Sparked by his raging case of PDS.

Corrupt to the core.

(DC Examiner)- Yesterday, the Deparment of Health and Human Services announced it had granted more than 500 new waivers to Obamacare’s requirement that health plans have annual limits of no less than $750,000. This annual limit requirement climbs to $1.25 million next year and then to $2 million.

The reason these exemptions from the law are needed is that Obamacare forces all health insurance consumers to over-insure themselves and pay high premiums as a result. Without the waivers, many companies, non-profits and unions would simply drop their health plans. As of 2014, the waivers will no longer be available — at least, that’s the way the law is written.

It is worth noting that there are 166 union benefits funds now exempted from this requirement, which account for about 40 percent of the exempted workers. This means that although there are only 14.6 million unionized employees in the United States, and 860,000 of them are already exempted from this provision of Obamacare.

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Major bummer.

(LA Times)- Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, seen as a rising star among conservatives, announced to his supporters that he will not mount a presidential run in 2012.

Though he stopped short of a formal announcement, Pence strongly suggested that he will instead seek the governorship of Indiana next year.

“In the choice between seeking national office and serving Indiana in some capacity, we choose Indiana,” Pence told supporters in an e-mail message sent Thursday afternoon. “We will not seek the Republican nomination for president in 2012.”

Pence gave up his post in the House Republican leadership this year, a move seen as setting the stage for a potential run. He had already made waters-testing visits to Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that lead off the presidential nominating process.

In September, Pence was the surprise winner of a straw poll of attendees at the Values Voters Summit, a gathering of national conservative activists in Washington.

Heck, even Chris Matthews wants to see it.

HONOLULU (AP) — Five Hawaii Democratic representatives want to pass a law making President Barack Obama’s birth records public and charge $100 to see them.

The bill, introduced this week, would change a privacy law barring the release of birth records to anyone unless they have a tangible interest.

The measure hasn’t been scheduled for a public hearing yet, and can’t move forward until that happens.

Its primary sponsor, Rep. Rida Cabanilla, says she wants to end the controversy surrounding Obama’s birth by handing over official state records to those who will pay.

She says the fee would help offset the extra work by state employees who handle frequent phone calls and e-mails from people who believe Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii.

HT: Rob

Don’t forget, there is no compulsion in Islam.

Washington, D.C. (January 25, 2011)–International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Christians in the Ethiopian city of Besheno are being harassed and physically abused after Muslims posted notices on the doors of Christian homes warning them to convert, leave the city or face death.

Three Christian leaders were forced to flee the city and two Christians have been forced to convert to Islam. In the Muslim majority city, the entire evangelical Christian community consists of about 30 believers.

Evangelist Kassa Awano remains in critical condition after Muslims attacked him on November 29, 2010.  A few days after the attack, nearly 100 Muslims surrounded a vehicle carrying Christian leaders on their way to negotiate for peace with Muslim leaders.  Two men, Tesema Hirego and Niggusie Denano, were seriously wounded, and the other leaders suffered minor injuries. On January 2, Muslims assaulted Temesgen Peteros with a knife after he testified about the attacks on these Christians in court.

Christians in Besheno have been targeted by Muslims for many years. On May 21, 2004, Muslims murdered the 7 year-old daughter of Evangelist Tesfaye Hobe. Muslims continuously attack Christians for listening to Christian songs and watching Christian videos.

C’mon, be president!

(National Journal)- Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., is set to announce a decision on his political future on Friday, according to his mother, who has been urging him to finally put an end to all of the building speculation over his political future.

“He will be making his announcement tomorrow,” said Nancy Pence Fritsch, contacted today by telephone at her home in Columbus, Ind.

Asked to confirm reports that she has told her son to make up his mind about whether he’s going to run for Indiana governor or president of the United States, the congressman’s mom did not deny it.

“What’s a mother to do?” Fritsch said.

