But Wait! There's More!

There always is...

Here is a screencap of Obama's donation e-mail sent after the Newton school shootings.

This man is a ceaseless campaigner for himself. It's unbelievable how any thinking, feeling person could vote such a twisted individual into office twice.


(With thanks)


Oh... one more thing:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius cannot enforce the Obamacare contraception mandate as it is written, but must follow through on a promise to rewrite the rule to accommodate religious liberty, a federal appeals court ordered.

The Obama administration “represented to the court that it would never enforce [the mandate] in its current form against the appellants or those similarly situated as regards contraceptive services,” the three judges hearing the case wrote in their order.  The Obama team made that promise during oral arguments against Wheaton College and The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which sued over the contraception mandate but lost at the lower court level.

“There will, the government said, be a different rule for entities like the appellants .  .  . We take the government at its word and will hold it to it,” the judges wrote.  They ruled that the Obama administration must rewrite the regulation by August 2013 and provide updates to the court every 60 days. If the government fails to do so, the lawsuits may proceed.

The court also noted that the Obama administration had not made such an expansive pledge outside the courtroom.

“The D.C. Circuit has now made it clear that government promises and press conferences are not enough to protect religious freedom,” The Becket Fund’s Kyle Duncan, who argued the case, said in a statement.  “The court is not going to let the government slide by on non-binding promises to fix the problem down the road.”

Why am I not surprised?

President Barack Obama would veto the House Republican "Plan B" tax proposal designed to avert January 1 tax hikes, the White House said on Wednesday, saying the plan does not do enough to balance spending cuts and tax increases.

The veto threat comes less than two weeks before a series of tax hikes and automatic budget cuts that could push the U.S. economy toward a so-called fiscal cliff and trigger another recession.

Today in history...


George Washington helped forge a nation on December 25th, 1776. Obama is going on a four million dollar holiday while the economic future of the country is at stake and millions of Americans are going hungry. Discuss.


(Gracias)


Let's withdraw from the UN:

By the end of this week, the current 2012 UNGA session will have adopted 22 country-specific resolutions on Israel – and only four on the rest of the world combined, one each for Syria, Iran, North Korea and Burma ...

(thanks)


The Supreme Court of Canada will rule on whether or not a witness can testify wearing a niqab:

A case to be decided Thursday by the Supreme Court of Canada on whether a Muslim woman can wear a niqab while testifying against two men whom she says sexually assaulted her when she was a child is about a clash of values.

On the one side is a religious belief said to be sincerely held, and on the other, the right of an accused to a full defence.

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, accused an uncle and a cousin of repeatedly sexually assaulting her from the time she was six until she was 10. Years later, in 2007, she went to the police, but the case has not yet gone to trial.

At a preliminary hearing, in a room alone with the judge, the woman took off her niqab, which is a face veil that leaves only her eyes uncovered. She told the judge, "The objection is very strong. It's a respect issue, one of modesty and one of, in Islam, we call honour."

She explained she cannot show her face to any men who are not close relatives, and also said, "I, you know, I would feel a lot more comfortable if I didn't have to, you know, reveal my face. You know, just considering, the nature of the case and the nature of the allegations and I think, you know, my face is not going to show any signs of — it's not going to help, it really won't."

After the preliminary hearing, another court ruled the testimony with the judge alone was insufficient, and that woman should undergo a proper evidentiary hearing. The matter of whether she had to uncover her face eventually ended up before the Supreme Court.

Lawyers for the accused men argue that facial cues "can be significant information that help the observer understand what a witness is attempting to communicate and get a sense of who the witness is and how he or she is reacting to questioning."

The art of cross-examination, the lawyers contend, although they admit that questions are prepared in advance, is always partially instinctual, meaning that smiles, winces or other facial tics can be a valuable signal to the cross-examiner that it's time to change direction.

The accused men’s lawyers also say that is not clear whether the woman sees her niqab as a religious requirement, or as "a personal preference and a matter of comfort."

Part of the court evidence is that the woman did remove her niqab to be photographed for a driver's licence, in front of a female photographer. Lawyers for the accused men point out that her religious convictions were not so strong that she refused to go through the licensing process, even though the photo could be demanded by any number of police officers who might be men. 

Kim Jong-Il appears to be corpulent in death as he was in life:

North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.