Why Americans Will Never Love Obamacare

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photo credit: azrainmanMy college friend’s two-year-old son was born with a rare genetic disorder that severely compromises his immune system. He has been in and out of the hospital with life-threatening incidents since he was six months old, nearly dying seven times. His medical team consists of more than ten specialists, and dozens of nurses and physical therapists. My friend and her husband have health insurance, but their son’s medical costs eat up an entire salary from their two-career income. My heart aches for her; she has to endure not only her son’s terrifying illness, but also the crushing cost of keeping him healthy.

Like most Americans, I want to live in a society that takes care of people like my friend’s son; like most Americans, I would be ashamed if we collectively refused to lend a hand to people who, through no fault of their own, desperately need help. And, like most Americans, I do not support Obamacare. In fact, I despise it.

I do not suffer from cognitive dissonance. Obamacare is a despicable piece of legislation because it twists the noble desire to help those less fortunate into a duty to junk the entire United States health care system. It uses the common belief that we all should pitch in to help pay for the health expenses of a small percentage of the population as a disguise — a cover-up — for what it really is: a federal seizure of the administration and oversight of the entire health care and insurance system.

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Pentagon taps Anti-Christian Extremist for Religious Tolerance Policy

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Photo Credit: Breitbart “Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.”

Those words were recently written by Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), in a column he wrote for the Huffington Post. Weinstein will be a consultant to the Pentagon to develop new policies on religious tolerance, including a policy for court-martialing military chaplains who share the Christian Gospel during spiritual counseling of American troops.

Weinstein decries what he calls the “virulent religious oppression” perpetrated by conservative Christians, whom he refers to as “monstrosities” and “pitiable unconstitutional carpetbaggers,” comparing them to “bigots” in the Deep South during the civil rights era.

He cites Dr. James Dobson—the famous Christian founder of Focus on the Family—as “illustrating the extremist, militant nature of these virulently homophobic organizations’ rhetorically-charged propaganda.” Regarding those who teach orthodox Christian beliefs from the Bible, Weinstein concludes, “Let’s call these ignoble actions what they are: the senseless and cowardly squallings of human monsters.”

Weinstein then endorses the ultra-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), who publishes a list of “hate groups.” Alongside truly deplorable organizations like the KKK, the SPLC’s list includes a host of traditional Christian organizations (for their support of traditional marriage) and Tea Party organizations (for supporting limited government). Weinstein says SPLC correctly labels them all as “hate groups.”

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Lesbian Teacher Fired From Catholic School, Files Discrimination Complaint (+video)

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Photo Credit: NCinDCA diocese in Ohio is under siege — receiving numerous threatening calls as well as heated online criticism — and a veteran teacher is out of a job because of publicly revealing a lesbian relationship in violation of the Catholic school’s morality code.

But the firing has raised a fervent debate over tolerance both online and in the Columbus, Ohio, community where the incident took place.

Physical education teacher Carla Hale, 57, was fired in March after her name appeared in her mother’s obituary, which also noted Hale’s longtime lesbian partner.

Hale was summoned to a meeting with school administrators after she returned from her mother’s funeral.

At the meeting, she received a copy of her mother’s obituary that she and her brother had written. In addition, administrators gave Hale an anonymous letter from a parent calling the presence of a lesbian teacher at the school disgrace.

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Cancer Clinics Still Suffering From Sequester, Ask Why FAA was Fixed, Cancer Ignored

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Photo Credit: José GoulãoCongress should have addressed deep cuts to cancer clinics before tackling airline delays caused by sequestration, people at several of those clinics said Friday.

Both the House and Senate have now voted to restore funding that the Federal Aviation Administration lost through the automatic budget cuts known as “sequestration.” The bill is headed to President Obama’s desk.

Although delays in air travel affect lawmakers personally, cancer clinics say the cuts they are facing under the sequester are far more serious — and should have been a higher priority for Congress.

“I would invite anyone in Washington to come look my patients in the eye and tell them that waiting for a flight is a bigger problem than traveling farther and waiting longer for chemotherapy,” said William Nibley, a doctor at Utah Cancer Specialists in Salt Lake City.

Cancer clinics have seen their Medicare payments slashed under sequestration. They have had to turn away thousands of new patients, and some clinics say they will have to close their doors for good if the sequester cuts are not reversed soon.

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After Failed Charm Offensive, Obama Back to Bashing GOP

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Photo Credit: APPresident Obama’s charm offensive has been a dismal failure. Of course, he didn’t really try all that hard. He bought dinner for a few Republican lawmakers, vowed to meet them halfway, but within a week — after his gun-grab bill went up in flames — he called them “liars” and stomped off in a huff, taking his ball with him.

The midterm elections in 2014 will decide whether the president can actually implement his far-reaching socialist agenda or if he’ll have to settle for the federal takeover of one-sixth of the nation’s economy with Obamacare.

In the meantime, Mr. Obama, like Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton before him, is stuck with a divided Congress. Yet unlike his two predecessors, this president has almost nothing nice to say about the coequal branch or the men and woman elected by Americans to represent their dreams and goals. In fact, he’s spent the past four years setting Congress up as the fall guy for all his faults, even more so now that he no longer can blame Mr. Bush.

This week was no different. After injecting politics into the festive dedication of Mr. Bush’s library in Dallas by pushing amnesty for illegal aliens, the president upped the bitterness with a biting weekend screed directed at Republicans.

