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The Secret Service says two people threw something over the fence surrounding the White House complex — one person from the south side and one from the north.
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For me, the striking thing about the video is how alone Letts is in nearly all of it. Her Cosmopolitan piece emphasizes the opposite – how she felt enveloped by support. But the depiction comes across as one running direct to camera reality show, with an abortion in the middle. In the video, clearly in pain and focused on her breathing, she grips the hand of a clinic attendant, who offers brief words of support. Letts describes herself as a struggling actress, and she has enough ability to manage a wan smile before she’s wheeled out – but it comes across less as triumph than as “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.” She keeps the sonogram, smoothes her hair with automatic hand, and puts a record on the gramophone.
The concept of the abortion selfie is in some ways an inevitable consequence of an increasingly atomized culture. Consider instead the lure that would motivate one to seek to share this moment, and then to share in the reaction to this moment from social media, and then to share again in the reaction to that reaction in the pages of Cosmo. This is an individual seeking out the affirmation and attention of others – for good or ill, it is an attempt to find a community, a grasping for a sense of belonging.
Set aside Emily Letts for a moment, and consider these comments from someone on the other side of the culture wars: Rick Santorum, who is out once again in his green paisley van hunting for the ghosts of Reagan Democrats. Santorum’s latest book includes a call for Republicans to reject free trade, raise the minimum wage, and rediscover protectionism to defend traditional blue collar industries. As an economic message, Santorum is as disappointing as always (on the trade issue, for example, his longtime support for the protectionist status quo lines the pockets of well-connected cronies at the expense of everyone else). But on the issue of family and community, Santorum’s comments about individualism are worth noting:
“A blithe attitude about economic disruption and the decline of traditional industries goes along with what Santorum sees as a philosophical overemphasis on individualism. Conservatives, he argues, have neglected an important strand of political thought in which the family is the fundamental unit of the polis. “The basic unit of the society is the family,” he writes, not “the individual.” … Santorum explicitly blames libertarians for the rise of individualism, but it’s hard not to feel as if he’s taking issue with most of his party.”
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The first and last thought on our minds as we begin and end each day is; have we shined Christ’s light today? Our faith is the fundamental calling in our lives, and the centerpiece of who we are. As Christians we are called to love our fellow man. Anyone who suggests that we hate homosexuals or people of other faiths is either misinformed or lying.
Over the last decade, we’ve sold thousands of homes with the guiding principle of producing value and breathing life into each family that has crossed our path, and we do not, nor will we ever discriminate against people who do not share our views.
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On December 10, more than two dozen police officers from across Miami Dade County converged on a blue Volvo that had crashed in the backyard of a townhouse on 65th Street just off 27th Avenue.
As the car was wedged helplessly between a light pole and a tree, nearly a minute passed before officers opened up – firing approximately 50 bullets at the car and the two unarmed men inside the vehicle.
The two men inside the car survived that initial volley of gunfire, according to witnesses, who said they could see the men moving inside the Volvo. Everything went quiet for nearly two minutes before the officers opened up a second time – unleashing an unrelenting torrent of bullets that lasted almost 25 seconds. By the time it was over, the two men inside the car were dead.
CBS4 News has learned a total of 23 officers fired a total of at least 377 rounds.
Bullets were sprayed everywhere. They hit the Volvo, other cars in the lot, fence posts and neighboring businesses. They blasted holes in a townhouse where a 12-year-old dove to the ground for cover and a four month old slept in his crib.
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By John Tozzi.
Alarming predictions that the premiums for individual health plans would skyrocket in the first year of Obamacare turned out to be largely unfounded. But the roughly 8 million people who bought insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchanges may suffer some sticker shock as they begin using their benefits.
That’s because many of the plans make consumers shoulder a lot of the costs of their medical care through deductibles, co-pays, and co-insurance—payments the newly insured may not have grasped when they signed up. Research suggests that most people don’t understand those terms.
“Most people, as soon as they have health-care coverage, they expect to go to the drug store and pay whatever their co-pay is for their prescription, not have to meet a deductible,” says Gina Boscarino, senior policy director at Breakaway Policies. She helped produce a new report (pdf) with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation examining the new health plans.
