ObamaCare Cuts Low-Wage Workweek Near Record Low

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Photo Credit: DUCKofD3ATH

Photo Credit: DUCKofD3ATH

Here’s something worth paying attention to this Labor Day: The workweek in low-wage industries has fallen back to the historic lows seen at the depths of the recession.

The White House and like-minded economists have disputed the notion that ObamaCare is having a meaningful impact on work hours by noting that the private-sector workweek has recovered pretty much back to where it was in 2007, before the economy tanked.

But that view from 40,000 feet overlooks what is happening in industries likely to feel the brunt of ObamaCare’s employment impact: those in which wages are modest and the ranks of the uninsured are high.

A more rigorous analysis of monthly industry data from the Bureau of Labor Statitics reveals a stark contrast between workers in low-wage industries and the rest of the private sector.

For the 30 million workers in industries where nonsupervisors average about $14.50 an hour or less, the workweek has been shrinking pretty steadily for the past 18 months, reversing a fledgling recovery in work hours.

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‘Free’ Benefits in ObamaCare Come with Hidden Costs

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The new health care law promises all sorts of free benefits — but analysts argue nothing is ultimately free, and ObamaCare is no exception.

“P. J. O’Rourke famously said that if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s free,” said Avik Roy, of the Manhattan Institute. “Once you lard on all these additional things, all these extras that insurers must provide, you have to pay for that.”

For the average consumer, that means taxes, the American Enterprise Institute’s Jim Capretta told Fox News.

“There’s going to be taxes on insurance. Taxes on drugs. Taxes on medical devices. All of that is getting passed through to the prices people have to pay either for direct services or their insurance premiums,” he said.

The administration points to a host of free services as one of the early benefits of the new law.

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‘The Bond Between Them is Amazing’: Congressman and his Wife Reunite Two-Year-Old Twin Girls who were Separated at Birth by Adopting Them

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Photo Credit: Mallory Hall

Photo Credit: Mallory Hall

A congressman and his wife have reunited two-year-old twin girls who were living in separate homes by adopting them into their own family.

Oklahoma congressman Markwayne Mullin told NewsOK that he was hesitant at first to expand his brood of three to five, but his wife convinced him otherwise.

Now, little Ivy and Lynette – who were born into ‘kind of a bad situation’ – are fully integrated into the Mullin family and they ‘could not be happier,’ says the congressman.

Before the adoption was approved on August 21, the blonde twins were living with distant relations of Mr Mullin’s wife Christie, in separate but ‘very loving’ homes.

But the relatives, a grandmother and great aunt, had told Mrs Mullin that they hoped they’d live long enough to see the girls graduate.

Read more from this story HERE.

Microsoft and Google to Sue Over US Surveillance Requests

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Microsoft and Google are to sue the US government to win the right to reveal more information about official requests for user data. The companies announced the lawsuit on Friday, escalating a legal battle over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the mechanism used by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other US government agencies to gather data about foreign internet users.

Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith, made the announcement in a corporate blog post which complained of the government’s “continued unwillingness” to let it publish information about FISA requests.

Each company filed a suit in June arguing that they should be allowed to state the details under the first amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, and in the process defend corporate reputations battered by Edward Snowden’s revelations. Critics accused the companies of collaborating in the snooping.

“On six occasions in recent weeks we agreed with the department of justice to extend the government’s deadline to reply to these lawsuits. We hoped that these discussions would lead to an agreement acceptable to all,” Smith wrote.

The negotiations failed, he wrote, so Google and Microsoft were going to court. He did not specify when, or to which court.

Read more from this story HERE.

Dunkin’ Donuts Apologises for ‘Bizarre and Racist’ Thai Advert

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Photo Credit: Dunkin' Donuts

Photo Credit: Dunkin’ Donuts

Dunkin’ Donuts has apologised after it ran an advertisement in Thailand featuring a woman in “blackface” make-up. The advert, which was used to promote the donut giant’s “charcoal donut”, was called “bizarre and racist” by a leading human rights group.

Dunkin’ Donuts chief executive in Thailand defended the campaign, but a spokesman for Dunkin’ Brands told the Guardian on Friday it would immediately pull a planned television spot featuring the imagery.

“Dunkin’ Donuts recognizes the insensitivity of this spot and on behalf of our Thailand franchisee and our company, we apologize for any offense it caused,” Karen Raskopf, chief communications officer for Dunkin’ Brands, said in a statement provided to the Guardian. “We are working with our franchisee to immediately pull the television spot and to change the campaign.”

The Thai arm of Dunkin’ Donuts had planned a poster and television campaign around the image, which it shared on Facebook. The advert shows a woman apparently wearing dark make-up and bright pink lipstick, with a 1950s beehive hairstyle. She is holding a “charcoal donut”, out of which a bite has been taken. The slogan next to the image reads: “Break every rule of deliciousness.”

