The Sebelius Coverup

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Many states are wisely signaling that they aren’t interested in doing the Obama administration’s bidding on Obamacare. As a result, many if not most of Obamacare’s insurance exchanges — the heart of the beast — will have to be set up and run by the Obama administration at the federal level.

States are not required to set up Obamacare exchanges, but it seems to have surprised observers that many are choosing not to. Politico reports that, with only 17 states so far having said they will set up the exchanges, the “Department of Health and Human Services’s role in bringing the law to life is going to be a lot bigger than originally thought.” More than a third of all states have already said they won’t set up the Obamacare exchanges. Among others, Republican governors Scott Walker, John Kasich, Sam Brownback, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley, Nathan Deal, Paul LePage, Robert Bentley, Mary Fallin, and Sean Parnell have said they’ll refuse to set up the exchanges in their states.

In Missouri, voters took matters into their own hands, approving a ballot measure to vest authority over the decision in the Republican-led state legislature, rather than leaving it up to the Democratic governor. Missouri will not be establishing an exchange. Utah governor Gary Herbert, meanwhile, has opted for a sort of mild civil disobedience, saying that his state will continue to pursue “our version of an exchange based on defined contribution, consumer choice, and free markets” — a type of exchange that is rather plainly banned by Obamacare.

States’ refusal to be complicit in this crucial aspect of Obamacare should shine a spotlight on the development of the federal exchanges — and what it illuminates won’t be pretty.

The Obama administration’s congressional allies botched the drafting of this aspect of the health care overhaul, as the plain language of Obamacare doesn’t empower federal exchanges to distribute taxpayer-funded subsidies to individuals; it empowers only state-based exchanges to distribute the subsidies. (The administration pretends otherwise.) Moreover, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is lagging behind in developing the federal exchanges.

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It’s Good to be Connected: Goldman Sachs’ Miniscule CFTC Fine Is A Joke

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photo credit: erikdanieldrost

Last week, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) slapped Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) with a $1.5 million fine over inadequate control measures in its trading system which allowed an employee to falsify trades worth $8.3 billion in 2007. (CFTC Orders Goldman, Sachs & Co., a Commission Registrant, to Pay $1.5 Million for Supervision Failures, CFTC Press Releases, Dec 7 2012)) Goldman lost $118 million in the process of unwinding the positions.

We believe the global investment bank has been lucky on both fronts: while the fine amount in itself is too small to be material to the bank, the loss from the position is but a fraction of what the bank could have potentially lost. After all, we have witnessed the damage that wrong multi-billion dollar trading decisions by a single individual can do to a bank’s reputation and business on two distinct occasions in the recent past – the unauthorized trading incident at UBS (NYSE:UBS) last year (see Questionable Risk Controls Cost UBS More than Rogue Trades) and the hedging portfolio loss at JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) this June (see JPMorgan’s Trading Losses Could Climb, Sold Profitable Securities To Cushion Impact).

We maintain a $127 price estimate for Goldman’s stock, which is about 5% above the current market price.

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Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Signs Right to Work Legislation Into Law

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It’s official: Michigan has become the 24th Right to Work state:

At a news conference at the George W. Romney Building steps away from the state Capitol, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) announced that he’d signed the contentious right-to-work measures that have sparked protests in the state.

Before dozens of reporters assembled inside a conference room on the building’s second floor, Snyder defended his move as one that would lead to ”more jobs coming to Michigan.”

The two bills bar unions from making contracts that require employees to pay labor dues. One bill dealt with public sector unions, exempting firefighters and police officers. The other covered the private sector.

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Military Sends Mystery Space Drone back Into Orbit, Mission Unknown

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The U.S. military launched its highly secretive unmanned $1 billion X-37B space plane into orbit today from Cape Canaveral on top of an Atlas V rocket.

The U.S. Air Force which operates the small, top-secret version of the space shuttle still will not say how long the third X-37B mission will last, nor what the vehicle will be doing in orbit.

Cloud coverage in the area had threatened to scupper today’s launch, but the skies cleared sufficiently for the classified mission to take-off on time at 1.03 p.m from the Florida space center.

It is the second flight for this original X-37B spaceplane. The craft circled the planet for seven months in 2010. A second X-37B spacecraft spent more than a year in orbit.

The high-tech mystery machines – 29 feet long – are about one-quarter the size of NASA’s old space shuttles and can land automatically on a runway.

