Palin To Union Members: Demand Resignation of ‘Thug’ Bosses For Backing Obamacare

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picture - palin-speechFormer Alaska Governor Sarah Palin says that union members across America should demand that Obamacare be repealed and defunded, and some of their leaders should resign for not opposing the health care law.

“Union brothers and sisters, don’t let your incompetent leadership hoodwink you again,” Palin wrote in a Facebook post Thursday. “Demand a full repeal, an immediate defunding, and some resignations.”

Palin, who has in the past criticized union bosses for betraying their hard-working members, said this was another instance of that, as they believed President Barack Obama’s false promises on Obamacare and are supporting carve-outs instead of a full repeal.

“Remember when President Obama promised us, ‘If you like your current health care plan, you can keep your plan?'” Palin wrote. “That was not true, and his deceptive claim falls in line with all the other lies about Obamacare—like there’d be no health care rationing.”

“More cronyism, select exemptions, and special subsidies make the problem worse,” Palin said. “We need to repeal the whole darn thing, and that starts with defunding it.”

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Medicare Cuts, Obamacare Prompt Hospital Layoffs

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Many hospitals are slashing jobs and cutting patient services citing Medicare cuts, the difficult health care landscape, and the Affordable Care Act as the reasons behind their decision.

Over a dozen hospitals have announced job cuts in the past three weeks, the Washington Free Beacon found. Some hospitals announced they would close altogether, while others are downsizing and eliminating some of their services.

Connecticut’s Lawrence + Memorial Hospital announced last week it was cutting 33 jobs, citing the “sheer magnitude” of payment cuts from both Medicare and Medicaid.

“L+M and other hospitals are contending with massive structural changes that are happening very rapidly,” hospital president and CEO Bruce D. Cummings said in a statement. “We are also experiencing unexpected—and previously unbudgeted—cuts in federal (Medicare) and state (Medicaid) funding. “

“The sheer magnitude of the Medicare and Medicaid cuts impel us to look at all of our services and costs, including the largest component of our budget—personnel,” Cummings said, citing a 20 percent cut in Medicaid proposed by Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy and approved by the state legislature resulting in a $550 million hit to Connecticut hospitals. Sequestration also resulted in an additional $1 million loss for L + M this year.

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Colorado County Considers Giving Flowers a ‘Right to Life’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Boulder, Colo. local government will deliberate a new law next week that would legally define and protect plants and animals as living beings.

The ‘Rights of Nature’ movement recently descended on Boulder to push environmentalist laws to the local government, according to Denver Westwood News. Their most recent proposal asks that Boulder County recognize ”the rights of all naturally occurring ecosystems and their native species populations to exist and flourish.”

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Study: More than 400 Union Officials Made Over $250K in 2012

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

More than 400 labor officials earned more than a quarter of a million dollars in salary in 2012, according to a new study.

Media Trackers found that the top 100 highest paid union officials garnered more than $52 million in 2012, salaries paid by membership dues of the laborers and government employees they represent.

The top-paid union official is NBA Player’s Association head G. William Hunter, who made more than $3.1 million on the year. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees chief Lee Saunders rounded out the top 100 with gross pay of $353,580, according to the study.

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Helium Balloons Lift Aviator Jonathan Trappe Up For Transatlantic Trip

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Photo Credit: Paul Cyr / Barcroft USA

Photo Credit: Paul Cyr / Barcroft USA

An American aviator has begun the first attempt to cross the Atlantic suspended by hundreds of coloured balloons. Jonathan Trappe took off from Caribou, Maine, on Thursday morning as his capsule was lifted by 370 helium-filled balloons in heavy fog and he headed east from the US.

The concept may sound like the story from the Disney film Up but Trappe, 39, specializes in cluster ballooning and was the first person to cross the Channel and the Alps using the method.

The transatlantic trip could be as long as 2,500 miles (4,000km) and take between three and five days. Depending on the weather, he could land anywhere between Iceland and Morocco.

Trappe is relying on state of the art weather data from the meteorologist who advised Felix Baumgartner on his record-breaking skydive from the stratosphere last year. The latest weather reports suggested winds would take Trappe to western Europe.

“Weather is absolutely the most dangerous factor,” said Trappe, speaking immediately before launch. ” It’s the only thing that will carry me across, but bad conditions could also ruin the attempt or endanger my life.”

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Biden Calls Republicans ‘Neanderthals’

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Photo Credit: Matt Rourke

Photo Credit: Matt Rourke

Vice President Joe Biden said Repulican opposition to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the House of Representatives came from the “Neanderthal crowd.” And he gave himself credit for coming up with the law almost 20 years ago.

“Packed into the front room of the Vice President’s residence just before 7pm, Biden spoke for about half an hour to the crowd of several dozen people, most of whom played a role in making VAWA a reality. The room was full of chatter as Biden was standing at the mic waiting to talk, so he turned around and let out a piercingly loud whistle, and the room went quiet. He talked about when he first came up with the idea for VAWA legislation in the early 1990s,” according to the pool report from an event last night.

“I caused a lot of trouble because I just started writing,” Biden said to laughs. “I’m serious. This isn’t one of these cases, I didn’t ask for staff help, I didn’t ask for any help, I was so God darn– gosh darn mad.”