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By Matt Krantz.
Companies find all sorts of excuses during earnings season for disappointments, with the weather being an all-time favorite. But some companies are finding a new scapegoat: Obamacare.
Thirty companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500, including United Parcel Service, General Electric and retailer Dollar General, have mentioned the Affordable Care Act during their conference calls since March 1 and all through the first-quarter earnings season, says John Butters, analyst at financial data research firm FactSet. That’s a healthy cross section of companies if you consider that so far, 446 companies in the S&P 500 have reported first-quarter results.
Exactly half the companies that mentioned the Act are in the healthcare industry, where there’s a direct interaction with the new law. But in the other half, companies ranging from many industries discussed the fallout of the Affordable Care Act on their business.
Most of the companies talking about the law did so negatively, pointing out how it either hurts demand for their business or causes costs to increase. “There are legitimate complaints,” says Kip Piper, an independent consultant that advises companies on health-care plans. “The ACA does impose costs and obligations that cost money.”
Some companies are pointing to the Affordable Care Act for driving up insurance costs. And this comes as health-care spending rose at an annual rate of 9.9% last quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis says, the fastest rate of increase since 1980. But others are saying that the new law is affecting demand for its products…
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The thread is more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood. It is the Muslim World League, a group accused of financing al-Qaida fronts. The organization’s offshoots have been declared official terrorist organizations by both the State Department and the United Nations.
Yet despite the troubling facts, Muslim World League-linked individuals have been in key national security positions and are currently helping to run the military’s chaplain program.
The case of Mehdi K. Alhassani, special assistant to the Office of the Chief of Staff of the National Security Council, drew attention last week in the blogosphere after former PLO operative Walid Shoebat reported on Alhassani’s ties to Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups.
Alhassani’s name emerged in an administration email made public last week as part of a Judicial Watch lawsuit. The email was sent three days after the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack to Alhassani and other officials from Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communication.
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As many as 300 people were killed when a band of extremists attacked the town of Gamboru Ngala, on Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, according to local press reports. The attack and hundreds of casualties were confirmed Wednesday by Borno state information commissioner Mohammed Bulama who spoke to The Associated Press by telephone Wednesday. Shops and homes were set ablaze and razed in the attack, he said.
The news of the attack adds to Nigeria’s growing crisis from the Islamic extremists’ violent campaign of bombings, attacks and abductions. The militant Boko Haram rebels are holding captive 276 teenage students, after abducting them from their boarding school in Chibok, also in northeastern Borno state.
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A non-consecrated communion host will be used in the reenactment, according to Lucien Greaves, spokesman for The Satanic Temple.
“While Black Masses are supposed to utilize a consecrated host, ours is merely representative of a consecrated host,” Greaves told CNSNews.com. “It is not consecrated. We neither believe in nor invoke the supernatural.”
“To us, the Black Mass is an amalgamation that developed through time based on witch-hunting fears and later adopted by some as a declaration of personal Independence against what they felt to be the stifling authority of the church,” said Greaves.
He further said that during the Black Mass reenactment, representatives of The Satanic Temple will provide narration on the academic and historical aspects of a Satanic Mass.
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HGTV has decided not to move forward with the Benham Brothers’ series.
— HGTV (@hgtv) May 7, 2014
Right Wing Watch reported Tuesday that David Benham had led a prayer rally outside of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC in 2012, in which he told conservative radio host Janet Mefferd that America’s Christian majority must repent for tolerating “homosexuality and its agenda that is attacking the nation” and “demonic ideologies tak[ing] our universities and our public school systems.”
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The White House has agreed to allow lawmakers to review at least one of the drone memos after U.S. senators and the the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concerns, technology website Ars Technica reported Wednesday.
Some Democrats, including SenateJudiciary Committee chairman Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, say it isn’t Mr. Barron’s memos, but political theater, that is tying up his selection.
“Senate Republicans have consistently blocked most of President Obama’s judicial nominees so it comes as no surprise that they continue to do so with this nominee. David Barron is a brilliant lawyer who is committed to public service,” said Sen. Leahy, Ars Technica reported.
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