“Two months ago, Congress allowed a series of automatic budget cuts to fall across the federal government that would do the opposite,” he said. “Because of these reckless cuts, there are parents whose kids just got kicked out of Head Start programs scrambling for a solution. There are seniors who depend on programs like Meals on Wheels to live independently looking for help. There are military communities — families that have already sacrificed enough — coping under new strains. All because of these cuts.

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US to Subsidize Chinese Car Maker in California

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Photo Credit: APA Chinese car maker is setting up shop in the U.S., with small ambitions but a clear goal: Get the federal government to subsidize the sales of the company’s American-made electric buses.

BYD Co., 002594.SZ +3.06% an electric-car and battery maker that counts Warren Buffett among its investors, will open an electric-bus assembly facility in Lancaster, Calif., on Wednesday.

The company’s U.S. expansion won’t create many jobs yet. The new plant will employ a few dozen people at the outset, according to Stella Li, BYD senior vice president. “We are starting small,” she said.

But the benefits of BYD’s move will be immediate, allowing it to sell its buses to local transit companies at a huge discount—with the federal government picking up the rest of the tab.

BYD spokesman Micheal Austin said the company’s U.S. production facility meets “Buy America” procurement guidelines, enabling its customers to tap federal subsidies that cover up to 80% of the cost of the electric buses they buy. The availability of government aid was one of the main motivations behind BYD’s move to the U.S., he said.

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Lawsuit Exposes NYC Church's Two Billion Dollar Assets

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Photo Credit: Michael NagleThere has never been any doubt that Trinity Church is wealthy. But the extent of its wealth has long been a mystery; guessed at by many, known by few.

Now, however, after a lawsuit filed by a disenchanted parishioner, the church has offered an estimate of the value of its assets: more than $2 billion.

The Episcopal parish, known as Trinity Wall Street, traces its holdings to a gift of 215 acres of prime Manhattan farmland donated in 1705 by Queen Anne of England. Since then, the church has parlayed that gift into a rich portfolio of office buildings, stock investments and, soon, mixed-use residential development.

The parish’s good fortune has become an issue in the historic congregation, which has been racked by infighting in recent years over whether the church should be spending more money to help the poor and spread the faith, in New York and around the world. Differences over the parish’s mission and direction last year led nearly half the 22-member vestry — an august collection of corporate executives and philanthropists — to resign or be pushed out, after at least seven of them asked, unsuccessfully, that the rector himself step down.

Over the years, the church has sold or given away much of the original 215 acres from Queen Anne, but it has 14 acres, including 5.5 million square feet of commercial real estate.

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Feds Now Seek Punitive Fines Against Tech Companies Who Won't Eavesdrop on Internet Users

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Photo Credit: Truthout.orgA government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Face­book and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the effort.

Driven by FBI concerns that it is unable to tap the Internet communications of terrorists and other criminals, the task force’s proposal would penalize companies that failed to heed wiretap orders — court authorizations for the government to intercept suspects’ communications.

Rather than antagonizing companies whose cooperation they need, federal officials typically back off when a company is resistant, industry and former officials said. But law enforcement officials say the cloak drawn on suspects’ online activities — what the FBI calls the “going dark” problem — means that critical evidence can be missed.

“The importance to us is pretty clear,” Andrew Weissmann, the FBI’s general counsel, said last month at an American Bar Association discussion on legal challenges posed by new technologies. “We don’t have the ability to go to court and say, ‘We need a court order to effectuate the intercept.’ Other countries have that. Most people assume that’s what you’re getting when you go to a court.”

There is currently no way to wiretap some of these communications methods easily, and companies effectively have been able to avoid complying with court orders.

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Mormon Church Approves Boy Scout's New Homosexual Policy

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Photo Credit: APBoy Scouts of America leaders recently received a boost for their proposed policy on gays from a powerful stakeholder — the Mormon church.

“We are satisfied that BSA has made a thoughtful, good-faith effort to address issues that, as they have said, remain ‘among the most complex and challenging issues facing the BSA and society today,’ ” the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) said in a statement.

This means the church is satisfied with “both the process and the proposal,” LDS spokesman Eric Hawkins said Friday, referring to the BSA’s proposed policy to permit openly gay youth — but not openly gay adults — to be members.

The Mormon support bolsters the chances that the BSA’s national council will adopt its proposed policy when it meets May 22-24 in Texas, since the LDS Church sponsors some 500,000 youth members and nearly 40,000 packs, troops and crews.

Under current BSA membership standards, the 103-year-old organization does not ask anyone about sexual orientation, but disallows people to be part of Scouting if they are open or avowed homosexuals.

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Israeli Minister: Nuclear Iran is Like 30 Nuclear North Koreas (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeInternational Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz warned on Sunday that Iran having a nuclear weapon would be equal to “thirty nuclear North Koreas”.

“We have the right and the ability to defend ourselves,” he said in a speech at the Jerusalem Post Conference in New York. “The cooperation with the United States is very important but ultimately each country will make its own decisions on maintaining its security,” said Steinitz, stressing that “Israel can deal with any threat.”

80 years ago, said Steinitz, “only one person identified on time and warned the world against the rearmament of Nazi Germany. This was Winston Churchill, but people refused to listen. Some people even mocked him.”

Watch video here:

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