Microsoft Cashes In With Obama

President Obama may be opposed to the Keystone project, but he favors the money pipeline than runs from Redmond, Washington, to The White House.  During his past two presidential campaigns, millions of dollars have flowed from Microsoft's headquarters to Obama campaigns.

Microsoft, a corporate behemoth, shoveled $815,536 from its Political Action Committee (PAC) to the Obama re-election campaign in 2012, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan organization that posts the information online at OpenSecrets.org.

The center combed Federal Election Commission records to collect the data.  Its findings paint a graphic picture of the way Washington works, where companies that do business with the federal government are politically active in national campaigns.

Microsoft's largess extended far beyond its PAC donation. Executives and managers from Microsoft passed the hat and collected nearly $1 million in contributions for the president's campaign last year.  With 90,000 employees, there was fertile ground to be tilled by Microsoft managers.

The money was raised by so-called bundlers.  Don't be fooled by the innocuous sounding word.  Bundlers are arm-twisters who canvass friends, acquaintances and fellow employees for donations.  The solicitations usually are led by individuals who bump up against personal giving limits.

Microsoft wasn't finished after the brazen bundlers were done.  They forked over another $764,059 to help fund the festivities surrounding the president's inauguration.  For the first Obama inauguration, Microsoft doled out even more, $852,167.

Therefore, it came as no surprise when the military announced on January 3 that it had signed the most comprehensive Microsoft contract ever.  The Department of Defense (DOD), despite facing supposedly Draconian sequester cuts, agreed to pay Microsoft $617 million over three years for software services.

The department is Microsoft's single largest customer.  In the past, the DOD has tested new versions of Windows and Office for the Redmond-based company.  The cozy relationship no doubt has been tightened by Microsoft's political involvement.

And the DOD is not the only large government customer.  The Department of Agriculture two years ago issued a contract to Microsoft for its web-based email and other services, beating out IBM and Google.  At the time, the agreement was called the "largest federal contract" for cloud computing.

However, Microsoft's chummy relationship with Obama may be tested.  Federal investigators are poking their noses into claims that a Microsoft executive provided monetary kickbacks to Chinese officials in exchange for government issued contracts.

There are other allegations involving business relationships in Romania and Italy, too.  The probe is being conducted by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The allegations have sullied Microsoft's reputation.  But don't discount an investigation that results in a slap on the wrist and nothing more. After all, money covers a multitude of sins in Washington.

Exposing The Truth About Planned Parenthood

Nothing raises the blood pressure of Democrats and their titular leader President Obama like threats to federal funding for Planned Parenthood.  They become apoplectic over the slightest hint of criticism aimed at the organization, regarding any honest appraisal as hostility towards women's health.

Yet so many of the claims made by Democrats and the president about Planned Parenthood are simply not true.  However, an apparatchik media has protected the government-funded program shielding it from a legitimate evaluation of how well Planned Parenthood performs.

On January 4 of this year, Planned Parenthood Federation of America released a plethora of data about its operations, including annual reports covering financials and services during the period from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012.   The pro-abortion mainstream media has buried its head in the sand.

An independent analysis of the information exposes many of the myths about Planned Parenthood that have been fostered by the organization and its fawning supporters in the Democrat Party and the puppet media.  Here are just a few:

• The number of overall health-related services preformed by Planned Parenthood at its 750 affiliate centers nationwide has been declining since 2010.  In 2012, it reached its lowest level since 2006. Planned Parenthood is not delivering on its promises to offer expanded health services to women.  For example, the organization claims it needs more funding to provide breast exams for women.  An analysis of the group's own data shows it is performing fewer exams each year.  Since 2007, exams have declined nearly 25 percent.  
• Planned Parenthood claims abortion procedures are a small part of the services it provides, but it may be the most profitable.  An analysis finds that abortions increased 9.3 percent from 2007 to 2011.  Figures for the latest year indicate a record number of abortions were performed.  Since 2007, the centers have recorded 1,624,523 abortions.  The procedure clearly is a cash cow for Planned Parenthood, which charges between $300 and $950 for each abortion.  Costs for health services are either "free" or offered at nominal expense.
• Federal funding for Planned Parenthood has catapulted 77 percent since 2006, despite claims government support has dwindled.   In 2012, taxpayers transferred $542.4 million to the organization.  Federal dollars represented 45 percent of the organization's total income. The increases were required because Planned Parenthood has lost 27 percent of its individual and corporate donor base since 2007. The jump in federal funding is not commensurate with the services provided.  Since 2009, Planned Parenthood reported its services have fallen 3.3 percent, hardly justification for the stunning increase in federal funding. The number of clients served has also declined since 2007.  

