North Korean Men Ordered to Get Kim Jong Un’s Haircut

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Photo Credit: Reuters; Getty Images

Photo Credit: Reuters; Getty Images

By Bob Fredericks.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery — and in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, that’s now an order!

All North Korean men are now required to get the same haircut as their nutjob leader — shaved close on the back and sides, with longer hair on top brushed back off the forehead.

The state-ordered guidelines were introduced in the capital, Pyongyang, roughly two weeks ago, according to South Korean media.

And the rule is now being enforced nationwide.

But not all of the dictator’s subjects are impressed with the strongman’s inverted bowl-style ’do.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Putin reinstitutes a Soviet-era fitness program while Kim Jong Un forces everyone to get his haircut

By Erika Johnsen.

I happened across both of these stories today out of Everybody’s Favorite Saber-Rattling Gulag State and America’s Bestest Frenemy, and I don’t even… obviously, “palate cleanser” is not the right term here. Whatever the antonym of “palate cleanser” is, this is that.

Until now, everyone in North Korea had to choose their haircuts from a list of state-approved styles. But now, all men in the hermit kingdom will be required to sport the same hairstyle as supreme leader Kim Jong Un, the BBC reports.

Pyongyang introduced the new law two weeks ago but is now rolling it out across the country. Unfortunately, some North Koreans may not be thrilled about the new look. According to a former Pyongyang resident now living in China, the Kim Jong Un cut is unpopular because it apparently resembles the style of Chinese smugglers. “Until the mid-2000s, we called it the ‘Chinese smuggler haircut,” the source told the Korea Times.

Women, however, will still be able to choose from a small variety of state-sanctioned hairstyles. So, there’s that. You’re welcome?

And over in Russia, via Charles Recknagel:

If you could turn back the hands of time, what would you wish for? For Russian President Vladimir Putin, it seems to be to return to the days of mass physical fitness. Not just of physical-education training in schools—which already exists in Russia—but of mass calisthenics in stadiums, mass parades of athletes through Moscow’s Red Square, and fluttering banners with slogans urging ‘Everyone to the Starting Line!’

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Rules Mean Nothing’ To Obama

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Just days after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress there would be no extension of the Obamacare enrollment deadline, the administration is offering an additional two weeks to anyone who begins the enrollment process by the end of the month.

“This is really one of the most audacious changes so far because several committees in Congress have been looking at all these delays and all these changes. Secretary Sebelius was asked point blank, ‘Will you extend the deadline past the March 31 enrollment date?’ And she said, ‘No, we will not,’” said Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner.

“In a separate hearing she said, ‘We don’t believe we have legal authority to do that.’ But that’s what they’ve done anyway. So they’re basically going before Congress that people have until March 31. Clearly, they’re not getting the enrollment they wanted. Therefore, they’re going to ask people, ‘Well, did you try to enroll? Did you have any trouble? If so, then we’ll extend the deadline for you. Rules mean nothing to this administration,” Turner said.

After initially stating that seven million sign-ups were needed, the administration has lowered the target goal to six million and stated that more than five million have signed up. However, neither Sebelius nor any other administration official will confirm how many Americans have actually paid their first month’s premiums. Sebelius said she doesn’t know because private insurance firms have that data. Turner isn’t buying it.

“I don’t believe that she doesn’t know. She hides behind the fact that they don’t have any way of knowing that. Part of it is because the website is still not built, as far as being able to allow people to pay. But I think if they knew and that were a big number, we would hear about it,” said Turner, who noted that House Republicans are now going directly to the insurance companies to determine how many enrollees have actually paid their premiums.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boehner: ‘What The Hell Is This, A Joke?’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

“What the hell is this, a joke?” Boehner said at his weekly press conference.

He was responding to the administration’s announcement on Tuesday evening that people who had begun the process of signing up for insurance through the federal exchanges would have until mid-April to do so, instead of March 31.

The Speaker called the move “another deadline made meaningless,” adding it to a litany of unilateral changes that the administration has made to the law.

“This is part of a long-term pattern of this administration manipulating the law for its own convenience,” Boehner said. “It’s not hard to understand why the American people question this administration’s commitment to the rule of law.”

The Speaker mocked the use of the “honor system” to determine who was eligible for an extension after the administration said it would make no effort to ensure that people had actually begun the process of signing up by March 31.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: Country Weaker Under Obama

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By a widening margin, more voters think the United States is weaker since Barack Obama became president. And the highest number in a decade feels the country is less safe than it was before 9/11, according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday.

The poll also finds most voters think President Obama has not been tough enough on Russia, although a majority still says the U.S. should stay out of the situation in Ukraine.

Some 52 percent of voters think the country is weaker and less powerful today than it was six years ago. That’s three times the 17 percent who say the country is stronger and more powerful. About 3 in 10 think it is unchanged (29 percent).

