Florida Federal Judge Rules ‘Entire’ Health Care Law Unconstitutional

Posted on January 31, 2011 

by Jonathon M. Seidl

A federal judge in Florida has ruled that the president’s health care overhaul, “Obamacare,” is unconstitutional. The judge based his ruling on the law’s mandate that citizens must purchase health care, a requirement he said violates the Constitution. The ruling affects the 26 states who had joined together to file a case against the law, yet still has implications for the entire country.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled Congress overstepped its bounds by instituting the individual mandate, but also said the entire law was unconstitutional since the individual mandate is not “severable,” Fox News reports. Vinson did not go as far as to issue an injunction blocking the law from being implemented.

“I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate. That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and inequities in our health care system. The health care market is more than one sixth of the national economy, and without doubt Congress has the power to reform and regulate this market. That has not been disputed in this case. The principal dispute has been about how Congress chose to exercise that power here,” Vinson wrote.  Read More

Watching the pot come to a boil

By whitelocust
Updated 1/7/2011

Today’s world has troubles unique to its time in history, from the global financial crisis to technological meltdowns to full scale, computerized global war. Observing the convergence of such events, contemporary prophets have begun to emerge from obscurity to suggest that these conditions might be signs of the demise of the modern world. These men are historians as well, using all manner of information and patterns from the past to provide context for where we are going. Their predictions interpret the current state of affairs in our world as evidence that the America we know may come to an end. The men proposing these ideas are not crackpots living on the streets of New York; they are intelligent, learned men who come armed with the evidence to back up their claims.  Read More

America and the Middle East Food Riots

For the 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day, the world’s worst food crisis in a generation is a matter of survival. Food is now considered the new gold.

January 31, 2011
By Steve McCann

Perhaps the most over used but most accurate term used to describe the policies and ideology of the American Left is the "Law of Unintended Consequences." There is virtually nothing that these people espouse that once put in place has not had detrimental effects on either the people of the United States or the world.

Today there is a global food shortage and sky-rocketing prices. This has become the underlying factor in the riots in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt, where up to 56% of a person's income is dedicated to the acquisition of food. These riots are now leading to the upheaval of governments and the very real possibility of the ascendancy of the radical elements into control.

While bad weather in various parts of the world is an element of the accelerating food prices there are two other factors directly related to the United States and its policies.

First, because of the enormous deficts run up by Obama administration and the Democrat controlled Congress, the Federal Reserve has had to effectively print trillions of dollars which have flooded the global market. Commodities are priced in dollars, consequently emerging markets throughout the world, and the food sector in particular, are suffering from rapidly rising inflation.  Read More

Global Warming Alarmists in Retreat. Glaciers, Not So Much.

January 29, 2011 by Jimmie Bise, Jr

The Church of Global Warming has faced an uphill battle lately. The average person is not likely to accept the message that the planet is warming and that only an unprecedented shift of power and money to progressive policy makers will brings things back to normal once they’ve lived through a couple horrible winters and witnessed the massive fraud perpetrated by the climate science community. So it has come to pass that the number of Britons who believe that global warming is both real and dangerous has shrunk rapidly in the past four years.
The number of climate change sceptics has almost doubled in four years, official research showed yesterday.

A quarter of Britons are unconvinced that the world is warming following successive freezing winters and a series of scandals over the credibility of climate science.  Read More

Committee Passes Plan for Internet ‘Kill Switch’ in Egypt — U.S.

Posted on January 29, 2011
by Meredith Jessup

Pending legislation that would grant the President of the United States the power to pull the plug on the country’s internet access in a declared “emergency” returned to the forefront this week on the same day Egyptians faced a nation-wide blackout designed to curtail widespread government protests. Egypt flipped it’s so-called “kill switch” — will the U.S.?

The bipartisan bill is sponsored by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The bill — called “The Protecting Cyberspace As A National Asset Act of 2010” S.3480 — was approved by a Senate panel this week.

S. 3480 would create a new government agency called the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications. The NCCC would have sweeping powers to control the Internet, including the ability to shut down the web for a 30-day period. Considering that at least 60% of Americans get their daily news fix from the Internet, this is a staggering proposal.  Read More

Raw Video: Military Tanks Patrol Egyptian Streets

The Blaze
Posted on January 29, 2011

After reports of widespread looting of public buildings, businesses and even peoples’ private residences, new video posted to YouTube shows Egyptian military tanks entering the city of Rihab, a city located north of Cairo:



As looters raid peoples’ homes, Al Jazeera reports that Egyptians have been left to fend for themselves as police and military officers work to control growing crowds.

As we reported Friday, looters were threatening to destroy priceless antiquities located in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum and the national army was called in to try and protect the historical artifacts. Sadly, not all were spared from the public mob:

Carter Redux?

January 29, 2011
Carter Redux?
Steve McCann

For those who lived through the 1979 Iran revolution and the abandonment of the Shah of Iran by the Carter administration, there is a tangible sense of foreboding as to what form the outcome of the current upheaval in Egypt will take.

Like Carter, Obama has made overtures to the Islamists. 1n 1978 Jimmy Carter was on the side of "human rights" and eagerly embraced Ayatollah Khomeini. Carter's UN Ambassador Andrew Young went so far as to call him "some kind of saint".

