State Officials Trying To Gut Obamacare Get Caught Making False Claims To The Supreme Court. By Ian Millhiser Posted on Share this: "State Officials Trying To Gut Obamacare Get Caught Making False Claims To The Supreme Court" Share: Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) CREDIT: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki The Republican attorneys general of six states, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia, all signed a brief asking the Supreme Court to gut the Affordable Care Act.
This weakness in their case is unlikely to be unnoticed by the justices, however, as a brief filed Wednesday by a much larger group of state officials rounds up much of the considerable evidence undercutting the six Republican attorneys general’s claim. To explain, the Affordable Care Act explicitly says that states should have “flexibility” to decide whether they want to operate health exchanges where their residents can buy health insurance, or whether the federal government should operate an exchange for them. Forbes Tears Boehner, Netanyahu Apart In A Scathing Column, Says GOP Cannot “Think Beyond Their Distaste For This President” Rick Ungar should get a medal for his words against the treasonous John Boehner and his war-hungry, propaganda pushing friend Benjamin Netanyahu.
In his latest article,”Bibi Netanyahu — aka ‘The Republican Senator From Israel’ — May Have Made A Fatal Political Mistake,” Ungar unleashes a full force of anger, disgust, bewilderment and utter confusion over the Speaker’s undermining of President Obama and his foreign policy. In what Ungar describes as a “political screw-up,” Speaker Boehner and Bibi seek to undermine current foreign policy in an effort to save Netanyahu’s reign in the Israeli Knesset. A power-hungry Republican trying to save a war-hawk? I’m shocked. Why We’re Stuck With Saudi Arabia. Something caused the flight to climb 3,000 feet in 30 seconds and it may not have been the pilots.
What exactly happened to Air Asia Flight 8501 over the Java Sea on December 28? Indonesian officials are not helping to make the picture any clearer. Scientology and D.A.R.E. Are Coming for Your Kids. The Obama administration promised to overhaul how it brought captives home—and dealt with their parents.
Five months in, and those interactions still ‘suck.’ Five months after the White House began a top-to-bottom review of its policy for rescuing hostages overseas, the congressman who spurred it and some of the families of hostages who were promised a voice in the process say they’re being left in the dark. The White House had pledged that families of Americans captured or killed by terrorists would be “integral” to discussions on how to bring those Americans home safely. When my student told me she hates Malala, it made me rethink how I teach. Girls return to their school in Peshawar on Jan. 12 after it was devastated by a Taliban attack that killed 145 people.
Photo by Khuram Parvez/Reuters Editor’s Note: Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai has garnered support all over the world and earned a Nobel Peace Prize last year for her work advocating for girls’ education. Below, teacher Alison Walter explains how a student’s unexpected opinion of Malala gave her a new approach to global lessons. “Oh, Malala Yousafzai? Tsk. I stared at my student, my head filling with the panicky buzz that teachers get when a child says something socially unacceptable — What do I say now? Part of my disbelief came from the fact that, until that point, I would have compared this girl to Malala — they were both Pakistani, both very conscientious students, both concerned with what was happening in the world around them and both living in different countries in order to get the education that they and their families wanted. Justice Stevens Pens Six Amendments to Tune-Up Constitution.
Bernie Sanders reminds CNN host: You can slam Obama, but Bush’s ‘blunder’ created ISIS. Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Sunday told CNN host Candy Crowley that it was easy to criticize President Barack Obama’s fight against ISIS in Iraq, but he reminded her that it was President George Bush’s “disastrous blunder” that allowed the extremists group to get a foothold in the first place. In a interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Sanders agreed that ISIS had to be defeated, but he said that “the people of America are getting sick and tired of the world and region — Saudi Arabia and the other countries — saying, ‘Hey, we don’t have to do anything about it. Why You Hate Work. Photo THE way we’re working isn’t working.
Even if you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably not very excited to get to the office in the morning, you don’t feel much appreciated while you’re there, you find it difficult to get your most important work accomplished, amid all the distractions, and you don’t believe that what you’re doing makes much of a difference anyway. By the time you get home, you’re pretty much running on empty, and yet still answering emails until you fall asleep. Increasingly, this experience is common not just to middle managers, but also to top executives. Our company, The Energy Project, works with organizations and their leaders to improve employee engagement and more sustainable performance.