As for what her son will announce on Friday — or where or how he will announce it — she said: “I have nothing more to say.”

Update: Report now saying he will rule out running for president.

(Roll Call)- A former operative for Rep. Mike Pence says the Indiana Republican won’t be running for president. Pence plans to reveal the decision about his political future Thursday, multiple outlets reported, and former Pence Political Director Jerry Alexander told Roll Call that the Congressman isn’t likely to announce much.

“There’s a 100 percent chance that he’s not going to announce a run for president,” said Alexander, who worked for Pence from 2001 to 2007.

That means Pence will be running for governor, ending more than a year of speculation about whether he’d seek national office. The Indianapolis Star said it would post Pence’s announcement after 7 p.m. Eastern time.

Because it’s only “vitriolic” when conservatives say it.

(Daily Caller)- Cable host Ed Schultz, who on his nightly MSNBC show has lately called for an end to “vitriolic rhetoric” in politics, appears to be engaging in exactly that off camera. The Daily Caller has obtained e-mails that appear to be from Schultz’s account in which Schultz refers to one viewer as a “prick” and “right wing scum.”

Shortly after Keith Olbermann announced his departure from MSNBC, a viewer named Miller Baird e-mailed Schultz. “Hey Ed,” he wrote, “you think Comcast had nothing to do with Keith departure. You are also the same guy that thinks Obamacare is going to lower the deficit.” On Monday, Baird received a response calling him a “prick.”

Three days later, Baird e-mailed once more, this time about Obamacare. Again, he received a response from what seems to be Schultz’s account: “Gosh..I thought you would wish me happy bithday [sic]…but what can I expect from right wing scum.”

Baird wasn’t impressed. “He’s just so vile,” he told The Daily Caller in a phone interview. “He’s got a loud mouth and, you know, you can disagree with somebody, but you don’t have to get nasty.”

Neither Schultz nor a spokesman for MSNBC responded to TheDC’s request for comment.

Still heating up.

CAIRO — Egypt’s ruling party said Thursday it was ready for a dialogue with the public but offered no concessions to address demands for a solution to rampant poverty and political change heard in the country’s largest anti-government protests in years.

At the same time, the grass roots protest movement was getting a double boost likely to energize the largest anti-government demonstrations Egypt has seen in years. Mohammed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate and the country’s top pro-democracy advocate, was returning to the country Thursday night and declared he was ready to lead the protests. The country’s largest opposition group — the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood — also threw its support behind the demonstrations.

Rioting and protests erupted for a third straight day and social networking sites were abuzz with talk that Friday’s rallies could be some of the biggest so far calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak after 30-years in power. Millions gather at mosques across the city for Friday prayers, providing organizers with a huge number of people already out on the streets to tap into.

The protesters have already achieved a major feat by sustaining their demonstrations for three days in the face of a brutal police crackdown. Seven people have been killed, hundreds hurt and nearly 1,000 detained.

The government has banned all gatherings and police have fired rubber bullets, tear gas, and used water cannons to disperse crowds. They have also fired live ammunition in the air at time to warn people and there have been many scenes of riot police in helmets and shields charging crowds and beating people with batons and plainclothes police beating demonstrators with long sticks.

How’s that hopey changey working out for you?

For the first time since 2005, more people like Republicans than dislike them, according to Gallup’s latest poll. The margin is small: 47 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP, and 43 percent have an unfavorable opinion, according to the poll, which has a 4 percent margin of error.

Still, that’s better than Democrats are faring. Gallup reports that President Obama’s party is liked by just 46 percent of respondents, and is disliked by 47 percent, “among the worst for Democrats since 1992, but is an improvement from last year.”

“The two parties’ ratings are now generally similar, suggesting they are starting off on relatively equal footing as a Democratic president and Senate, and a Republican House of Representatives attempt to govern the nation over the next two years,” wrote Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones.

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So much for “moving to the center.”

