Obama creates international incident with 'selfie' at Mandela service

  Bailey Comment: " This is a real classy Dude".

Call it the selfie seen 'round the world.
Among the enduring images from Nelson Mandela's massive memorial service in Johannesburg Tuesday will be one of a jovial President Obama taking a cell phone pic with his seat-mates, Denmark's Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and Britain's David Cameron.
As the three of them smile for the camera, a stern-looking Michelle Obama can be seen staring straight ahead, hands clasped. As if to remind anyone who sees this photo years from now that it was, after all, a memorial service for one of the great human rights leaders.
The tsk-tsk-ing could be heard across continents.
"What on earth is going on? Why do world leaders now behave like this?" The Daily Telegraph's Iain Martin wrote. "Perhaps it is just that the current generation -- my generation -- is so appallingly spoiled that basic notions of decorum have been shot to pieces."
RedState.com's Erick Erickson tweeted: "Thank you Mrs. Obama for knowing how to behave at a funeral."
The first lady's reaction -- not just to the "selfie" but to her husband's chatting and joking with the young Danish prime minister -- was priceless. In one picture, Michelle Obama could be seen glaring over at him while he put his hand on Ms. Thorning-Schmidt's shoulder.
In another, it appeared the first lady and the president switched seats, putting Michelle squarely between him and the PM.
The photographer behind the "selfie" pic of the three dignitaries, though, later claimed that the first lady herself was "joking with those around her" a few seconds earlier. "The stern look was captured by chance," he wrote.
After the images surged through social media, the White House on Wednesday released its own set of photos of Obama's South Africa visit. Perhaps it was no accident that among them was a picture of Obama, the first lady and the Danish prime minister.
But in this one, Obama was talking to his wife, while Thorning-Schmidt seemed preoccupied with her phone.
The "selfie" incident was the second unexpected controversy stirred up by the president in South Africa. Earlier, Cuban-American lawmakers publicly objected after Obama -- on his way to deliver his tribute to Mandela -- shook the hand of Raul Castro.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., called the moment "nauseating."
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who was at the Johannesburg service, walked out when Castro spoke.

Reid and staff intervened to expedite visa applications for Vegas hotel investors

The Obama administration expedited visa applications for about two dozen foreign investors for a Las Vegas casino hotel after pressure from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his staff, the Washington Times reported Tuesday.
The Times, citing internal government documents, said the decision to overturn a prior, normally non-appealable visa decision ultimately benefited several companies whose executives have been heavy Democratic donors.
The paper said it also came despite concerns about “suspicious financial activity” involving some Asian applicants.
Reid, who represents Nevada, personally reached out to the top official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Alejandro Mayorkas, setting in motion a process that ultimately granted expedited status to some two dozen investor visas for the SLS Hotel, formerly known as the Sahara Casino, the Times said.
Mayorkas is Obama’s current nominee to be the No.2 at the Department of Homeland Security and his appointment was to be reviewed by the Senate Wednesday.
The hotel needed the foreign investors’ visas to be approved so their money could be brought into the country. Within a few weeks of Reid’s intervention, the hotel was able to secure major funding from JP Morgan Chase, the paper said.  Bailey Comment : " Everybody knows Reid is a snake, except for the give me crowd"!

Antarctica sets low temperature record of -135.8 degrees

 Feeling chilly? Here's cold comfort: You could be in East Antarctica which new data says set a record for "soul-crushing" cold. Try 135.8 degrees Fahrenheit below zero; that's 93.2 degrees below zero Celsius, which sounds only slightly toastier. Better yet, don't try it. That's so cold scientists say it hurts to breathe.
A new look at NASA satellite data revealed that Earth set a new record for coldest temperature recorded. It happened in August 2010 when it hit -135.8 degrees. Then on July 31 of this year, it came close again: -135.3 degrees.
The old record had been -128.6 degrees, which is -89.2 degrees Celsius.
Ice scientist Ted Scambos at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said the new record is "50 degrees colder than anything that has ever been seen in Alaska or Siberia or certainly North Dakota."
"It's more like you'd see on Mars on a nice summer day in the poles," Scambos said, from the American Geophysical Union scientific meeting in San Francisco Monday, where he announced the data. "I'm confident that these pockets are the coldest places on Earth."
However, it won't be in the Guinness Book of World Records because these were satellite measured, not from thermometers, Scambos said.
"Thank God, I don't know how exactly it feels," Scambos said. But he said scientists do routinely make naked 100 degree below zero dashes outside in the South Pole, so people can survive that temperature for about three minutes.
Most of the time researchers need to breathe through a snorkel that brings air into the coat through a sleeve and warms it up "so you don't inhale by accident" the cold air, Scambos said.
On Monday, the coldest U.S. temperature was a relatively balmy 27 degrees below zero Fahrenheit in Yellowstone, Wyo., said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private firm Weather Underground.
"If you want soul-crushing cold, you really have to go overseas," Scambos said in a phone interview. "It's just a whole other level of cold because on that cold plateau, conditions are perfect."
Scambos said the air is dry, the ground chilly, the skies cloudless and cold air swoops down off a dome and gets trapped in a chilly lower spot "hugging the surface and sliding around."
Just because one spot on Earth has set records for cold that has little to do with global warming because it is one spot in one place, said Waleed Abdalati, an ice scientist at the University of Colorado and NASA's former chief scientist. Both Abdalati, who wasn't part of the measurement team, and Scambos said this is likely an unusual random reading in a place that hasn't been measured much before and could have been colder or hotter in the past and we wouldn't know.
"It does speak to the range of conditions on this Earth, some of which we haven't been able to observe," Abdalati said.  Bailey Comment: " Waleen Abdalati must be a Democrat because he's talking out both sides of his mouth"!

So In Your Face!

War on Christmas

The Baby Jesus has been kicked off Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, according to an organization who relishes any opportunity to eradicate Christianity from the U.S. military.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation praised officials at Shaw Air Force Base for removing a Nativity scene located near Memorial Lake on Friday. The traditional Nativity included plastic statues of Mary, Joseph, the Baby Jesus and an assortment of animals.
Apparently, an undisclosed number of Airmen were so emotionally troubled by the sight of a manger scene that they immediately notified the MRFF.

I can only imagine the psychological damage they must have suffered as a result of glancing at the plastic statues.