Belgian Prince: Conserving DRC's Virunga National Park. An interview between Belgian Prince Emmanuel de Merode and Alec Hogg at the World Economic Forum quintessentially sums up the spirit of Davos and exactly what the forum is trying to achieve.
Prince Emmanuel’s tale pulls at the heart-strings for many reasons as it informs us about the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the tireless fight of those who believe in the future of the Virunga National Park – which is often the centre of the war-zone. Director of the park, Prince Emmanuel has a fascinating story to tell, encouraging a future of peace and tourism for the DRC. – LF. The BBC has just done more to eradicate ‘terrorism’ than all our wars since 9/11 - Comment - Voices - The Independent. There are complications here, to be sure, but isn’t the most immediate reaction one of relief?
With a small shift in editorial policy, it would seem the BBC has done more to “eradicate terrorism” than 14 years of war put together. You can say that, I think, without being utterly facetious. British oil company SOCO agrees to cease operations in Congo’s Virunga National Park - Africa. SOCO International Plc, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange and last year had revenues of £360m, said it had reached an agreement with the conservation group WWF to end exploratory work in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park, classified a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979 and the last refuge for the country’s mountain gorillas.
The oil and gas company was awarded permission to explore for oil in an area known as Block V, overlapping the Virunga park, by the DRC government in 2010, and had recently begun seismic and environmental surveys. It has repeatedly underlined that its work was taking place far from gorilla areas or rainforest. The operations were nonetheless resolutely opposed by environmental groups and also drew criticism from the British Government, which said it was against all oil exploration within the national park or any other World Heritage Site.
Oil Dispute Takes a Page From Congo’s Bloody Past. VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK, Democratic Republic of Congo — The trouble started when a British company suddenly appeared in this iconic and spectacularly beautiful national park, prospecting for . Villagers who opposed the project were beaten by government soldiers. A park warden, who tried to block the oil company, SOCO International, from building a cellphone tower in the park, was kidnapped and tortured. Virunga’s director, a Belgian prince, was shot and nearly killed hours after he delivered a secret report on the oil company’s activities. Much like the fight over drilling on federal lands in the United States, the struggle over oil exploration in Africa’s national parks is a classic quandary, pitting economic development against environmental preservation. This is why they hate us: The truth about the roots of Muslim extremism.
Wait a second. As I worked through this historical material, riveted by the saga of a carefully constructed mechanism coming to replace God as the main principle ordering government, I could not ignore one glaring fact: the people engaged in that process were practically all Protestants. Why Protestantism? What is the link between reformed religion and representative government as a device to ensure the redress of grievances? Searching for answers to that question, I discovered something else: a separate strand tying corruption to religious extremism. “River’s Edge”: The darkest teen film of all time. About a year and a half ago, I interviewed Daniel Waters, screenwriter of the enduring and dark teen comedy and media satire “Heathers” for the book (“Twee”) I was researching at the time. The conversation was genial and funny, and I could tell he was what we used to call at my old employer Spin magazine a “quote machine.”
Soon, the subject got around to films of the late American auteur John Hughes, particularly his iconic high school trilogy of “Sixteen Candles” (1984), “The Breakfast Club” (1985) and “Pretty in Pink” (the 1986 romantic comedy that he wrote but did not direct). One could make an argument for Waters’ "Heathers" (directed as a gauzy, occasionally surrealist morality play by Michael Lehmann) as the darkest teen film of all time.
‘When Loud Music Turned Deadly’ Op-Docs By ORLANDO BAGWELL This Op-Doc video tells the story of how a black 17-year-old, Jordan Davis, was killed by a 45-year-old white man, Michael Dunn, now charged with first-degree murder. The shooting took place at a gas station in Jacksonville, Fla., the day after Thanksgiving in 2012. It followed an argument in which Mr. Dunn complained about loud hip-hop music playing in Mr. Pelosi searches for a game plan - Lauren French and Anna Palmer - POLITICO. Nancy Pelosi has big problems in her ranks. The California lawmaker is facing some of the most serious unrest she’s ever seen in her dozen years as the leader of the House Democrats: Members complain that the party has no message and no clear plan to retake the majority, despite good news on the economy that should have brought rewards at the polls.
