An Obama Nation: 74% Of Small Businesses Will Fire Workers, Cut Hours Under Obamacare

If writers of the not-so-affordable “Affordable Care Act” were unable to see this coming, then the Earls of Myopia had no business writing it in the first place …

BY PAUL BEDARD, Washington Examiner – “Despite the administration’s controversial decision to delay forcing companies to join Obamacare for a year, three-quarters of small businesses are still making plans to duck the costly law by firing workers, reducing hours of full-time staff, or shift many to part-time, according to a sobering survey released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

‘Small businesses expect the requirement to negatively impact their employees. Twenty-seven percent say they will cut hours to reduce full time employees, 24 percent will reduce hiring, and 23 percent plan to replace full time employees with part-time workers to avoid triggering the mandate,’ said the Chamber business survey provided to Secrets.

Under Obamacare, just 30 hours — not the nationally recognized 40 hours — is considered full-time. Companies with 50 full-time workers or more are required to provide health care, or pay a fine.

The administration recently decided to wait a year before businesses had to comply, but many are trying to get ready anyway. The president did not delay the mandate that Americans must have health insurance or pay a fine, however.

The Chamber’s second quarter small business survey found that just 30 percent are ready for the law and even understand what is required.

Dealing with Obamacare is the biggest worry of small businesses and comes as they continue to see a sluggish economy which has already put a brake on their hiring. Just 17 percent reported adding employees in the past two years. And only one-in-five small business owners believe that they will add employees in the next two years.” Read more.

Flashback: The Carelessness of ObamaCare

• Seven Million Will Lose Medical Insurance Under Obama Health Law
• Medical Giant Stryker Cuts 1,170 Jobs Due To Obamacare
• Labor Unions Finally Read Obamacare Fine Print, Turn Sour On Obama
• Pennsylvania Hospital To Stop Delivering Babies Because Of Obamacare
• Medical Companies Brace For ‘Devastating’ ObamaCare Tax, Prep For Layoffs
• College Slashes Work Hours For Hundreds Of Professors To Avoid Obamacare
• Seniors Suffer As Obamacare’s $716 Billion In Cuts Drive Doctors Out Of Medicare
• Tsunami Of Obamacare Regulations Forcing Drastic Measures Upon Restaurant Owners To Ensure Profitability
• Another CEO Warns Obamacare Will Be ‘Very Costly’ For Businesses, ‘They’ll Be In For A Very Expensive Situation’

Lawlessness: Pakistani Woman Stoned To Death By Relatives … For Owning A Cell Phone

Maybe her kill-first-ask-questions-later relatives were simply acting proactively in an effort to prevent what could have been. Who knows, owning a cell phone may have tempted her to commit adultery. Or write a blasphemous text message. Or dance in the rain. And dishonoring the family like that would have resulted in (yet another) honor killing anyway …

Stop Crime Before It Happens (Courtesy: Minority Report)

Asian Human Rights Commission – “Arifa, a mother of two, has been stoned to death on the orders of Panchayat (a tribal court) for possessing a cell phone. She was executed on 11 July in the district of Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab province. The victim was stoned to death by her uncle and relatives on the orders of Panchayat after she was found to have a mobile phone.

According to media reports her uncle, cousins and other relatives threw stones and bricks at her until she died. She was buried without informing anyone. Police registered a First Information Report (FIR) against the Panchayat but no one has been arrested. She was buried in a desert far away from her village and nobody (not even her children) was allowed to participate in the funeral. Her husband is unknown.

Women are often victimized by these illegal judicial systems. This incident is a demonstration of the strong patriarchal society in Pakistan, and women are forced to remain in their clutches. Because of the absence of a proper criminal justice system, the powerful sections of society have complete impunity when they enforce their will.

The incident is a clear reflection of the total collapse of the rule of law in the country, where every section of the government has become utterly redundant in the face of tribal, feudal and religious traditions. The local police have not arrested the members of the Panchayat because the power in the area lies with the landed aristocracy.

Stoning to death is a barbaric act from a primitive society. Society is sent the message that violence is the way to deal with women and other vulnerable groups. Women’s rights are negated through the use of these forms of punishment.

