new investment-income tax on the $5,000 that pushed your income beyond the $200,000 limit.
"Investment income" ..... as in 401k's and IRA's, that would be money you've already paid taxes on, but that doesn't matter to the redistribution crowd.
Years ago, only the wealthy paid income taxes. But then somehow over time, everyone became wealthy. Strange how that works.
#3
Clarification to above: 401k's and IRA's currently taxed upon withdrawal. Other investment income would be factored in either as capital gains or regular income. Currently, the hardest hit are/would be small businesses.
With the IRS keeping the books, I'd be very, very careful in claiming a so-called "hardship exemption." Even after death, a previous catastrophic healthcare expense could come back to haunt your survivors and estate.
#4
Well, if it is a 'Roberts' tax, when did the executive get the power to make such a broad exemption by fiat for 'select' people to avoid paying? /rhet question
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[NYT] WASHINGTON -- President Champ, expanding his push to curtail severe penalties in drug cases, on Thursday commuted the sentences of eight federal inmates who were convicted of crack cocaine offenses. Each inmate has been imprisoned for at least 15 years, and six were sentenced to life in prison. 
[NY Times] Senator 
[An Nahar] U.S. President 
[NATIONALJOURNAL] A New York politician's self-imposed homelessness challenge went awry this week when he caught pneumonia.
These exemptions were supposed to go only to the truly destitute such as the homeless, bankrupts or victims of domestic violence. But this week a group of six endangered Senate Democrats importuned HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to "clarify" that the victims of ObamaCare also qualify. An excerpt from their Wednesday letter, whose signatories include New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen and Virginia's Mark Warner, is nearby.