(Politico)- On Wednesday night, the White House renominated Dr. Don Berwick to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The nomination is likely to be yet another flashpoint in the contentious health-care repeal debate on Capitol Hill. Republicans strongly objected to Berwick’s appointment last year, pointing to his previous comments in support of the British health system and rationing with “eyes open” or closed.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) called the renomination “a disappointing decision.”

“A day after the president committed to coming together to move our country forward, he’s chosen to renominate one of his most contentious nominees to head an agency that impacts the lives of more than 100 million Americans,” said Hatch, who is the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee.

“Given Dr. Berwick’s controversial views, Republicans will expect a full hearing to understand how the administration is implementing the $2.6 trillion health law, its impact on the American people, and the consequences to future of Medicare and Medicaid.”

Because that’s what the United State Air Force is there for…no, wait?…

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained new documents from the United States Air Force detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of United States Air Force aircraft in 2010. According to the documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Pelosi used Air Force aircraft for 43 flights from January 1 to October 1, 2010. According to documents previously uncovered by Judicial Watch, by comparison, Nancy Pelosi logged 47 flights in the prior nine-month period, April 1, 2009, to January 1, 2010.

The most recent documents uncovered by Judicial Watch include a Passenger Mission Activity chart detailing all of former Speaker Pelosi’s flights January 1 to October 1, 2010, as well as detailed shopping lists for some flights, flight authorization forms, Mission Expense Records and internal Air Force correspondence related to the flights. Among the highlights from the documents, obtained pursuant to a FOIA request filed on September 10, 2010:

Pelosi used the Air Force aircraft for a total of 43 trips, covering 90,155 miles, from January 1 through October 1, 2010. The Air Force documented in-flight expenses for 22 of these flights totaling $1,821.33. The Air Force did not provide expense information for the remaining 21 flights.

Former Speaker Pelosi received chocolate covered strawberries as a birthday surprise on a March 26, 2010 flight. According to one internal Air Force email sent on March 25, 2010: “The speaker’s office is requesting egg salad sandwiches on wheat toast with fruit (watermelon, etc) for desert [sic]. It’s the speaker’s B-Day tomorrow so we’re also asking for something like chocolate covered strawberries (dark chocolate preferred)…” The immediate response to the email from another member of the Air Force staff: “Copy all. We’ll plan something for the birthday and take care of the meal.”

According to previous documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the former Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over one two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. For example, purchases for one Pelosi-led congressional delegation traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008, included: Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Baileys Irish Cream, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewar’s scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniel’s whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.

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American MSM seen nodding in approval.

Christians are “fair game” for insults at the BBC whilst Muslims must not be offended, one of the broadcaster’s veteran news anchors has warned.

Peter Sissons, whose memoirs are being serialised in the Daily Mail, slammed the BBC for its bias.

Mr Sissons said: “Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.”

His comments are unlikely to surprise many Christians who have become increasingly concerned about a perceived anti-Christian bias at the public broadcaster.

The veteran presenter, who fronted news and current affairs programmes at the BBC, also said that staff damage their careers if they don’t follow the BBC’s mindest.

He said: “In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the pervading culture. The better word is a ‘mindset’.”

Rest here>>>

I doubt he would run but the idea is intriguing.

(CNN) – News that South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint will travel to Iowa on March 26 to address a conservative forum organized by Rep. Steve King is sparking another round of chatter that DeMint might launch a dark horse bid for the White House in 2012.

The Republican gadfly has been adamant in denying such intentions for more than a year – just Wednesday, he gave CNN’s Wolf Blitzer a flat “No” when asked if he plans to seek his party’s presidential nomination.

But the ground may be shifting in DeMint-world, and several of his closest advisers and political confidantes are now telling CNN that he is at least open to a presidential bid if a suitably conservative candidate fails to emerge from the early and wide-open GOP field.

“I think that you can read into it that he sees he has a role in the process and he hasn’t completely shut the door,” said one DeMint adviser asked about the Iowa foray.

