What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread, so feel free to share.

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I guess there’s some big speech tonight or something. The President wants to remind us that he is still “focused like a laser” on jobs. Again. No, really, he means it this time.

Just for fun, let’s count how many times he says “I, me, police, first responders, and teachers”. You know, govt jobs, his favorite kind.

So here’s some interesting facts on his jobs record to date. From ZeroHedge

“While hardly presented by the mainstream media with the same panache dedicated to the monthly ARIMA-X-12 seasonally-adjusted, climate-affected, goal-seek devised non-farm payroll data, the three month delayed Foodstamp number is according to many a far greater attestation to the “effectiveness” of the Obama administration to turn the economy around. And far greater it is: since his inauguration, the US has generated just 841,000 jobs through November 2012, a number is more than dwarfed by the 17.3 million new foodstamps and disability recipients added to the rolls in the past 4 years. And since the start of the depression in December 2007, America has seen those on foodstamps and disability increase by 21.8 million, while losing 3.6 million jobs. End result: total number of foodstamp recipients as of November: 47.7 million, an increase of 141,000 from the prior month, and reversing the brief downturn in October, while total US households on foodstamps just hit an all time record of 23,017,768, an increase of 73,952 from the prior
month.”

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Also, my prediction? Here comes the student loan bailouts, because everyone should have a college degree, even if it’s useless, won’t get you a job, and they can’t afford it.

So to quote InButNotOf from yesterday,

“So…a dog show or a dog AND pony show?”

🙂 🙂 🙂

Something tells me the real Dog Show will be more enjoyable. Although I will miss Bobble-head Joe Biden and Spring-loaded Nancy Pelosi. Every applause line, Joe’s head will bobble, and Nancy will fly from her seat. They’re like applauding puppets.

Here’s the link to watch some of the judging live streamed from the WestminsterDogShow.

But if you’re into it, you can catch the President on any network TV channel, or here from CSPAN

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And in case you hadn’t heard 🙄 the Pope has stepped down. I can respect his decision, although I’m not Catholic. If he feels he can longer meet the requirements of the position, then stepping aside is the honorable thing to do. A good leader knows this, and acts accordingly.

From TheWallSt.Journal

“Pope Benedict XVI will become the first pontiff in six centuries to resign, marking the end of a transitional papacy that focused more on theological and internal renewal and less on the broader challenges that face the Roman Catholic church at the start of its 21st century of existence.

The pope’s surprise announcement paves the way for a successor who will confront anew the task of rebuilding the church’s foundations in an increasingly secular and skeptical West while continuing to spread its roots in the rapidly growing emerging world.

The 85-year-old pope, who before his 2005 election was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, announced the decision to step down in a speech in Latin Monday to a small group of cardinals, saying he no longer had the vitality to perform his duties. Only two top Vatican cardinals were informed beforehand about the historic announcement, which quickly ricocheted around the world.”

The Left of course took to Twitter, where all twits go to spread their vileness. Yes, it’s as bad as you think it would be.

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As usual, President Obama wanted to make sure that even this be about him, in some small and pathetic way. He wants to remind you how he worked with the Pope on important matters. You know, like the contraceptive mandate. 😯

From CNSNews

“President Barack Obama–whose administration is being sued by multiple Roman Catholic dioceses and organizations for violating their free exercise of religion–issued a statement today about retiring Pope Benedict XVI, boasting of his “work together” with the pontiff.

“On behalf of Americans everywhere, Michelle and I wish to extend our appreciation and prayers to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Michelle and I warmly remember our meeting with the Holy Father in 2009, and I have appreciated our work together over these last four years,” Obama said. “The Church plays a critical role in the United States and the world, and I wish the best to those who will soon gather to choose His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.”

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Tonight, when it’s all about him, he’ll explain why he has to act like a tyrant to get around that pesky Congress. It’s for the good of the country or something.

From Bloomberg

“When President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, the biggest question he’ll face will be how to get an ambitious second-term agenda through a divided Congress.

The answer: Go around it.

On climate change, gun control, gay rights, and even immigration, the White House has signaled a willingness to circumvent lawmakers through the use of presidential power. Already, plans are being laid to unleash new executive orders, regulations, signing statements and memorandums designed to push Obama’s programs forward and cement his legacy, according to administration aides and allies.”

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Here’s some more on the new decrees from The Emperor.

From TheWashingtonPost

“President Obama is considering a series of new executive actions aimed at working around a recalcitrant Congress, including policies that could allow struggling homeowners to refinance their mortgages, provide new protections for gays and lesbians, make buildings more energy-efficient and toughen regulations for coal-fired power plants, according to people outside the White House involved in discussions on the issues.