The shrill voices in the women's rights movement have shrink-wrapped Planned Parenthood in an protective coating that frightens most politicians from investigating the expansion in federal funding.  Even legitimate questions about funding are treated as the ravings of Neanderthals who want to enslave women.

Conservatives have played into the hands of the abortion crowd with emotionally-charged arguments against federal funding.  Instead of fighting over abortion policy, Republicans should attack Planned Parenthood on the basis of its failures to deliver on its own mandate of providing health care services to women. 
 
Abortion is not health care.  There should be not one scintilla of taxpayers funds used to support an organization which does so little to advance women's health care.      

The Fastest Growing, Tax-Hogging Entitlement

Job growth under President Obama may have inched along at a snail's pace, but one entitlement scheme has enjoyed an epic boom.   Federal spending on Social Security disability benefits has skyrocketed, eclipsing taxpayer funding of welfare and food stamps combined.

Today there are 10.9 million people receiving disability benefits under the age of 65.  A total of 8.8 million are former workers.  The remainder are spouses of the disabled and their children.  They collect an average of $10.6 billion every month.  That's more than $127 billion dollars annually.

Spending on disability programs has grown at an annual rate of 5.6 percent, compared with 2.2 percent for the remainder of Social Security.  Those figures were developed by David Autor, an economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

As the economy has soured, disability applications have soared.  From 2001 to 2010, applications ballooned 123 percent.  A staggering 2.8 million disability cases were approved in 2012, double the number in 2000.  Currently one in 18 adults of working age receives disability payments.

As more employees opt out for disability, the labor force shrinks. Without this decline, the current unemployment rate would be 10.8 percent, according to calculations by the American Enterprise Institute.

There are two factors spurring the explosive growth:

• Disability eligibility standards have been liberalized. Congressional Democrats passed new standards in the 1980's making it easier to qualify for benefits and more difficult to be removed. Less than one percent of disability recipients in 2011 returned to the workforce.  In the 1960's the top cause of disability awards was heart disease.  Today it is back pain and mental illness, which are infinitely more difficult to dispute on a medical basis.
• As job prospects dim, more workers claim disabilities. Several studies have established the linkage between the economy and disability applications. One research project correlated the price of coal with worker disability claims.  As coal prices fell, applications in Appalachia for disability rose.  An increasing "faction of discouraged and displaced workers are seeking" disability benefits, found another study co-authored by MIT's Autor.  

Dire warnings about an approaching financial storm for Social Security disability have gone unheeded in Washington.  Politicians from both sides of the aisle are terror-stricken over tackling the issue, fearing backlash in the media and from genuinely disabled voters.  

Yet Social Security chief actuary Steve Goss has forecast that disability program reserves will run out of money in 2016, a mere three years from today.   A recent government report predicted by 2018, one in 14 working age adults will receive disability payments under current growth rates.

Like so many federal entitlement programs, the Social Security disability system is unsustainable. The longer the president and Congress dither on reform, the time horizon for solutions grows shorter and impending financial disaster looms larger.     

What You Don't Know About Obama Care Will Make You Sick

As surely as the sun rises every morning, each new dawn brings more distressing reports about Obama Care.  New taxes, new problems and new costs are brought to light daily.  With each revelation, the health care law appears more flawed and less likely to deliver on President Obama's promises.

Even some Democrats are starting to worry.  The Senate recently gave sweeping approval for repeal of a tax on medical devices, a key component of the comprehensive health overhaul.  In a bi-partisan vote, the Senate dealt a 79-20 a blow to the Obama Administration's tax provision.

