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The Department of Health and Human Services released nearly 1,300 pages of new regulations related to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) at 4:15 Thursday, just as the nation was beginning their Independence Day holiday weekend. The regulations deal with payment rates to doctors and hospitals. How doctors get paid by HHS through the new, overreaching Obamacare guidelines has been an item of concern for the American Medical Association, a key supporter of the health care law. As Philip Klein at the Washington Examiner points out, the practice of dumping potentially controversial regulations on the eve of a major holiday has...

Type “Obamacare rollout disaster” into the Google search engine, and you get approximately 290,000 results, most of them dating back to the days immediately following the catastrophic October 2013 launch of Healthcare.gov. Significantly, however, the most recent results focus on the Judicial Watch release on May 19, 2014. That’s the date Judicial Watch released a 106-page document we obtained on May 1 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that reveals the shocking details of the rollout disaster. Though the Obama administration tried to cover up the full extent of the website failure in the days following...

Leaked documents now show what we all suspected: the NSA can turn your iPhone’s microphone and camera on and off without you knowing. According to Der Spiegel’s website: “The NSA’s ANT division develops implants for mobile phones and SIM cards. One of these is a spyware implant called “DROPOUTJEEP” — designed for the first generation of iPhones — which was still in development in 2008, shortly after the iPhone’s launch. This spyware was to make it possible to remotely download or upload files to a mobile phone. It would also, according to the catalog, allow the NSA to divert text...

An undated internal “Quick Hits” problem identification analysis forwarded to Gun Rights Examiner by an insider source yesterday points to “poor management,” an “unfair disciplinary system” that includes “retaliation,” and “ethical violations” from the Chief Counsel’s office among the issues requiring management resolution. The document, represented by the source as the result of meetings between Deputy Director Thomas E. Brandon and a “working group” that took place earlier this year, accuses Counsel of “inhibit[ing] leaders from doing the right thing” by having “too much involvement in all bureau processes,” and among its solutions recommends “Do not tolerate ethical violations from...

There are many who thought this day might never come: we finally have a document from Obama’s college years. Well, sort of. Let me explain before you look. The website Buzzfeed has unearthed a copy of a syllabus from a class Obama used to teach at, presumably, the University of Chicago. So while it’s not what many have been hoping for (transcripts from when Obama was taking classes), it is technically a document from his college years — the years he was teaching. The syllabus is for a class called “Voting Rights” from the winter of 2002. And guess what...

British researchers say they've developed a laser process that can "uncopy" toner ink from paper as an alternative to traditional recycling. Scientists at the University of Cambridge say the process involves short laser pulses to erase words and images by heating the printed material to the point that it vaporizes. The technique works with commonly used papers and toner inks and is more eco-friendly than recycling, they said. "When you fire the laser, it hits the thin toner layer and heats it up until the point that you vaporize it," researcher David Leal-Ayala told the BBC. "Toner is mostly composed...

U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives www.atf.gov February 3, 2011 MEMORANDUM TO: Special Agent in Charge, Dallas Field Division THRU: Resident Agent in Charge , Lubbock Field Office FROM: Gary M. Styers, Special Agent, Lubbock Field Office SUBJECT: Contact with Congressional Investigators On February 2, 2011, at approximately 1500 hours, ATF Special Agent Gary Styers was contacted telephonically by Robert Donovan and Brian Downey, representing United States Senator Chuck Grassley and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Downey and Donovan after identifying themselves asked Special Agent Styers if he would be willing to answer some questions regarding...

Senators 'Disappointed' by Omission of Radical Islam From Homegrown Terror DocumentPublished December 09, 2011 | FoxNews.com Two prominent senators chided the Obama administration for releasing a strategic plan on homegrown terror that doesn't mention radical Islam and likens domestic extremism to "gang violence" and "sexual offenses." The 24-page plan, released Thursday, follows a Defense Department letter in October that classified the Fort Hood massacre as "workplace violence." Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, criticized that classification at a hearing earlier this week, and along with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., issued the statement Thursday questioning why the Obama administration omitted Islam from its...

Scholastic Inc. is a nearly century-old educational publishing company that distributes books, magazines, and other teaching materials through the schools. If you have kids (or remember from your own grade-school days), Scholastic puts out news bulletins that get sent home weekly or monthly. One of those items is Scholastic News, which bills itself as “America’s Leading News Source for kids.” Reader Edward has a daughter in fourth grade who brought home the December issue of Scholastic News — and he wasn’t too happy when he saw the publication’s coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Read for yourself (click for...

