Americans Get Biggest Hockey Win Since ‘Miracle’

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThe puck went five-hole off the stick off T.J. Oshie to win a hockey game for the United States against Russia just the way the puck went five-hole off the stick of Mike Eruzione to win one against the Soviet Union in a different time and place.

Except that this time and this place, Saturday in Sochi, there was nothing miraculous about the goal that went between the legs of goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky to lift the USA to a 3-2 shootout-decided, preliminary round victory; nothing, in fact, miraculous about any of the four shootout goals recorded by Oshie that ultimately determined the outcome of this extremely entertaining, up-tempo match.

While NHL hockey turns into a kind of a one-on-one game after 65 minutes of tied score, Olympic hockey can turn into a literal one-on-one affair once a shootout enters the tie-breaking fourth round of the tie-breaking skills competition.

It can be one shooter for the duration, as it was for the USA and coach Dan Bylsma with Oshie, 7-for-10 with St. Louis this season and 25-for-46 in his NHL career in the competition, who went 4-for-6 in extra innings.

The ultimate team game distilled to “One for All.”

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Mitch McConnell on Debt Ceiling: I ‘Protect’ the Country

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Photo Credit: APSenate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he voted to advance a clean debt-ceiling bill this week because his job is “to protect the country” when he can.

The Republican leader said at a Friday campaign event in Louisville, Ky., that he has long preferred making structural changes to fiscal policy as a condition to raising the debt ceiling.

But given that the House could pass only a clean debt ceiling — every policy rider Speaker John Boehner tried to attach failed to garner sufficient support — McConnell said he was left with one option: Avoid economic catastrophe.

McConnell and most of his leadership team voted to break a filibuster demanded by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), to the ire of many conservatives and surprise of Capitol Hill, given his recently stated opposition to any clean lift of the debt ceiling.

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Fed. Judge Misquotes Constitution in Marriage Ruling, ‘All Men’ Are Created Equal? NYT and NBC News Do Too

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Photo Credit: APIn her ruling yesterday that Virginia’s ban against gay marriage was unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen confused language from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, an error that was quoted in a New York Times story but not corrected by the “newspaper of record,” and also was repeated by NBC News and not corrected.

In the first paragraph of her Feb. 13 ruling for the Eastern District of Virginia, Judge Allen wrote, “Our Constitution declares that ‘all men’ are created equal. Surely this means all of us.” (See edva-ssm-opinion.pdf)

However, the Constitution does not say that; in fact, the words “all men” do not appear as a phrase in the Constitution at all.

The second paragraph in the Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

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LOVE: Navy Dad Surprises Daughter on Valentine’s Day

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Photo Credit: Fox News Delainey Smith was showcasing a cheerleading routine with her Central High School team when she suddenly dropped to the floor. Delainey’s dad, Fire Controlman William Smith, was unexpectedly standing in front of her, holding pink roses.

Kenosha News reports that FC Smith, serving aboard the USS Nimitz, returned in late December, but the family could not afford the fare for his flight back to Wisconsin.

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My Beautiful Woman: The Most Powerful Pro-Life Video You’ve Ever Seen

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsWacoal, a Thai lingerie company, is redefining beauty with its “Beauty Inside” campaign. The short 7-minute videos tell stories, based on actual events, of women whose quiet sacrifices — including for an unborn child — win the admiration of men who tell the stories. And, tears from viewers.

The message? Virtue is gorgeous.

“Beauty Inside” is far better watched than told. Before anyone spoils the endings — Go, now, and enjoy as they unfold. Then send to everyone.

They leave you wanting to be like these women.

Don’t worry — no lingerie is shown. No product is touted. I had to search to find out who produced the campaign. When I discovered it was a lingerie company, the ads were even more powerful.

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ObamaCare Patients with Serious Pre-Existing Diseases Could Face Expensive Drug Costs

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Photo Credit: REUTERSBy Jim Angle.

People with serious pre-existing diseases, precisely those the president aimed to help with ObamaCare, could find themselves paying for expensive drug treatments with no help from the health care exchanges.

Those with expensive diseases such as lupus or multiple sclerosis face something called a “closed drug formulary.”

Dr. Scott Gottlieb of the American Enterprise Institute explains,”if the medicine that you need isn’t on that list, it’s not covered at all. You have to pay completely out of pocket to get that medicine, and the money you spend doesn’t count against your deductible, and it doesn’t count against your out of pocket limits, so you’re basically on your own.”

The plan had claimed it would rescue those with serious pre-existing conditions.

“So it could be that a MS patient could be expected to pay $62,000 just for one medication,” says Dr. Daniel Kantor, who treats MS patients and others with neurological conditions near Jacksonville, Florida. “That’s a possiblity under the new ObamaCare going on right now.”

