Federal Agency To Enforce Obamacare In Four States Refusing Implementation

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Photo Credit: AP

At least four states won’t enforce new sweeping insurance market reforms rolling out next year with the health law — leaving federal health officials in Washington to pick up the slack, yet another wrinkle in Obamacare implementation.

Insurance regulation is a huge responsibility that’s been closely guarded by the states. That’s why the Obama administration and those closely watching the rollout of Obamacare believe that even states that have sworn off the law’s coverage expansions will still enforce its new measures — including new benefit mandates, cost-sharing guidelines and rules on how insurers rate customers — to retain control over their health insurance markets.

But the feds will be overseeing the health care law in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming after those states told HHS they couldn’t or wouldn’t implement the new rules.

“We are enforcing because Oklahoma notified … that it has not enacted legislation to enforce or that it is otherwise not enforcing the Affordable Care Act market reform provisions,” Gary Cohen, director of the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, wrote to the Oklahoma Insurance Department on Friday. Officials in Missouri, Texas and Wyoming received similar letters, an agency spokeswoman said.

The enforcement letters come a little more than a month after a Commonwealth Fund report found just 11 states and Washington had started to adjust state laws to prepare for seven major ACA insurance reforms taking effect in 2014.

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Seal Team 6 Member Says Account of Osama Bin Laden’s Killing, “Complete B.S.”

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Photo Credit: CNN

In February, Esquire magazine published a lengthy profile of “The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden.” The story did not identify the killer by his real name, referring to him only as “the Shooter.”

The Shooter told Esquire that the night bin Laden was killed he had encountered al Qaeda’s leader face-to-face in the top-floor bedroom of the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden had been hiding for more than five years.

The Shooter explained that when he found bin Laden in his bedroom the al Qaeda leader was standing up and had a gun “within reach” and it was only then that the Shooter fired the two shots into bin Laden’s forehead that killed him. That account was in conflict with the account from another raid participant in a wildly successful book “No Easy Day.”

Now, another member of the secretive SEAL Team 6, which executed the bin Laden raid, tells CNN the story of the Shooter as presented in Esquire is false. According to this serving SEAL Team 6 operator, the story is “complete B-S.”

SEAL Team 6 operators are now in “serious lockdown” when it comes to “talking to anybody” about the bin Laden raid and say they have been frustrated to see what they consider to be the inaccurate story in Esquire receive considerable play without a response. Phil Bronstein, who wrote the 15,000-word piece about the Shooter for Esquire, was booked on CNN, Fox and many other TV networks after his story came out.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Argument For “Marriage Equality” Is NOT a Conservative One

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Photo Credit: RedState

This week the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on same California’s Prop 8 and a section of the Defense of Marriage Act which deals with benefits for same sex couples. Same sex marriage is front and center once again and I’ve heard some interesting arguments on how supporting government involvement in defining marriage is a “conservative” ideal. During the Sunday morning talk show circuit, former Bush communications adviser took the moderate position emerging within the GOP against American Values’ Gary Bauer. Nicole Wallace tried to argue that supporting “marriage equality” is a conservative position. No, it is not.

I’ve never understood how anyone who spent the past four-plus years lamenting the size of government could then argue for its increase by inviting it into the discussion of marriage. We complain about government in health care, we complain about government in education, we complain about government regulating soft drink size, but suddenly some of us have no problem with more government in people’s relationships with one another. Marriage is a covenant between a man, woman, and God before God on His terms. It is a religious civil liberty, not a right granted by government. It should never have been regulated by government in the first place, and government shouldn’t have an expanded reach in further regulating it now. There is no allowance constitutionally that invites our government to define the religious covenant of marriage.

I’ve no issue with same sex couples entering into contractual agreements with each other or sharing benefits (the military decisions should be made by those with the credit of service day in and day out, not civilian advocacy groups). Isn’t that the goal of this conflict? If so, to me, that’s an issue separate from marriage. In suing over “marriage” itself one is demanding that God change His definition of the union between a man and a woman. If recognition of status, ease with other contractual obligations, and other issues are the issues, why the need to force people of faith to alter recognition of God’s Word on the matter? The people may bend as reeds to lawfare, but God will not. Frankly, I see no point in being on any side other than God’s on any matter, and God is more small government than any player in the scene.

