Once Obama Warned Putin Stand Down; Ukraine Occupation Was Assured

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Photo Credit: WND Once Barack Obama warned Putin to stand down in the Crimea, its occupation by Russian troops was assured. As Syria showed the world recently, and the Ukraine shows today, Barack Obama needs to learn how to shut his mouth. Yet, who knew when he said, “there will be costs,” we would be the ones to pay?

To paraphrase Lincoln, it is better to shut up and be thought weak than to open your mouth and prove it. Someone should tell Barry. Every time his mouth writes a check his butt won’t cash, he weakens America and makes the world a much more dangerous place for everyone. Does anyone really think that if the Chinese attack Japan over the Senkaku Islands, Obama, even though treaty-bound, will come to their aid? If the Iranians declare they have a nuclear weapon, will Obama do one damn thing?

Putin does not respect Obama — he views him as weak and incompetent, ill suited for the world stage and the big game. He took the measure of Obama in 2009, when Barry gave up his only bargaining chip, missile defense systems about to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, before negotiations on cutting nuclear arsenals even began. The Russians were playing chess and Barry was playing with himself.

Has Barry done anything in the last five years to prove otherwise? Putin embarrassed him, casually dismissing his demand for Eric Snowden’s return, and then he embarrassed him once more with the Syria incident, and now yet again, with putting the ‘crime’ in Crimea.

Everyone remembers, “I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line.” One would think he would have learned his lesson, having been so thoroughly humiliated with Syria.

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Bait-and-Switch Liberalism: Obamacare and the Politics of Deception

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Photo Credit: National Review In June 2009, as health-care reform was being debated vigorously across the country, President Obama told the American Medical Association’s convention that, whatever the provisions of the health-care bill he would sign into law ultimately included, “we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”

After the Affordable Care Act lurched into effect in 2013, it became clear the president meant to say that if you like your doctor and health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep them . . . footnote. And, as you’d expect from a former editor of the Harvard Law Review, that footnote has turned out to be as long and convoluted as a Russian novel.

When people who did like their health-care plans started receiving notices of cancellation or enormous rate increases, Obama’s defenders tried to qualify the original promise, which Obama had made repeatedly while campaigning, first for president and then for enactment of new health-care policies. Economist Jared Bernstein, who worked in the White House in 2009, said a better formulation would have been, “If you like your plan and it doesn’t get significantly worse such that it’s out of sync with what we’re trying to do here, you can keep it.” In fact, he argued, because “such nuances were clear at the time” — which is not how nuances typically operate — Obama’s veracity about his proposals’ consequences was not in question.

The New York Times editorial page took the same position: The president “clearly misspoke” when he promised that people could keep health-insurance policies they liked, but the controversy over that pledge was “overblown.” After the sanitizing “misspoke” set off a controversy of its own, the paper’s “public editor” prodded chief editorialist Andrew Rosenthal, who allowed that “clearly wrong” or “clearly weren’t true” might also have been fair characterizations of Obama’s promises.

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First Lady To Obamacare Counselors: ‘You Are Doing God’s Work’

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Photo Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty ImagesWith just weeks left to sign up for health care under the Affordable Care Act, Michelle Obama zeroed in on recruiting the crucial young adult demographic during a visit to a Miami community health center Wednesday.

The first lady congratulated a handful of residents who had just enrolled during an intimate event, asking one woman whether she had gotten her son to enroll.

“Tell him he could get hit by a car. It’s crazy. They don’t think about that kind of stuff,” said Obama, who moments later applauded another mother for signing herself and adult son up for insurance plans. “Did you get his friends?”

“We have our most precious people walking around here at any point time being hit by a car or being struck by an unforeseen illness and they will not be able to get the care they need when it costs so little. … We need people to make sure we reach out to the young people in our lives.”

Insurers are counting on the business of the so-called “young invincibles” to offset the costs of covering older, sicker enrollees. The Obama administration has been hotly courting the crucial 18- to 34-year-old demographic through social media campaigns and celebrity endorsements.

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The Dark Side of Antibiotics

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Photo Credit: mRio/FlickrThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants hospitals to issue fewer prescriptions for antibiotics. Why? Because the drugs that are supposed to make people feel better are being abused, actually causing illness, and hastening the arrival of infections for which medicine has no cure.

That’s not to say the CDC wants to cut the drugs from treatment entirely. A bacterial infection still requires antibiotics. Rather, the CDC wants to stifle the approximately 30 percent to 50 percent of antibiotic treatments that the organization deems unnecessary or inappropriate. The CDC also want doctors to make smarter dosing decisions when antibiotic use is appropiate.

Antibiotics can cause CDI (C. difficile infection), a diarrhea “that often recurs and can progress to sepsis and death,” as the CDC report released Tuesday reads. CDI occurs when antibiotics throw off the natural balance of healthy bacteria in the digestive tract.

In the study, the CDC predicted that decreasing antibiotic use by 30 percent would lead to a 26 percent decrease in CDI. By the CDC’s estimate, that would improve the outcomes of 65,000 people. Furthermore, the center found that one in three prescriptions for urinary tract infections contained a potential error (“given without proper testing or evaluation, or given for too long”), and some hospitals prescribe antibiotics at rates three times as high as others.