The investigation revealed that the plastic laminates, and other document-making implements supplied by Serrano and others over several years have been used to manufacture thousands of false documents. The indictment alleges that Serrano has been intercepted on a wiretap discussing the fact that he has been engaged in the false document business for more than a decade. Evidence developed during the investigation revealed that the fraudulent documents were utilized by illegal aliens to gain employment, as well as other citizenship and residency related benefits. In addition, the operation supported a variety of criminal activity, in that the false documents were...

In a fledgling nation hungry for men to fight in the American Revolution, conscientious objectors were frequently greeted with scorn and their loyalty was questioned. (According to FR rules, please go to the link to read this most interesting story.)

It looks like the National Education Association is not putting its money where its mouth is. In its mission statement, the nation’s largest teachers union asserts that “we will focus the energy and resources of our 3.2 million members on improving the quality of teaching, increasing student achievement and making schools safer, better places to learn.” But a secret union document reveals that the NEA’s commitment to “improv(ing) teaching and learning” works out to a paltry $7.44 per member every year. This is according to a document obtained from an internal source of the Indiana State Teachers Association, one of...

A top aide to Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin supplied an answer last year to a thorny question a friendly witness would face the next day at a pivotal hearing on for-profit colleges, raising questions of witness tampering, an email obtained by The Daily Caller shows. As Harkin prepares for another event on the same subject at 2:00 p.m. today, the email raises fresh concerns about the senator’s committee conduct after he recently faced accusations from Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigators that he pressured them on an error-ridden report unveiled at the very same hearing. That Senate Health, Education, Labor...

Is constitutionalism akin to blind faith? Some statists certainly think so, as they have called the position “constitution-worship.” In light of this, what should we call those who lack that “faith”? Given that they don’t believe in the Constitution, and that the document is the supreme law of the land, can it be said that they don’t believe in law? Are these people, who are often atheists, also “alegalists”? Whatever you call them, they’re more visible and brazen than ever. Writing in Time magazine recently, Richard Stengel insisted that our Constitution “must accommodate each new generation and circumstance.” Georgetown professor...

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY Liberty is a free agency to do a thing or not at pleasure.Rational Liberty is a freedom of doing a thing from some motive agreeable to a Moral Law which is always founded in Reason or perfect vertitude.Religious Liberty is a freedom of doing right or any Moral action or refraining from any immoral or wrong action accord to the dictates of a person’s conscience. Every rule of conscious was given an intelligent Being by his Creator who created his Mind, to govern his actions and to his curator alone every such Being is only accountable rationally expecting...

I’ve been keeping you abreast of all the Obama administration’s Project Gunrunner stonewalling since March (links/chronology below). Today, vigilant GOP House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa is holding another hearing to pressure Team Obama for the whole truth. On Monday, Issa and GOP watchdogs spotlighted DOJ obstructionism (Sipsey Street Irregulars has a rundown here.) More fit is hitting the shan. And in one of those rare confluences, other MSM outlets have joined CBS News in exposing the story. First, new documents. Just in from Issa’s office: Moments ago in his opening statement at today’s hearing, Operation Fast and...

After Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson testified on Feb. 2 that regulating drinking water might help prevent children from getting autism, CNSNews.com asked Jackson by e-mail whether she could provide “any data, studies, documents, reports or other sources” to confirm her claim. Her office subsequently stated there were “emerging studies” but provided no evidence. In an e-mail statement to CNSNews.com on Feb. 11, Jackson said there were “emerging studies” that show a possible link between autism and environmental factors. But repeated requests by e-mail and by telephone to t

Monday, January 31, 2011 New USCCB Document Highlights Biblical Quotations in the Mass The Catholic Mass draws heavily from Scripture--in every prayer you hear quotations and allusions to biblical texts. In fact, last year I did a series presentations now available through Saint Joseph Communications here (shameless plug!) exploring the biblical backdrop for the prayers of the Mass.   Now the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has put out a footnoted version of the prayers of the new translation of the liturgy, alerting you to the Biblical background of each of the prayers.  Some examples: The response: "The Lord be...

For three days running, Al-Jazeera has been pounding the Palestinian Authority with release of hundreds of PA negotiating documents, which show Mahmoud Abbas as a two-faced leader -- publicly insisting on getting all of East Jerusalem, including the entire Old City, while privately agreeing to Israel's retention of virtually all Jewish neighborhoods in the eastern sector of Israel's capital. Or as Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat put it to an Israeli interlocutor: "We're giving you the largest Jewish Yerushalaim ever." With the Palestinians being that flexible and pragmatic about Jerusalem, the question

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that a peace agreement does not guarantee the existence of peace, which is why he insists on security arrangements.