Pakistani society has degenerated to the point that, for a woman, keeping a cell phone has become serious crime. It is treated as a worse crime than gang rape, murder and bomb blasts, through which many people are killed on a daily basis.” Read more.

Pakistan Teen Sisters Murdered In ‘Honour Killing’ Over Video Of Them Dancing In The Rain – “Two teenage girls have been shot dead in an apparent honour killing in Pakistan after a video was circulated showing them dancing in the rain. The girls, aged 15 and 16, are seen running around wearing traditional dress, covered in green and purple headscarves, outside their stone bungalow in the town of Chilas, in the far north of the country… Their mother was also killed.” Read more.

Almost 1,000 Pakistani Women Were Murdered Last Year For Allegedly Dishonoring Their Families – “The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) released its annual report on Thursday, and tucked in among the stories of murdered journalists and liberal anti–blasphemy law activists, general intimidation, and overcrowded jails was this horrifying statistic: At least 943 women were murdered in familial ‘honor killings,’ an increase from the 791 the year before.” Read more.

Pakistan: Islamic Ban Of ‘Un-Islamic’ Polio Vaccine Responsible For 85% Of Cases

By Noorwali Shah, The Express Tribune – “PESHAWAR: Bans by Taliban leaders and a lack of access to certain areas have made it near impossible to make the country polio-free, especially in an absence of a top-down strategy.

Information shared with The Express Tribune reflects 17 of 20 or 85% of polio cases reported across the country were due to the above-mentioned reasons, especially in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

Most of these reasons are interrelated. Between conspiracies about foreign interests aiming to sterilise men to the Taliban conditioning the lifting of the ban with the end of drone strikes, areas become riskier for polio teams and parents become more difficult to convince.

The targeted attacks on polio teams in different parts of the country especially K-P has hampered the polio drive. ‘If you go out, they (terrorists) target you, if you miss children, the virus targets you; it’s simply a catch-22 situation for the polio programme in the province,’ stated an official of the polio programme, adding that the absence of awareness campaigns was adding to the severity of the problem.

The government on the other hand has been very lax in coming up with a strategy which identifies polio as a serious national problem – a pandemic waiting to happen. After the unabated assaults on workers, whatever plans are made by the government are kept secretive.

One of the lesser-known facts of polio campaigns is the paltry sum paid to the workers who take on high-risk jobs with a known mortality rate. Most are vaccinators receiving only Rs500 per day during the campaign…

Famous cricketer Shahid Afridi was declared a ‘Polio Champion’ in a bid to convince parents to give their children a vaccine that prevents them from contracting life-long paralysis. However, the campaign did not run in K-P and Fata for reasons best understood by the authorities.

‘We had the services of Afridi on a voluntarily basis and recorded all desired messages to help eradicate polio from the country. Taking the campaign to the public is the responsibility of the district government – we just provide the messages,’ UNICEF spokesperson Azmat Abbas told The Express Tribune.

He added a meeting was recently held in Islamabad which was attended by Maulana Tayyab from Swabi and Maulana Samiul Haq of the Darul Uloom Haqqania. The two men suggested there should be committees comprising ulema on district and provincial levels to help remove baseless propaganda against polio vaccinations.

On Saturday, 12-month-old Uzair Muhammad was reported to have contracted polio in Peshawar, the first case in six years. The virus has been reportedly found in the sewerage water in the city, and despite warnings by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of the risks, the government has yet to take any action.” Read more.

Flashback: Spreading Polio In The Name Of Islam: Muslim ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Perpetuating Advance Of Disease To Muslims Internationally – “The polio disease was on the verge of eradication when Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, president of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria and a physician, suggested at about this time in 2003 that the vaccination program in his country was part of a Western conspiracy to render Muslim children infertile… So closely connected have Islam and polio become that the Muslim-only pilgrimage to Mecca became a major mechanism of transmitting the disease to faraway places like Indonesia.” Read more.

Holy Fasting Or Wholly Fattening: Why Do Muslims Eat More During Ramadan?

