Daily Commentary – Tuesday, April 8, 2014 – Preview of Tonights Special Dana Pretzer Show on Missing Persons

• With special guests and missing persons advocates Anne Gavin from So-Cal Advocates for the Missing and Jo Anne Lachance from coldcasesmedia.com

Daily Commentary – Tuesday, April 8, 2014 Download

The Obama Administration & Democrats Playing Politics with Obamacare Again … Cuts to Medicare Advantage A No Go During an Election Year

Democrats once again playing politics with healthcare … Just changing the law as they see fit to benefit themselves.

Barack Obama previously said that Obamacare was a done deal and here to stay. However, one could say that it is Obama and Democrats that have done more to show that Obamacare is “unsettled” science and a disaster. Team Obama has done everything imaginable to delay the pain to Americans until after the 2014 midterm and even the 2016 elections so not to adversely affect Democrats. Add cuts to Medicare Advantage to the long list of delays as well. As reported at The Hill, the Obama administration announced Monday that planned cuts to Medicare Advantage would not go through as anticipated amid election-year opposition from congressional Democrats. It’s a bit premature Barack to call Obamacare a done deal when you have delayed most of it so the American people don’t feel the affects until it is too late.

The Obama administration announced Monday that planned cuts to Medicare Advantage would not go through as anticipated amid election-year opposition from congressional Democrats.

The cuts would have reduced benefits that seniors receive from health plans in the program, which is intended as an alternative to Medicare.

Under cuts planned by the administration, insurers offering the plans were to see their federal payments reduced by 1.9 percent, which likely would have necessitated cuts for customers.

Instead, the administration said the federal payments to insurers will increase next year by .40 percent.

The healthcare law included $200 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage over 10 years, in part to pay for ObamaCare.

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) on Monday said changes in the healthcare market meant it did not need to make those cuts to Medicare Advantage this year.

New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer, who signed a February 14 letter called on the Obama administration to essentially hold Medicare Advantage rates steady, said in a statement Monday that he was glad the Obama administration heeded their call. Code for, SOS for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.

 One of the senators who signed that letter, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, said in a statement Monday that he was glad the Obama administration heeded their call.

“In many parts of the country, including New York, Medicare Advantage works very well,” Schumer said.

Just curious, Democrats certainly had no problem voting for these cuts in lock-step with Barack Obama in passing Obamacare along a 100% partisan vote and ramming this down the throats of Americans. So, why suddenly the change? It could not possibly be because the cuts in the popular program, Medicare Advantage, would hurt Democrats at the voting booths, could it? No, of course not.

UCONN HUSKIES … BEST IN SHOW!!! UCONN Huskies Win Mens College Backetball Championship 60-54 over the Kentucky Wildcats

UCONN HUSKIES … BEST IN SHOW!!!

#7 seed University of Connecticut Huskies defeat the #8 seed Kentucky Wildcats, 60-54 …

UCONN guard Shabazz Napier was the best player on the court tonight as he lead the Huskies to a 60-54 victory over Kentucky and its five starting freshmen before 79,238 at AT&T Stadium in North Texas. The UCONN backcourt of Napier and Ryan Boatright were in control the whole way as the Huskies never trailed. Napier had 22 points and six rebounds. Boatright had 14 points and three assists. In the end, the more mature, fundamentally sound UCONN Huskies defeated the Kentucky Wildcat “one and doners”. Not to mention free throw shooting killed Kentucky. It was the 4th Men’s basketball championship, adding to their school titles in 1999, 2004 and 2011. Shabazz Napier was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.

Shabazz Napier turned in another all-court masterpiece Monday night to lift the Huskies to a 60-54 win over Kentucky’s freshmen and a national title hardly anyone saw coming.

Napier had 22 points, six rebounds and three assists, and his partner in defensive lock-down, Ryan Boatright, finished with 14 points.

UConn (32-8) never trailed. The Huskies led by as many as 15 in the first half and watched the Wildcats (29-11) trim the deficit to one with 8:13 left. But Aaron Harrison, Kentucky’s big-moment shooter in the last three games, missed a 3-pointer from the left corner that would’ve given the `Cats the lead. Kentucky never got closer.

One key difference in a six-point loss: Kentucky’s 11 missed free throws — a flashback of sorts for coach John Calipari, whose Memphis team blew a late lead against Kansas after missing multiple free throws in the 2008 final. The Wildcats went 13 for 24. UConn went 10 for 10, and when Lasan Kromah made his last two with 25.1 seconds left for a six-point margin, the celebration was on.

In all, Calipari’s One and Doners got outdone by a more fundamentally sound, more-seasoned group that came into this tournament a seventh-seeded afterthought but walked away with the program’s fourth national title since 1999. They were the highest seed to win it all since Rollie Massimino’s eighth-seeded Villanova squad in 1985.