One of the first orders is expected this week, when the Obama administration will call for the creation of new standards on what critical private-sector companies should do to protect their computer systems from hackers.

The moves underscore Obama’s increasingly aggressive use of executive authority, including 23 administrative actions on gun violence last month and previous orders that delayed deportations of young illegal immigrants and will lower student loan payments.

These and other potential actions suggest that Obama is likely to rely heavily on executive powers to set domestic policy in his second term. One White House official said that while the president does not see the actions as substitutes for more substantial legislation, he also wants to move forward on top priorities.”

Once again, the so-called constitutional scholar seems completely clueless about what it says, and wants you to think he’s justified in his unconstitutional actions.

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One thing you won’t hear him mention is this. (Although he will mention guns and have victims to use as props to push his gun control agenda.) Just like his friends in the network media, he’ll skip this part. Shhhh……. It’s a secret.

From Mediaite

“Alleged Los Angeles shooter Christopher Jordan Dorner, influenced by left-leaning media coverage of gun crime in the wake of the Newtown shootings, has virtually paralyzed the City of Angels. Floyd Lee Corkins, a gunman incensed by anti-gay marriage bias after reading articles by the liberal advocacy group Southern Poverty Law Center, took a firearm into the Family Research Council’s headquarters with the intention of killing “as many as possible.” He hoped to smash Chick-fil-A sandwiches in the faces of as many corpses as he could. These shooters were clearly moved by left-wing media, and we should thank every benevolent force in the universe that they were. Had either shooter possessed even a tenuous link to a conservative group, a media-driven hysteria about the malevolent influence of right-wing broadcasters and commentators would be gripping the nation today. Fortunately, when a crazed shooter’s ideology is explicitly and demonstrably left-wing, the media displays admirable restraint about linking a gunman’s politics to their acts of violence.”

“When the facts make it impossible to indulge the instinct to link a violent extremist to the right – in Dorner and Corkins’ cases for example – the media displays appropriate caution about assigning political motives to their actions.”

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What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread.

Here’s a few to start.

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Yeah, about that nomination……….

From TheWeeklyStandard

“If Brennan’s apparent change of heart on EITs causes concern about his ability to put analysis ahead of politics, his comments on Ali Harzi, a suspect in the Benghazi attacks last fall, raise questions about the Obama administration’s approach to radical Islam and—more immediately troubling—Brennan’s veracity.

Did John Brennan lie under oath? The answer appears to be yes.

Here’s the backstory. Senator Marco Rubio asked Brennan about Harzi, who was detained in Tunisia and eventually released by the Tunisian government. When Rubio asked why the United States couldn’t prevent Harzi’s release by the Tunisians, Brennan responded that the United States must respect Tunisian law and traditions. “The Tunisians did not have a basis in their law to hold him.” And when Rubio pushed further, Brennan dismissed his concerns and made a claim that simply isn’t true.

“We didn’t have anything on him, either,” Brennan said. “If we did, we would have made a point to the Tunisians to turn him over to us, but we didn’t have that.””

Or is this just another of those “WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE!!!????” moments?

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Shhhhhh……

Vote fraud never happens………..

From NationalReview

“Critics of voter ID and other laws cracking down on voter fraud claim they’re unnecessary because fraud is nonexistent. For instance, Brennan Center attorneys Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt claimed last year: “A person casting two votes risks jail time and a fine for minimal gain. Proven voter fraud, statistically, happens about as often as death by lightning strike.”

Well, lightning is suddenly all over Cincinnati, Ohio. The Hamilton County Board of Elections is investigating 19 possible cases of alleged voter fraud that occurred when Ohio was a focal point of the 2012 presidential election. A total of 19 voters and nine witnesses are part of the probe.

Democrat Melowese Richardson has been an official poll worker for the last quarter century and registered thousands of people to vote last year. She candidly admitted to Cincinnati’s Channel 9 this week that she voted twice in the last election.”

Good thing she wasn’t disenfranchised or something. 🙄

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Looks like some states and other institutions are following the lead of fast food franchises when it comes to ObamaCare.

From Breitbart

“The costs of Obamacare are not just hitting businesses this year–they are also hitting the government, and public employees as well. Virginia, for example, is about to limit part-time employees to 29 hours per week in order to avoid triggering Obamacare’s requirement that employers provide health insurance to those working 30 hours per week or more. The state cannot afford the $110 million annual cost of insurance.