The two previous touchdowns occurred in Southern California; this one might end on NASA’s three-mile-long runway once reserved for the space agency’s shuttles.

The military isn’t saying much if anything about this new secret mission known as OTV-3, or Orbital Test Vehicle, flight No. 3. In fact, launch commentary ended 17 minutes into the flight and a news blackout followed.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Obama Jobs Council Chairman Says ‘State-Run Communism Works’

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photo credit: eschipul

Yes, that’s right! The Chairman of Barack Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness said it.

In a discussion with Charlie Rose this week, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt actually defended the Chicoms’ model of government. Little wonder that he was appointed by Obama, given that numerous White House appointees have confessed to being admirers of Chairman Mao.

But why shouldn’t Immelt do the president’s bidding. The system has worked well for him. What big business wouldn’t want a crony directed economy in which one’s corporation had to pay zero taxes, while the competition had to pay the highest corporate tax rate in the world?

What’s not to like about the command and control model of economics, if your crony runs the government and wields it to your advantage?

You have to see this to believe it. Our President’s pick to head his jobs council said this:

Sotomayor Memoir: Husband Brought Bag of Quaaludes to Wedding Night, Unknowingly Drove Cousin to Shoot Up Heroin

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor says in her upcoming memoir that her lifelong battle against diabetes and the fear that she might die early played a big part in her decision not to have children.

The 58-year-old Sotomayor says in an unusually personal book for a Supreme Court justice that she feels an occasional tug of regret at not having borne or adopted children. The memoir, “My Beloved World,” is being published by Alfred A. Knopf in January. An early copy was sent by the publisher to The Associated Press.

Sotomayor also defends affirmative action — under which she was admitted to Princeton University and Yale Law School — as needed to get disadvantaged students to the starting line of a race to success. She grew up so poor in the South Bronx that her family never even had a bank account.

She acknowledges she entered through a special door reserved for minority students but writes that her accomplishments at Princeton, including receiving the highest prize given to seniors, earning a place in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and graduating with highest honors, speak for themselves.

Sotomayor received an advance of nearly $1.2 million for the book, which Knopf will publish simultaneously in English and Spanish. The book does not deal with the more than three years Sotomayor has served as a justice or the previous 17 years she spent as a U.S. district and appeals court judge.

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NBC Must Pay for the High Tech Lynching of George Zimmerman

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If it had been up to NBC and the prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin shooting, George Zimmerman would have already been seated in Florida’s notorious “Old Sparky.”

Edited and doctored tapes of a 911 call between George Zimmerman and police dispatchers by NBC news, were used to make it look as if George Zimmerman was a racist and his shooting of Trayvon Martin racially motivated.

On top of that, just released colored photos of George Zimmerman, right after his confrontation with Trayvon Martin, graphically show a bloodied and battered George Zimmermanm. A stark contrast from the previously released black and white photos by the Florida prosecutor that did not show the extent of Zimmerman’s facial injuries.

This type of evidence should have been willingly given to Zimmermans legal team by the Florida prosecutor. But it took months of legal maneuvering to get these pictures, which hugely bolsters Zimmermans account that he acted in self defense.Even famed legal expert Alan Dershowitz thinks the prosecution against Zimmerman has been acting unethically.

If the public and Zimmermans defense team had access to these photos originally, many legal experts doubt charges could have been rightfully filed against Zimmerman in the first place. There is absolutely no doubt that if these color photos of Zimmermans beaten and bloodied face taken shortly after his confrontation with Martin would have been revealed, it would have defused the racial tensions that were boiling over.

But fortunately for Mr. Zimmerman, a brilliant attorney has come to his defense and is unraveling the web of innuendo, slander and withheld evidence being used against him. Mark O’Mara has taken command of this case and will make sure George Zimmerman isn’t the state of Floridas, or main stream medias, sacrificial goat.

In a lawsuit filed a few days ago against NBC, the Zimmerman legal team stated:

“NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain.” “Because of NBC’s deceptive and exploitative manipulations, the public wrongly believes that Zimmerman used a racial epithet while describing Martin during the call to the dispatcher on that fateful night,” the suit says.

The lawsuit accuses NBC of sensationalizing/manipulating a “racial powder keg that would result in months, if not years, of topics for their failing news program, particularly the plummeting ratings for their ailing Today Show.”