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Interview: Kiss’ Gene Simmons Defends Tim Tebow: He’s Cool to Me

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty

Photo Credit: AFP/Getty

Has polarizing football player Tim Tebow gotten a raw deal in the press because of his religious beliefs? And would he be treated more respectfully if he were not Christian, and specifically, Muslim? Gene Simmons thinks so.

“He’s got a religious passion, as well he should, we’re in America,” the KISS frontman told Radio.com earlier this week. ”He’s proud to be a Christian, what’s wrong with that? And yet, with sports media and pop culture media, they make fun of his religion. Really? In America? If he was wearing a burqa, they wouldn’t dare say anything [editor’s note: only Muslim women wear burqas]. But if you’re a Christian, you get to be picked on? What the hell? The guy’s got family values. I never saw the media picking on Michael Vick for torturing dogs. Or this other football player, who’s alleged to have killed, committed murder. That’s ‘cool.’ But a guy who’s religious and has got family values isn’t ‘cool?’ He’s cool to me.”

As has been widely reported, Simmons and his KISS bandmate Paul Stanley are now co-owners of a new Arena Football League team, to be called LA KISS. And Simmons wasted no time drawing attention to the expansion team (which will begin playing in 2014), extending a very public offer to quarterback Tim Tebow, who after a brief up-and-down career in the NFL, was released by the New England Patriots a few weeks ago.

In an interview focusing on the new oral history of KISS, Nothing To Lose (more on that to come), Simmons addressed the situation with the man who he hopes will be the KISS QB.

“We haven’t heard back from Tim,” Simmons said. “He’s considering this seriously; he’s in Los Angeles. Right after this, I’m gonna fly back with our guys and try to sit down with him and tell him that we’re serious about this. He’ll get the respect here that he didn’t get at the NFL.”

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The Real Story Behind the Short Shorts

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This is the REAL story behind the short-shorts!

scott-front-back

I know the world has varying degrees of what is modest and what is not when it comes to clothing. In our family we have pretty definite modesty guidelines; No mid-drift or low-cut shirts, no short shorts, short skirts and we even go as far as saying no sleeveless shirts unless playing sports or on the beach. Having raised four daughters and three sons, I’m a bit protective. Some may call me old fashion, but I call it “A Dad who loves his daughters” (and sons too) I know some of you may be rolling your eyes and that’s okay, my daughter does it all the time.

I’m a firm believer that the way we dress sends messages about us, and it influences the way we and others act. (okay okay – I’m the first to admit I look like a redneck and I may say “crick” instead of “creek”) But that’s beside the point. My teenage daughter day after day continues to wear clothing that I, as her father, feel is inappropriate and immodest. Her mother and I feel the same about the importance of dressing modest. With that said, let’s move onto the night of the happening …….

In an effort to try to spend time with just the family we reserve our Monday evenings for just that. On this particular Monday, we decided to go out to eat (something we had not done in a very long time) and made plans for after dinner to use our pass-of-all passes to go miniature golfing at Trafalga, a nearby “fun center”. I heard my wife ask our daughter if she would please change into some longer shorts before leaving. She said “NO!” Instead of turning her response and disrespectful attitude into a major battle, I decided to make a “small” statement on how her short-shorts maybe aren’t as “cute” as she thinks!

I ran into my bedroom as the family was loading into the car. I grabbed some scissors and cut some old worn out pants into a set of short-shorts with the ends of the pockets hanging out the bottom. There was only about an inch of material below the crotch of the shorts. To add frosting to the cake, I looked down and noticed a shirt that my older daughter had given me for Father’s Day. At the time I thought “where the heck would I ever wear this?” Wow! I just found the perfect moment! I was a bit worried about going through with this, but felt that it was “OKAY” to make this statement in the privacy of our own home. I was certain that when my daughter saw me, that would be as far as it would have to go to make the point.

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Al-Qaeda Chief Calls for Attacks on US in 9/11 Speech to Followers

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Photo Credit: AFP/GETTY

Photo Credit: AFP/GETTY

In an audio message released on Friday, two days after the anniversary of September 11th, Ayman al-Zawahiri said America was not a “mythic power” and that it could be defeated even through small-scale strikes by “one brother or a few of the brothers”.

“We should bleed America economically by provoking it to continue in its massive expenditure on its security, for the weak point of America is its economy, which has already begun to stagger due to the military and security expenditure,” he said, according to SITE, a jihadist monitoring group. “America is not a mythic power and the Americans, after all, are humans who can be defeated, felled and punished.”

Zawahiri urged the Islamic world to “abandon the dollar and replace it with a currency of other countries that are not taking part in the aggression against us”. He also said that Muslims should refuse to buy goods from America and its allies, as such spending only helped to fund US military action in Muslim lands.

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Poll: New Low for Government Trust

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Less than half of Americans trust the government to handle problems, a all-time low, according to a new poll.

Just 49 percent of Americans said they had a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the federal government to handle international problems, according to a Gallup poll released Friday. The previous low was 51 percent in 2007.

The public’s trust is even lower when it comes to domestic issues. Just 42 percent of Americans answered with a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the government to handle issues at home, one point below the previous low from 2011.

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