I can only imagine the psychological damage they must have suffered as a result of glancing at the plastic statues. I hope no one needed hospitalization, God forbid.
The MRFF’s Paul Loebe wrote in a statement that since the display was not erected near a chapel, it was illegal.
“It was very sectarian in nature and a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution as well as a blatant violation of Air Force Instruction 1-1, Section 2.11,” he said.
So the Newborn King is a violation of Air Force regulations? Who knew?
Loebe swiftly alerted MRFF President Mikey Weinstein who then called his BFF’s at the Pentagon. That led to an immediate investigation and more than two hours later, the Nativity had been removed.
“To the Air Force’s credit, it agreed with MRFF’s arguments to remove the Nativity scene swiftly and apparently found this scene to be as much a violation of all the pertinent regulations and the United States Constitution as MRFF did,” he stated.
He praised the Air Force for “acting so swiftly to reverse this egregious violation.”
So why did the Air Force unceremoniously boot the Son of God and why are they so terrified of Mikey Weinstein?
The public affairs office at Shaw AFB did not return three telephone calls and an email seeking comment. They must have been preoccupied hauling away the donkey and the sheep.
Hiram Sasser, the director of litigation for Liberty Institute, told me the military’s actions were unconstitutional.
“This was private speech,” he said. “The military can say no displays on a base but it cannot allow a display and then ban it simply because of its religious viewpoint.”
Sasser said the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that viewpoint discrimination even in a non-public forum such as a military base in unconstitutional.
“It appears that Mikey Weinstein has a special hotline to call his friends in leadership at the Pentagon to alert them to engage in unnecessary and, in this case, unlawful censorship of private religious speech,” he said.
Fox News commentator Sarah Palin, the author of the new book, “Good Tidings and Great Joy,” said what happened at Shaw Air Force base is not surprising.
“We see stories like this every day and yet leftwing pundits still claim that the so-called ‘War on Christmas’ is a figment of the imagination,” Palin told me. “The War on Christmas is just the top of the spear in a larger battle to marginalize expressions of faith and make true religious freedom a thing of the past.”
Palin’s book is a call to arms for Americans to “stand strong on America’s faith-filled foundation.”
“Never let these scrooges strip away the true meaning of Christmas,” she told me.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation bragged that it only took the Air Force two hours and 15 minutes to remove Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Sasser doubted the military would respond with such speed to correct what he called “unconstitutional religious viewpoint discrimination.”
He said he was surprised the Pentagon responded so swiftly to Weinstein’s demands - “as if he were under attack in a foreign country in need of rescue from a deadly mob.”
“Apparently if you are ever in trouble and need a quick response from the Pentagon, tell them a plastic Baby Jesus is at the gates.”
Maybe that’s what they should’ve done in Benghazi.

Congress

Maryland official who led problematic, state-run ObamaCare site resigns

The top Maryland official in charge of the state-run ObamaCare exchange resigned this weekend amid major efforts to fix the problematic website.
Rebecca Pearce, executive director of the Maryland Health Benefits Exchange, resigned Friday, according to several news sources.
She appears to be the first official to lose a job as a result of problems with ObamaCare exchanges since they went live Oct. 1.
Critics of the federal exchange have called for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other administration officials in charge of the problem-plagued HealthCare.gov. But President Obama has yet to accept a resignation.
The Maryland exchange’s board of directors released a statement saying it has accepted Pearce’s resignation and that she “worked tirelessly and with tremendous dedication to build Maryland Health Connection over more than two years.”
The group has not said exactly why Pearce resigned. But a source told The Washington Post is was related to leadership changes made by Gov. Martin O’Malley, a strong political ally of Obama and a potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.
Maryland is one of 14 states running its own exchange and has struggled with the same kind of technical problems that have plagued the federal site that the 36 other states use to sign up Americans for insurance under Obama’s signature health care reform law.
O’Malley has been a strong supporter of ObamaCare, and his Democratic-leaning state was among the first to get started on a state-run exchange.
However, the site, MarylandHealthConnection.gov, crashed soon after the October rollout and has sputtered along over roughly the past nine weeks, enrolling just 3,000 residents.
However, state officials indicated earlier Friday that the site has shown some improvement, signing up roughly 700 more people in the week ending Nov. 30.

Ills of HealthCare.gov

Errors in ObamaCare website forms spark concerns

 

The Obama administration announced Friday that enrollment records for one in four Americans who selected health plans on HealthCare.gov in October and November could contain errors, raising concerns that consumers who think they have coverage won't actually be enrolled on Jan. 1.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokeswoman Julie Bataille said recent fixes to HealthCare.gov have brought the error rate on forms sent to insurance companies down to about one in 10 for files generated after Dec. 1, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The electronic files, known as 834 forms, give insurance companies basic information about would-be customers, including their name, address, contact information and Social Security number. Insurance companies have reported issues with the files since the law's rollout.
"The new process put in place this week is making a difference. The enrollment files are getting better, but there is more work to do to ensure consumers are covered," Karen Ignani, the chief executive officer of insurance industry trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, said in a statement obtained by the New York Post on Friday.
CMS is reaching out to hundreds of thousands of consumers who have tried to enroll for health coverage but aren't enrolled, according to Bataille, who said consumers should be contacted by the insurance company for a payment after selecting a plan.
"Our clear priority is fixing any remaining bugs causing problems and working to make sure every 834 form past and present is resolved," Bataille said, according to The Journal.
Ms. Bataille said errors with the enrollment forms include duplicate files, lack of a file altogether, or a file with mistaken data such as a child incorrectly being listed as a spouse.
AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach told FoxNews.com last week that insurance companies have received duplicative and inaccurate forms, and "in some cases, plans are not getting the enrollment files at all." Getting that fixed, he said, is "critical."
Though the administration has given people until the end of March to sign up for coverage if they want to avoid a fine, coverage for many is supposed to start on Jan. 1. That leaves less than 30 days to fix the remaining glitches.
The administration announced last week it is working on a system to pay insurers its portion of premiums and cost-sharing payments. A temporary workaround has been proposed that would allow insurers to estimate how much they are owed, and submit the bill to the government.
Bailey Comment: " This is what happens when you put your trust in a bunch of idiots"!

Thor

Department of Homeland Security Stacked With Pro-Amnesty Attorneys Ahead of Illegal Immigration Fight | Katie Pavlich

• Posted by Kevin Fobbs on December 5, 2013 at 3:51pm
• 

Sometimes wading through the new America according to Obama where everything is about race and nothing is about uniting as Americans is as difficult as it is tiring. So one can only imagine the utter frustration and even anger that White students had to feel sitting through class after class where a Black Professor made them the convenient targets of her inner demons.

This seemed to be the common practice of English Professor Shannon Gibney who turned her class at Minneapolis Community and Technical College into a frequent diatribe about alleged White privilege, according to the Daily Caller. Is it racism in reverse or is it the actions of an out of control teacher who is searching for fake racial victimization?

Imagine the reality of having a target painted on your back in an English class which has precious little to do with racism or racial issues. The class was turned on its head and used as a personal crusade against non-minorities: i.e. White people. Even if oppression occurred in the nation’s past, the reality that this professor and many of the civil rights pimps of today who continue to cling to divisive racist instigation is disturbing yet acceptable by leaders like Barack Obama. Remember who he inserted himself into the criminal trial of George Zimmerman by asserting that if he had a son, “He would look like Trayvon Martin”?
Professor Gibney is clearly caught in a time warp where her comfort zone is not complete unless she can raise the shadows of past racial injustices and create a whole new imagined racism stew today in modern Minneapolis, Minnesota.
One truly has to wonder did the English Department or the college even scrutinize her teaching credentials to see if she is really certified, because something is surely amiss here. She claims according to the Daily Caller that she was not, “talking about all white people, or you white people in general.” Professor Gibney instead suggested that, “We are talking about whiteness as a system of oppression.”

Obamacare's Perilous Protection Plan for Debtors

"Uh-oh." That's the sound being uttered in doctors' offices and hospitals across the country as medical providers realize they're getting stuck with another bottomless Obamacare bill. While the White House desperately tries to pivot from the havoc wrought by the "Affordable Care Act," its hidden regulatory bombs keep exploding.

