Spring Break For Michelle Obama, Her Daughters and Mother Courtesy Of Taxpayers

Michelle Obama plans a week long solo visit to China this month that includes meetings with China's first lady and high school and university students.

It will be her first visit to the Asian economic powerhouse.

In an announcement Monday on the White House blog, the first lady says a China visit is important because it is the most populous country in the world, with more than 1.3 billion people, and is an important world actor.

Mrs. Obama will travel from March 19-26, spending several days in the capital of Beijing before stops in the central city of Xian and the southwestern city of Chengdu, the White House said. Her schedule includes a meeting with Peng Liyuan, the wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Mrs. Obama missed meeting China's first lady last June when the newly installed Xi, accompanied by his wife, traveled to Southern California for a summit with President Barack Obama. The presidential-level meetings were around the time of Sasha Obama's 12th birthday, and the White House said Mrs. Obama stayed in Washington with family.

She wrote a letter to Peng Liyuan welcoming her to the U.S. and expressing hope that they would meet soon in China, the White House said.

In China, Mrs. Obama will focus on the power and importance of education, including in her own life, during visits to a high school and a university in Beijing, and a high school in Chengdu.

She recently began an effort to encourage America's young people, including some of the most economically disadvantaged, to pursue a college education. On past trips outside the U.S., she also has made the same point to students from the host country. Mrs. Obama grew up in a poor Chicago family, but earned degrees from two of America's best universities.

In China, she will be accompanied by daughters, Malia and Sasha, and her mother, Marian Robinson, who lives at the White House. President Obama will not be on the trip; he is scheduled to depart the U.S. later that week for stops in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Saudi Arabia.

Mrs. Obama is encouraging American students to follow her trip on social media and the White House website, where she will post a daily travel blog. In preparation for the trip, she scheduled a visit Tuesday to a Washington charter elementary school with a Chinese-immersion, international baccalaureate program.

In her blog post, the first lady said countries today are no longer isolated and face many of the same challenges, whether it is to provide students with a good education, combat hunger, poverty and disease or address threats like climate change.

"These issues affect every last one of us, so it's critically important that young people like you learn about what's going on not just here in America, but around the world," Mrs. Obama said. "Because when it comes to the challenges we face, soon, all of you will be leading the way."

"That's why everywhere I go, whether it's here in the U.S. or abroad, I meet with young people to hear about your challenges, hopes and dreams — and that's what I'll be doing in China as well," she said. "I'll be focusing on the power and importance of education, both in my own life and in the lives of young people in both of our countries."

Mrs. Obama's trip will be a highly visible endeavor, but the fact that she's taking the rest of her family suggests "she's not going in search of a crusade of one sort or another," said Jonathan D. Pollack, a senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. "The clear intent here is not to touch any particular hot buttons."

Mrs. Obama's previous solo travels outside the U.S. as first lady were to Mexico in 2010, and Botswana and South Africa in 2011.

Matthew McConaughey Just Won An Oscar, Liberal's Heads Spin

Matthew McConaughey's acceptance speech was not what the liberal media, Hollywood and those hell bent to destroy America's foundation wanted to hear.  Last night Matthew McConaughey first and foremost thanked God for all of his success.  He spent the first minute praising God much to the chagrin of many in the audience. 



Here are a what a few liberal outlets are saying today:

Isaac Guzman on Time:

Explaining Matthew McConaughey’s Confounding Acceptance Speech

What exactly did he mean by all that?

After winning for his role as Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyer’s Club, Matthew McConaughey launched into a semi-bizarre tale about his inner life. Here is what we learned:

1. He needs someone to look up to, something to look forward to and someone to chase.

2. He wants to thank God, who he looks up to. God is all about gratitude.

3. He wants to thank his family, who he looks forward to. His deceased father, he believes, is celebrating with a big pot of gumbo and a can of Miller Lite. His mother, still with us, taught him how to respect himself.

4. The person he chases is himself, 10 years into the future. He knows he will never catch up, but he wants to find out who that guy will turn out to be.

5. To all of that, he says “Amen,”  ”Alright, Alright, Alright” and “Keep on Livin’.”

And trying to stir the pot, here is Fox5 New York's post:

 In accepting the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in "Dallas Buyers Club" Matthew McConaughey thanked the other nominees, the cast of the movie and God! "First off I want to thank God, because that's who I look up to. He's graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of my hand or any other human hand."

What do you think of his words?

We at the Right Angle Press say God Bless Matthew McConaughey and wish him much future success.

Obamacare: Forcing seniors out of their homes and into nursing homes

Editorial by Dan Webber

President Obama’s mendacious political promise, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” continues to cast a long and disturbing shadow of doubt and confusion over millions of Americans who have lost coverage as a result of Obamacare. As 2014 unfolds, the most vulnerable senior citizens — those who receive home health care services — are about to learn  they are out of luck. Obamacare opens a trap door under them, leaving this elderly population in freefall — with many citizens losing access to home health care.