The edited recordings included “multiple deletions, removed intervening dialogue between Zimmerman and the dispatcher, and juxtaposed unrelated content “to make it appear that Zimmerman was a racist, and that he was racially profiling Trayvon Martin,” the lawsuit says.

If Mark O’Mara can prove his charges against NBC, we hope he can get a huge payday for his client as well as himself. NBC got caught trying to pervert the news we receive and manipulate public opinion.

If it is found that the Florida prosecutor willingly withheld crucial evidence in order to weaken George Zimmermans defense and cast him in a false light, then Mr. Zimmerman should demand justice for himself.

We saw another prosecutors office try to railroad innocent people into prison with withheld and manipulated evidence, in order to make a name for himself and gain political favor. North Carolina District Attorney Ken Nifong was disbarred and put in jail for withholding evidence that would have proved Duke Lacrosse team members to be innocent of charges.

Attorney Mark O’Mara is no slouch and is probably already sounding the alarm bells in this case against his client. What other evidence has this prosecutor failed to provide him in his defense of George Zimmerman?

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Horrific Footage Shows ‘Syrian Rebels’ Forcing Boy to Behead Captive with Sword

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It is perhaps the most disturbing piece of video footage to emerge out of the Syrian crisis to date.

A young boy is egged on by a group of older men, believed to be rebel fighters, and filmed hacking the head off a man who is lying on the ground. An older man is then seen picking up the head before placing it on top of the body like a macabre trophy. In the background militants can be heard chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’, or ‘God is great’.

The victim appears to be dead before the gruesome act begins as he is lying flat and unmoving with his head resting on a cinderblock.

The clip is one of thousands of graphic videos that have been uploaded onto the internet purporting to show the horrors of the ongoing conflict in Syria. Several videos allegedly to show Syrian rebel fighters carrying out summary executions on captured government soldiers or suspected informants have attracted strong criticism. Others show the dead bodies of dozens of civilians said to have been killed in Government attacks. It is impossible to verify if the footage is real.

The emergence of this latest clip comes just as Washington is said to have begun a secret operation to arm the Syrian rebel fighters following reports of movements at Syria’s chemical weapons sites.

Read more from this story HERE.

Fox News Contributor Punched in Face at Pro-Union Protests in Michigan (+video)

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A Fox News contributor was punched in the face during a pro-union protest Tuesday in Michigan, one of a series of confrontations between union demonstrators and opponents on the day the state Legislature approved so-called “right to work” legislation that unions oppose.

Steven Crowder, a conservative comedian and Fox News contributor, had spent the day questioning demonstrators, and video he posted on YouTube showed some of them becoming verbally aggressive, with one telling him, “get the f— out of my face!”

Another protester can be seen later in the video punching Crowder in the face before being restrained by another man.

Crowder later posted photos on his Twitter account showing a chipped tooth and “minor cut on forehead.” He told the website TheBlaze.com that the scuffle started when protesters tried to tear down a tent set up by conservative organization Americans for Prosperity.

“They were trying to tear down the tent and people were trying to pull them off. … And as they did that, a few people tripped,” he told the website. “This guy tripped over a tent peg and then got up and hit me.”

Watch video:

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Homeland Security Increasingly Loaning Drones to Local Police

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Far from the battlefields of Afghanistan, a Predator drone was summoned into action last year to spy on a North Dakota farmer who allegedly refused to return a half-dozen of his neighbor’s cows that had strayed onto his pastures.

The farmer had become engaged in a standoff with the Grand Forks police SWAT team and the sheriff’s department. So the local authorities decided to call on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to deploy a multimillion-dollar, unarmed drone to surveil the farmer and his family.

The little-noticed August 2011 incident at the Lakota, N.D., ranch, which ended peacefully, was a watershed moment for Americans. It was one of the first known times an unmanned aerial vehicle owned by the U.S. government was used in local police work.

Since then, The Washington Guardian has confirmed, DHS and its Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency have deployed drones — originally bought to guard America’s borders — to assist local law enforcement and other federal agencies on several occasions.

The practice is raising questions inside and outside government about whether federal officials may be creating an ad-hoc, loan-a-drone program without formal rules for engagement, privacy protection or taxpayer reimbursements. The drones used by CBP can cost $15 million to $34 million each, and have hourly operational costs as well.

Read more from this story HERE.