Hallmark Cards regrets taking word 'gay' off ornament

(Reuters) - Hallmark Cards has apologized for changing a word in a well-known Christmas carol from "gay" to "fun" on a holiday ornament.

The Kansas City-based company created an ornament for its Keepsake line depicting a miniature sweater bearing the words "Don we now our fun apparel," instead of the lyric "Don we now our gay apparel" from the Christmas carol "Deck the Halls."

"We've been surprised at the wide range of reactions expressed about the change of lyrics on this ornament, and we're sorry to have caused so much concern," Hallmark said in a Twitter posting on its website on Thursday.

"We never intend to offend or make political statements with our products, and in hindsight we realize we shouldn't have changed the lyrics on the ornament," it said.

Hallmark did not say where negative reaction to the ornament came from, but a leader of one Kansas City gay rights organization said on Friday that the company went overboard in using the word "fun" on the ornament.

"The whole thing seems silly to us," said Mitch Levine, community ambassador of the Lesbian and Gay Community Center of Kansas City. "No one was offended by that in the song and the change was not necessary."

Levine said he had received nine media calls about the ornament and wishes so much attention was given to more serious affronts to gays and lesbians, such as homophobic lyrics in some new songs.

In an earlier statement about the ornament, Hallmark said that when the lyrics to "Deck the Halls" were converted from Gaelic to English in the 1800s, the word gay meant festive or merry.

"Today it has multiple meanings, which we thought could leave our intent open to misinterpretation," Hallmark said.

It then explained its selection of the word "fun":

"The trend of wearing festively decorated Christmas sweaters to parties is all about fun, and this ornament is intended to play into that, so the planning team decided to say what we meant: 'fun.' That's the spirit we intended and the spirit in which we hope ornament buyers will take it."

Via: Reuters

Continue Reading.....

[VIDEO] GOP Weekly Address: Sen. Dan Coats On How Obamacare Hurts The Middle Class - Saturday November 1, 2013

GOP: In the Weekly Republican Address, U.S. Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana says that fixing the faulty Obamacare website isn't going to solve the deep and systemic problems plaguing the ill-conceived health care law. "The failure of Obamacare launch is just the tip of the iceberg, and unless we act, Americans will be stuck on board this Titanic," says Coats, who has introduced legislation to delay the Obamacare mandates for one year. While the President granted a one-year delay for employers who don't provide health insurance coverage to workers, he refuses to grant similar relief to individuals and families who must purchase their own health plans. "This simply isn't fair," Coats says.

Via: Real Clear Politics

Continue Reading.......

[VIDEO] Obama Weekly Address - Passing a Budget that Reflects Our Priorities - Saturday November 2, 2013

In this week’s address, President Obama says that in order to keep growing the economy and creating good jobs, Washington must end its cycle of manufactured crises and self-inflicted wounds. It’s time for both parties to work together to pass a budget that reflects our priorities – making smart cuts in things we don’t need and closing wasteful tax loopholes, while investing in areas that create opportunities for the middle class and our future generations.

Via: WhiteHouse.gov

Continue Reading.....

Deep sleep: ObamaCare site goes offline for extended maintenance

The problem-plagued ObamaCare website will be shut down Saturday night for “extended” repairs, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Technicians have shut down HealthCare.gov during weekends since the site launched Oct. 1 but just for a few overnight hours.

The site will go offline this weekend from 9 p.m. Saturday until 9 a.m. Sunday.

"The HealthCare.gov tech team is performing extended maintenance this weekend to improve network infrastructure and make enhancements to the online application and enrollment tools,” agency spokeswoman Joanne Peters said Saturday.   

The Obama administration says Americas can still apply for insurance coverage by calling a toll-free number available around the clock.

In recent weeks, the administration has brought in outside experts to assist in getting the site running so Americans can enroll before premiums kick in January 1, 2014.

Officials say their goal is to eliminate such problems as volume-related crashes, slow response times and incorrect information before the insurance policies kick in January 1, 2014.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading.....