I heard about the latest problem this week from an eye doctor friend who received a letter from a Colorado-based insurer informing her that she's essentially on the hook for Obamacare's payment grace period for debtors. The optometrist is bracing for a flood of similar letters from other insurers. Like countless other independent providers, she's extremely concerned about the potential liability, uncertainty and fraud the rule imposes on her business.
Here's the raw deal: The Affordable Care Act created a 90-day grace period before insurers can drop patients who fall behind on premiums. So, delinquents who obtain tax-subsidized health insurance through an Obamacare health insurance exchange have three months to settle up their bills prior to their policy being canceled. As written, the law puts insurers on the hook for the grace period.
But the bureaucrats at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decided to issue a rule in March making insurers responsible only for paying claims during the first 30 days of the debtors' grace period. Who's on the hook for the other two months? Well, customers are entrusted to foot the bills for additional services. But if they blow off the payments, it's up to physicians and hospitals to collect.
In real-world practice, this means providers will be eating untold costs. Several large hospital associations raised red flags over the issue this summer. In August, the Missouri Hospital Association noted that the regulatory shift "unduly burdens physicians, hospitals and other health care providers" by making them directly collect payments from patients, which "puts them at an unfair and significant risk for providing uncompensated care to patients."
Emillie J DiChristina of Practicefirst Medical Management Solutions spelled out the financial risks for clients on the company's blog: "This leaves providers in a potentially bad place as they have a high potential for accruing bad debt on services provided between 31 and 90 days of the allowed grace period." Can you spell f-r-a-u-d? People could "go on and off" insurance plans, Tampa Bay health care lawyer Bruce Lamb told me, and game the system by bailing on payments and exploiting Obamacare protections against denial of coverage.
Or as MHA officials put it: "We also are very concerned that some disreputable individuals will learn they can manipulate the system and win a full year's insurance coverage on only nine months of premiums. Knowing they are entitled to three months of grace period coverage, dishonest persons could stop paying premiums on the ninth month, enjoy free coverage during the 90-day grace period, have their coverage terminated, and then re-enter the exchange market where the Affordable Care Act's guaranteed issue mandate would prohibit another plan from denying them coverage."
Think such nefarious behavior won't occur? Then you haven't been paying attention to the data manipulators and con artists in the Obamacare navigator program. As I reported earlier this year, the seedy nonprofit Seedco secured multimillion-dollar navigator contracts in Georgia, Maryland, Tennessee and New York to recruit Obamacare recipients into the government-run exchanges — despite settling a civil fraud lawsuit for faking at least 1,400 of 6,500 job placements under a $22.2 million federally funded contract with New York City a year ago.
Additionally, investigative journalist James O'Keefe and his Project Veritas team have caught Obamacare navigators on tape advising health insurance exchange customers to under-report their income and lie about their health status in order to cheat the system.
CMS has made no effort to repeal its cost-shifting rule or to do anything to address the concerns of providers who will be left holding the bag. As one hospital rep told me: "It's potentially catastrophic." Private practices are already being hit hard with slashed reimbursements, the electronic medical records mandate, ICD-10 medical diagnostic code changes, and increasing federal intrusions on how they provide care. In yet another entry on the laundry list of Obamacare's unintended consequences, this regulation will hurt patients by dissuading doctors from participating in exchange plans.
In short: less choice, higher prices, increased potential for fraud, more bureaucratic headaches and more disincentives to enter or stay in the medical profession. When the government grants "grace," everyone must watch their wallets. It's always easy to afford compassion when someone else is paying for it.
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.

Chris Matthews: Don’t worry, I’ll include some easier questions when I interview Obama

    Via the Washington Free Beacon, can we trust a guy who compared himself yesterday to a kid on Christmas Eve to ask tough, newsy questions of the president? The whole point of agreeing to a town hall carried by a liberal cable network, with an audience full of college kids, hosted by someone who cops to getting thrills up his leg at Obama’s oratory, is to let O pitch ObamaCare in the most favorable of media environments. He’s playing tee-ball here, by design. They might as well invite him to wear pajamas. Even the “hard” questions are more likely to be along the lines of “Were you disappointed on launch day that your team had failed you?” than “HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE KNOWN?” The fact that Matthews has actually allotted time for questions even he thinks will be easy — as well as a “fun” segment at the end — makes me want to watch in morbid curiosity to see how bad it can get. Will there be any tingles mid-program? What would that look like? Is America, as a society, prepared for it?
As for the audience, I’m betting that the disaffected millennials who want to recall Obama will be grossly underrepresented. One interesting tangent on that, though: How come young adults aged 25-29 are still more or less on O’s side whereas younger adults aged 18-24 have soured on him? Emma Roller has a theory:

Intuitively, you’d think younger millennials would be more supportive of Obama because his health law allows them to stay on their parents’ plan longer for free. Why is it the opposite? My working theory: older millennials are more supportive of the president is because they were around to vote for him in 2008, and so have a more visceral tie to his policies.
I asked IOP pollster-in-chief John Della Volpe if he thought my theory was plausible. He responded, “Not only is that plausible but I agree!” So it may not be so much that the 18-24 set likes Obama less; they just don’t risk their egos as much by not supporting him.

No doubt. Older millennials made the purchase psychologically on Hopenchange; it’d have to fall apart completely before they admit it’s a lemon. Younger millennials aren’t similarly invested. There may be another element, though. Some studies suggest that once a person’s political identity is formed in youth, it remains surprisingly steady for the rest of his or her life. Older millennials aren’t just kids who got suckered by Obama hype, they’re voters who, like most of the rest of America, soured on Bush and the GOP because of Dubya’s second term. Unlike most of the rest of America, though, that pro-Democrat/anti-Republican orientation is more apt to endure in their age group because it developed during a formative age for political awareness. They’re sticking with Obama not just for ego-protection, in other words, but because of bona fide partisan identification. Younger millennials are in a different position, having largely missed the Bush years and picked up politics in the Obama years of economic stagnation. They’re not firmly forged Democrats, unlike their slightly older brothers and sisters. That’s good news for the GOP, even if older millennials are now mostly a lost cause.
Anyway, set your DVRs. Exit question: What would constitute a “hard question” for Obama? Matthews seems to think asking him about NSA surveillance qualifies, which is understandable but … not really true, I think. You know what Obama’s going to say — it’s a delicate balance between freedom and security, no one’s more concerned about privacy than he is, he’s convinced that these programs save lives, etc etc. It’s not a hard question if you can guess the answer in advance. But then, that also goes for my hobbyhorse lately about O violating separation of powers. That’s not a hard subject to spin either: The executive branch has some discretion in how it enforces the law and he’s exercising that discretion in ObamaCare’s transitional period to make the program better for Americans. The art of the hard question is in the follow-up, not the initial ask. We’ll see how Tingles does tonight.

