Is Chris Christie’s Weight-Loss Surgery a 2016 Clue?

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Photo Credit: New Jersey National GuardNew Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who recently described himself as “the healthiest fat guy you’ve ever seen,” revealed Tuesday that he’s taken a major step toward slimming down.

The Republican told the New York Post that he underwent lap-band stomach surgery over the Presidents Day holiday — auspicious timing given that news of the procedure is seen as the latest indication that he’s eyeing a White House run in 2016.

Christie, however, denied that the procedure had any political implications, saying the decision was made after pleas from his family to shape up after a milestone birthday.

“I’ve struggled with this issue for 20 years,” he told the newspaper. “For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them.”

Christie checked into a surgery center under a false name on Feb. 16, the Post reported. The procedure, which is less intrusive than gastric bypass surgery, is meant to make individuals feel fuller and cut down on food intake. One analyst told NBC News on Tuesday that Christie could lose 100 pounds if he does cut back on his eating.

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Another Financial Crisis Coming, Much Worse Than Last

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Photo Credit: Getty Images The bond markets will crash once global central banks stop buying debt, triggering a financial crisis much worse than the one seen in 2008, strategist David Roche told CNBC.

Roche, who has previously warned that “safe haven” government bonds are the most dangerous place for investors to be in, said Wednesday: “Yes it [a financial crisis] will happen and yes, it will be bigger [than the credit crisis]. Once you re-price the burden of the world’s debt… the ugly truth will be revealed.”

According to Roche, president of Independent Strategy, once the expansive quantitative easing programs initiated by Western central banks come to an end, sovereign bond yields, including U.S. Treasurys, German Bunds and U.K. Gilts, will spike significantly prompting a crash.

Yields on U.S. 10-year Treasurys have fallen more than 200 basis points over the past five years and are now around 1.8 percent. Meanwhile, U.K. 10-year Gilts and German 10-year Bunds were also trading near record lows on Wednesday at 1.8 percent and 1.29 percent, respectively.

“As long as the central bankers print money, the only way to have to distribute it is [for governments] to buy 70 percent of new bond issuance in these safe haven bond markets. As long as they go on doing that, the yields won’t go up, and the day they stop, the yields will go up by so much we will have a financial crisis on our hands,” he said.

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Mother Forced to Pay Spousal Support to Man Who Raped Daughter (+video)

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Photo Credit: mikebairdA mother who was forced to pay spousal support to the ex-husband who was convicted of raping her daughter is speaking out to CBS2.

“Every time I wrote that check, I cried because I felt like I was paying the man that raped my daughter,” Carol Abar told CBS2′s Andrea Fujii.

Carol married Ed Abar in 1991, when her daughter, who wishes to remain unidentified, was 9 years old.

Carol’s daughter said Abar abused and raped her for 16 years before she told her mother.

“He had threatened me that he would kill my mom; he would kill my stepbrothers; he would kill me,” she said.

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Trustworthy? Fox News’ Shepard Smith Ranks Dead Last

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsAlthough he anchors the top-rated cable newscast in the nation, Shepard Smith of the Fox News Channel ranks last in a brand-new Reader’s Digest Poll listing the top 100 most trusted Americans.

“The results are revealing, hopeful, and sometimes shocking,” says the Reader’s Digest, which teamed up with the research firm Wagner Group to survey more than 1,000 Americans and discover which individuals and the ideals they represent have earned public confidence.

Smith, anchor of “The Fox Report,” was ranked at No. 100, just below New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman, who are at Nos. 98 and 99 respectively. But since no other Fox journalist even made the top 100, Smith’s ranking could be viewed as good news for him.

The magazine provides a slideshow of photos and quotes for each person in its ranking.

The quote attributed to Smith is, “I’m a journalist; I run to the fire, that’s what we do.”

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Boy Who Held Pencil Like Gun Suspended (+video)

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Photo Credit: DvortygirlA Suffolk school suspended a second grader for pointing a pencil at another student and making gun noises.

Seven-year-old Christopher Marshall says he was playing with another student in class Friday, when the teacher at Driver Elementary asked them to stop pointing pencils at each other.

“When I asked him about it, he said, ‘Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy,'” said Paul Marshall, the boy’s father. “It’s as simple as that.”

Christopher’s father was a Marine for many years. He thinks school leaders overreacted.