CUCCINELLI CAMPAIGNS WITH SCOTT WALKER, RON PAUL

In the final weekend of the campaign for Virginia Governor, Republican Ken Cuccinelli has announced rallies with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Congressman Ron Paul, among other Republicans. The Cuccinelli campaign has put its hopes for a come-from-behind victory in energizing base Republican and conservative voters. Walker and Paul both have unique appeal with voters Cuccinelli needs on Tuesday. 

Walker will attend two rallies for Cuccinelli on Saturday, appearing in Spotslyvania and Woodbridge, two Northern Virginia suburbs were the Republican needs a strong vote. Ron Paul will attend an evening rally on Monday, the eve of the election in Richmond. 

Libertarian candidate Richard Sarvis has unexpectedly polled strongly in the race, attracting around 10% of voters. According to polls, Sarvis is drawing more support away from Cuccinelli than Democrat McAuliffe. Ron Paul has a very strong following among Sarvis supporters and his appearance with Cuccinelli is meant to stem the tide of defections from the Republican. 

For most of the campaign, Cuccinelli ran a very conventional race. He downplayed his conservative positions and focused on more narrow Virginia-specific issues. After an exceptionally negative campaign, both he and McAuliffe have high negative ratings with voters. With turnout expected to be low, Cuccinelli is returning to conservative themes to energize grass roots turnout. 

On a conference call with reporters on Friday, Cuccinelli, at least twice, mentioned he was the "pro-liberty" candidate. He reiterated his early opposition to ObamaCare. He stressed that Obama's campaigning this weekend for McAuliffe made the election a "referendum" on ObamaCare. Cuccinelli is, at last, trying to nationalize the election. 

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading.....

LAX shooter was 'calm, pacing, scanning the crowd' during rampage

/ 33 SHARE:

A police presence ( Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times / November 1, 2013 ) Police officers make their way through Terminal 3 at LAX, where a gunman opened fire, killing a TSA agent and wounding several others.

Pico Rivera residents Luz and Jose Mendez arrived at Los Angeles International Airport around 8 a.m. Friday to catch a flight to Cancun for vacation. Before they boarded, the couple decided to stop at the Terminal 3 Starbucks for coffee.

In line, they suddenly saw a group of people running toward them and then heard a series of gunshots.

“Down! Down! Down! There’s a shooter!” someone yelled.

MORE: Eyewitness accounts of LAX shooting

In the terminal food court, Demetrius Trammel was inside the Gladstone’s 4 Fish restaurant kitchen when he saw a mob of people running frantically. Some were coming in the restaurant and others running out, he said.

Then Trammel heard a gunshot and everybody dropped to the floor at the same time.

The Mendezes, meanwhile, ran toward the nearby Burger King for shelter. But the couple got separated -- Jose was herded into the kitchen and Luz into a storage room. There wasn't enough room for everyone, Jose said, and some people had to hide under tables and chairs in the Burger King dining room. Jose said he was one of about 40 people “packed” into the kitchen “like sardines.”  

That's about when Trammel said he saw a man emerge from the crowd with what appeared to be an AR-15 rifle in a shoulder holster.

The gunman calmly walked through the lobby with the gun pointed at an angle toward the ground, Trammel recalled.

"He was looking around," Trammel said. "He was calm, pacing, scanning the crowd, like he was looking for somebody specifically."

Trammel said he made brief eye contact with the gunman, then he saw three men in helmets and face masks crouching along the wall, making their way toward the gunman.

Via: LA Times

Continue Reading......

Los Angeles County: Labor groups protest at county building over Prop. 13 tax loophole

Labor and community advocacy groups staged a brief sit-in outside the office of Los Angeles County's chief executive Friday calling on the county to scrutinize the property tax assessments of a major downtown property owner.

The activists from the ReFund LA Coalition say commercial property giant Brookfield Office Properties structured its recent acquisition of four downtown skyscrapers to take advantage of a tax loophole and avoid having the properties reassessed at fair market value as required by Proposition 13 when a change of ownership occurs.

The coalition has recently targeted prominent Los Angeles property owners as part of a campaign to reform the property tax law.

They say the company could avoid paying more than $10 million in property taxes a year by taking less than a 50% stake in a new entity that will take title to the properties and others now held by Brookfield.