Drones

Obamacare Lawsuits Mount as Notre Dame Joins Scrum of Opponents

Hours after the University of Notre Dame filed a religious challenge to the U.S. health-care overhaul in Indiana federal court, a judge in Washington heard arguments in a lawsuit assailing tax provisions of the statute.
The cases underscore the persistent and diverse nature of legal attacks on the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act even as the Obama administration struggles to fix bugs in HealthCare.gov, the online marketplace for health insurance created by the measure.
Obamacare litigation continues partly because questions about its legitimacy as a piece partisan legislation are unresolved, said Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington and an opponent of the act. The statute passed Congress without Republican support in either the House or Senate.
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It doesn’t matter what motivates the plaintiffs bringing those challenges as long as “their legal arguments are sound, because that’s what the courts are looking at,” Shapiro said.
The suit in Washington, in which a federal judge yesterday heard arguments for an immediate verdict, was brought by seven individuals and businesses from six states. At least three similar complaints have been filed in Oklahoma, Virginia and Indiana. All challenge some of the federal government’s authority to offer tax credits to subsidize health insurance for poor people under Obamacare.
Catholic Teaching
The complaint Notre Dame filed yesterday, alleging that the law’s requirement health plans cover birth control violates Roman Catholic teaching, is a re-filing of a lawsuit dismissed in December on procedural grounds.
The Notre Dame case is among 86 lawsuits attacking Obamacare on religious grounds, according to Erin Mersino, trial counsel at the Thomas More Law Center, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a Christian-based public interest law firm.
Forty-one of the cases involve primarily Catholic nonprofit groups such as Notre Dame and take issue with the birth control mandate, Mersino said. The other 46 were brought by for-profit entities whose owners argue the contraception provision violates their religious freedom, she said.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 26 agreed to hear two cases from the for-profit group involving the craft store chain Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. They, too, claim an exemption from covering employees’ birth control on religious grounds.
First Look
The dispute will be the court’s first look at President Barack Obama’s biggest legislative accomplishment since a majority of the justices upheld the core of the law in 2012.
The court on Dec. 2 declined to hear an appeal by Liberty University, a Virginia school founded by the late evangelical preacher and activist Jerry Falwell, which lost a lower-court case arguing the law’s employer mandate exceeded Congress’s power over interstate commerce.
The suits by nonprofit religious groups are less advanced in the courts because the Obama administration delayed the birth control mandate for a year as it sought an accommodation with them.
While the religious cases have drawn attention because of their number and high-profile plaintiffs such as Notre Dame and the Archdiocese of Washington, they don’t threaten the viability of Obamacare, according to Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and a consumer representative to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

“They’re challenges to one particular part of one particular regulation,” Jost said. “They’re very important cases, but I don’t think they mean much for the Affordable Care Act.”
The tax cases, involving federal subsidies to people shopping for insurance on government-run marketplaces, or exchanges, present a “significant challenge” to the law because, if successful, they could prevent millions of people from buying coverage, Jost said.
Plaintiffs in those suits argue the language of the health- care legislation allows subsidies only for people using state- run exchanges, not the federal government’s.
Thirty-three states, including Ohio, Texas and Florida, declined to set up exchanges.
“No legitimate method of statutory construction would interpret the phrase ‘established by the state’ in the ACA’s subsidy provisions to mean ‘‘established by the state or federal government,’’ according to a brief filed by plaintiffs in the case argued yesterday in Washington.
Congressional Intent
That argument will probably fail because courts look on laws as a whole, not narrow slices of language, and ‘‘it’s clear Congress meant for the federal exchanges to be treated the same as the states’ exchanges,” Jost said.
Shapiro, of the Cato Institute, said the tax credit cases could “have legs.”
“There’s a very strong technical argument that the challengers are bringing,” Shapiro said. “It’s not some sort of glitch or scriveners’ error. Congress wanted to incentivize states to create these exchanges.”
At least one other case challenges the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that it violates the Constitution’s origination clause, which requires revenue-raising measures to originate in the House, not the Senate.
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U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington in June rejected that argument as made by Matt Sissel, an Iowa man, concluding the challenged bill originated in the House even if it was completely rewritten by the Senate.
The cases are Notre Dame University v. Sebelius, 3:13- cv-01276, U.S. District Court, North District of Indiana (South Bend), and Halbig v. Sebelius, 13-cv-00623, U.S District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

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Stunning hypocrisy from Democrats in wake of ObamaCare's broken promises

Hypocrisy and double standards are two things that disgust and infuriate all Americans, regardless of where they fall on the ideological spectrum.
Unfortunately, these qualities are far too prevalent in our political culture today, and are prime reasons why Washington and the politicians that work there are held in such low regard.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the implementation and implosion of ObamaCare.
During the debate over the deeply flawed bill in 2009 and 2010, voters were repeatedly assured by President Obama and his congressional allies that everyone who liked their current health care plan would be able to keep it. “Period.”

Rather than join with Republicans and immediately repeal this catastrophe before it gets any worse, Democrats are stubbornly digging in their heels. 

Now, as the new law implodes before our eyes, millions of Americans have received letters of cancellation. With approximately five million people across the country expected to lose their current plan and millions more to follow, when all the smoke clears, it’s clear that the Democrats broke their promise to the American people.
Many other Americans are experiencing fewer medical options as insurers restrict their choice of doctors and hospitals in order to keep costs low.
Some of the country’s top medical facilities are being excluded from the new exchange system, meaning patients who have been getting treatment from doctors they like all of a sudden find themselves out of luck.
For example, in New Hampshire, only 16 of the state’s 26 hospitals are available on the federal exchange, meaning patients must either pay more to keep their current doctor or seek inferior care elsewhere.
Neither is a good option.
New Hampshire is not alone. Across the country, some of the best hospitals are not available on plans on the exchange, leaving patients with difficult choices and unwanted sometimes, life threatening decisions.
Rather than join with Republicans and immediately repeal this catastrophe before it gets any worse, Democrats are stubbornly digging in their heels.
They know that backing away from President Obama’s signature achievement would be a huge embarrassment for the White House, and they’re unwilling to buck their party leadership.
Instead, they’re hiding behind meaningless show votes in Congress, offering half-hearted and meaningless attempts to reinstate cancelled plans or delay implementation of some of the particularly onerous new federal regulations.
All these false efforts will do is add to the increased costs and put things off until after the 2014 elections.
No one is mistaking these transparent moves as profiles in courage.
ObamaCare became the law of the land because every single Democratic Senator fell in line with their party bosses and voted for it. For any sitting member of the Senate to somehow now suggest that they are fighting to protect their constituents from this “trainwreck” is completely hypocritical.
If they were really interested in sparing their constituents from ObamaCare’s harmful impact, they should have stood up when they could have stopped the whole thing from becoming law.
They could have also voted to allow for the protection or “grandfathering” of the older policies.
They did neither.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that politicians in Washington have access to many special perks and privileges unavailable to the general public when attempting to navigate ObamaCare.
Beyond having more top-flight plans to choose from, senators have access to what the New York Times recently described as “concierge-type services” and “in-person support sessions” available only to members of Congress.
Democrats who voted for ObamaCare are therefore not exposed to the same frustrations of a broken website and complicated red tape that millions of everyday people are being forced to work through.
The hypocrisy is stunning. Saddling the rest of the country with complicated rules they didn’t want and don’t need in pursuit of a health care takeover that will hurt patient care, limit options and devastate our economy is no way to run a country.
Not only is President Obama to blame here, so too are every single one of the Democratic senators who forced this fiasco on the American people.
The president is not going to face voters again, but his congressional enablers and supporters will in less than a year. When they do, it’s going to be an unpleasant experience for any incumbent having to explain their deciding vote and continued support for the ongoing disaster of ObamaCare.

Senseless

Fact Check: Is President Obama's latest health care promise true?