Things That Make You Go Hmm … The Rev. Al Sharpton was an FBI Informant

And now for something completely different … From The Smoking Gun, Al Sharpton was an FBI mob informant.

It is almost simply implausible to believe that the Reverend Al was an FBI mob rat. Al Sharpton was known by the FBI as “CI-7”  worked for the FBI in the mid-1980s and regularly interacted with members of four of New York City’s five organized crime families, specifically leaders of the Genovese family, and he secretly recorded their conversations. Where was the microphone, in his medallion? Just when you thought you had heard it all.

The former mob snitch has become a regular in the White House, where he has met with the 44th president in the East Room, the Roosevelt Room, and the Oval Office. He has also attended Obama Christmas parties, speeches, policy announcements, and even watched a Super Bowl with the First Family (an evening the man has called “one of the highlights of my life”). During these gatherings, he has mingled with cabinet members, top Obama aides, military leaders, business executives, and members of Congress. His former confederates were a decidedly dicier lot: ex-convicts, extortionists, heroin traffickers, and mob henchmen. The man’s surreptitious recordings, FBI records show, aided his government handlers in the successful targeting of powerful Mafia figures with nicknames like Benny Eggs, Chin, Fritzy, Corky, and Baldy Dom.

The ex-informant has been one of Obama’s most unwavering backers, a cheerleader who has nightly bludgeoned the president’s Republican opponents in televised broadsides. For his part, Obama has sought the man’s counsel, embraced him publicly, and saluted his “commitment to fight injustice and inequality.” The president has even commented favorably on his friend’s svelte figure, the physical manifestation of a rehabilitation effort that coincided with Obama’s ascension to the White House. This radical makeover has brought the man wealth, a daily TV show, bespoke suits, a luxury Upper West Side apartment, and a spot on best seller lists.

Most importantly, he has the ear of the President of the United States, an equally remarkable and perplexing achievement for the former FBI asset known as “CI-7,” the Rev. Al Sharpton.

A lengthy investigation by The Smoking Gun has uncovered remarkable details about Sharpton’s past work as an informant for a joint organized crime task force comprised of FBI agents and NYPD detectives, as well as his dealings with an assortment of wiseguys.

Beginning in the mid-1980s and spanning several years, Sharpton’s cooperation was fraught with danger since the FBI’s principal targets were leaders of the Genovese crime family, the country’s largest and most feared Mafia outfit. In addition to aiding the FBI/NYPD task force, which was known as the “Genovese squad,” Sharpton’s cooperation extended to several other investigative agencies.

TSG’s account of Sharpton’s secret life as “CI-7” is based on hundreds of pages of confidential FBI affidavits, documents released by the bureau in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, court records, and extensive interviews with six members of the Genovese squad, as well as other law enforcement officials to whom the activist provided assistance.

Like almost every other FBI informant, Sharpton was solely an information source. The parameters of his cooperation did not include Sharpton ever surfacing publicly or testifying on a witness stand.

Check out the pics of Al Sharpton at The Daily News … Rev. Al Sharpton worked as FBI informant, taping conversations with mob pals to help bring down Genovese crime family.

Sharpton became an informant after he was caught on tape with a drug kingpin discussing cocaine deals, and the feds threatened him with charges unless he flipped and snitched on mafia acquaintances, according to The Smoking Gun. In an interview with the Daily News on Monday, Sharpton disputed much of the report, saying he turned to authorities after receiving threats from Gambino family member Joseph (Joe Bana) Buonanno and others.

Oh the Irony … 29 Islamists Accidently Blow Themselves Up When They Prematurely Detonate A Car Bomb

Gotta Love It When This Happens …

Islamists were introduced to poetic justice and irony when 29 so-called rebels were killed when the car bombs they were loading into a vehicle prematurely exploded in the Syrian city of Homs. A guess these folks need to go back and re-read the chapter in the terrorists hand guide to bombs that deals with loading cars with explosives. But we will make it as Weasel Zippers did, the feel good story of the day.

Question, do they still get the virgins?

 At least 29 rebel combatants died Sunday when a car bomb exploded in the central part of the city of Homs,
located 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) north of Damascus. EFE/STR/File

At least 29 rebels died in a blast Sunday in the central Syrian city of Homs as they primed a car bomb for an attack, a monitoring group said.

In the capital, meanwhile, two people were killed when mortar fire struck the Damascus Opera House, state media reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said at least 29 people were killed, most or all of them believed to be rebels, in the besieged Old City of Homs when a car bomb exploded.

“The death toll is likely to rise because there are dozens of people missing and body parts in the area of the blast,” the Britain-based group said.

State news agency SANA also reported the blast, saying a car had exploded while being loaded with explosives.