A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – The IRS overpaid nearly $4 billion to Obamacare customers through tax credits last year, and because of the way the law is written it can’t even try to collect on a quarter of that, the Treasury Department’s inspector general reported this week.

All told, the Treasury Department paid out roughly $27 billion in Obamacare subsidies in the 2018 tax-filing season, with overages accounting for $3.7 billion of that. Only $2.7 billion was recaptured.

The $1 billion left over is small compared to the overall federal budget, but it is 20 percent of the president’s border wall funding request that’s spurred the current government shutdown. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Efforts to resolve a government shutdown fight have been at a standstill since Saturday, when Democrats rejected a White House proposal that reduced President Trump’s $5 billion demand for a border wall and offered flexibility on just how solid the wall needed to be.

According to a senior White House official, White House negotiators led by Vice President Mike Pence and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner huddled with Democrats on Capitol Hill Saturday and proposed between $1.6 billion and $5 billion in funds for a “physical barrier” that would include “fencing, a wall, and steel slats.” [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – President Trump and his advisers are weighing whether to cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement to force through his revised trade deal, a strong-arm tactic that would present Congress — and resistant Democrats — with the stark choice of assent or disarray.

Two administration sources who asked for anonymity to speak freely with the press said that the idea has been discussed within the White House but that they did not think that Trump has reached a final decision to withdraw from NAFTA.

“As crazy as it sounds, you’ve got to have some kind of catalyst to get things to move,” said one of the White House staffers, emphasizing that administration staff would prefer to negotiate over Trump’s deal, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA, without first removing the safety net of NAFTA. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – A week after President Trump’s surprising announcement that he was withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria, the U.S. military is drafting a withdrawal plan that could have U.S. troops leaving over several months, according to U.S. officials, who stressed that no final decisions have been made about the planned pace of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria.

Over the weekend, Defense Secretary James Mattis signed an order that tasked U.S. Central Command with developing a withdrawal plan, but there was no timetable associated with the order.

Shortly after President Trump’s announcement last Wednesday, U.S. officials had said it was likely that the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria could all be pulled out in 30 days. [ Source: ABC News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Seven years after Germany scrapped conscription, its defence chief has said employing EU citizens is “an option” to fill expert posts.

Army general inspector Eberhard Zorn said the forces had to “look in all directions in times of a lack of qualified personnel”, such as doctors and IT specialists.

The armed forces have been beset by years of under-investment. [ Source: BBC (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – An Israeli security official on Wednesday confirmed responsibility for overnight airstrikes in Syria, saying the air force had hit a series of targets involved in Iranian arms transfers to the Hezbollah militant group.

Russia had criticized the airstrike, saying it endangered civilian flights. The comments highlighted the increasingly tense relations between Israel and Russia, which have grown strained since the September downing of a Russian plane by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli raid.

The Israeli official said the air force had attacked several Iranian targets in three main locations late Tuesday and early Wednesday. He said the targets were primarily storage and logistics facilities used by archenemy Iran to ship weapons to Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Lebanese group that fought Israel in a 2006 war. [ Source: Israel Hayom (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – An intelligence report issued by the satellite imaging company ImageSat International (ISI) on Thursday revealed the aftermath of the recent airstrikes in Syria, largely attributed to Israel.

According to reports, the target of the airstrikes was an Iranian weapons depot near Damascus. The satellite images unveiled Thursday showed extensive damage to the targeted site. A caption on the satellite imagery indicates that the site was “completely destroyed.”

London-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday that three weapons facilities, belonging to Iran and Hezbollah, had been targeted outside Damascus overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday. [ Source: Israel Hayom (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Moscow has reportedly begun testing an underwater nuclear weapon that has been touted as invincible by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Poseidon, previously known as the Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System and dubbed Kanyon by the U.S.-led NATO Western military alliance, is a state-of-the-art nuclear-capable drone being developed by the Russian armed forces. Citing a defense industry source, the state-run Tass Russian News Agency reported Tuesday that the Russian navy had begun trials for the weapon at sea.

“In the sea area protected from a potential enemy’s reconnaissance means, the underwater trials of the nuclear propulsion unit of the Poseidon drone are underway,” the source said, according to the official outlet. [ Source: Newsweek (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – A crudely-made bomb exploded outside one of Athens‘ most important churches early Thursday, injuring its caretaker and a police officer – troubling authorities as the attack took place without warning in one of the capital’s busiest areas.

Police officials said the timed device exploded outside the Orthodox church of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite in the upscale Kolonaki area of the capital before a Christmas holiday service to mark St. Stephen’s day.

The two victims were hospitalized. Neither of the men has injuries that are life-threatening, according to police and church officials. The blast caused minimal damage. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

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