About 100 activists rallied at Brookfield's Bank of America Plaza on South Hope Street and then marched to the county's Hall of Administration, where they rallied and then sat and chanted outside of county Chief Executive William T Fujioka's office until Fujioka emerged and took a copy of a letter stating their demands.

The activists called on the county to scrutinize Brookfield's properties -- along with those of other major commerical property owners -- and reassess the newly purchased properties, and to take a stand in favor of reforming Proposition 13 to close the loophole for commercial property owners.

SEIU Local 721, which is in the midst of contentious labor negotiations with the county and is part of the ReFund coalition, made similar requests as part of the contract talks but has accused the county of ignoring them.

Some union members have questioned why that issue is being brought up as part of the negotiations. But SEIU member Jesse Pinedo, an accountant supervisor with the county's internal services department, said he thinks it is important.

"This affects us, too, because with those funds, they can give us the raise that we deserve," he said, as well as paying for other public services.

Via: LA Times

Continue Reading.....

Americans Keep Moving to States With Low Taxes and Housing Costs

Where are Americans moving, and why? Timothy Noah, writing in the Washington Monthly, professes to be puzzled. He points out that people have been moving out of states with high per capita incomes -- Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland -- to states with lower income levels.

"Why are Americans by and large moving away from economic opportunity rather than toward it?" he asks.

Actually, it's not puzzling at all. The movement from high-tax, high-housing-cost states to low-tax, low-housing-cost states has been going on for more than 40 years, as I note in my new book Shaping Our Nation: How Surges of Migration Transformed America and Its Politics.

Between 1970 and 2010, the population of New York state increased from 18 million to 19 million. In that same period, the population of Texas increased from 11 million to 25 million.

The picture is even starker if you look at major metro areas. The New York metropolitan area, including counties in New Jersey and Connecticut, increased from 17.8 million in 1970 to 19.2 million in 2010 -- up 8 percent. During that time, the nation grew 52 percent.

In the same period, the four big metro areas in Texas -- Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin -- grew from 6 million to 15.6 million, a 160 percent increase.

Contrary to Noah's inference, people don't move away from opportunity. They move partly in response to economic incentives, but also to pursue dreams and escape nightmares.

Opportunity does exist in the Northeastern states and in California -- for people with very high skill levels and for low-skill immigrants, without whom those metro areas would have lost, rather than gained, population over the last three decades.

But there's not much opportunity there for people with midlevel skills who want to raise families. Housing costs are exceedingly high, partly, as Noah notes, because of restrictive land use and zoning regulations.

And central city public schools, with a few exceptions, repel most middle-class parents.

High taxes produce revenues to finance handsome benefits and pensions for public employee union members in the high-cost states. It's hard to see how this benefits middle-class people making their livings in the private sector.

Via: Real Clear Politics

Continue Reading....

Court strikes down mandate for birth control in ObamaCare

A federal appeals court on Friday struck down the birth control mandate in ObamaCare, concluding the requirement trammels religious freedom.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — the second most influential bench in the land behind the Supreme Court — ruled 2-1 in favor of business owners who are fighting the requirement that they provide their employees with health insurance that covers birth control.

Requiring companies to cover their employees’ contraception, the court ruled, is unduly burdensome for business owners who oppose birth control on religious grounds, even if they are not purchasing the contraception directly.

“The burden on religious exercise does not occur at the point of contraceptive purchase; instead, it occurs when a company’s owners fill the basket of goods and services that constitute a healthcare plan,” Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote on behalf of the court.

Legal analysts expect the Supreme Court to ultimately pick up an appeal on the birth-control requirement and make a final decision on its constitutionality.

In the meantime, Republicans in Congress have pushed for a conscience clause that would allow employers to opt out of providing contraception coverage for moral or religious reasons.

The measure emerged most recently during negotiations to fund the federal government. Some House Republicans wanted to include the conscience clause in a legislative package ending the government shutdown.

The split ruling against the government on Friday was the latest in a string of court cases challenging the healthcare law’s mandate.

Friday’s ruling centered on two Catholic brothers, Francis and Philip Gilardi, who own a 400-person produce company based in Ohio.

Via: The Hill

Continue Reading.....

ObamaCare To Slam Boston Marathon Charity Hospital?