Add another compelling reason to reverse Obamacare. Whether by accident or intention, the “Affordable Care Act” empirically strips America’s oldest and poorest cohort, all part of the World War II generation, of this basic coverage. Here is how.

On Jan. 1, Medicare’s home  health care services, formerly serving 3.5 million elderly beneficiaries across the country, were cut under Obamacare. The cut deleted exactly 14 percent, or an estimated $22 billion, from these lowest-income Americans over four years. News of the forthcoming cut only trickled out the Friday before Thanksgiving, yet another stunning attempt by the Obama White House to reduce Medicare benefits without attracting notice.

Guess what? We noticed. This cut does irreparable damage to recipients of Medicare’s home health care services, those who are aged, homebound and sicker than the average Medicare population. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of Medicare home health care users live at or below the federal poverty level, meaning they are the most economically compromised of America’s precious senior citizens.

This cut is an indictment of White House policies. Home health care agencies have always provided services to homebound Medicare beneficiaries. No hoopla, but when these Americans needed skilled care, they got it. In contrast to expensive hospital care, critical health care services got into millions of American homes via clinicians. Home health care was — and still is — vital. It is also now effectively gone for these Americans.

How did home health care save money  for taxpayers? Using 2009 as a reference year, Medicare’s average Part A and Part B payment for a home health care visit was $145, compared to $373 per day in a skilled nursing facility or a whopping $1,805 per day in a hospital. In addition, according to one leading expert, skilled home health care services saved the Medicare program $2.8 billion during the most recent three-year period. Approximately $670 million of that savings is attributable to 20,000 fewer hospital readmissions.

Given these facts, one would conclude that the value of home health care in driving down Medicare costs  should be obvious, if this — and not a single-payer system — were the real goal of Obamacare. How did we lose sight of common sense? Just keep patients in a familiar surrounding — their homes, not in an expensive hospital — keep sound disease management programs that deliver better and more cost-effective outcomes, and continue to coordinate care for patients. That was working. Now we have the reverse — markedly higher medical and insurance costs, with absolutely no institutional connection, support or continuing benefits for these especially needy Americans, the ones who depended — with their families — on critical home health care benefits. The president and his Democratic surrogates in the House and Senate have done it again: They have wiped out another critical, working system with this Obamacare monstrosity.

What else will this home health care cut achieve? It will hit the small businesses that provide home health care nationwide, and is already doing so. More than 90 percent of those providing home health care are small businesses. According to the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 40 percent of these companies will be operating “at a loss” — that is, they will likely fold or end up in bankruptcy — by 2017 as a result of the cut. What does that mean? It means nearly 5,000 more Medicare home health care providers may go out of business, and nearly 500,000 more jobs within this flogged industry may be wiped out to fund  Obamacare. Those who care about such things should put that into their future unemployment calculations — and then thank Mr. Obama and his congressional friends, who all got a waiver and probably do not worry about home health care anyway.

Attacking our weakest senior citizens is no way to run a country. It is, in a word, reprehensible. This abomination devastates another existing and essential Medicare promise, while throwing one more gut-wrenching punch at this job sector. Does the truth no longer matter? Do these lives no longer matter? Do these businesses and jobs no longer matter? When will Mr. Obama and his allies in Congress let up and allow Americans to look after themselves again, as we used to quite well?

Dan Weber is president and founder of the Association of Mature American Citizens.

Obamacare Surprise “Shared Responsibility Tax Payment” is Coming Due

The “Shared Responsibility Payment” is another part of obamacare socialism that you probably weren’t aware was hanging over your head. Don’t look up, there it is.

While it might seem like a tax, or the redistribution of wealth, or the payment into a socialized leviathan where a free government of the people used to be, the IRS says it isn’t. It is simply your way to do your fair share and to share what you have with others you may not know. And they are here to make sure it happens.

The payment is assessed if for some reason someone fails to be completely covered for the entire current year of 2014 in the tax returns we will complete next year. The assessment will apply to every member of the household, adults and children.

No wonder B. Hussein Obama has been sure to include the words “be responsible” into his rhetoric when he is describing how he will provide us with jobs if we “work hard.” Now he can’t get pinned with another lie like the one about keeping your health care.

Joe Biden Believes Women Should Be Home With Their Children Forget About Working

Joe Biden On The View

Crazy Uncle Joe, Vice President Joe Biden is at it again.  He stuck his foot in his mouth last week.

Vice president Joe Biden’s latest blunder, handed down during an appearance on “The View,” has raised the hackles of several women who say his 1950s-era image of what women want is degrading, offensive and ridiculously stereotypical.

His words, touting Obamacare: “How many of you are single women with children with a dead-end job … there because of your health insurance.”

