Alaska Marijuana Vote Pushed to November

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: M.Scott Mahaskey / POLITICO

Photo Credit: M.Scott Mahaskey / POLITICO

Marijuana likely won’t be on the ballot until November in Alaska when voters head to the polls in the general election, because of the state’s Legislature extending its session.

A citizens’ petition to allow recreational marijuana use similar to alcohol qualified to be on the ballot in the August primary, but it is expected to get pushed back to November, Alaska Public Media reported.

The change is caused by the Legislature’s extended session: Lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on education spending by the midnight deadline and thus continued to meet. Alaska law requires constitutional initiatives to wait 120 days after a legislative session before making the ballot, and the Aug. 19 primary is 120 days from Monday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Independents More Likely to Back Anti-ObamaCare Candidates

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Most voters say ObamaCare will play an important role in their vote in this year’s elections, and over half are more inclined to back the candidate who opposes the health care law.

That’s according to a Fox News poll released Monday.

The new poll asks voters what they would do if the only difference between two congressional candidates is that one promises to fight for the health care law and the other promises to fight against it.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS

By a 53-39 percent margin, more voters say they would back the anti-ObamaCare candidate.

Independents, always a key voting bloc, would back that candidate by a 25 percentage-point margin (54-29 percent, with another 14 percent saying it depends).

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Says Has Indications Toxic Chemical Used in Syria this Month

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS / STRINGER

Photo Credit: REUTERS / STRINGER

The United States has indications that a toxic chemical, probably chlorine, was used in Syria this month and is examining whether the Syrian government was responsible, the U.S. State Department said on Monday.

“We have indications of the use of a toxic industrial chemical” in the town of Kfar Zeita, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, referring to a rebel-held area.

“We are examining allegations that the government was responsible,” she told a regular news briefing. “Obviously there needs to be an investigation of what’s happened here.”

Syrian opposition activists reported that helicopters dropped chlorine gas on Kfar Zeita on April 11 and 12. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told ABC television’s “This Week” on April 13 that the attack was “unsubstantiated.”

Psaki said chlorine was not one of the priority one or two chemicals Syria declared to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) under a Russian-U.S. agreement for the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gold Bars Found Inside Stomach of Indian Businessman

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: John Louis / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: John Louis / Creative Commons

Twelve gold bars were found inside the stomach of a businessman who tried to smuggle the precious metal into India from Singapore.

The Indian Express reports that the 63-year-old man visited a hospital in New Delhi earlier this month, saying he had swallowed the cap of a water bottle and wanted it removed. Doctors soon operated after he repeatedly vomited and complained of pain, and later found 12 gold bars, weighing nearly a pound and worth $23,000.

Read more from this story HERE.

37% of Voters Fear the Federal Government

/3 Comments/in , /by

Secretary Of Defense Leon Panetta Hosts Ceremony At Vietnam Veterans MemorialThirty-seven percent (37%) of Likely U.S. Voters now fear the federal government, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Forty-seven percent (47%) do not, but another 17% are not sure.

Perhaps in part that’s because 54% consider the federal government today a threat to individual liberty rather than a protector. Just 22% see the government as a protector of individual rights, and that’s down from 30% last November. Slightly more (24%) are now undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

As recently as December 2012, voters were evenly divided on this question: 45% said the federal government was a protector of individual rights, while 46% described it as a threat to those rights.

Two-out-of-three voters (67%) view the federal government today as a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Just 17% disagree, while 15% are undecided.

Only 19% now trust the federal government to do the right thing most or nearly all the time, down from 24% in June of last year. Eighty percent (80%) disagree, with 44% who trust the government to do the right thing only some of the time and 36% who say it rarely or never does the right thing.

Read more from this story HERE.

You’re On the Clock: Doctors Rush Patients Out the Door

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Christopher Powers, USA TODAY

Photo Credit: Christopher Powers, USA TODAY

By Roni Caryn Rabin.

Joan Eisenstodt didn’t have a stopwatch when she went to see an ear, nose and throat specialist recently, but she is certain the physician was not in the exam room with her for more than three or four minutes.