“A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made,” said Bethanne Bradshaw, a spokesperson for Suffolk Public Schools.

Boy who held pencil like gun suspended

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Obamacare Red Tape Burden Surges to 189 Million Hours a Year — and it Hasn’t Even Started

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner The growing tower of Obamacare red tape flooding out of federal agencies will sock American businesses and families with nearly 200 million hours of paperwork compliance a year, a 50 percent jump in just the past three months as the administration pushes out more rules.

The number of compliance hours is so staggering that three House committees, in updating their Obamacare Burden Tracker, put it in perspective by claiming that the Empire State Building could be built 27 times in the 189,822,836 hours estimated so far by the Office of Management and Budget and IRS.

Just three months ago, the House Ways and Means, Education and the Workforce, and Energy and Commerce committees first estimated the paperwork burden at 127 million hours per year. Since then, the administration has scrambled to issue more regulations in time for the Jan. 1 kickoff of the Obamacare program.

The biggest addition is a new rule that will add 46 million hours of paperwork to the makers of drugs, medical devices and medical supplies, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. They will be required to report payments to doctors and teaching hospitals and reveal investments doctors have in their companies.

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Man Arrested After Trying To Return Pipe Bomb At Gun Buyback

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Photo Credit: ROBYN BECKA man was arrested during the city’s sixth gun buyback event over the weekend after showing up at a drop-off location with a homemade pipe bomb.

KNX1070′s Claudia Peschiutta reports that the man wanted to turn in the explosive.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said the man “told the officers in the line that he had spoken to God that day, and God no longer wanted him to use that bomb to blow up the Hollywood sign, now he wanted him to turn it in.”

“This is not a pipe bomb buyback; this is a gun buyback,” Beck said. “Pipe bombs are illegal to possess, illegal to manufacture.”

Police said they were able to safely detonate the device.

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Dennis Rodman to Kim Jong Un: ‘Do Me a Solid’

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Photo Credit: OPEN SportsNBA great-turned-unofficial diplomat Dennis Rodman asked North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un on Tuesday to release an imprisoned American citizen.

Bae, a devout Christian who worked as a tour operator near the Chinese-North Korea border, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor earlier this month, accused by the North Korean government of fomenting a revolution. The 44-year-old Bae was born in South Korea and is a naturalized American citizen.

Bae, a devout Christian who worked as a tour operator near the Chinese-North Korea border, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor earlier this month, accused by the North Korean government of fomenting a revolution…


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Senators Block Gosnell Resolution

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller A Senate resolution aimed at investigating and correcting the policies which led to the illegal abortion practices of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was blocked Monday evening.

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee attempted to hotline the resolution to express “the sense of the Senate that Congress and the States should investigate and correct abusive, unsanitary, and illegal abortion practices” Monday evening, but an unknown senator objected to its unanimous passage, according to Lee’s office.

“It is difficult to imagine why anyone would object to a non-binding resolution calling on Congress to investigate these alleged disturbing, horrific, and illegal abortion practices committed by Kermit Gosnell and others,” Lee said in a statement.

“With numerous reports of similar instances surfacing around the country, the need for greater regulatory oversight of these so-called clinics is so plainly obvious it strains the limits of disbelief to think all members of the Senate would not agree,” he added. “The resolution is simply an affirmation that we as a country — a moral and compassionate society — have an interest in acting to save the lives of innocent women and children, and to prevent these kinds of heinous acts from happening to anyone again.”

Lee’s resolution, which has 11 co-sponsors, highlighted the crimes alleged against Gosnell, who faces more than 250 criminal charges, including first-degree murder charges for the deaths of four babies born alive in attempted abortions and a third-degree murder charge for a woman who died in 2009 during an abortion from a drug overdose.

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Multinational Corporation Eli Lilly Lobbied For Obamacare, Now Against It

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Photo Credit: Charles DharapakEli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter, who previously lobbied on behalf of Obamacare, said that one of President Obama’s costly new health-care reforms would have “catastrophic” consequences for innovation and that he plans to fight against it.

Lechleiter condemned Obama’s “dual eligibles” rebate plan at the annual Eli Lilly shareholder meeting Monday in Indianapolis.

“He said it would have fairly catastrophic consequences to the industry,” Eli Lilly spokesman Greg Kueterman told The Daily Caller.

Eli Lilly is a major drug maker and the world’s largest manufacturer of psychiatric medications.

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