MFS - The Other News

                      Afternoon Posting.

• HT:Forbes.How ObamaCare May Disrupt Your Health Plan.Imagine if you ran a business, and one day the government told you that you would be fined if you: (1) minimized unnecessary expenses; (2) hired workers to specialize in customer service; (3) invested resources in order to ensure you wouldn’t get victimized by fraud. What would you do? Think quickly: because three months from now, this very system will be the law of the land for our nation’s health insurers.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Obama’s Top 10 Broken Promises (So Far).There’s some bad news… and then there’s some good news.First the bad news: President Barack Obama made so many campaign promises it was hard to choose just ten. Not that we wanted most of these promises to be kept, of course.Now for the good news: No matter what he promised, Obama has been confronted with the reality that he can’t just wave a magic wand and “change” whatever he wants. It is also satisfying to see how pitiful of a job Obama has done with the “Yes We Can” agenda in his first 20 months in office.Number 10: Target Every Source Of Fear In The Americas“That is why there will never be true security unless we focus our efforts on targeting every source of fear in the Americas. That’s what I’ll do as president of the United States.”Talk about believing your own publicity! What could he possibly have been thinking to make such an impossible promise. But then again, when you’re gathering a voter base that hasn’t a clue about defense issues…Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• BREAKING: Rick Sanchez Fired From CNN.CNN released this statement today:“Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well.."They will broadcast CNN Newsroom from 3-5pm for the foreseeable future.The big takeaway – Sanchez calls Stewart “a bigot,” then walks it back a bit, and he implies CNN is run by Jews.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• At Harvard, Groupthink About Islam (The appalling hypocrisy of Martin Peretz’s critics).Last Saturday, at a university-sponsored event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Harvard’s Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, a group of former students launched a research fund in honor of Martin Peretz, a former teacher in the program and the longtime editor in chief of the New Republic. After the event adjourned, the afternoon turned ugly as police had to protect Mr. Peretz while he walked across campus surrounded by a mob of screaming students.For that final sentence, Mr. Peretz apologized and sought atonement. Nonetheless, his column set off a firestorm. The Harvard Crimson reported over 500 protests against the honorary research fund by alumni, students and staff.Harvard accepted the money to create the fund. Yet a member of the Social Studies Standing Committee extolled the protest, while also declaring that everyone on the committee “was—without exception—appalled by Peretz’s comments.”Why not, then, organize an open forum where Mr. Peretz might engage with his critics? That, presumably, was out of the question: better to ensure that students know which side “everyone—without exception” is on.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:BacktoBasics.Communist Party USA – Jobs Growth Plan for 2010.So which is more flawed, Capitalism or Socialism? If you choose Socialism are willing to take that risk on the lives of millions of humans that out of all the countries that have tired it that only America can get it right? The same America that allowed Fannie and Freddie to get us in the mess we are in through regulations from dare I saw members of the DSA?Why do you think that it will work in America? Because of Obama?Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• American College Student Gunned Down, Kidnapped And Tortured In Secret Prison.Lawyers for US citizen held in Yemen say that American agents arranged his arrest and interrogated him for weeks.According to the report Sharif Mobley was an American citizen living in Yemen attending college. After another citizen of Yemen attempted to blow up an airplane in Detroit Sharif Mobley tried to return to America with his son but was denied.Instead the U.S Government had eight masked men jump from two white vans and gun him down in the middle of the street. He was then drug off to a secret torture camp and tortured for months.While it is not possible to independently verify the account of Sharif Mobley’s arrest given by his legal team, few analysts in Yemen doubt that coordination on security operations is occurring at a senior level between US and Yemeni authorities.“There are incidents where we see high level cooperation, and others where that cooperation breaks down,” says Abdul Ghani al-Aryani, a Yemeni political analyst. “If the government of Yemen cooperated in this case, it would be a risk free opportunity to gain credit with the Americans, given the individual in question is an American.”US state department officials contacted by Al Jazeera declined to comment on Mobley’s case, citing concerns over his privacy. The US justice department was contacted to respond to general allegations that the US has played a role in the arrest and interrogation of its own citizens in Yemen, but also refused to comment on the matter. The Pentagon failed to respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• EPA Poised to Throw 800,000 Out of Work.Our liberal rulers are doing everything they can about the jobs situation — that is, everything they can to make it worse. The EPA claims this will save us from all manner of poisons and diseases. Others say that the only significant effects will be economic — and they will be severe.[T]he Inhofe report — written by the Senate Environment and Public Works minority staff titled and titled "EPA's Anti-Industrial Policy: Threatening Jobs and America's Manufacturing Base," — found that the proposed rule, known as "Boiler MACT," could put nearly 800,000 jobs at risk over requirements on commercial and industrial boilers, cement plans and ozone standards.