Boehner Warns Against Shutting U.S. Government over ‘Obamacare’

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner warned rank-and-file Republicans in a conference call on Thursday against using the threat of a government shutdown to stop the implementation of Obamacare, according to people on the call.

On the call, Boehner reminded Republicans of the political backlash their party suffered when the government shut down in 1995-1996, according to one person on the call.

Another participant in the call, Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole, said the speaker’s main message was that he and other leaders were still committed to killing President Barack Obama’s signature health care law but that they did not want a government shutdown.

A House Republican aide, however, emphasized that no final decision has been made on whether to pursue a strategy advocated by some in the party of denying funds for Obamacare.

Republicans agree strongly on their opposition to Obamacare, viewing the law as a burden to businesses that will cost jobs.

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On Hill, Deep Skepticism about Syria Entanglement

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Despite mounting evidence that President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on his people, many members of Congress still don’t see a role for the United States military in Syria.

A raft of Republican and Democratic lawmakers — including those directly involved in intelligence oversight — think the U.S. would be wise to take a pass on military intervention in the war-torn country.

Their line of thinking goes like this: Sending in U.S. troops now is too late, too dangerous, too pricey and not guaranteed to be successful. And a bombing campaign won’t do enough. There’s also the fear that the U.S. does not know who would lead Syria if Assad falls.

“Syria is too far gone to pick sides,” said Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee who taught at West Point. “The rebels are infiltrated with Al Qaeda. Assad has joined the ranks of history’s most evil despots in what he’s willing to do to stay in power. And Russia won’t help us find a solution because relations [between Washington and Moscow] are as bad as they have been in 30 years. I don’t see a way forward, but U.S. boots on the ground is out of the question in my opinion.”

Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California, the No. 2 Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said that the situation in Syria is “as complicated as it could be” but added that military intervention in Syria could “have unintended consequences that could, in fact, make the situation worse.”

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Clashing Claims – Church, State, and Free Enterprise

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

The Supreme Court of New Mexico yesterday ruled that the First Amendment does not protect a photographer’s right to decline to take pictures of a same-sex commitment ceremony — even though doing so would violate the photographer’s deeply held religious beliefs. As Elaine Huguenin, owner of Elane Photography, explained: “The message a same-sex commitment ceremony communicates is not one I believe.”

But New Mexico’s highest court, deciding an appeal of the case, ruled against Elane Photography, concluding that neither protections of free speech nor of free exercise of religion apply.

Elaine and her husband, Jon, both committed Christians, run their small photography business in Albuquerque, N.M. In 2006, she declined a request to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. In 2008, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled that the business had engaged in illegal discrimination based on sexual orientation by declining to use its artistic and expressive skills to communicate what was said and what occurred at the ceremony.

The commission ruled this way according to New Mexico’s human-rights law, which prohibits discrimination in public accommodations (“any establishment that provides or offers its services . . . or goods to the public”) on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation — among other protected classes.

Elane Photography didn’t refuse to take pictures of gays and lesbians, but only of such a same-sex ceremony, because of the owners’ belief that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. New Mexico law agrees — it has no legal same-sex civil unions or same-sex marriages. Additionally, there were other photographers in the Albuquerque area who could have photographed the ceremony.

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From Architects to Lobbyists: Obamacare Designers Stand to Profit Handsomely from Bill

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photo credit: glyn lowe photoworks

photo credit: glyn lowe photoworks

Previously, they worked behind the scenes to help shape the Affordable Care Act. Today, they roam the streets of the nation’s capital as consultants and lobbyists.

And now this elite group of Washington insiders stands to profit handsomely from the full implementation of Obamacare, President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law.

“More than 30 former administration officials, lawmakers and congressional staffers who worked on the healthcare law have set up shop on K Street since 2010,” The Hill reports.

Many Washington lobbying firms, including Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, The Glover Park Group, Alston & Bird, BGR Group, and Akin Gump, have scooped up former Obamacare insiders. This, as the Hill report notes, puts the firms “in a prime position to land coveted clients.”

“When [Vice President] Biden leaned over [during the signing of the healthcare law] and said to [President] Obama, ‘This is a big f’n deal,’ ” Ivan Adler, a headhunter at the McCormick Group, said in the report, “he was right.”

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The Obama Administration Continues to Delay Keystone XL

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

President Barack Obama has not officially come out against the Keystone XL pipeline, but the final decision could be pushed back into 2014.

For more than 1,800 days, the Obama administration has been analyzing whether the Keystone pipeline is in the national interest. The Department of State’s review of the pipeline found that it would create more than 42,000 jobs and not significantly impact global warming or the environment.

But that seems to be an outlier view within the Obama administration. Soon after the State Department released its review, the Environmental Protection Agency attacked it and said it needed to take a deeper look into the pipeline’s environmental and climate impacts.

More recently, the Department of Interior criticized the State Department’s review of Keystone, saying the project could harm wildlife along its proposed route.