Last year, 48 percent said weaker, 24 percent stronger and 27 percent unchanged (Feb. 2013).

The number of Democrats saying the country is stronger now has dropped 11 percentage points: it’s 32 percent today, down from 43 percent in 2013. Twenty-two percent of Democrats say the country is weaker and 44 percent say it is the same.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Individual Mandate Goes Poof

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Photo Credit: Chad Crowe

Photo Credit: Chad Crowe

By Abby Mccloskey and Tom Miller.

One by one, the myths of the Affordable Care Act have been revealed. When the curtain on open enrollment falls on March 31, the last remaining big myth of ObamaCare will be fully exposed: The individual mandate has failed.

After a last-ditch effort with President Obama himself encouraging “young invincibles” to sign up before the deadline, the administration is scrambling to boost enrollment. On Tuesday, the White House announced that people who applied for coverage on the federal health-insurance exchange will have until mid-April to finish the paperwork.

The mandate was supposed to be the administration’s magical elixir for the assorted shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act. Disappointing early enrollment numbers? More people will sign up eventually to avoid mandate penalties. Potential premium spikes for government-approved coverage that must ignore cost differences in the age- and health-related risks of enrollees? Forcing young and healthy individuals to buy coverage will spread out the costs.

But the individual mandate was never strong enough to force millions of Americans to buy insurance they did not want or could not afford. Last week, the Obama administration estimated that five million Americans had signed up thus far for insurance on the exchanges, falling short of original projections by the administration and the Congressional Budget Office that there would be seven million first-year enrollees. Yet even the five million figure needs to be discounted by at least another 20% to account for people who fail to pay for their first month’s premium, according to insurers’ estimates of early enrollees.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Human Events

Photo Credit: Human Events

Obamacare: The Mistake America Could Not Afford

By John Hayward.

Journalistic icon Bob Woodward has been in hot water with the Obama Administration and its more enthusiastic apologists for a while now. He’s not going to get any more popular with that crowd after his appearance on “Fox News Sunday” last weekend, in which he related a conversation with a doctor he described as a “very knowledgeable, very involved supporter of ObamaCare” who nevertheless described it as similar to “a car stuck in first gear.”

When Woodward asked this ObamaCare-supporting doctor when he thought second gear might kick in, the response was, “Honestly, years!” because, to continue the clunker car analogy, “the transmission is in the shop for repairs.”

This led to a remarkable burst of blubbering from one of our dwindling supply of ObamaCare apologists, Juan Williams, who sobbed that nobody was trying to count up enrollment numbers or calculate sustainability when Mitt Romney rolled out his health care plan in Massachusetts, and those mean old green-eyeshade-wearing Republicans should just put their evil accounting witchery on hold and give ObamaCare a few years to creak and shudder into second gear.

Which nicely illustrates one of the core idiocies animating ObamaCare apologists: they’ve arrogantly insisted on refusing to accept the very obvious point that Massachusetts is not equivalent to the entire United States of America. A program that more-or-less works in one state (and there have always been plenty of critics, both locally and nationally, who think “less” is a better description of how well RomneyCare works) can prove both Constitutionally offensive and unsustainable on the national level. It’s such an obvious point that it seems ludicrous to have to explain it to adult citizens of the United States, over and over again. Mitt Romney tried to do so on the campaign trail, but frankly he didn’t make the point nearly as well as he should have, and the fact that he had to make it at all was a burden upon his campaign. Like ObamaCare, Romney’s campaign ended up stuck in first gear, trying to explain a high-information concept to low-information voters, while the Idiocracy ran around telling people that Mitt Romney gave a steel worker’s wife cancer just by looking at her.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ted Cruz: The Russians are ‘Openly Laughing’ at Obama

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Photo Credit: AP / Alexander Zemlianichenko

Photo Credit: AP / Alexander Zemlianichenko

Sen. Ted Cruz believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian leaders no longer respect President Obama because of his failure to lead.

“The only thing Putin respects is strength … At this point the Russians are openly laughing at the president,” Cruz, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner.

Cruz added that Putin’s aggressiveness was “a direct consequence” of the absence of American leadership in the world.

Read more from this story HERE.

Illegal Immigrants Released Into Texas to Ease Over-Crowding of Detention Centers

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

By Logan Churchwell.

U.S. Border Patrol agents, in conjunction with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently disclosed the increasing practice of releasing “low threat” illegal immigrant detainees to address the over-crowding of immigration detention centers in south Texas, according to official confirmation of local reports.

One south Texas television station, KRGV, recently reported instances of women and minors claiming to have been recently released from immigration officials with “documents that allow [them] to travel anywhere in the United States.” Released individuals claimed their federal instructions stated they were not legally allowed to work and could be subject to further immigration hearings. The report claimed that most individuals interviewed and released were of Central and South American origins other than Mexico.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Border Patrol recently confirmed such anecdotal evidence to be part of a larger strategy to focus resources away from individuals “posing no threat to national security.”