He went on: “You would rather have the opportunity to spend the next couple years with your children, [but] you’re not trapped in that job.”

Enter Obamacare, and he said, on The View: “You’re [now] able to make a choice. … Did you know you can get health insurance absent that job?”

And Mr. Biden’s final message to women: Obamacare “gives women a great deal more freedom” and the ability to quit their jobs and stay home with their children.

Crystal Wright, a conservative female blogger who appeared on Fox & Friends on Wednesday, called Mr. Biden’s statements ridiculous and condescending.

“It’s ridiculous, the notion that women only work for health care or that women don’t work for driving careers … or to provide for their children,” Ms. Wright. “It’s like ‘Joe, are you living in an altered reality?’”

Hate Speech by Anti-Gay Bigots Ted Kennedy, The National Association of Evangelicals, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Coalitions for America, People for the American Way, just to name a few

Amazing how much things have changed.  Democrat Ted Kennedy has passed but where are The National Association of Evangelicals, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Coalitions for America, People for the American Way today?

Editor’s Note: This is the text of Senator Ted Kennedy’s opening statement before the Committee on the Judiciary at the hearing on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, September 18, 1992, the model for the Arizona law which has been so controversial.

We will come to order. The brave pioneers who founded America came here in large part to escape religious tyranny and to practice their faiths free from government interference. The persecution they had suffered in the old world convinced them of the need to assure for all Amer­icans for all time the right to practice their religion unencumbered by the yoke of religious tyranny.

That profound principle is embodied in the two great religion clauses of the first amendment, which provide that Congress “shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” But in 1990, the Supreme Court’s decision in Oregon Employment Division v. Smith produced a serious and unwarranted setback for the first amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion.

Before the Smith decision, Federal, State, and local governments were prohibited from interfering with people’s ability to practice their religion unless the restriction satisfied a difficult two-part test — first, that it was necessary to achieve a compelling govern­ment interest; and, second, that there was no less burdensome way to accomplish the goal.

The compelling interest test has been the legal standard protect­ing the free exercise of religion for nearly 30 years. Yet, in one fell swoop the Supreme Court overruled that test and declared that no special constitutional protection is available for religious liberty as long as the Federal, State, or local law in question is neutral on its face as to religion and is a law of general application. Under Smith, the Government no longer had to justify burdens on the free exercise of religion as long as these burdens are “merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision.”

The Supreme Court did not have to go that far to reach its result in the Smith case. As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote of the majority’s ruling in her eloquent and forceful opinion concurring in the result but criticizing the majority’s reasoning,

    Today’s holding dramatically departs from well-settled first amendment jurispru­ dence, appears unnecessary to resolve the questions presented, and is incompatible with our Nation’s fundamental commitment to individual religious liberty.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Senator Hatch and I, and 23 other Senators have introduced, would restore the compelling interest test for evaluating free exercise claims. It would do so by establishing a statutory right that adopts the stand­ards previously, used by the Supreme Court. In essence, the act codifies the requirement for the Government to demonstrate that any law burdening the free exercise of religion is essential to fur­thering a compelling governmental interest and is the least restric­tive means of achieving that interest.

The act creates no new rights for any religious practice or for any potential litigant. Not every free exercise claim will prevail. It simply restores the long-established standard of review that had worked well for many years and that requires courts to weigh free exercise claims against the compelling State interest standard. Our bill is strongly supported by an extraordinary coalition of or­ganizations with widely differing views on many other issues. The National Association of Evangelicals, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Coalitions for America, People for the American Way, just to name a few, support the legislation. They don’t often agree on much, but they do agree on the need to pass the Religious Free­dom Restoration Act because religious freedom in America is damaged each day the Smith decision stands.

Today, the committee will hear compelling testimony about the destructive impact of the decision. We are fortunate to have a very distinguished group of witnesses and I look forward to their testi­mony.

— Senator Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.) served in the U.S. Senate from 1962–2009. He was the fourth-longest-serving senator when he died.

Sarah Palin "I Told You So" Sarah Predicted Russia Invading Ukraine in 2008

As Russia invades Ukraine, we flash back to 2008 where it was predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine.

Though she was mocked for it, Sarah Palin actually speculated in 2008 that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be encouraged to invade Ukraine after President Barack Obama’s weak response to the nation invading Georgia.

Palin said then:

After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama's reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia's Putin to invade Ukraine next.

For those comments, she was mocked by the high-brow Foreign Policy magazine and its editor Blake Hounshell, who now is one of the editors of Politico magazine. 

In light of recent events in Ukraine and concerns that Russia is getting its troops ready to cross the border into the neighboring nation, nobody seems to be laughing at or dismissing those comments now.

Hounshell wrote then that Palin's comments were "strange" and "this is an extremely far-fetched scenario."