Elsewhere, public institutions are taking similar steps to limit part-time work. In Ohio, Youngstown State University recently announced a 29-hour-per-week part-time limit, and placed employees on notice that they would be fired if they worked more than the maximum. Other public universities are doing the same across the nation, just as their private-sector counterparts are limiting part-time hours to avoid the Obamacare rule.

In addition to limiting part-time hours, many institutions–public and private–are moving employees from full-time to part-time status to avoid Obamacare requirements. Doing so means facing the ire of left-wing institutions such as John Podesta’s Think Progress, which recently castigated a Wendy’s franchise for cutting employees’ hours. Yet there is little most businesses can do–they are merely responding to incentives written into law.”

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What’s interesting in the news today?

I guess we start with the snow. Yes, it’s that bad.

From TheEagleTribune

“Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has declared a state of emergency for blizzard that could bring near 3 feet of snow.

Patrick signed an executive order banning all vehicles from roadways starting at 4 p.m. today. Ban applies to all roadways, including highways and secondary roads. Any one caught driving after 4 p.m. faces up to one year in jail and $500 fine.”

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Another terrorist attempt, via Cali.. This one seeking to blame the right and set off a civil war. Must’ve been reading them DHS warnings about right wingers.

From TheHuffingtonPost

” A 28-year-old man tried to set off what he thought was a car bomb outside of a bank in Oakland, Calif., Friday morning, federal authorities said. Matthew Aaron Llaneza was arrested as part of an undercover FBI terror sting and charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Federal authorities allege that Llaneza, of San Jose, Calif., is a Taliban sympathizer who wanted to conduct a terrorist attack in the United States. Previously incarcerated for possessing an AK-47 assault rifle, he was released from state prison in November 2011. Authorities alleged he first met an undercover FBI agent he believed was connected with the Taliban and mujahideen in Afghanistan on Nov. 30, 2012.

FBI agent Christopher Monika said in an affidavit that Llaneza initially proposed structuring his attack to make it appear that an “umbrella organization for a loose collection of anti-government militias and their sympathizers” was behind the attack.

“Llaneza’s stated goal was to trigger a governmental crackdown, which he expected would trigger a right-wing counter-response against the government followed by, he hoped, civil war,” Monika wrote.”

No word yet on whether he was radicalized with Islam before, during, or after prison.

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And here’s some ObamaCare news.

From Politico

“The Obama administration’s decision not to subsidize family health insurance  for workers who have individual coverage on the job effectively drops that same  tough call into the laps of employers.

They can pay for the coverage and threaten the bottom line. Or they can in turn pass the problem on to the families.”

“So to the dismay of many advocates of health coverage expansion, spouses and  kids could fall through the cracks.

The Government Accountability Office, using 2009 data, estimated that about 7  percent of uninsured children — 460,000 — would remain uninsured because parents  wouldn’t be able to afford coverage for the whole family.”

The Medical Device Tax’s days are numbered. I hope.

From HotAir

“Instead, the repeal process uncovered the many fiscal fictions that bolstered Obamacare’s passage, and led to repeal of at least two onerous and unworkable funding mechanisms—the CLASS Act and the 1099 reporting requirement.

Now, the medical device tax is up for reconsideration again by — wait for it— Republicans and Democrats, making for yet another repeal attempt that’s far more bipartisan than the original passing of Obamacare.

A bipartisan group of 180 House members — consisting of about 40 percent of the House — has reintroduced a bill to end the 2.3 percent tax on medical devices that was imposed under President Obama’s healthcare law.”

And Pennsylvania and Indiana say “no thanks”.

From HotAir

“The Obama administration has made it abundantly clear that it would really just be oh so very helpful if all of the states would voluntarily comply with their proffered Medicaid expansion deal; ObamaCare really needs everybody to cooperate in order to work properly, so it’s really most unfortunate for them that the Supreme Court ruled last June that states were within their rights to decline the expansions without the threat of the total loss of federal Medicaid funding being held over their heads.

It was something of a boon to the Obama administration when Republican governors John Kasich in Ohio and Rick Snyder in Michigan announced that they were giving in and signing up for the Obama administration’s earlier this week, bringing the total number of GOP-led states participating to six, but other governors are still resisting the power of the all-engulfing big-government dark side. Gov. Corbett in Pennsylvania served the administration with his disinclination on Tuesday:

Pennsylvania is taking a pass on a major expansion to its Medicaid program, at least for now.”

“And in Indiana, Gov. Mike Pence protested that he won’t be participating without more state-administered flexibility on how to run the program:”

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And last, this. 🙂

From RealClearPolitics

“Famed Baltimore neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson addressed the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday morning on healthcare. Dr. Carson often criticized Obamacare and government intrusion in healthcare while President Obama sat in the audience.”

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