“He looked up my nose, said it was inflamed, told me to see the nurse for a prescription and was gone,” said the 66-year-old Washington, D.C., consultant, who was suffering from an acute sinus infection.

When she started protesting the doctor’s choice of medication, “He just cut me off totally,” she said. “I’ve never been in and out from a visit faster.”

These days, stories like Eisenstodt’s are increasingly common. Patients — and physicians — say they feel the time crunch as never before as doctors rush through appointments as if on roller skates to see more patients and perform more procedures to make up for flat or declining reimbursements.

It’s not unusual for primary care doctors’ appointments to be scheduled at 15-minute intervals. Some physicians who work for hospitals say they’ve been asked to see patients every 11 minutes.

Read more from this story HERE.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Latest Obamacare accomplishment: ‘Medical Homelessness’

By Rick Moran.

So, you’ve done your duty as a citizen and faithfully signed up for an Obamacare insurance policy. You’ve even paid your premium, God bless you.You are now eligible (after a $5000 deductible) to enjoy the true benefits of Obamacare.

That is…if you can find a doctor to treat you.

KPIX:

Rotacare, a free clinic for the uninsured in Mountain View, is dealing with the problem firsthand.

Mirella Nguyen works at the clinic said staffers dutifully helped uninsured clients sign up for Obamacare so they would no longer need the free clinic.

But months later, the clinic’s former patients are coming back to the clinic begging for help. “They’re coming back to us now and saying I can’t find a doctor, “said Nguyen.

Read more from this story HERE.

DNC Chairwoman: Politics Didn’t Factor into Obama Keystone Pipeline Delay

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Photo Credit: Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Sunday dismissed the potential political impact of a delayed decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, calling it a “complex” decision that will need to be carefully weighed.

The State Department, which has been reviewing the environmental impact of a proposal to build an oil pipeline from Canada to refineries along the Gulf Coast, announced this week that it would postpone its decision on whether to approve the project.

Some Republicans who support the project accused Democrats and the White House of purposefully pushing back a ruling until after this year’s midterm elections — but Wasserman Schultz attempted Sunday to dismiss such a notion.

“The decision over the Keystone pipeline is complex and it has to be examined very carefully,” Wasserman Schultz said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “It affects multiple states.”

Because of the weight of the issue, Wasserman Schultz said, she wants “to make sure the right decision is arrived at and the president makes that decision carefully and doesn’t put politics in his decision.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Ouch: New York Times Columnist Says Obama Has a ‘Manhood Problem’ in the Middle East

/4 Comments/in , /by

During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Brooks weighed in on how Barack Obama is viewed in the Middle East.

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Asks American Parents to Monitor Their Children for Signs of Terrorism

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: FBI / Getty

Photo Credit: FBI / Getty

In a speech earlier this week, Lisa O. Monaco, President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, insisted that American parents must be vigilant because their “confrontational” children could be on the verge of becoming terrorists.

Monaco’s full, prepared text is available here. She presented the speech, entitled “Countering Violent Extremism and the Power of Community,” at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government on April 15.

Monaco began her remarks by eloquently describing the lives tragically lost last year during the Boston Marathon bombings. Interestingly, the Harvard grad failed to mention the religion or the motive of brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Muslim terrorists behind the Boston bombings.

In the very next paragraph, Monaco specifically noted racist and disgustingly anti-Semitic beliefs of Frazier Glenn Miller, the 73-year-old former Ku Klux Klan leader accused of gunning down three people at a Jewish Community Center in Kansas last Sunday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Zogby Report Card: Russia’s Winning, and Obama Has Few Options

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Pollster John Zogby reports in our weekly White House report card that President Obama has a real problem on his hands: a lack of options in dealing with issues like Russia, immigration, Syria and the Middle East.

“It seems hard to play the long game in an era of instant news and talking analysis by the nanosecond. The president assures us that President Putin’s gambit in Crimea is doomed and that stronger sanctions can follow. But it is hard to communicate that point while it looks like Russia is winning.

Read more from this story HERE.