Scrolling around...October 22, 2012

Twelve years left: Clock runs down on saving Medicare.
In just 12 years, Medicare will be broke. So, the question remaining is not whether Medicare will be reformed, but how.

During the first two presidential debates, neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney denied that Medicare's upside-down accounting has put the program on a path toward bankruptcy, but, not surprisingly, each had a very different vision on how we keep our promise to America's seniors. And the differences in those visions matter...

Albert Mohler: Of Babies and Beans? A Frightening Denial of Human Dignity
Adam Gopnik is a gifted essayist and writer whose contributions, often published in The New Yorker, are almost always thoughtful and interesting. Nevertheless, one of his most recent writings is deeply disturbing, and at the deepest level.

Reflecting on the debate between Vice President Joseph Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan, Gopnik registered alarm at “something genuinely disturbing and scary” that had been said by Paul Ryan. Gopnik first complained that Biden and Ryan should not have even been asked about the role their Roman Catholic faith plays in their thinking, specifically on the issue of abortion...

Elderly Widow Told Not to Pray in Public Housing Complex
A widow who lives in a Minnesota apartment complex funded by the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development was told that she could not pray, read her Bible or have private discussions of a religious nature in the commons area of the complex...

Sharia courts ‘as consensual as rape’, House of Lords told
Mislim women in Britain are being forced to “live in fear” because of the spread of unofficial and unregulated sharia courts enforcing Islamic rules, the House of Lords was told...

Obamacare Mandate: Anyone Who Works 30-Hour Week Is Now 'Full-Time'
A little-known section in the ObamaCare health reform law defines “full-time” work as averaging only 30 hours per week, a definition that will affect some employers who utilize part-time workers to trim the cost of complying with the ObamaCare rule that says businesses with 50 or more workers must provide health insurance or pay a fine...

Powerful Video Documents 14 Botched Abortions at Planned Parenthood
A powerful new video documents the botched abortions 14 women suffered at Planned Parenthood abortion clinics since January 2011. While the number of botched abortions is likely much higher, the video chronicles 14 of them that pro-life advocates outside the abortion clinics captured on tape...

**********A Little Political**********

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A Red Carpet for Radicals at the White House
A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials.

Court documents and other records have identified many of these visitors as belonging to groups serving as fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other Islamic militant organizations.

The IPT made the discovery combing through millions of White House visitor log entries. IPT compared the visitors' names with lists of known radical Islamists...

Hewitt: On Confidence
...There's another debate coming of course, as well as the ever-present prospect of an "October Surprise." Many are worried about rumors of a lightning strike from, of all people, Gloria Allred, and a deeply compromised MSM carrying as much water as is needed to drown Team Romney in the equivalent of George W. Bush's DUI.

Anything can happen, but it is increasingly unlikely for two reasons.

First, the country is in very bad shape. The difficulties are enormous, and no one who fills up a tank of gas or watches even a bit of news doubts it. This situation compels the independents and even many Democrats, perhaps privately in the latter case, to pull the lever for Romney.

Second, Mitt Romney is a very good man, and the past two weeks have put that reality on display for everyone who cares to notice to see.

A very good man, and the country wants that right now. They want to trust that someone with great skills also has the great character necessary to ask the country to do hard and complicated things, and the intelligence to choose among many competing proposals on how best to chart a course back to prosperity and security...

Mitt Romney and the Rise of Practicalism
In the first debate, Romney conveyed that he understands the very concept of compromise means not everyone at the bargaining table gets what they want -- that’s not the goal. The goal is to achieve the best possible outcome in confronting a given issue -- actually solving a problem while giving everyone something they can take home as a win.

This is the kind of president this country needs right now. We don’t need vague slogans like “Forward” or “Change you can believe it.”

We need a person who knows what it’s like to look across the table at someone with a different viewpoint and a contrasting agenda -- and yet somehow have the temperament and skill to forge a mutually agreeable conclusion...