Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) introduced an "Obamacare Repeal Act" that would repeal the Affordable Care Act "as if such Act had not been enacted."

The text of Cruz's bill to repeal the 2,700-page law barely runs onto the third page.

"This repeal bill is pro-growth, pro-jobs, and pro-liberty." Cruz says in a statement on the bill. "It provides time for Congress to start over, to pass true market-based reforms that will allow the purchase of insurance across state lines, expand health savings accounts, and make health insurance, personal, portable, and affordable."

The bill is co-sponsored by 44 Senate Republicans, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

If Republicans could get around a Democratic filibuster, Cruz would be the only prospective presidential candidate who could claim to have authored the first Obamacare repeal that passed through Congress.

Among Cold War presidents, from Truman to Bush I, there was an unwritten rule: Do not challenge Moscow in its Central and Eastern Europe sphere of influence.
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That Cold War caution and prudence may be at an end.

For President Obama is being goaded by Congress and the liberal interventionists in his party to send lethal weaponry to Kiev in its civil war with pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk. That war has already cost 5,000 lives—soldiers, rebels, civilians. September’s cease-fire in Minsk has broken down.
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Late last year, Congress sent Obama a bill authorizing lethal aid to Kiev. He signed it. Now the New York Times reports that NATO Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove favors military aid to Ukraine, as does Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. John Kerry and Gen. Martin Dempsey of the joint chiefs are said to be open to the idea.

A panel of eight former national security officials, chaired by Michele Flournoy, a potential Defense Secretary in a Hillary Clinton administration, has called for the U.S. to provide $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, reconnaissance drones, Humvees, and radar to locate the sources of artillery and missile fire. Such an arms package would guarantee an escalation of the war, put the United States squarely in the middle, and force Vladimir Putin’s hand.

...But if U.S. cargo planes start arriving in Kiev with Javelin anti-tank missiles, Putin would face several choices.

He could back down, abandon the rebels, and be seen as a bully who, despite his bluster, does not stand up for Russians everywhere. More in character, he could take U.S. intervention as a challenge and send in armor and artillery to enable the rebels to consolidate their gains, then warn Kiev that, rather than see the rebels routed, Moscow will intervene militarily. Or Putin could order in the Russian army before U.S. weapons arrive, capture Mariupol, establish a land bridge to Crimea, and then tell Kiev he is ready to negotiate.

What would we do then? Send U.S. advisers to fight alongside the Ukrainians, as the war escalates and the casualties mount? Send U.S. warships into the Black Sea? Have we thought this through, as we did not think through what would happen if we brought down Saddam, Gadhafi, and Mubarak?

America has never had a vital interest in Crimea or the Donbass worth risking a military clash with Russia. And we do not have the military ability to intervene and drive out the Russian army, unless we are prepared for a larger war and the potential devastation of the Ukraine.

What would Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon or Reagan think of an American president willing to risk military conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia over two provinces in southeastern Ukraine that Moscow had ruled from the time of Catherine the Great?

What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy and a disaster. And we are in part responsible, having egged on the Maidan coup that overthrew the elected pro-Russian government.
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Rather than becoming a co-belligerent in this civil war that is not our war, why not have the United States assume the role of the honest broker who brings it to an end. Isn’t that how real peace prizes are won?
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There's no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.

And it's a lie that has consequences, because the great American dream is to have a good job, and in recent years, America has failed to deliver that dream more than it has at any time in recent memory. A good job is an individual's primary identity, their very self-worth, their dignity -- it establishes the relationship they have with their friends, community and country. When we fail to deliver a good job that fits a citizen's talents, training and experience, we are failing the great American dream.

Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America's middle class.

I hear all the time that "unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren't feeling it." When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth -- the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real -- then we will quit wondering why Americans aren't "feeling" something that doesn't remotely reflect the reality in their lives. And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class

A new report from The Brookings Institution, The Atlantic Council, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs urges the administration to be reckless and arm Ukraine.
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The argument for arming Ukraine is just as awful as it was last year. It is the result of insisting that Western governments must “do something” about the conflict in Ukraine and then overestimating the ability of Western governments to do something that will hasten the end of the conflict. Providing weapons to the weaker side in a lopsided conflict certainly is inconsistent with the search for a peaceful solution, since it encourages the weaker side to continue fighting when it has no chance of prevailing.
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Notice that the authors of the report fail to acknowledge of the potential costs of this course of action to Ukraine or to the governments that are expected to provide the military aid, nor do they take seriously the possibility it could spur Russia to more aggressive action. If Western governments help to fuel the conflict with arms shipments, they are guaranteeing that Ukraine will be exposed to a longer war that will inflict even more damage on the country.
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If it is not the worst foreign policy idea of the last decade, it is certainly in the top three.
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Sen. Rand Paul, (R-KY), the libertarian son of Fed scourge and former presidential candidate Ron Paul, last week proposed legislation with 30 Senate sponsors that would subject Fed monetary policy decisions to reviews by the Government Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog.