They also accuse senior lawmakers of failing to pull their weight in dues as they occupy coveted committee slots. Story Continued Below. John McCain: Benjamin Netanyahu should ‘speak to the American people’ - Jennifer Shutt - POLITICO. Sen. John McCain said on Sunday the U.S. relationship with Israel has deteriorated and that ongoing talks with Iran over its development of nuclear weapons are not helping to ease built-up tensions.
BREAKING: U.S. And India Announce 'Cooperation' On Climate Change. Did John Boehner Just Commit Treason? It has been recently confirmed that John Boehner has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before congress about Iran, in the spring. Fox ‘News’ And Bill O’Reilly Get Hammered By High School Students For Their L... How the ‘John Oliver Effect’ Is Having a Real-Life Impact. Comedians mock our cultural and political institutions on TV all the time. Mike Huckabee: ‘God’s blessing’ will make me president to stop the atheist ‘s... Former Fox News host Mike Huckabee said on Thursday that if he was elected president then he would have “God’s blessing” to fight a so-called “secular theocracy” that had been imposed by atheists.
During an appearance on the Christian Life Today program, Huckabee told televangelist James Robinson that he was considering a 2016 presidential bid because the country needed to become a “God-centered nation that understands that our laws do not come from man, they come from God.” White House: Netanyahu Spat in Our Face. When the White House caught wind that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak to Congress in March, officials became angry that he circumvented the administration, reported The Times of Israel.
Netanyahu instead coordinated with House Speaker John Boehner, as they mount an attempt to win support for sanctions against Iran. Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand's former PM, impeached. Thailand's former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra receives flowers from her supporters on Thursday. Photo: AP Bangkok: Thailand's military-stacked parliament has impeached former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra in a secret vote that will shake the country's fragile calm and deepen political divisions. Republican leadership pulls anti-abortion bill that was tearing the caucus apart. House Republican leaders abruptly decided to pull an anti-abortion bill, scheduled for a vote Thursday, after a rape-related provision divided the caucus. The Senate is pretty clearly a hoax. On Wednesday, the Senate got together to take a few votes on whether global warming was real or not.
Obama is right: ISIS is being stopped. 8 ways the GOP’s State of the Union response was different in Spanish — and why it matters. Here Comes the Sun: America's Solar Boom, in Charts. Solar Is Adding Jobs 10 Times Faster Than the Overall Economy. The Secret History of the GOP's New Abortion Ban.
Koch Party Delivers SOTU Response. Why Ruth Bader Ginsburg Thinks Citizens United Is the Supreme Court's Worst Ruling. U.S. Soccer suspends Hope Solo after husband's DUI arrest. Woman Drugged, Likely Raped At Duke Frat Party Wakes To Taunting Text Message. Republican SOTU responses get lost in translation. Teacher’s MLK Day Smack Down Of Paul Ryan And The Tea Party Says It All.
The Executioners: What the Government Hasn’t Revealed About the Mexico Student Massacre. Ice hampers oil spill cleanup in Yellowstone River; residents report smell, taste of oil in water. What You Learn in Your 40s. Bill Maher Erroneously Defends Rush Limbaugh Against “Baby” Liberals Who “Don’t Get Free Speech”
Chérif and Saïd Kouachi’s Path to Paris Attack at Charlie Hebdo. This Onion Article Perfectly Illustrates Why No One Should Judge A Person On Food Stamps. Victims of the Terror Attacks in Paris. JK Rowling attacks Murdoch for tweet blaming all Muslims for Charlie Hebdo deaths. Anonymous threatens cyber-revenge for Paris killings. FBI Search Warrant application claims Freedom Industries executi. How Nonemployed Americans Spend Their Weekdays: Men vs. Women.
New York’s mayor: The blue thread frays. The Charlie Hebdo murders: Death to satire. Zephyr Teachout, Hands Up United and John Oliver Made Our 2014 Progressive Honor Roll. Who Else Made the List? Exclusive: Video Shows Cocaine Allegedly Found at Home of Islamic State Leader. Why oil prices keep falling — and throwing the world into turmoil. How Putin could lose power. Chris Christie’s trip to Dallas on Jerry Jones’ dime raises ethics concerns. California Governor Brown Issues Call for Climate Action to Prevent 'Potentially Catastrophic' Changes. Germany-antiislam-protests-cologne-cathedral-to-switch-of-lights-in-protest-a... American Society’s Real Moochers: CEOs.