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Uh-oh look whose health plan got canceled

By WND.

Six million-plus Americans have gotten notices that their health insurance plans have been canceled because of Obamacare, and undoubtedly there were some celebrities among them.

Adolf Hitler was distinctly unhappy with his notice, as a parody video reveals.

But at least he knows who to blame: Sen. Ted Cruz.

It’s the latest YouTube parody rewriting the subtitles in the Hitler-rant scene from the 2004 German-language movie “Downfall,” which recounts the Nazi dictator’s final days in his Berlin bunker.

The scene has been the source of numerous political and pop-culture parodies, including Hitler’s outrage at Mitt Romney’s defeat in 2012.

(Warning: Some of the videos contain language that may be offensive to some readers.)

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Parole for Soldier Convicted of Killing Al-Qaida Operative

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Photo Credit: WNDA U.S. soldier convicted of killing an al-Qaida operative in Iraq in a trial marked by the prosecution’s decision to withhold exculpatory evidence has been granted parole.

The announcement comes from Scott and Vicki Behenna, who established the Defend Michael website on behalf of their son, Michael Behenna.

The parents said they had been notified that their son will be released from Ft. Leavenworth on March 14. He will have served five years of a 15-year sentence for the death of al-Qaida operative Ali Mansur in Iraq in 2008.

“With tears of joy in our eyes we are happy to tell all of you that Michael is coming home! … It has been, to say the least, quite a ride,” the parents said a statement posted online Wednesday.

“Michael signed up for the Army in order to serve his country and honor the innocent people killed on 9/11. As a lieutenant he led his men in the ‘Mad Dog’ 5th Platoon into combat in Iraq and with them bravely faced a determined and ruthless insurgency. Then his story took a bizarre turn when he was charged and later convicted of killing a known al-Qaida cell leader who was directly involved in an IED attack that killed two of his soldiers, Steven Christofferson and Adam Kohlhaas,” they wrote.

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US Army Misconduct Firings Skyrocket

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The number of U.S. soldiers forced out of the Army because of crimes or misconduct has soared in the past several years as the military emerges from a decade of war that put a greater focus on battle competence than on character.

Data obtained by The Associated Press shows that the number of officers who left the Army due to misconduct more than tripled in the past three years. The number of enlisted soldiers forced out for drugs, alcohol, crimes and other misconduct shot up from about 5,600 in 2007, as the Iraq war peaked, to more than 11,000 last year.

The data reveals stark differences between the military services and underscores the strains that long, repeated deployments to the front lines have had on the Army’s soldiers and their leaders.

It also reflects the Army’s rapid growth in the middle part of the decade, and the decisions to relax standards a bit to bring in and retain tens of thousands of soldiers to fill the ranks as the Pentagon added troops in Iraq and continued the fight in Afghanistan.

The Army grew to a peak of about 570,000 soldiers during the height of the wars, and soldiers represented the bulk of the troops on the battlefields compared with the other services.

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Volkswagen Workers Reject United Auto Workers

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Photo Credit: APVolkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., have rejected the United Auto Workers, shooting down the union’s hopes of securing a foothold at a foreign-owned auto plant in the South.

The vote was 712 to 626, said the UAW, which blamed the loss on “politicians and outside special interest groups.”

The vote, announced late Friday night after three days of balloting, is a devastating loss for the UAW, whose membership has plummeted from a high of 1.5 million in 1979 to around 400,000 today. Outgoing UAW President Bob King had staked his legacy on organizing a Southern auto plant for the first time.

But the decision is a triumph for Tennessee Republicans like Sen. Bob Corker, who lured Volkswagen to Chattanooga as mayor in the early 2000s. Corker and other Republicans warned workers that the UAW’s presence would irreparably harm the plant, and in recent days he claimed — with little evidence — that Volkswagen would choose not to expand the plant if workers unionized.

“Needless to say, I am thrilled for the employees at Volkswagen and for our community and its future,” Corker said in a brief statement Friday night.

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Wendy Davis Says Texas Not a Red State

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Photo Credit: APTexas gubernatorial hopeful and Democratic State Senator Wendy Davis asserted on Thursday in an interview with statesman.com, “Texas is not really a red state, it’s just a non-voting state.”

Davis, who gained notoriety for her 11-hour filibuster against a bill that would have banned late term abortions, may be engaged in wishful thinking rather than admitting the facts about Texas. Since 1994, Republicans have won all of Texas’s 29 statewide offices, giving the state the longest streak of single-party dominance in the country.

These statewide offices include governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state comptroller, land commissioner, and agriculture commissioner, three seats on the Texas Railroad Commission–which oversees the energy sector–and nine seats each on the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals. It bears repeating: not one Democrat has won any of these seats in twenty years.

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