“Given that the project includes not only constructing a pipeline but also related infrastructure, access roads, and power lines and substations, impacts to wildlife are not just related to project construction,” read the Interior comments on the pipeline review.
“Impacts to wildlife from this infrastructure will occur throughout the life of the project (i.e. operation and maintenance phases).”

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Where Did Syria’s Chemical Weapons Come From?

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syria_WMDAs the news stories mount regarding Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s decision to move his chemical weapons stockpile from storage to areas closer to rebel locations, there is one thing the mainstream media is not commenting on: How Syria acquired what is reported to be one of the world’s largest arsenals of bio-chemical WMD? More to the point, what they are not reporting is this: From where did the Assad regime acquire their bio-chemical WMD?

In 2006, former Iraqi general, Georges Sada, who served under Saddam Hussein before he defected, wrote a comprehensive book detailing how the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria, before the US-led action to eliminate Saddam Hussein’s WMD threat, by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.

As reported in the New York Sun on January 26, 2006:

“‘There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands,’ Mr. Sada said. ‘I am confident they were taken over.’”

“Mr. Sada’s comments come just more than a month after Israel’s top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam ‘transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.’

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Russia Warns U.S. Over Syria, Says Obama Like Bush

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Photo Credit: Forbes

Photo Credit: Forbes

Will anyone ever push the reset button on Russia-U.S. relations? With the current imbroglio over Syria, the answer to that question at the moment is decidedly nyet.

Moscow urged Washington on Sunday not to repeat “past mistakes” in the Middle East when dealing with the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Assad. Washington said Assad used it before. Russia said they did not.

Doctors Without Borders and Syrian opposition say that more than 300 people died after the alleged toxic gas attack in an eastern Damascus suburb on Wednesday, but Syrian authorities denied the claim.

Of course. Why make this black and white?

Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sunday that President Barack Obama has told him to “prepare options for all contingencies” while the White House is deciding whether to use military force against Syria, according to various U.S. news agencies.

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Faces of Evil in a Violent Underclass

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Photo Credit: American Thinker

Photo Credit: American Thinker

Faces of Evil – that was the headline of the Australian Herald Sun when reporting the depraved murder of Aussie Christopher Lane. It is instructive to carry that theme further with a few more faces.

James Edwards and his buddies murdered Chris Lane “for the fun of it”. James Edwards shot him in the back. It was reported that Edwards danced and laughed in the police station after his arrest. Ending a stranger’s life was funny to him.

He boasted on twitter that he had “knocked out 5 woods [whites] since Zimmerman court”. He advised others to “HATE” white people, and a few days before the murder he said he wanted to be “with my niggas when it’s time to start taken lifes”.

This is De’Marquise Elkins and his mother and aunt.

De’Marquise approached Sherri West in Brunswick, Georgia in March and asked for money. When she refused, he shot her 13 month old baby between the eyes. Elkins’ mother and aunt were arrested for obstructing justice when they lied to cover-up the crime.

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At RNC Event, Speaker Says African Americans Have Taken a Back Seat to Gays, Immigrants

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Photo Credit: Washington Post

Photo Credit: Washington Post

The Republican National Committee commemorated the 50th anniversary of the March of Washington and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech with a luncheon Monday.

The most rousing speech of the luncheon came from Bob Woodson, the head of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprises. Woodson criticized black leaders over Trayvon Martin, the black Florida teen who was shot to death by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was acquitted in Martin’s death. Woodson, who is black, said groups including gays and immigrants have been prioritized over poor black people in American society.

“Everybody has come in front of them on the bus — gays, immigrants, women, environmentalists,” Woodson said. “You never hear any talk about the conditions confronting poor blacks and poor people in general.”

Woodson also criticized the “moral traitors” who mourned the death of Martin but not Chris Lane, the Australian baseball player who prosecutors allege was shot to death in Oklahoma by three boys, two whom are black.

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Cruz Blasts Administration For Not Calling Ft. Hood Shooting a ‘Terrorist Attack’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

“Hiding behind ‘workplace violence’ and excluding evidence on [Army Major Nidal] Hasan’s pursuit of jihad will not make terrorism go away or properly honor the American heroes who were slain at Fort Hood,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) as he lambasted the Obama administration’s decision to classify the 2009 mass shooting as “workplace violence.”

“If we ever hope to defeat the ongoing threat from radical Islamism, we need to start by calling this terrorist attack on our armed forces by its name,” Cruz said in a statement Friday shortly after Hasan was found guilty on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder after he admitted waging a “jihad against U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Both the White House and the Department of Justice told CNSNews.com on Monday that neither President Barack Obama nor Attorney General Eric Holder have released any statements following the Fort Hood verdict.

However, both Obama and Holder commented following last month’s acquittal of George Zimmerman on murder charges for killing Trayvon Martin in self-defense.

“When Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,” President Obama said, encouraging the nation “to do some soul-searching” about race.

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