Is President Obama’s latest health care promise – that his plan will offer “most” people a better plan for the same price or less than their current policy – actually true?
 Some analysts say no.
"That’s not an accurate argument," says Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute. "If your plan is now covering a bunch of things that you don’t need, then how is it a better plan for you?"
 Former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin says there's no evidence to support the president's claim.
"You can do the math," he says. "Most of the policies in his claim could spend more, cover more things, provide more visits and charge less." But, he concludes, "the arithmetic just does not work."
Obama’s remarks last month were an effort to deflect criticism for having earlier promised that people could keep their plans and doctors no matter what.
 "Most people, he said, "will be able to buy better plans for the same price or even cheaper than what they've gotten before."
 A few days after that promise, the president appeared to downgrade the pledge somewhat, saying only that "there's a good chance that they'll be able to buy better insurance at lower cost."
 The promise that "most people" would be better off is sharply disputed by many, including a number of individuals experiencing sticker shock, including those with pre-existing conditions.
They include Tom Gialanella of Seattle, who had a policy that was renewed for years even after he had cancer -- not the kind of sub-standard policy the president likes to criticize.
 But he says his new policy under ObamaCare "went from $891 a month to $1,437 a month and also my deductibles all doubled."
Andrew Leonard recently told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that he "would get the terrible, terrible plan with the $6,000 deductible." As far as the premiums are concerned, he said, " I'll pay $1,200 dollars a year for that and I'll be less insured than I am today."
 Analysts say those whose policies are canceled will get new coverage, but not at lower prices.
 "What we're seeing is that the new ObamaCare plans typically have higher deductibles than the old plans did," says Roy, along with "a narrower choice of doctors and hospitals and yet higher premiums."
 David Hogberg of the National Center for Public Policy Research adds,"It's very easy for a bronze plan to have a deductible (with) total out of pocket costs that are $6,000."
 That, of course, means the individual doesn't get a dollar of benefits until he or she has exceeded $6,000 in expenditures, much more than many young people spend on medical care.
 Rosemary Gibson of the Hastings Center and author of "The Battle Over Health Care" points to a  Nov. 14 letter from one of the top officials implementing the law that concedes subsidies won't help everyone.
 She describes it as "a letter from Gary Cohen to state health insurance commissioners saying while many people still have subsidies, there will still be some people who will be paying more than they were paying."
 In fact, one insurance plan that asked not to be identified analyzed its pool of 375,000 people and found that,  even after subsidies, only 10 percent would actually see a decrease in costs, while one third would face significant rate increases as a result of ObamaCare.

Illinois public unions target Democratic lawmakers

The latest battle between organized labor and states trying to fix huge budget problems by cutting pension costs has surfaced in Illinois, where public union leaders are waging an all-out effort to stop the Democrat-led campaign.
Details of a plan reached last week appear to show state legislative leaders are attempting to solve Illinois' $100 billion pension crisis in part by changing workers' retirement age, reducing automatic pension increases and limiting their collective-bargaining privileges.
Union leaders argue the plan to help the under-funded pension plan, which appears to have bipartisan support, seems no different than the one the General Assembly rejected earlier this year.
“It’s an unfair, unconstitutional scheme that undermines retirement security,” the We Are One Illinois labor coalition said last week as details of the plan emerged. "It’s no compromise at all with those who earned and paid for their retirement benefits. In fact, reports suggest the leaders have repackaged Senate Bill 1 and barely bothered to disguise it.”
Rank-and-file state lawmakers were briefed on the plan Friday, and a vote could come as early as this week.
Leaders of the unions, a usually reliable Democratic vote, are specifically targeting Democratic state senators from moderate, swing districts where election opponents can hammer them for inaction or being too tough on state workers and say eight to 10 of them are considered "persuadable."
The battle is the most recent to play out across the Midwest where Republican governors in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan have worked to limit collective bargain deals to reduce budget shortfalls.
The most epic battle took place in Wisconsin in 2011 when GOP Gov. Scott Walker led an effort to get the General Assembly to pass legislation that limited collective bargaining for most state workers and required them to pay more for their pensions and health-care benefits to help reduce a projected  $137 million budget shortfall.
The move sparked weeks of protests in the state capitol, a national debate on the issue and a failed attempt to recall Walker, who was faced with a projected $3.6 billion deficit when he signed the legislation.
Illinois Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn and the four legislative leaders of the Democrat-controlled Assembly say the plan will save the state an estimated $160 billion over 30 years and are working to secure enough support for passage.

Administration to release more data on ObamaCare site's progress

The Obama administration is expected to give a fuller picture Sunday of whether it met its self-imposed November 30 deadline to allow 50,000 people to access the federal healthcare exchange website simultaneously.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have scheduled a press conference for 9 a.m. to discuss the progress of the site, Healthcare.gov.
Obama administration officials said Saturday that the site had "performed well" and that  upgrades overnight Friday had improved response times and reduced errors. The site was taken offline between 9 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. Eastern time Saturday, in addition to its regular maintenance window, which falls between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. Eastern time Sunday.
"With the scheduled upgrades last night and tonight, we're on track to meet our stated goal for the site to work for the vast majority of users," CMS spokesman Aaron Albright told Fox News earlier Saturday.
CMS spokeswoman Julie Bataille said the installation of new servers Friday night helped improved the response times and error rates, even with heavier-than-usual weekend traffic.
Though President Obama and other administration officials have tried to downplay the deadline, saying fixes are an ongoing effort, a lot is riding on the site’s performance this weekend, including upcoming elections as well as Americans’ confidence in the president and his signature health-care law, which depends on their participation to work.
The Washington Post reported hours before that the administration was prepared to announce Sunday that they have met deadlines for improving HealthCare.gov. However, technicians failed to reach the deadline to fix at least some of the glitches, according to the newspaper.
Official have repeatedly said in recent weeks that the site would after the deadline be able to accommodate the “vast majority” of online shoppers.
The White House says it's made numerous upgrades in both software and hardware over the last month, which also will allow the site to handle more than 800,000 visitors a day.
Still, in the days leading up to the deadline, the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services continued to scale back expectations, saying not to expect the site to be 100 percent glitch-free.
"If there are extraordinarily high spikes in traffic, which exceed the site's capacity, consumers will be put in a new, advanced queuing system that will give them an expected wait time, or allow them to be notified via when they can return to the site," Bataille said Monday.
Obama recently said he'd consider a "fix" to be successful if 80 percent of the people are able to navigate the site without a major problem.
The nation's largest health insurer trade group said significant problems remain.
Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, told the Associated Press that insurers have complained that enrollment data sent to them from the website include too much incorrect, duplicative, garbled or missing information. She said the problems must be cleared up to guarantee consumers the coverage they signed up for effective Jan. 1.
The first big test of the repaired website probably won't come for another couple of weeks, when an enrollment surge is expected as consumers rush to meet a Dec. 23 deadline so their coverage can kick in on the first of the year.
Avoiding a break in coverage is particularly important for millions of people whose current individual policies were canceled because they don't meet the standards of the health care law, as well as for a group of about 100,000 in an expiring federal program for high-risk patients.
Democrats and Republicans will be closely watching the site this weekend. With the midterm elections less than a year away, it's vital to Democrats that the site lives up to expectations the president set. Republicans have already suggested they'll launch coordinated attacks linking every congressional Democrat up for re-election to the Affordable Care Act.
In the House, the effort, based around dozens of votes to repeal the law, is about denying Democrats the 17-seat gain they would need to win back the majority. In the Senate, it's about gaining the six seats Republicans need to take control of that chamber.
It was announced earlier this week that Families USA, a self-proclaimed non-partisan organization, has been given a $1.1 million grant to establish a database of ObamaCare "success stories."
Families USA received the money from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on Oct. 4. The grant is meant to help Families USA expand the database of “real people” sharing their stories of enrolling in ObamaCare.
News of the grant has been revealed in the same week that the White House announced two more delays related to the president's landmark health care reform law.
On Wednesday, it was announced that it would delay the launch of an online portal to the health insurance marketplace for small businesses until November 2015. Officials said that the decision to delay the launch had been taken because making repairs to the federal health exchange site, Healthcare.gov took priority.
The administration also announced that the launch of a Spanish-language sign-up tool would have to be postponed.
In recent weeks, the White House has also pushed back the enrollment deadline for individuals to December 23, given businesses with more than 50 workers until 2015 to provide required health insurance without paying a penalty, and moved the deadline date for individuals to avoid penalties for failing to get coverage back for six weeks.
There was also an announced schedule change in next year's open enrollment season. It will start on Nov. 15, 2014, a month later than originally scheduled, and finish on Jan. 15, 2015, about five weeks later than originally planned. Bailey Comment: "Do you think that a lot of visits to this site was to shop for insurance or just to see if the site works now"?