But those problems seem small when you consider the looming threat of the overuse of antibiotics—the rise in diseases that do not respond to the drugs at all.

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Obama Proposes Eliminating Funding for Abstinence Education in 2015 Budget

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Photo Credit: APPresident Barack Obama wants to eliminate funding for abstinence education funding in his 2015 budget, which he sent to Congress on Tuesday.

In the “Cuts, Consolidations, and Savings” portion of the budget, it shows that the $5 million funding to Health and Human Services (HHS) through its Title V Maternal and Child Health Program that was included in the 2014 budget is not part of Obama’s latest budget.

Supporters of “sexual risk avoidance” – or SRA abstinence education programs – expressed the need for such programs and the across-the aisle-approval of them by parents.

“By eliminating SRA (sexual risk avoidance) abstinence programs in his budget, the President has, once again chosen to ignore the wishes of parents and the approach that helps youth avoid all risk associated with teen sex,” Valerie Huber, president of the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA), said in a statement on Wednesday.

“This is truly unfortunate, but not at all surprising,” Huber said. “President Obama has sought to cut or eliminate SRA abstinence programs each year of his presidency.

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Republicans Fight Dem Efforts to Punish Issa for IRS Hearing Actions

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Photo Credit: APHouse Republicans are fending off aggressive efforts by Democrats to punish Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., for cutting off a Democratic congressman during a heated hearing on the IRS targeting scandal.

The House voted Thursday afternoon to block a resolution that would formally chastise the chairman of the House oversight committee for his conduct at Wednesday’s hearing.

The vote was along party lines, 211-186, with 10 members voting present. Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, had offered the resolution, which called Issa’s behavior “offensive and disrespectful.”

Fudge also penned a letter to House Speaker John Boehner urging the speaker to strip Issa of his chairmanship “immediately.”

“Congressman Darrell Issa of California abused his authority and therefore must be reprimanded to ensure the dignity of the House of Representatives is preserved,” Fudge wrote, calling him a “disgrace.”

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Report: Local Police Tap Cell Phones

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Photo Credit: Watchdog The National Security Agency apparently isn’t the only government agency engaged in domestic spying.

Local law enforcement is playing the role of Big Brother, too, but to what extent is still unknown.

Recent court documents reveal a troubling cell phone surveillance program conducted by a Florida police department against unsuspecting cell phone users.

Attempts to keep the practice secret, even from judges, is raising questions as to just how prevalent police spying is within the Sunshine State.

The controversy stems from the arrest of James L. Thomas, a criminal suspect believed to be in possession of a stolen phone. Tallahassee police located and arrested Thomas by tracking a cell phone signal, then promptly searched his home.

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U.S. Justice Dept. Sues Philly School District Over Beard-Length Rule (+video)

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Photo Credit: James Alby / flickrThe U.S. Department of Justice has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the School District of Philadelphia, claiming a rule regulating the length of employees’ beards constitutes religious discrimination.

According to the suit filed Wednesday, the district in October 2010 instituted a new grooming policy preventing school police officers and security guards from having beards longer than a quarter of an inch.

School police officer Siddiq Abu-Bakr maintained an untrimmed beard for the 27 years he worked at the district, the suit states. Abu-Bakr is a member of the Islamic faith, which he says requires that he not cut his beard.

When Abu-Bakr notified his supervisor his religious beliefs precluded him from complying with the new policy, he was allegedly issued a written reprimand cautioning that continued violation of the rule would result in “further disciplinary action.”

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Issa Questions Lerner About IRS Motives; She Pleads the Fifth Again (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn KasterLois Lerner, former director of IRS exempt organizations, invoked her Fifth Amendment rights again Wednesday before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the IRS targeting American citizens for their political beliefs.

“On the advice of my counsel, I respectfully exercise my Fifth Amendment right and decline to answer that question,” Lerner said in response to a slew of questions by Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) regarding the IRS targeting of tea party and conservative groups.

Issa read a statement that Lerner made on Oct. 19, 2010 that said, “The Supreme Court dealt a huge blow, overturning a 100-year-old precedent that basically corporations couldn’t give directly to political campaigns. And everyone is up in arms because they don’t like it. The Federal Election Commission can’t do anything about it. They want the IRS to fix the problem.”

“What exactly ‘wanted to fix the problem caused by Citizen United,’ what exactly does that mean?” Issa asked Lerner.

“My counsel has advised me that I have not waived my constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment, and on his advice, I will decline to answer any question on the subject matter of this hearing,” Lerner said.

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Senate Votes to Block Obama’s Controversial DOJ Civil Rights Nominee

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In a surprisingly strong vote, the Senate on Wednesday blocked President Barack Obama’s controversial choice to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

The bipartisan rejection came after the widow of a slain Philadelphia officer pleaded with senators to vote “no.”

On a 47 to 52 tally, Republicans were joined by seven Democrats voting to continue a filibuster of Debo Adegbile’s nomination for the influential post, which enforces the nation’s anti-discrimination laws.

Under new Senate rules that were put in place by the Democrats who control the chamber, only 51 votes were needed to overcome the filibuster, not the 60 that used to be required.

Critics charged Adegbile helped turn the appeals process for Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was found guilty in 1981 of killing police officer Daniel Faulkner, into a racially-charged political cause, and, in doing so, went far beyond his duties as a lawyer.

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