In suing over marriage one is demanding that others modify their beliefs to accommodate another. Do not people of faith retain their First Amendment liberty of freedom of religion?

California voters in Prop 8 are awaiting to see if elections in their state matter. Advocacy groups vilified Mormons yet according to numerous local media reports based on exit polling data, black and latino communities provided “key support” in the passage of Prop 8. The left had a more difficult time vilifying these voting blocs because it’s harder to ask them for votes later. Despite democracy in our constitutional republic working as it should, voters were sued to have their votes in a taxpayer-paid-for election overturned. The gap in the door will widen for lawsuits if the goal of homogenization isn’t realized. Prop 8 is just the beginning. Do you doubt?

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Egyptian Mosque Turned Into House Of Torture For Christians After Muslim Brotherhood Protest

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Photo Credit: MidEast Christian News

Islamic hard-liners stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo, turning it into torture chamber for Christians who had been demonstrating against the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in the latest case of violent persecution that experts fear will only get worse.

Such stories have become increasingly common as tensions between Egypt’s Muslims and Copts mount, but in the latest case, mosque officials corroborated much of the account and even filed a police report. Demonstrators, some of whom were Muslim, say they were taken from the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in suburban Cairo to a nearby mosque on Friday and tortured for hours by hard-line militia members.

“They accompanied me to one of the mosques in the area and I discovered the mosque was being used to imprison demonstrators and torture them,” Amir Ayad, a Coptic who has been a vocal protester against the regime, told MidEast Christian News from a hospital bed.

Ayad said he was beaten for hours with sticks before being left for dead on a roadside. Amir’s brother, Ezzat Ayad, said he received an anonymous phone call at 3 a.m. Saturday, with the caller saying his brother had been found near death and had been taken to the ambulance.

“He underwent radiation treatment that proved that he suffered a fracture in the bottom of his skull, a fracture in his left arm, a bleeding in the right eye, and birdshot injuries,” Ezzat Ayad said.

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Ben Carson on MSNBC Hack Touré: “He’s Lying, Namecalling… It’s a trick we learned in Third Grade” (+ video)

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Photo Credit: Ben CArson

Dr. Ben Carson was on Hannity tonight speaking truth to justice.

Carson responded to the awful racist attacks by MSNBC’s Touré this past week. The pediatric neurourgeon had this to say,

Well first of all the individual who was just speaking completely has his facts incorrect. Some people refuse to say the word, but I’ll say it. He’s lying… I think when people don’t have anything worthwhile to talk about, and they can’t attack you on your character then they start calling you names…

Watch video here:

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Serbu Firearms Refuses To Sell .50 Cal Sniper Rifles To NYPD

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Photo Credit: Freedom Outpost

Back in February I informed you that several gun makers and those that sell them had decided to boycott selling to law enforcement in states that were putting forth legislation hostile to the Second Amendment. Within a week, that number had grown by over 700%. Now word is that Serbu Firearms, a manufacturer of bolt-action and semi-automatic .50 caliber sniper rifles, will not be selling their arms to the New York Police Department. The reason is obvious, New York’s unconstitutional SAFE Act.

The company’s founder, Mark Serbu, posted on the company’s Facebook page an email exchange between himself and a NYPD-FTS. The officer said that he was “assigned to the NYPD Firearms and Tactics Section. I have been directed to research a new semi-automatic .50 caliber platform for my department.”

He had apparently been waiting for two weeks to hear back from Serbu’s office regarding obtaining a rifle for test and evaluation.

Mr. Serbu finally responded:

I feel bad because I’d love to get my rifle into as many police departments as possible…who doesn’t want their law enforcement agencies armed with the best possible tools to take out the bad guys? I heard a rumor that the only other company with a .50 BMG semi-auto rifle in production won’t sell to NY police agencies either. So because of a stupid law the venerable NYPD won’t have the best tools for the job….