Obama surrenders again

Barack Obama is at it again.  He actually makes Jimmy Carter look like a courageous leader. 

What is going on?  What is Obama’s latest surrender?

In the South China Sea, China has unilaterally expanded what it refers to as an air defense zone over some islands that are claimed by China, Taiwan, Japan and possibly even other nations.

Japan responded by refusing to notify China if its airlines were going to overfly the islands in China’s new air defense zone.

What has Obama done?

From Reuters:

The United States advised its commercial airlines to notify Chinese authorities of flight plans when travelling through an air defense zone that Beijing established a week ago over the East China Sea, ratcheting up regional tensions.

 The United States said it expected U.S. carriers to operate in line with so-called notices to airmen issued by foreign countries, adding, however, that the decision did "not indicate U.S. government acceptance of China's requirements.

 The advice is in contrast with America's close ally Japan, where the two major airlines have agreed with the Japanese government to fly through the zone without notifying China.

 Beijing wants foreign aircraft passing through the zone - including passenger planes - to identify themselves to Chinese authorities.

 A U.S. administration official said China's action appeared to be a unilateral attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea, which could "increase the risk of miscalculation, confrontation and accidents".

 "We urge the Chinese to exercise caution and restraint, and we are consulting with Japan and other affected parties throughout the region," the official said.

 The zone includes skies over islands at the heart of a tense territorial dispute between Japan and China and represents a historic challenge by the emerging new world power to the United States, which has dominated the region for decades.

What does a nation with a real leader do?  It tells the Chinese to go to hell. 

What does Obama do?  He surrenders early and often. 

But then again, Obama wants to see American power and prestige in the Pacific wane.  He wants to see America as not a superpower but just another minor nation state.  Obama will stand up to the Republicans but on the other hand the Republicans won’t fight back.

When it comes to standing up to a real dictatorship, like China’s, Obama surrenders faster than Jimmy Carter ever dreamed of doing.

2013 Nobel Peace Pies

Krauthammer: Everything administration says about ObamaCare a 'fudge'

Everything the administration says about ObamaCare is a "fudge," Charles Krauthammer told viewers Friday on “Special Report with Bret Baier.
His comments came as the administration worked to meet a self-imposed November 30 deadline to fix the HealthCare.gov website.
The syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor said, “Everything they tell you about ObamaCare, everyone knows is a fudge, or a hedge or a guess, or a prayer, or an outright deception.
"This is another one of those, you know, that's multiple choice, a, b, c, d, or e, you choose which one you want, but it's not the truth."
 Krauthammer said President Obama's promise earllier this month that the web site "is going to be working the way it is supposed to," was "simply another example of an administration that simply not only can't shoot straight, but can't talk straig

Dems worrying about re-election prospects distancing themselves from Obama over health law rollout

WASHINGTON –  A month after emerging from a government shutdown at the top of their game, many Democrats in Congress newly worried about the party's re-election prospects are for the first time distancing themselves from President Barack Obama after the disastrous rollout of his health care overhaul.
At issue, said several Obama allies, is a loss of trust in the president after only 106,000 people — instead of an anticipated half million — were able to buy insurance coverage the first month of the new "Obamacare" web sites. In addition, some 4.2 million Americans received notices from insurers that policies Obama had promised they could keep were being canceled.
"Folks are now, I think in talking to members, more cautious with regard to dealing with the president," said Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the senior Democrat on the House Oversight Committee and one of the first leaders in his state to endorse Obama's presidential candidacy six year ago.
Cummings, the White House's biggest defender in a Republican-controlled committee whose agenda is waging war against the administration over Benghazi, the IRS scandal, a gun-tracking operation and now health care, said he still thinks Obama is operating with integrity. But he noted that not all his Democratic colleagues agree.
"They want to make sure that everything possible is being done to, number one, be transparent, (two) fix this website situation and, three, to restore trust," Cummings said.
Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., like Cummings, a prominent member of the Congressional Black Caucus who personally likes Obama, struggled to describe the state of play between congressional Democrats and the president.
"I am trying to think if you can call it a relationship at this point," he said.
Clay said the administration is now obligated to "fix it, fix all of it" after Obama apologized this month for both the insurance website problems and his earlier promises that people could keep their old polices. Otherwise, he said, "a wide brush will be used to paint us all as incompetent and ineffective."
Obama is now allowing insurance companies to reissue their canceled policies for another year. But "Obamacare's" problems have left Democrats vulnerable to an orchestrated assault by Republicans who six weeks ago were on the losing end of the government shutdown.
The political body language tells the story of the strain. Thirty-nine House Democrats in Obama's party defied the president's veto threat and voted for a GOP-sponsored bill to permit the sale of individual health coverage that falls short of requirements in the law.
"I think people want to have a little more transparency going forward with whoever is implementing the website and other elements," said Jeff Link, senior adviser to Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley, who is running for Senate and voted for both the original health care law and the GOP-sponsored House bill this month. "If demanding that kind of transparency means lack of trust," he added delicately, "then I think people probably would like to have had more transparency."
Across the Capitol, several swing-state Senate Democrats have signed onto legislation to further weaken the health care law. Sponsored by Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, who's facing a tough re-election challenge, the bill would require insurance companies to permanently continue selling policies that the law deems substandard. Landrieu herself skipped an event with Obama earlier this month when he appeared at the Port of New Orleans. She said she had a long-standing engagement elsewhere in the state, which Obama lost last year by 17 points.
Repairing the relationship between Obama and his allies may be as complex as fixing the website and health care law. Much rests on rebuilding trust with the public, a solid majority of which now opposes "Obamacare," according to multiple polls. Both parties will be watching on Saturday to see whether the vast majority of those who try to sign up for policies on the website will succeed, as Obama has promised. Democrats have urged the administration to quit setting "red lines" like the Nov. 30 deadline, that carry the risk of being broken.
Nearly a year from the midterm election, Republicans in both chambers are launching a drive to link virtually every congressional Democrat to Obamacare. In the House, the effort, based around dozens of votes to repeal the law, is about denying Democrats the 17-seat gain they would need to win back the majority. In the Senate, it's about gaining the six seats Republicans need to take control of that chamber.
"So you're running on Obamacare," read a faux tip sheet from House Republicans to House Democrats that went out over the holiday week. "The best thing to do," it advises Democratic lawmakers in 28 districts, "is step in front of the cameras and explain to voters why government should run their health care."
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, showed notable discipline last week when they complained loudly about the Democrats' new limits on filibusters — then pivoted in as little as one sentence back to "Obamacare."
The filibuster limits, said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, can be chalked up to "broken promises, double standards and raw power — the same playbook that got us Obamacare."
Democratic leaders scoff at the notion that missed deadlines and other problems could threaten the party's prospects 11 months down the road. A similar budget-and-debt fight that sparked the shutdown and smacked Republicans last month looms early next year, they point out. There is time, they insist, for the law to begin working as intended and to help elevate the Democrats' political prospects.
"Yesterday's battles and today's battles and tomorrow's battles create different environments," said House Democratic campaign chief Steve Israel, D-N.Y. Independent voters, the keys to elections in the most competitive districts in the country, are pragmatic, he added. "They want the Affordable Care Act not to be repealed, but to be fixed. They don't want to go back, they want to go forward."