With Republicans in control of the House and Senate and hostile to the Fed’s post-crisis monetary policies, the idea could get a breath of new life in Congress this year, much to the chagrin of Fed officials. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala) has suggested he’s interested in the Paul bill, though it’s unclear how far he is willing to take it. He is not a co-sponsor.

“I’m very interested in some type of audit of the Fed, especially the portfolio,” Mr. Shelby said in an interview with Bloomberg. But he added, “I don’t want to be a member of the Board of Governors of the Fed. I don’t think Congress’s role should be that.”

The Fed sees GAO reviews of its monetary policy decisions as a congressional intrusion into its independent decision-making.

Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke strongly and successfully resisted “Audit the Fed” proposals and Chairwoman Janet Yellen is sure to do the same. In a December news conference, Ms. Yellen said she would be “very concerned” about such a bill and would “forcefully make the case” against it.

The Fed demonstrated its savvy in dealing with Congress during Dodd-Frank debates in 2010. Efforts to impose congressional inspections of monetary policy and to reduce the Fed’s bank regulatory powers failed. It emerged from those debates in most respects with more power than it had before.

Ms. Yellen will have President Obama on her side again if the bill gets new life. She will also have the central bank’s 12 regional bank presidents, an influential but little seen force in Congress with strong connections in the deep-pocketed business and banking communities around the country.

It remains hard to see the Fed losing this battle.

Steve Pifer is a good friend and a treasured colleague. And Strobe Talbott is my boss—so it goes without saying that I greatly admire his work. But as important as friendship and job security are to me, I still can only conclude that their proposal to arm Ukrainians will lead only to further violence and instability, and possibly a dangerous confrontation with Russia.

Steve and Strobe’s article (and the supporting report with several other prominent authors) rings with fury at Russian actions. And Russian actions are indeed outrageous. But moral indignation, no matter how righteous and satisfying, is not a strategy. A strategy needs to describe just how provision of American arms would make the situation better.

Rather than such a description, the article suggests that a just cause and the Ukrainian need and desire for weapons are enough to justify their provision. But it is hardly surprising that the Ukrainians want American arms in their war against Russia and Russian-backed separatists—they face the possibility of territorial dismemberment and would run any risk to preserve their state intact.

The Ukrainian calculus is one of immediate desperation. But the United States needs to think for the longer-term. And if U.S.-provided weapons fail to induce a Russian retreat in Ukraine and instead cause an escalation of the war, the net result will not be peace and compromise. There has recently been much escalation in Ukraine, but it could go much further. As horrible as it is, the Ukrainian civil war still looks rather tame by the standards of Bosnia, Chechnya or Syria. Further escalation will mean much more violence, suffering and death in Ukraine.

The report authors counter that if the United States does not stand up to Russia in Ukraine, the Putin regime will be emboldened to make similar mischief all over Europe and beyond. This is the familiar credibility argument that gave us the war in Vietnam, among other misadventures. In fact, U.S. credibility is not enhanced by making bluffs that we will not ultimately fulfill or by embarking on wasting wars that we do not need.

In any case, Ukraine is a unique situation, both for the Russians and for the United States. It is culturally and geographically supremely important to the Russians and yet for the United States it has no intrinsic geopolitical importance and is not a treaty ally. The Russians would be foolish to judge U.S. credibility in responding to provocations in areas of greater importance to the United States on the basis of its non-military response to Ukraine. And there is no evidence that they are that foolish.
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Humphrey Khoza, 25, used his laptop to film himself having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend without her knowledge, with the video later finding its way onto social media.

But after the video went viral, the furious teenager confronted Khoza in a pub, calling him a ‘dog’ before throwing battery acid over his lap.

‘Everything happened in a blink of an eye because I saw her when she was coming with a bottle but I didn’t realise that she was carrying acid,’ Khoza, from Mpumalanga, South Africa, told Citi FM Online.

‘She just angrily called me a dog. She asked how in the world I could have done such an evil thing to her. It was only then that I realised that she was talking about the video that I took while we were having sex.’