The nonprofit hospital that treated the final victim of the Boston Marathon bombing attack will have its tax-exempt status reviewed under Obamacare and could face hefty fines and other penalties.

 

Boston’s Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, which treated amputee Marc Fucarile as he recovered from the loss of his leg in the April 15 terrorist attack, is run by a nonprofit 501(c)3 hospital network that will be subject to new scrutiny of its tax-exempt status and potentially massive fines under Obamacare.

A new provision in Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code, which takes effect under Obamacare, sets new standards of review and installs new financial penalties for tax-exempt charitable hospitals. To be tax-exempt, hospitals have to devote a certain minimum amount of their expenses to treat uninsured poor people.

Via: Daily Caller

Continue Reading.....

[VIDEO] Ellison Barber: Obamacare’s Swollen Medicaid Rolls Threaten State Budgets

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
November 1, 2013 9:59 pm

The Washington Free Beacon’s Ellison Barber warned Obamacare’s medicaid expansion may ultimately backfire on state budgets across the country Friday on The Kelly File.

Host Megyn Kelly cited medicaid enrollment figures which are thus far outstripping enrollment in the Obamacare exchanges.

The danger with this, Barber said, is that healthy people who would otherwise drive down costs at the traditional exchanges are factored out of the insurance market completely. Thus, prices at the traditional healthcare exchanges will increase.

Moreover, according to Barber, states have not budgeted for the increased costs associated with all of the new medicaid enrollees. Although the federal government will cover the expansion initially, come 2017 the states who have accepted the expanded entitlement will incur increased medicaid expenses. This could compel states to cut spending or raise taxes to cover the new costs, Barber pointed out:

MEGYN KELLY: They say, look, these folks who are rushing onto these medicaid rolls were already going to the hospital, they were getting sick, running up our bill. So that was already something we already were having to pay for. Now it’s just out in the open. The numbers of them and who they are, and the system is working exactly as they expected it to work.

ELLISON BARBER: Sure, I think a lot of states would disagree with that though because I think there are a lot of states that are worried about in terms of the finances of this. Or they haven’t budgeted for having all these extra millions of people in every single state. And states are a little bit different, the thing to remember about states is states are different from the federal government. Every state except Vermont has a balanced budget provision either in their state constitution or state statute. So for Georgia, for example, there is a balanced budget amendment written into the constitution. They cannot expand spending, even if they want to. So to have to care for all these people on medicaid now, when they haven’t planned for it in their budget,  they’re either going to have to raise taxes, raise income payroll taxes or cut things for other spending, like for roads, schools and things like that. There are a lot bigger problems that go with it. It’s one of those ideas that sounds nice, to be like there are a lot of people who still need insurance so let’s expand it to help people get on for free who can’t pay for it. But there are real costs that come with it. And it’s taxpayers — even in the states like we talked about the other day, 26 states signed up for this. But it’s federal money that is paying for the newly eligible people, that’s everyone, if it’s not in your state you’re still paying.

Via: WFB

Continue Reading.....

Hannity Takes on Juan Williams: 'You're Justifying a Major Lie' by President Obama

Sean Hannity and David Limbaugh went up against Juan Williams Thursday night in a lively debate over whether President Obama knowingly misled the American people about keeping their health insurance plans.

"After being caught [in a lie], he's trying to scapegoat insurance companies and Republicans. ... The government interfering with market principles has caused the price to go up," said Limbaugh.

Williams countered that private insurance companies were "bankrupting families" in the previous system, but Limbaugh fired back that the American health care system was the best in the world before the government got involved.

Hannity said there is a "supreme arrogance" to the way ObamaCare has been set up.

"Juan, why the hell do you feel you have the right to empower your government to force people to choose something they don't want!? said Hannity, arguing that Democrats have a "belief in the government that borders on insanity."

Williams said he's not trying to empower anybody, likening ObamaCare to programs like Social Security and calling it a "national compact" to protect people who don't have access to health care.

Hannity ended by telling Williams that he's trying to "justify" Obama's lie to the American people.

Watch the debate above, and tune in to Hannity, tonight at 10p/1a ET as experts and insiders fact-check ObamaCare and its promises.

Via: Fox News Insider

Continue Reading.....