The Next Obamacare Battle Nobody is Talking About

Alex Vargo / Townhall Columnist

Last week, the Supreme Court sided 6-3 with the Obama administration’s interpretation of the Affordable Care Act, ruling the law was written with the intent to provide subsidies through federal exchanges. To put it lightly, conservatives are less than thrilled.

But in our disappointment, let’s not forget that the subsidies are just one problematic element of many found in the 20,000-page law.

While Congress may not be able to undo the Court’s recent ruling, that doesn’t mean they can’t address another serious issue with the Affordable Care Act: the employer mandate that defines a full-time workweek as 30 hours.

The youth unemployment rate is currently 13.6%, meaning nearly one out of every seven people between the ages of 18 and 29 are out of work. Of those fortunate enough to be employed, many see their work hours cut.

The Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate requires businesses who employ 50 or more full-time workers to insure all of their employees. While this requirement may be well-intended, its long-term economic consequences will be devastating. As the mandate is set to take effect in 2016, many businesses are already choosing between limiting their staff or cutting individual work-hours.

It’s estimated that 2.6 million Americans making under $30,000 a year are at risk of having their hours or wages cut. Of those 2.6 million, 60 percent of those people are between the ages of 19 and 34.

U.S. Could MOP Up Iran’s Nuclear Program If Talks Disintegrate

Matt Vespa / Townhall Tipsheet

It’s no surprise that the Iranian nuclear program talks are shaky; Guy has detailed the long, tedious, and sometime frustrating timeline of these diplomatic talks. So, given that we’re approaching the June 30^th deadline–with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei issuing demands that the U.S. could never agree to–what’s the military option, if there is one? The answer is MOP, or “Massive Ordnance Penetrator;” the largest and most powerful nonnuclear bomb we have in our arsenal (via Politico):

…at least three times in the past year, a B-2 stealth bomber has taken off from an Air Force base in Missouri and headed west to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. For these missions, the $2 billion plane was outfitted with one of the world’s largest bombs. It is a cylinder of special high-performance steel, 20 feet long and weighing 15 tons. When dropped from an altitude likely above 20,000 feet, the bomb would have approached supersonic speed before striking a mock target in the desert, smashing through rock and burrowing deep into the ground before its 6,000 pounds of high explosives detonated with devastating force.

“It boggles the mind,” says one former Pentagon official who has watched video of the tests.
…
Iran’s facility, known as Fordow, houses 3,000 centrifuges that can enrich uranium to a purity suitable for nuclear weapons. Fordow is not Iran’s only enrichment facility, or even its largest. But it is the best protected. And it would be all Iran needs to develop a nuclear weapon.

The mock desert target was almost certainly meant to simulate Fordow.

When Obama officials say that “all options are on the table” to stop Iran from getting a nuke, they are in effect speaking in code about the MOP. The MOP is what Secretary of State John Kerry was clearly referring to when he recently told Israeli TV that the U.S. has “designed and deployed a weapon that has the ability to deal with Iran's nuclear program.” When CNN recently put the question directly — can the MOP destroy Fordow? — to Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, he was succinct: “Yes. That’s what it was designed to do.”

Where are the Protests to Ban Islam’s Black Flag?

By Ralph Sidway / Jihad Watch

 

Even Southerners are calling for the retiring of the Confederate Flag. Where are the Moderate Muslim protests to ban the Black Flag of Islam?  Over at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher has a really stirring piece in which he grapples with the complexity and pain of the guerre du jour, the movement to finally banish […]

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 Jihadi warned Muslims to leave beach: Tunisian authorities arrest others, hunt for accomplices in bloody beach jihad

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

Above: ISIS twisted a tourism slogan used by Tunisia [TWITTER] before the mass slaughter on Friday.

Let’s be clear, there are no “lone wolves” in the jihad war. There are millions of devout Muslim soldiers all over the world who are all following the same playbook – the Quran – and the same ideology – Islam and the same “perfect model” – Muhammad.

This was no lone jihadi. Tunisia has arrested “a group of people over the massacre of 38 people, mainly tourists.”

Right: Tunisia’s interior ministry put out a request on its Facebook page on Monday evening, asking the public to give any information it had on two people it believes may have assisted Rezgui. Their names were given as Mohamed bin...

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