Khoza, who said he doesn’t know how the video ended up on social media, has been told his penis will never work again and he has to urinate through a tube.

‘Even if I press charges it is useless because it won’t bring back my manhood. Her being in jail will just ruin her future because she is still young and I do not have the energy to attend courts,’ he said.

(CNN)Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has hired several more key operatives to staff a new political committee that he recently established as he considers a run for the Republican presidential nomination, CNN has learned.

Kirsten Kukowski, deputy communications director/press secretary for the Republican National Committee, will serve as communications director for Walker's "Our American Revival" and several members of the Tarrance Group will conduct polling and provide strategic political advice to the governor.

READ: Jeb Bush adds veteran consultants to likely campaign team

Ed Goeas, president and CEO of Tarrance, will serve as a senior adviser, while partner Brian Tringali and senior vice president B.J. Martino will oversee polling. Tringali and Martino have worked for Walker in his previous gubernatorial campaigns.

In addition, Mark Stephenson, who worked on Joni Ernst's successful Iowa Senate campaign among others, has signed on as Walker's chief data officer.

For Jose Perez, a Venezuelan taxi driver from Caracas, the hardest part about watching his wife die from heart failure was knowing just how easily she could have been saved.

The surgeons at the Caracas University Hospital were ready to operate on 51-year-old Carmen, but because of the shortages of medicines now ravaging Venezuela, they had no stocks of the prosthetic artery that would have saved her life.

For a day, the family enjoyed a glimmer of hope after a nationwide search uncovered one such device, but Carmen needed two and a second one was nowhere to be found. She died two days later.

It is life-and-death stories like these that illustrate the depth of the economic crisis now confronting Venezuela, a crumbling socialist-run petro-state that looks in danger of being tipped over the edge by the crunch in world oil prices.

For Venezuelans like Mr Perez and tens of thousands more awaiting medical treatment around the country, the magic realism of Hugo Chavez’s great Bolivarian socialist revolution has turned to bitter reality less than two years after the former leader’s death from cancer.

As Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey waited to depart on a trade mission to Israel in 2012, his entourage was delayed by a late arrival: Mr. Christie’s father, who had accidentally headed to the wrong airport.

A commercial flight might have left without him, but in this case, there was no rush. The private plane, on which Mr. Christie had his own bedroom, had been lent by Sheldon G. Adelson, the billionaire casino owner and supporter of Israel. At the time, he was opposing legislation then before the governor to legalize online gambling in New Jersey.

Mr. Christie loaded the plane with his wife, three of his four children, his mother-in-law, his father and stepmother, four staff members, his former law partner and a state trooper.

King Abdullah of Jordan picked up the tab for a Christie family weekend at the end of the trip. The governor and two staff members who accompanied him came back to New Jersey bubbling that they had celebrated with Bono, the lead singer of U2, at three parties, two at the king’s residence, the other a Champagne reception in the desert. But a small knot of aides fretted: The rooms in luxurious Kempinski hotels had cost about $30,000; what would happen if that became public?

Finding a bottom: According to recent comments by the Secretary-General when he was in London, the oil market doesn't need to look for oil prices to bottom as the market has already bottomed. Instead, he offered quite bullish comments by saying, "Now the prices are around $45-$55, and I think maybe they [have] reached the bottom and we [will] see some rebound very soon."

Normally that type of remark would be just another layer of noise, but this is coming from OPEC's Secretary-General so it comes with a lot of weight behind it.

That said, he's not saying that OPEC will come in and rescue the oil market by reversing its previous decision to hold steady on production. Instead, he sees the signs that the oil market is self-correcting as oil companies have made deep cuts to spending, which will eventually lead to lower production growth.

TOKYO — The United States and North Korea have been actively discussing the possibility of returning to denuclearization talks, raising the prospect of a new round of diplomacy even as Washington takes a tougher line against Pyongyang.

The countries’ nuclear envoys have been discussing the idea of “talks about talks,” according to multiple people with knowledge of the conversations. But they have not been able to agree on the logistics — in no small part because of North Korea’s continuing Ebola quarantine.

“We want to test if they have an interest in resuming negotiations,” a senior U.S. administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “I think we’ve made it very clear that we would like to see them take some steps first.”

Those steps would include suspending work at North Korea’s nuclear facilities and pledging not to conduct any further nuclear tests, he said.

After years of broken North Korean promises, American negotiators are wary about taking Pyongyang at its word. But North Korea reacted angrily Sunday to the suggestion that it, not Washington, was the hurdle to resuming talks.