What do you guys think?

[poll id="4"]

Wicked smaht supa genius!

Via University of Minnesota’s Smart Politics:

Although praised by many for the tone he struck in delivering his 2011 State of the Union address, many conservatives criticized Barack Obama’s speech for being high on rhetoric and short on substance.

As it turns out, Obama’s speech was historically short — both in sentence structure and the words he used.

Last year, Smart Politics calculated that Obama’s debut State of the Union Address tallied one of the lowest Flesch-Kincaid scores in modern political history, by constructing his speech with sentences that were approximately 20 percent shorter in length than the nearly 70 oral addresses given since Franklin Roosevelt.

The Flesch-Kincaid test is designed to assess the readability level of written text, with a formula that translates the score to a U.S. grade level. Longer sentences and sentences utilizing words with more syllables produce higher scores. Shorter sentences and sentences incorporating more monosyllabic words yield lower scores.

But Tuesday evening’s address beat even that.

A Smart Politics analysis of 69 orally delivered State of the Union Addresses since the mid-1930s finds the text of Obama’s speech to have notched the second lowest score on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test recorded by a U.S. President.

Obama’s speech had a Flesch-Kincaid grade level score of just 8.1 — which is a half a grade lower than the 8.8 he tallied in 2010.

Smart Politics ran the Flesch-Kincaid test on each of the last 69 State of the Union Addresses that were delivered orally by presidents before a Joint Session of Congress since Franklin Roosevelt.

Excluded from analysis were five written addresses (by Truman in 1946 and 1953, Eisenhower in 1961, Nixon in 1973, and Carter in 1981) and two addresses that were delivered orally, but not by the President himself (Roosevelt in 1945, Eisenhower in 1956).

Prior to FDR, the vast majority of State of the Union speeches were delivered in writing.

President Obama now has the lowest average Flesch-Kincaid score for State of the Union addresses of any modern president — with his 8.5 grade level falling just below the 8.6 score recorded by George H.W. Bush during his presidency.

By contrast — the speeches delivered by two of the most popular presidents in Republican circles in recent generations — Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush — recorded average scores of 10.3 and 10.4 respectively — nearly two full grade levels higher than Obama.

Kennedy (12.0) and Eisenhower (11.9) delivered speeches that had a reading difficulty of three and a half grade levels higher than Obama.

Arabs respond to one thing and one thing only, violence and the threat of it.

(JPost)- US President Barack Obama has lost all credibility in the Middle East, PA negotiator Saeb Erekat told US envoy George Mitchell in October 2009, according to leaked Palestinian documents released by Al-Jazeera and the Guardian Wednesday night.

In an apparently heated exchange with Mitchell about a settlement freeze, Erekat said he would not be able to convince the Palestinians to negotiate without a full settlement freeze.

“It’s not up to me to decide your credibility in the Middle East,” Erekat said. “He [Obama] has lost it throughout the region.

When he got the Nobel Peace Prize, I was asked about it in the media and publicly congratulated him. I was attacked for it in the Arab media – just for congratulating like I would congratulate anyone who wins a prize… Believe me, there is no president in the Middle East who wants to help Obama as much as AM [PA President Mahmoud Abbas].”

…Later in the meeting, Erekat said that “people in the Middle East are not taking Barack Obama seriously. They feared Bush, despite everything. This is important. BO [Obama] has lost it with the decision-makers, although not the street.”

They’re framing this as a question but in reality it’s a statement advocating killing off the “unnecessary” population.

(James Cameron’s Avatar Wiki) — ‘There are too many of us already, and we must not let our numbers grow even further beyond what Earth’s resources can provide. If we want to keep/improve our current standard of living, those who are able should take precautions.

A few of the more extreme ideas (i.e. killing off “unnecessary” members of a population), while theoretically efficient, seem elitist and unnecessarily drastic and cruel from a human standpoint.