Here are just a sampling of other recent news that has rocked the law, created, designed and approved by Democrats in 2010:

1. A new 3.8 percent tax will be levied this year on investment income.  The provision is projected to produce more than $100 billion over a 10-year period.  The tax, intended to furnish the bulk of the health care funding, will be applied on top of the 20 percent tax on investment income from dividends and capital gains.  Individual taxpayers and households with incomes above $200,000 to $250,000, respectively, will be subject to the tax.  
2. A University of Chicago study released recently found that over half of the individual insurance plans on the market today do not meet Obama Care standards. The reason is the new law sets minimums for coverage of services, including medication, mental health care and maternity.  This means that unless there are changes in plans offered by individual health insurers, these people will not be able to keep their current insurance plan.  That was a key selling point to promote Obama Care.
3. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a new projection, estimating that the nation's health care costs will increase by $1.3 trillion between 2013 and 2023.  This contradicts President Obama's claims that the health care scheme would reduce costs over the long haul.  The CBO also has forecast that the average family will see its insurance premiums increase by $2,100 annually.  Democrats contended the law would decrease premiums by $2,500. In addition, the CBO expects 30 million people to remain uninsured in 2016, even after the law is fully implemented.  
4. The Obama Administration has quietly issued a draft copy of an insurance application that runs 60 pages and requires about 1,000 answers.  That's just the federal form.  The states will also have their own applications. Obama Care was supposed to simplify insurance for consumers. It will be a red-tape nightmare for average Americans.  In fact, there is a plan afoot in Washington to hire "tens of thousands" of so-called "navigators" to help consumers fill out the forms.  The hush-hush scheme envisions a gargantuan bureaucracy to be staffed by well-paid members of unions and community activists.  

It is becoming increasingly clear that Americans were sold down the river by Democrats who were hell bent on taking over the private health care system and replacing it with a government bureaucracy. Obama Care won't cover everyone, won't reduce costs, won't improve health care, but will raise every American's taxes.

Now that the truth is emerging about Obama Care concerned Americans must no longer remain silent.  The law must be repealed, defunded or overturned in court to derail a hijacking of the world's best medical care system.  The future of health care in the U.S. depends on it.    

An Indictment of American Journalism

Political news coverage sunk to new lows in the 2012 presidential campaign as big media winnowed personnel, shifted emphasis to sports, weather and traffic, while serving up little analysis to help voters interpret candidate views.

Those are the findings of The State of the News Media 2013 annual report by the non-partisan Pew Research Center.  While a handful of news outlets have covered the few positive nuggets in the research, nearly all have chosen to ignore the damning evidence which indicts American journalism.

Pew found that the news industry is "more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories" than ever before.  Apparently, the public has noticed.  Nearly one-third of those polled have abandoned a news outlet because it no longer provides the information they require.

Pew reserves its most caustic criticism for the media's coverage of the 2012 presidential election.

Its analysis "revealed that campaign reporters were acting primarily as megaphones, rather than as investigators, of the assertions put forward by candidates and other political partisans." It meant that there was less investigative reporting by journalists and more reliance on campaign sources, Pew said.

Journalism was sacrificed at the expense of deep cuts in newsrooms that have dwindled reporting resources, according to Pew.  The reductions have been driven by slumping advertising and steep losses in circulation and viewership.

The Pew report offered stark details of the decline.

For example, newspapers have slashed 30 percent of their workforce since 2000.  Reductions were required because print advertising has plummeted 46 percent since 2006. Although 460 newspapers now produce digital editions, the industry loses $16 in print revenue for every $1 in recoups in digital advertising. 

Meanwhile, one in six local television stations carved chunks out of their news budgets last year. While local broadcast revenue increased in 2012, it remains down 13.5 percent since 2006.  Local news viewership sagged 6.5 percent last year even after stations focused more on weather, traffic and sports.

Advertising losses in television and newspapers have come at the expense of the boom in digital media.   Digital platforms posted a 17 percent increase in advertising, rising to $37.3 billion in 2012.  The mobile ad market ballooned 80 percent in 2012 to $2.6 billion.

The growth can be partly attributed to the rising popularity of digital media's news. An average of more than 625 million people monthly visit news websites, such as Yahoo.  Nearly 35 percent of young people, aged 18-24, turn to social media for their news, surfing Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

It's a sad state of affairs when social media's fluff masquerading as news trumps traditional reporting.  But big media has abdicated its position as a trusted news source by abandoning its journalistic role and instead dishing out less news with more bias.