His wrinkly skin, cataracts and difficulty swallowing are common enough in old age. But Jonathan had been ambling around for a century before today’s pensioners were born.

At the age of 183, this tortoise is thought to be the world’s oldest living land creature. Born in 1832 at the latest, he has plodded through two world wars and numerous revolutions, outlasting all his human companions. He was even photographed, looking rather elderly, with a prisoner during the Boer War, which ended in 1902.

Jonathan, of the species testudinidae cryptodira, was brought to the British territory of St Helena, a tiny island in the South Atlantic, in 1882, when he was already mature, meaning that he was at least 50 years old. He is thought to have been shipped from the Seychelles.

The U.S. has come a long way since the days of trillion-dollar deficits, just a few years ago. The White House projects 2016 will have the smallest budget deficit in eight years. Yet the budgetary impact of the debt that’s been accumulated–$18 trillion in total, $13 trillion of that owed to the public–will reassert itself.

Currently, the government’s interest costs are around $200 billion a year, a sum that’s low due to the era of low interest rates. Forecasters at the White House and Congressional Budget Office believe interest rates will gradually rise, and when that happens, the interest costs of the U.S. government are set to soar, from just over $200 billion to nearly $800 billion a year by decade’s end.


By 2021, the government will be spending more on interest than on all national defense. according to White House forecasts. And one year later, interest costs will exceed nondefense discretionary spending–essentially every other domestic and international government program funded annually through congressional appropriations. (The largest part of the budget is, and will remain, the mandatory spending programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Mandatory spending is over $2 trillion and is set to double to $4 trillion by 2025.)

Finally some rational legislation is passed concerning ‘public servants’ unlawfully entering another person’s property.

All too often, we see examples of cops breaking into the wrong house and shooting the family dog, or worse, killing a member of the family.

Well, Indiana has taken action to “recognize the unique character of a citizen’s home and to ensure that a citizen feels secure in his or her own home against unlawful intrusion by another individual or a public servant.”

This special amendment is no revolutionary new thought, only common sense.

Self-defense is a natural right; when laws are in place that protect incompetent police by removing one’s ability to protect one’s self, simply because the aggressor has a badge and a uniform, this is a human rights violation. Indiana is leading the way by recognizing this right and creating legislation to protect it.

Of course cops have already begun to fear monger the passage of this bill, “If I pull over a car and I walk up to it and the guy shoots me, he’s going to say, ‘Well, he was trying to illegally enter my property,’ ” said Joseph Hubbard, 40, president of Jeffersonville Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 100. “Somebody is going get away with killing a cop because of this law.”

Instead of looking at the beneficial aspect of this law, which creates the incentive for police to act responsibly and just, Hubbard takes the ‘higher than thou’ attitude and is simply worried about himself.

How about questioning the immoral laws that you are enforcing in the first place? Or how about sympathizing with the innocent people whose pets and family members have been slain, due to police negligence?

Who’s to say that a cop pulling you over to extort money from you for the victimless crime of not wearing a seatbelt, isn’t an unlawful act? Or how about breaking down your door in the middle of the night to kidnap you and throw you in a cage for possessing a plant?

Hopefully this legislation will lead to these arbitrary traffic and drug enforcement “laws” in place solely for revenue collection (aka theft), being brought into question.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) cast himself as a regular Joe during an interview with The Hill conducted at 23,000 feet — in two coach seats on an American Airlines flight from Washington, D.C., to Dallas.

Flying coach is nothing new for Paul, the Tea Party favorite said. He’s logged tens of thousands of miles in coach in recent months as he’s flown around the country touting himself as a possible White House contender in 2016.

Trying to prepare for a presidential campaign from a cramped aisle seat has certain logistical hurdles. Senior aides had to climb over Paul as they took turns in the neighboring seat to brief him.

A flight attendant scolded one of his staffers for standing in the aisle while monitoring the senator’s interview.

Fellow travelers sitting in the same row or behind him viewed the commotion with a mix of bemused curiosity and irritation.

Paul and other Republicans eyeing the White House are working hard to make clear that they are not Mitt Romney, the wealthy businessman who was easily depicted as out of touch in his 2012 campaign.

“I walk to Wal-Mart and shop when I’m at Kentucky and home in Bowling Green. We go to Target, Wal-Mart, T.J. Maxx like other people. We look for bargains. We drive our own cars. We really don’t put on any special airs,” Paul said.

“When you’re part of your community,” he said, “you kind of know what your community is upset about.”...