The Deal

Working but poor? Fear the dreaded coverage gap.

Q I’m a single, healthy, female non-smoker, age 26, living in Tennessee. According to the HealthCare.gov cost calculator, with a income of only $8,000 a year I won’t qualify for a subsidy to buy health insurance. How does that make any financial sense?  

A It doesn't! That is why the health reform law as originally written expanded Medicaid, the venerable government-run health insurance program for low-income families and disabled people, to cover everyone with an income below 133% of the federal poverty level, which includes you.
But in its 2012 ruling on the constitutionality of the new health care law, the U.S. Supreme Court gave states the option of not expanding Medicaid, and Tennessee was one of the several dozen states that decided against it.

However, the rest of the law was left untouched. Including, unfortunately, the income ranges that determine eligibility for financial help to lower the cost of premiums for private insurance. Because the original idea was to put all low-income households on Medicaid, the law confers subsidies only on households with incomes of between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level. In states that aren't expanding Medicaid, this has created a "coverage gap" for people like you, who make too little to qualify for a subsidy but don’t fall into a category that’s already eligible for Medicaid. To fix this would require an act of Congress, which is unlikely given the current state of Washington politics.

So right now we are stuck with a two-tier system for the working poor. In states that are expanding Medicaid, they will enjoy free or nearly free health care. Bailey Comment: "Ain't nothing free".  In states that aren't, they will remain uninsured and unable to get subsidies to buy private insurance. For a painful contrast you only need to look next door to Kentucky, which is expanding Medicaid. They've already enrolled more than 45,000 new people into the program.
The sad and frustrating thing is that states can expand Medicaid whenever they want to. What's more, that the federal government is picking up 100% of the cost for the first two years, and 90% after that, so it's a bargain for states. According to this recent report in the New York Times, your governor is trying to get expansion done but the state legislature is balking.
You might want to get in touch with your elected representatives to ask them why they think it's a good idea for low-income working people like yourself to remain uninsured.
Got a question for our health insurance expert? Ask it here; be sure to include the state you live in. And if you can't get enough health insurance news here, follow me on Twitter @NancyMetcalf.

Health reform countdown: We are doing an article a day on the new health care law until Jan. 1, 2014, when it takes full effect. (Read the previous posts in the series.) To get health insurance advice tailored to your situation, use our Health Law Helper, below.

NBC cancels Alec Baldwin's show 'Up Late' following actor's homophobic outbursts

  NBC's Alec Baldwin experiment is over 46 days after it began.
“We are jointly confirming that UP LATE will not continue on MSNBC,” the network and actor's reps said in a joint statement to FOX411.
MSNBC had already suspended Alec Baldwin’s low-rated news program last week following an alleged gay slur directed toward a photographer outside his New York City apartment earlier this month.
Despite the actor's apologies, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) had also had enough.
“Mr. Baldwin can’t fight for equality on paper, while degrading gay people in practice,” a GLAAD rep told FOX411.
Capital One, which employs Baldwin in its “What’s in your wallet?” TV campaign, has so far done nothing to distance themselves from the hot-headed thespian. The credit card giant did not respond to multiple requests for comment from FOX411 last week regarding his status with the company.
Baldwin’s last episode of "Up Late" hit a demo low, pulling in only 101,000 viewers 25-54 against 395,000 total viewers. The demo number represented a 41 percent drop from the 172,000 adults aged 25-54 who watched the one-hour program's October 11 debut.
 Bailey Comment:  To hell With The Majority now it's only about the Minority! Even if the minority is now the majority.

Congress

Iran

Arizona high school student suspended after fight over Confederate flag

An Arizona teenager is protesting his school's decision to punish him after getting into a fight with another student over a Confederate flag displayed on his truck.
Jacob Green, a junior at Millennium High School in Goodyear, tells MyFoxPhoenix he was suspended for five days after defending himself against a classmate who confronted him about the flag, which has flown his truck for six months.
"I've done nothing wrong," Green told the station. "I've flown a flag on my truck. Somebody fought me because of it. I didn't fight him."
In an email to parents following the incident, school officials explained that both students were suspended and that Jason was prohibited from bringing the flag on campus.
"Open display -- bringing it in -- it has been proven to be patently offensive to certain groups and the courts recognize that," Agua Fria Unified School District Superintendent Dennis Runyan told MyFoxPhoenix.com.
Jacob said he has researched the flag's history and didn't find it offensive. His parents believe the student who attacked their son committed a hate crime and are considering filing a police report.
"The flag means basically more independence, less government. It didn't mean racism, it didn't mean slavery, it didn't mean any of that," Jason said. "It basically meant what they were fighting for was their right to be independent and not have the government control them."  Bailey Comment: "Lets be honest with this subject, cruising around America one will see lots of different flags of other nations being displayed". One example is the flag of Mexico, yet there is no outcry over it.The Confederate Flag is part of America's history, so what do you want to do hid it or change history to fit your own ideas?  Below is a site you should visit before making that judgement.

 http://www.usa-flag-site.org/

WHAT DOES A FLAG MEAN?

1. I am the property of, or responsible for, the entity that this flag represents. (Example: flag at the entrance to a national park.)

2. I am subject to the laws of the entity that this flag represents. (Example: flag on a US merchant ship at sea or in a foreign port.)

3. I am an official representative of the entity that this flag represents (Examples: flag on a US Navy warship or on a US government office.)

4. I owe allegiance to the entity that this flag represents. (Example: a citizen flying the US flag on his house.)

5. I have an emotional or cultural attachment to the entity that this flag represents. (Example: a person of Polish ancestry flying the Polish flag on his house.)

6. I wish to show my respect for the entity that this flag represents. (Example: flying the British flag to commemorate the Queen's birthday.)