It now turns out that in 2009, the Egyptian daily Almasry Alyoum reported that President Obama secretly met with representatives of the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood, the Hamas and Al Qaeda ally that has been barred by the US and put on the terror watch list by the Bush administration. By doing so and choosing Egypt as the locale for his Muslim outreach speech, in which he never once used the words "terrorism", "terrorist" or "war on terror," the question must be asked: Did or does the Obama administration realize the difference between freedom-based revolutions (which do not include jihadist elements) and violent overthrows orchestrated by the same jihadists. Secretly meeting with the jihadist elements can only embolden them.  Read More

IMF to US: Better start taking care of business

January 29, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

You remember the IMF, right? It’s the organization that had to partner with the EU in order to rescue Greece from its massive debt and collapsing bond structure — a task accomplished with around $7 billion from the US. Now the IMF has a warning for the US as well, that our own debt is Greecing the skids to a similar but much more disastrous conclusion in the long term:

U.S. officials must act quickly to control government deficits or face slower growth and even more difficult choices in the future, the International Monetary Fund said Thursday in a report criticizing the tepid U.S. response to its rising public debt.  Read More

Specter of Currency War Rears Its Head at Davos

Posted on January 29, 2011
by Scott Baker

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — A fight is looming between rich and poor countries over the value of the dollar and other key currencies, as governments use monetary tricks to boost their national recovery at the expense of other nations, political and business leaders warned Saturday.

Washington has been leaning hard on Beijing to allow the Chinese renminbi to rise, saying it is being kept artificially cheap to maintain China’s cheap labor advantage.

At the same time the United States, Britain and others have encouraged their central banks to pump money into the system as a means of stimulating the economy. Read More

Obama Lectures Mubarak On Economics

Oh, Good Grief… In Phone Call Obama Lectures Mubarak On EconomicsPosted by Jim Hoft on Friday, January 28, 2011
Oh good grief.

Barack Obama tonight lectured Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (photo) on instituting a sound economic policy.

We’ve always been clear that there must be reform: political, social, and economic reforms that meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people. In the absence of these reforms, grievances have built up over time. When President Mubarak addressed the Egyptian people tonight, he pledged a better democracy and greater economic opportunity. I just spoke to him after his speech. And I told him he has a responsibility to give meaning to those words, to take concrete steps and actions that deliver on that promise.

Ar you freaking kidding me?

How nuts was that?  Read More

Oil Rigs – and Jobs – Already Moving Out of Gulf

January 28, 2011 by Jazz Shaw

We have previously covered the disappointing response from the Obama administration in approving new drilling permits following last summer’s oil spill in the gulf, warning that such an unofficial “permitoreum” would have consequences. Among the many negative potential results would be energy companies taking their ocean-going rigs and moving them to places where they could get back to work, rather than sitting idle and costing them huge amounts of money. And when the rigs leave, the jobs leave, along with all of the associated economic stimulus to other related American businesses. Well, that didn’t take long.

Jan 27 (Reuters) – Some of the 30-plus deepwater rigs that were in the Gulf of Mexico have moved to other markets, first because of a U.S. halt called last May after BP Plc’s (BP.L: Quote) well blowout, and then because of the lack of permits once the moratorium was lifted.  Read More

Media Coordinates SOTU Response

Don’t fool yourself… Journolist is alive and well.

Journolist Lives!… Media Coordinates SOTU Response – Networks All Describe Lib Obama As “Reaganesque”

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, January 27, 2011,
 
It was apparent this week after Obama’s SOTU Address that the state-run media is still coordinating their message to the American people.

All three major networks described Obama’s confusing speech as being “Reaganesque.”
They want so desperately for the failed socialist they helped elect to appear like the beloved Ronald Reagan.

Media Research Organization reported:



Read More

Iranian Regime Hails New Islamic Middle East Taking Shape

Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, January 28, 2011, 5:55 AM

The Iranian prayer leader today Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami hailed the new Islamic Middle East that is taking shape. The radical prayer leader said the recent developments in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and other Arab states echo the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Mehr News reported:  Read More

Why We Must Replace the EPA

Friday, 28 January 2011: Steve Everley

Of all the government agencies that have become unnecessary barriers to job creation and economic growth, the Environmental Protection Agency is the worst offender.

Since its founding 40 years ago, the EPA has transformed from an agency with the original noble mission of protecting the environment into a job-killing, centralizing engine of ideological litigation and regulation that blocks economic progress. The EPA's current push to regulate greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and thereby the entire American economy, is the latest and definitive proof that the EPA has gone well beyond its original mandate.

Even worse, the EPA has become the bureaucracy of choice for Presidents and ideologues to exert more control over the decision making of the private sector and local and state governments, stifling the very innovation and entrepreneurship that is necessary to achieve a cleaner environment. 
Read More

USDA deregulates GE alfalfa; opens door to new era of widespread genetic pollution of crops

Friday, January 28, 2011
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

(NaturalNews) After months of pretending to review public feedback on the issue of GE alfalfa, the USDA has announced a surprise lifting of all restrictions on the genetically engineered crop, effectively allowing anyone to plant GE alfalfa anywhere, without any restriction. This is the USDA's surrender to Monsanto, and it signifies the beginning of a new era of widespread genetic pollution of North America's crops and ranch animals (which eat those crops).

Even though the USDA recently admitted in its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) that GE alfalfa may pose a risk to both organic farmers and conventional farmers (http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/...), the agency suddenly and without scientific justification decided to remove all restrictions and allow Monsanto to regulate itself!  Read More