Then there are people who believe in the ideal that either nature or an all-powerful being will eventually “balance out” our growing numbers (Eywa?). Yes, people die every day, but lives taken by disease epidemics, natural disasters, or wars should not be thought of as expendable just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In spite of the vast number of natural selection believers, we humans can take advantage of a very simple option to keep our numbers in check.

The total world population will reach about 9 billion in the year 2042, up from the documented 6 billion in 1999. Over 43 years, that’s a 50% increase, or an additional 3 billion people. That’s simply too many!

Some world governments presently have population limitation programs in place (China), or are developing new forms of contraception.

Tragedy averted.

(Daily Mail)- Airport officials ordered a holidaymaker carrying a toy soldier onto a plane to remove its three-inch gun – because it was a safety threat.

Ken Lloyd was stunned when he was told he could not go on the plane with the nine-inch model soldier because it was carrying a ‘firearm’.

The Canadian tourist and his wife had bought the toy, which holds a replica SA80 rifle, during a visit to the Royal Signals Museum at Blandford Camp in Dorset. But when he tried to take the £135 keepsake through Gatwick Airport in his hand luggage it triggered a security alert at the scanners.

Officials declared the moulded gun could not go on the plane and Mr Lloyd had to snap off the model weapon and then post it back to his home in Ontario. He said: ‘As the figurine’s SA80 rifle was pulled from the box, the security search officer contacted her supervisor. The moulded SA80 could not pass.

Frothing-at-the-mouth lefty alert.

(The Hill)- Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) is calling President Obama’s “Win the Future” State of the Union address a “WTF speech” — referring to a different phrase.

On Fox News and on her Facebook page, the would-be GOP 2012 contender criticized Obama’s Tuesday address, saying the WTF acronym “seemed more accurate than much of the content.” Palin criticized what the president said about energy, tax policy and investment.

“That was another WTF moment,” Palin told Fox News on Wednesday night.

In a Facebook message posted early Thursday, Palin slammed the president’s address for advocating what she called inefficiently large government. She challenged Obama’s promise that a planned high-speed rail system and new solar energy research initiatives would help the economy.

“These ‘investments,’ as the President calls them, include everything from solar shingles to high speed trains.” Palin wrote. “As we struggle to service our unsustainable debt, the only thing these ‘investments’ will get us is a bullet train to bankruptcy.”

Update: Heres’ the video.

Video of a U.S. Marine sniper picking off a Taliban spotter.

Islam is a vile “religion.”

(ABC News)- About 200 people listen to a Taliban mullah describe why a man and woman deserve to be killed. A few dozen spectators – people from the local community — start throwing rocks at the woman, who had already been placed in a 4-foot-deep hole. They throw with relish and yell, “Allah akbar.”

At one point a large rock strikes her head and she falls down, her burqa red with blood. After the rock throwing ends, a few people debate whether she should be shot. Eventually one of the spectators shoots her with an AK-47. She falls into the hole, out of sight. There is a short period of absolute silence, and then the spectators turn to each other and start talking.

Then the man is brought into the crowd and blindfolded with his own tunic. The same scene proceeds, but with larger rocks and more abandon. He cries as he is killed.

That’s a dispassionate description of video of the first documented stoning in Afghanistan since the Taliban were in power, which took place in October. The video is shocking and nauseating, and most people who watch an unedited version of the footage need to look away.

The cell phone video, first obtained by the BBC and then independently obtained by ABC News, was filmed by one of the spectators at the stoning, which occurred in a conservative district near the Afghan-Tajik border. It was also posted online, viewed by about 6,000 people.

The brutality of the event is one of the most outrageous examples of the Taliban imposing their own version of justice in Afghanistan nearly nine years after the war began. It shows how their reach in historically peaceful northern Afghanistan recently expanded to the point where they could hold a public execution at 10:30 a.m. without any fear of retribution.