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Rand Paul: Immigration Reform Would Be the Final Thing Boehner Did as Speaker (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

On Laura Ingraham’s Friday radio show, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul said that if Speaker of the House John Boehner passed an immigration reform bill similar to the Gang of Eight’s, it would be “final things he did as speaker.”

Paul offered an update on Congress’ immigration reform efforts: Earlier this summer, the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate passed its version of immigration reform legislation. Despite that, Paul still lobbied for his amendment that would put Congress in charge of making sure the border is secure.

“I’m not hearing much,” Paul said. “It’s gone pretty quiet on it. And I still think they’re still working on something in the House and the conservative members that have come up to me — what I keep saying and what I come back to is my amendment is trust but verify and in my amendment, I say you have to have congressional votes each year for about five years and each time we have to vote to say the border is more secure.”

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White House: Social Media Helped Prove Chemical Attack in Syria

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Susan Ferrechio

Social media helped American intelligence officials determine that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime carried out a deadly nerve gas attack on its citizens earlier this month, top White House aides said Friday, but some members of Congress remain wary of the U.S. launching a retaliatory strike.

The Obama administration, working to build a case for a potential military attack against the Assad regime, released a four-page, unclassified assessment that concluded that the Syrian government used chemical weapons in an attack on twelve neighborhoods in the Damascus suburbs, killing 1,429 people, including at least 426 children.

The assessment outlines the case against Assad, saying the August 21 attack began in the early morning hours when the regime began firing rockets and artillery at the 12 neighborhoods, all of them either controlled by the Assad opposition or contested by the two sides.

Intelligence on the ground and satellite images prove the rockets were fired into the neighborhoods from Assad-controlled areas, White House aides said Friday.

Reports of nerve gas in the area began surfacing on social media around 2:30 a.m. local times, shortly after the gas struck.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Obama: US has an ‘obligation’ to act against Syria

By Susan Crabtree

President Obama said Friday that the U.S. has an obligation as a world leader to hold the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad accountable for the deadly chemical attack in Syria last week.

“I have said before and I meant what I said, the world has an obligation” to take action against the use of chemical weapons, Obama said.

Obama, however, repeatedly stressed that he had yet to make a decision about what type of military response the U.S. would take, although he said any strike would be a “limited, narrow act” and would not involve “boots on the ground.”

“We’re not considering any open-ended commitment,” he told reporters after a meeting with leaders of Estonia and Latvia, noting that he wished that the international community had already acted.

Read more from this story HERE.

7.0 Earthquake Strikes Near Adak, Alaska

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250px-Adak_-_Adak_IslandA substantial earthquake registering 7.0 magnitude, according to USGS, struck just 56 miles from Adak, Alaska, this morning. The depth of the quake was about 21 miles.

Adak, a small Aleutian community of a little over 300 people, is the westernmost municipality in the United States.

According to the Alaska Tsunami Center, there is no tsunami watch, warning or advisory in effect.

Update: A 6.1 magnitude aftershock hit 62 miles south-southwest of Adak this evening. There are no reports of damage.

IRS Obstructs Efforts to Stop Illegals from Fraudulent Use of Social Security Numbers

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irs_An audit report published this month by the inspector general for the Social Security Administration says that the Internal Revenue Service’s reluctance to penalize employers who consistently file W-2s on which the Social Security Number and name do not match has “hindered” the SSA’s efforts to stop “unauthorized noncitizens” from using Social Security Numbers that are fake or belong to someone else.

The audit report looked at “inaccurate wage reporting”—or the filing of W-2 forms on which the name and the Social Security Number do not match. The SSA has long said these no-match W-2s are frequently filed on behalf of illegal aliens. According to the IG audit report released earlier this month, a senior IRS official admitted to the IG that the service knows this is the case.

“Furthermore,” said the report, “a senior employment tax official at the IRS acknowledged that unauthorized noncitizens accounted for a high percentage of inaccurate wage reporting.”

The audit looked at the U.S. employers who in tax years 2007-2009 (the latest for which all data was available) had the worst records for filing W-2s on which the names and Social Security Numbers did not match.

The IG determined the 100 employers who filed the the largest raw numbers of no-match W-2s in those three years and the 100 employers (with at least 100 employees a piece) who filed the most as a percentage of their payrolls.

Read more from this story HERE.

Death by Firing Squad for Kim Jong Un’s Ex

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

The ex-girlfriend of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was among a number of musicians who were executed by firing squad on August 20, according to South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

The paper reports that Hyon Song Wol, a singer and rumored former lover of Jong Un, was arrested on August 17 along with 11 other prominent artists for violating the communist nation’s laws against pornography. Three days later, they were killed in front of their immediate families and other members of North Korea’s famous pop groups. These onlookers were then sent to prison camps due to the regime’s assumption of guilt by association, the Chosun Ilbo story claims.

“They were executed with machine guns while the key members of the Unhasu Orchestra, Wangjaesan Light Band and Moranbong Band as well as the families of the victims looked on,” said a Chinese source.

Read more from this story HERE.