Missouri high school under fire for teacher-led prayer sessions from the American Humanist Association

A Missouri school district has vowed to "vigorously defend" itself after a secular organization announced it had filed a lawsuit to prevent alleged teacher-sponsored school prayer sessions in high school classrooms.  
The legal arm of the American Humanist Association filed a complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, claiming that prayer sessions held at Fayette High School violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which says the government may not establish an official religion. 
The lawsuit alleges a math teacher led the weekly Christian devotional prayer sessions for several years in her classrooms after buses arrived in the morning and before classes began. The suit said she would urge students to pray for sick or injured students and joined the students in saying "amen." The school's former principal made an announcement over the public address system to remind students about the meetings.
The teacher violated a school district policy that states school employees "are to be present solely in a nonparticipatory capacity at any student-initiated religious activity held at school and will strictly observe a policy of official neutrality regarding religious activity," the lawsuit says.
The suit also said the teacher told students during her math class that God would punish them if they are not good and prominently displayed the book "God's Game Plan" in her classroom.
The teacher and principal left the district at the end of the 2012-13 year, but the association believes the prayer sessions are continuing this year, said Monica Miller, an attorney for the group. She said it's unclear whether a teacher is participating in them.
"What we are challenging is that the district has established a policy of allowing teachers to pray with students," Miller said, adding that the suit seeks to keep that from happening in the future.
Miller said that a student plaintiff is still attending the school. The student that originally reached out to the group about the prayer sessions recently left the school over concerns the school was promoting a religious environment, KOMU.com reported.
In a statement obtained by the station, the school district declined to comment on the allegations specified in the complaint but said it would "vigorously defend against any claim that the district has taken actions which violate any person's First Amendment rights."
Carl Esbeck, University of Missouri law professor, told ColumbiaTribune.com that an important distinction is whether the prayer sessions took place while the teacher was "on the clock."
"Outside their clock hours, they're private citizens like anybody else," Esbeck said.

What the American Humanist Association is all about.

The conjunction of humanist and Islamic worldviews will threaten to destroy America from within throughout the 21^st century.  Indeed, there is a war of worldviews raging in America, with secular humanism and Islam as co-belligerents on one side and Judeo-Christian America on the other. 
The worldview war
The worldview war is spiritual in origin.  The Bible states in Ephesians 6:12 that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."  Worldviews incorporate theology and therefore reflect spiritual beliefs.  Life in America as we know it is at stake in this war.
A worldview is a comprehensive framework of ideas and beliefs from which an individual interprets his surroundings and circumstances.  It is this view of reality that consequently directs the decisions and actions of the individual, and also of nations.  According to Dr. David Noebel, worldview expert, worldviews are composed of ten different disciplines: theology, politics, economics, philosophy, biology, history, ethics, law, sociology, and psychology.
There are primarily six worldviews contending for the 6.9 billion people on Earth, with Islam, secular humanism, and Christianity chief among them.
The Islamic threat to America has historically been primarily a war of words, as characterized by S.A.A. Maududi in 1939, when he said, "Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam. Islam requires the earth - not just a portion, but the whole planet."  Maududi influenced Sayyid Qutb, the leading theologian of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s and author of Social Justice in Islam.  Qutb had a significant influence on bin Laden and Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
The rise of secular humanism
Secular humanism increasingly supports the Islamists' position in the battle against the Judeo-Christian worldview.  Secular humanists currently dominate the government, education, the media, and the legal institutions in the United States.
Secular humanism may be the fastest-growing worldview in America.  It has also been declared a religion by the U.S. Supreme Court; the American Humanist Association has been given an IRS religious tax exemptionⁱ_.
Why are humanists and Islamists united in their opposition to the Judeo-Christian worldview?

• Humanists and Islamists share the primary goal of removing Christianity from public life so that their worldview can gain power.

• They both seek government solutions to accomplish utopia on earth.  The humanists desire a one-world government that perfects man on earth (via the United Nations, EU, etc.), while Islam seeks a one-world caliphate and a sharia legal system that perfects man on earth.

• Both use each other in attacking the Constitution.  The Muslim uses humanist doctrine (separation of church and state) in attacking the Constitution through judges, etc. to open the door for Sharia, food regulation, sanctioned prayer, and state suppression of Christian expression.  The humanist uses the Islamists to counter Christian "oppression" and attack the Constitution.

• Both use each other in a "termite strategy."  Termites destroy a house slowly and then suddenly.  By the time you see them, it may be too late.

The history of Islamists joining efforts with humanists is longstanding.  The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem allied with Hitler's Germany to annihilate the Jews.  The Ayatollah Khomeini aligned with Russia against Christian America shortly after taking power in Iran^iv_.
Islamic and Humanist totalitarianism cause religious persecution.
Estimates of Christians persecuted worldwide have reached 200 million.  Seventy-five percent of worldwide religious persecution is perpetrated against Christians, yet Christianity represents only approximately 30% of the world's population.  According to Open Doors International, the top ten oppressors are Islamic or humanist countries.  North Korea (humanist) is the most religiously oppressive country, followed by the Islamic countries of Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Maldives, Yemen, Iraq, Uzbekistan, and (humanist) Laos.
If Islam is peaceful, what about jihad?
Many Muslims and Humanists will assert that Islam is peaceful and that jihad is only an internal struggle to find peace with God.  A textual analysis of the Bukari Hadith indicates that 97% of jihad references are to physical (combat) jihad, and only 3% to spiritual jihadⁱⁱ.  Further, the Islamic doctrines of taqiyya (deception) and hudna (breaking treaties when circumstances are favorable to Islamic objectives) clearly illustrate a strategy to deceive the ignorant and credulous.
Jihad is a successful strategy.
Muhammad had approximately 150 converts to Islam after ten years of his efforts in Mecca.  However, after journeying to Medina and becoming a physical (combat) jihadist, he acquired 100,000 converts over the next ten yearsⁱⁱⁱ.  Moreover, the first hundred years after Mohammed's death gave rise to the physical jihad of his disciples, who destroyed or converted approximately 3,200 churches via plunder and conquest until Islam was defeated at the Battle of Tours in 732 A.D.
Effects of worldview.
Detroit used to be an all-American city with the highest per capita income in the 1950s.  However, the advance of unions (private and public), growing corruption of secular interests, and significant growth in the Arab-Islamic population have resulted in the collapse of a once-great city.
Great Britain is the best international example of humanist-Islamic cooperation.  Great Britain was the leading empire in the 19^th century, and the British pound was the world's reserve currency.  But Great Britain is now a shadow of its former self.  Will America follow the secular humanist model of Great Britain and experience a similar decline?
Samuel Huntington summarized the problem in his classic tome, titled The Clash of Civilizations, when he said, "Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power."
There are evil, incompetent, and indifferent combatants in this worldview war.  Evil combatants (radical Islamists and secular humanists) do bad things on purpose.  Incompetent combatants (secular Christians) do bad things by accident.  Indifferent combatants (majority of Americans) don't care whether others do good or bad as long as their personal peace and prosperity is not disturbed.  The evil combatants use the incompetent and indifferent to accomplish their goals for society.
What, then, should we do?
Judeo-Christian believers must educate themselves (and others) and engage the culture (schools, churches, synagogues, families, government, and communities) to reverse secular humanism and slow the progress of Islamic cultural and physical jihad in the U.S.  We must focus our efforts on the incompetent and indifferent population within the U.S. if we are to defeat those who are evil combatants.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/the_worldview_war.html#ixzz2lTYSX1T3
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