Read more from this story HERE.

Man Who Pointed Laser At Aircraft Lands 30-Month Prison Sentence

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Photo Credit: Adnan Yahya

A judge in California has sent a strong message to anyone who thinks that pointing lasers at aircraft is just harmless fun ‘n’ games.

U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson sentenced a 19-year-old man on Monday to 30 months in federal prison for shining a laser pointer at a plane and police helicopter, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case.

Adam Gardenhire deliberately pointed the commercial grade green laser at a private Cessna Citation that was landing at the Burbank Bob Hope Airport in California on March 29, 2012.

Gardenhire, of North Hollywood, California, was arrested and pleaded guilty in the incident as part of an agreement with prosecutors in October.

The pilot of the corporate jet was hit in the eye multiple times and had vision problems through the next day, court documents say.

Read more from this story HERE.

Your Taxes Help Promote the World’s Most Hated Dictators (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Thanks to your generous support, the New York City-based People’s Rights Fund has been able publicize the great work of Karl Marx and dictators Kim Jong-Il, Hugo Chavez and Saddam Hussein. Don’t remember writing that check?

If you paid federal taxes after 1997, some of your money went to Tides, a San Francisco-based clearinghouse that collects and distributes about $251 million every year to hundreds of leftwing organizations.

Much of the money flowing into Tides comes from wealthy benefactors who use Tides as a clearinghouse — a way to help finance left-liberal organizations without leaving any fingerprints.

But since 1997, the U.S. government has joined in, making $79 million in grants to the non-profit. In the same period, Tides has funded such groups as the radical PRF and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization whose leaders were convicted of funneling money to the terrorist group Hamas.

Tides also gives money to groups you likely know and may even support such as Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

But CAIR?

Watch video here:

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RNC Chairman Reince Priebus To GOP: Don’t Go ‘Old Testament’ On Gays

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Photo Credit: Washington Times

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, issued some words of advice for fellow GOPers: Get in the 21st century with same-sex-marriage issues.

“We do have a platform, and we adhere to that platform,” Mr. Priebus said in a USA Today video. “But it doesn’t mean that we divide and subtract people from our party” who favor gay marriage.

“I don’t believe we need to act like Old Testament heretics,” he said in the USA Today video. Rather, Republicans “have to strike a balance between principle and grace and respect.”

His statements come as the U.S. Supreme Court is due to hear two cases on gay marriage — one on a California-voted ban on same-sex marriage, and the other on the legalities of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which bans the federal government from giving marriage benefits to same-sex couples.

Read more from this story HERE.

Turner CEO’s Attempt to Convince Public That CNN Isn’t Liberal, Ridiculed

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Photo Credit: WND

The head of Turner Broadcasting, the parent company of CNN, is now taking a stand against a common perception that his news network is biased in favor of the political left.

This week’s issue of Broadcasting & Cable features an interview with Turner CEO Phil Kent, who was asked: “What’s the biggest misconception about CNN?”

“That it’s a liberal news network,” Kent responded. “It drives me crazy. It’s not.” Interviewer Andrea Morabito followed up by asking Kent how he could change the perception. He responded: “I think [if] people watch it more critically and not just listen to what other people say about it – I won’t mention names – they’ll see that it [isn’t], and I think one of the things we fix is make sure we have the right balance of voices on CNN. That we have good conservatives, good liberals, experts in all areas. It’s a serious news network.”

Kent’s remarks are being ridiculed by the likes of John Nolte of Breitbart.com. “What’s unsettling about the Kent interview,” Nolte said, “is that Kent doesn’t appear to watch his own network.”

He continued: “Kent should turn on CNN right now – this very second – and what he’ll see is what I’ve been seeing for over a week now: a network on a pro-same sex marriage crusade that gives zero time to anyone credible or thoughtful on the other side of the argument. When it comes to gay marriage, there is no difference between CNN and MSNBC.

Read more from this story HERE.