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Turkish nationalists rally in Armenian holy site at Ani.The cathedral was conquered by Turkish ruler Alp Arslan in the 11th Century.Turkish nationalists have said Muslim prayers inside the ruins of a historic Christian cathedral in a move likely to cause friction with Armenians.Hundreds of nationalists travelled to the ruins of the 11th Century cathedral at Ani in eastern Turkey to commemorate a Muslim victory there.The action is being seen as a response to the reopening of another historic Armenian church last month in Turkey.Armenians from across the world came to hear Mass at the church in Lake Van.Religious freedom in Turkey?I hope the European Union keeps them out,for this kind of "Religious freedom" they don't need.Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• 'Red Eye' Host Gutfeld Rips 'Crybaby-in-Chief' Obama for Rebuke of Fox News.“OK let me get this straight -- you're the President of the United States, with both Houses [of Congress] under your control. You also have the most fawning press of any president in the history of the universe and yet you let FNC get under your skin, because it's the only network that doesn't have a thrill up its leg?” he continued. “Obama’s like a sports team who owns the ref, the fans and the field, but refuses to play until the kid in the tenth row stops chewing gum.”Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Muslim fanatic prisoners to be 'de-programmed' using controversial techniques to 'cure' them of beliefs. Psychologists in the Prison Service will try to ‘cure’ extremist Muslim inmates of their political beliefs with controversial therapies similar to those used to ‘de-programme’ members of religious cults.The experimental treatments are being developed by a special Extremism Unit set up by the Ministry of Justice in January last year, The Mail on Sunday has discovered.Sources say the therapy forms part of a wide-ranging strategy to combat Islamic extremism in Britain’s jails.The unit will train staff to recognise the signs of extremism, such as a charismatic prisoner openly challenging the authority of the imam.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Taliban behind abduction of British aid worker.A Taliban leader claims responsibility for kidnapping aid worker in an interview with a Peshawar-based news agency. However, other members of his Taliban group deny it is involved.They say that Mohammad Osman, who heads a local Taliban group, claimed responsibility for the abduction in an interview with the Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP). He also set the conditions for her freedom, namely the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientists accused of ties to al-Qaeda.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Social media wrap: Dee Dee Myers tweets that Robert Gibbs likely is out, Bill Burton in.Dee Dee Myers, Bill Clinton’s press secretary and the first woman to hold that post -- and also the latest left-leaning luminary to join Twitter -- tweeted Wednesday that she (like many others) expects Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to leave his post after the midterms and be replaced by his deputy Bill Burton.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• A Teary Emanuel Gets Dead Fish At White House Send-off.At the 8:30 staff meeting in the Roosevelt Room this morning, departing chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was given a gift by Council of Economic Advisers chair Austan Goolsbee: a dead Asian carp.This was an allusion to the Emanuel legend of his sending a dead fish to a pollster for whom he didn’t care, replicating the scene from The Godfather when the Corleones were alerted of Luca Brasi’s death with a dead fish wrapped in Brasi’s bullet-proof vest. The specific species was a reference to Emanuel’s focus as a member of Congress and White House chief of staff on the aggressive, invasive Asian carp, bane of the Great Lakes, a plankton-devouring creature heading towards Chicago.Said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs: “In Chicago, this is how friends say goodbye.”Yes just keep silent and you won't be sleeping with the fish,now that i made you an offer you can't refuse?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Turkish analyst: Washington increasingly upset with Ankara.'US Jewish lobby which supported Turkey for many years doesn’t understand Ankara's change in attitude toward Israel,' Hurriyet columnist writes, adding, 'We are on verge of entering dangerous waters'."We are on the verge of entering dangerous waters. If we consider the latest developments we’d see that the course is not very good," he said. "For example, the fact that (Turkish President Abdullah) Gul and (Israeli President Shimon) Peres could not meet was externally interpreted as Turkey 'setting a condition.' And the (US administration badly wanted this meeting to take place."Well having joint exercises with China wont improve matters either?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Obama and His Enemies.At least Nixon had the smarts to keep his list of liberal foes a secret.…I’ve never seen a politician run an election with the message “Don’t be stupid, quit your bitching and vote for me.”… There’s a reason that strategy has never been employed: because it’s so insane to think that open berating would inspire a voter to action.In a way, the question was an easy one. And had Obama stuck to the first sentence of his answer — “Look, as president, I swore to uphold the Constitution, and part of that Constitution is a free press” — he probably would have scored points on all sides.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Hogging the limelight: Meet Zhu Jianqiang, the two-legged pig who's become a celebrity in China.Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.