“In an effort to maximize resources and focus on the uptick in apprehensions, RGV Border Patrol Sector has begun implementing several steps,” a Border Patrol statement read. “These efforts include, transporting detainees to other sectors within the South Texas Campaign AOR, temporary reassignment of agents from other sectors into RGV and temporarily issuing a notice to appear for immigration hearings to family units posing no threat to national security.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Sessions Report Demolishes Obama ‘Deporter In Chief’ Myth

By Matthew Boyle.

Fully 98 percent of individuals deported from the United States in 2013 were either criminals, apprehended while illegally crossing the border, or had been previously deported, according to a new analysis from Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

The three-page document, labeled a “Critical Alert” by the senator’s office, found three executive actions by President Barack Obama providing amnesty to groups of illegal aliens meant that virtually no one who did not meet other criteria beyond simply being in the country illegal was deported.

“The evidence reveals that the Administration has carried out a dramatic nullification of federal law,” Sessions said in a statement to Breitbart News. “Under the guise of setting ‘priorities’, the Administration has determined that almost anyone in the world who can enter the United States is free to illegally live, work and claim benefits here as long as they are not caught committing a felony or other serious crime.

Obama’s well-known executive action granted virtual amnesty to so-called DREAMers – individuals who claim to have entered the country as minors under their parents’ guidance.

Two are lesser known executive actions include an Aug. 23, 2013, DHS directive “expanding that [summer 2012 executive DREAM Act] amnesty to illegal immigrant relatives of DREAM Act beneficiaries” and a Dec. 21, 2012, DHS directive “reinforcing that almost all immigration offenses were unenforceable absent a separate criminal conviction.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Common Core Cant

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

With the Common Core State Standards encountering remarkable political turbulence, you might think advocates would focus their energies on making their case and answering critics. After all, just yesterday Indiana became the first state to reverse its decision to adopt the Common Core. Instead, leading advocates seem intent on using junk polling to say, “There’s nothing to see here.”

Yesterday, the Collaborative for Student Success — a mishmash of substantial educational philanthropies — released a poll that purported to show that Americans love the Common Core even if they don’t know it. The new poll showed that two-thirds of respondents like the Common Core and that one-third “strongly” support it. This is pretty remarkable given that, just last summer, over 60 percent of respondents told Gallup they had never heard of the Common Core. What explains the remarkable shift? It turns out that the positive response was elicited after pollsters read just “a single sentence describing” the Common Core.

That “single sentence” explained: “To ensure that all students are prepared for success after graduation, the Common Core Standards establish a set of clear, consistent guidelines for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level across subjects.” (The astonishing thing is that 24 percent of respondents disapproved even after this explanation.) Fifty-seven percent of Republicans reportedly support the Common Core, thus described, and 60 percent of respondents would be more likely to vote for a pro–Common Core candidate.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Seeks Pope’s Blessing

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Photo Credit: AFP / Saul Loeb

Photo Credit: AFP / Saul Loeb

Barack Obama will meet Pope Francis for the first time Thursday for talks on a shared agenda to fight inequality which the US President hopes will help boost support at home.

The talks between the first Latin-American pope and first African-American US president will focus on tackling the gap between the rich and the poor, but are likely to spill over into thornier issues such as abortion, homosexuals and contraception.

The meeting at the Vatican comes as a welcome rest-stop for Obama during a six-day European tour dominated by the crisis over Crimea, and the US leader will doubtless be hoping some of the pope’s overwhelming popularity will rub off on him.

Obama will also meet new Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi and the country’s president Giorgio Napolitano during his visit to the eternal city, as well as going on a private guided tour of the Colosseum.

Diplomatic relations between Italy and the United States are close, though Rome still needs some convincing on the value of imposing sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis, amid fears it would take a toll on a key market.

Read more from this story HERE.

Is Obama Secretly Negotiating Away U.S. Sovereignty?

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Consumer protections and the use of domestic law in the U.S. may drastically change as President Obama forges ahead with two secretive international deals that impact major aspects of the economy, privacy and beyond.

Wednesday, Obama defended a proposed mega free-trade zone between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and the European Union.

“I have fought my entire political career, and as president, to strengthen consumer protections. I have no intention of signing legislation that would weaken those protections,” Obama said during a visit to the EU headquarters in Brussels.

Obama was responding to criticism of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, which the U.S. has been negotiated with the EU since last July.

Besides creating the world’s biggest free-trade zone, the TTIP will also bring about closer cooperation between EU and U.S. regulatory bodies while more closely integrating the two economies.

Read more from this story HERE.