By David Wood, Answering Muslims – “About a decade ago, when I was an undergraduate taking an Islam course, my professor (who was a Muslim) told me that Muslims consume far more food during Ramadan than during other months. To outsiders, this is profoundly odd, since one of the goals of fasting is to deliberately deprive oneself of basic physical needs (typically in order to focus on spiritual matters). Gorging oneself before dawn and after sunset hardly seems like a spiritual pursuit.

Consider some data on Ramadan food consumption in Tunisia:

Tunisian consumption in food products skyrockets during the holy month, Ahmed Methlouthi director of the communication unit at the National Consumer Institute (INC) told TAP news agency.

This increase involves:

– Milk, rising to 2 liters of monthly consumption during the month of Ramadan against 0. 9 liters per person throughout the year

– Yoghurt pots went up to 12.9 per person, against 5.4 pots monthly during the rest of the year.

– Eggs are consumed at 26 per person, against 12.8 eggs per month in normal times

– Roll (baguette) 1.4 kg against 0.6 kg per month in normal times

– Oil, 1.2 liter, against 1.14 liters per month in normal times

– Meat: 1.1 kg of mutton, against 0.75 kg outside Ramadan, 0.5 kg of beef per month against 0.22 kg and 1.8 kg of poultry against 1.28 kg per month.

Regarding supply points of Tunisian consumer, 57.8% of Tunisians prefer to buy from hypermarkets and supermarkets, while 42.2% remain faithful to the traditional distribution channels (local grocery), the source said. (Source)

Why do Muslims eat more when they’re fasting than when they’re not fasting? Why put a mask of piety on gluttony?

The answer, I think, lies at the very heart of Islam. Islam does not make people more holy or spiritual. Rather, it gives them a religious framework for carrying their desires to perverse extremes.

If a non-Muslim man hits a few clubs and somehow manages to have sex with ten women in one day, Islam will condemn him as a fornicator. But if this same man converts to Islam, marries four women, and takes six sex-slaves as his captives after a battle, he can be perfectly righteous before Allah, even if he has sex with ten women in one day.

Likewise, if a man hires a prostitute and sleeps with her, he has sinned, according to Islam. But if the same man sets up a ‘temporary marriage’ (a practice called ‘Muta‘), he can hire the same prostitute, for the same amount of time, have sex with her in the exact same way, and bear no shame whatsoever in the Muslim community.

If a psychopath goes on a killing spree, brutally murdering men, women, and children, he is surely going to hell, according to Islam—unless, of course, he is killing men, women, and children in a terrorist attack for the sake of Allah, in which case his violent massacre will earn him a one-way ticket to Paradise.

Even according to Muslim sources, the tribes of Mecca were violent, lascivious, and gluttonous. Muhammad didn’t change their behavior by forcing them to convert to Islam. He simply made their violence, lasciviousness, and gluttony pleasing to Allah. Should we be surprised that Ramadan is a month-long feast that Muslims call ‘fasting’?” Source – Answering Muslims.

Iran: Israel Is A Warmonger (And Says It With A Straight Face)

Iran says that all Jews worldwide must be killed. But Israel is the warmonger. Iran says that Israel must be annihilated. But Israel is the warmonger. Iran says they will turn Jerusalem into a mass graveyard if Jews do not leave “Palestine.” But Israel is the warmonger. Iran supplies weapons to terrorist groups seeking to worship “Allah” by harvesting the skulls of Jews and seeks nuclear weapons for “medical purposes” in order to eradicate the “infectious tumor” of Israel forever. But Israel, it says, is the warmonger. The multitude of a man isn’t simply satisfied with calling evil good, good evil and substituting the Truth for a lie. It now seeks to convert the West’s Hippocratic Oath of health and honesty into Islam’s sickened and deceitful Oath of Hypocrisy …

Psalm 83:2,4, “For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; And those who hate You have lifted up their head… They have said, ‘Come, and let us cut them off from [being] a nation, That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.’”

By Gil Ronen, INN – “Tehran’s Foreign Ministry accused Israel of being a ‘warmonger’ Tuesday, and accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of trying to destroy Iran’s relations with the rest of the world.

The ministry spokesman was reacting to Netanyahu’s interview on CBS, in which he said Israel’s clock for action against Iran’s nuclear weapons program was running out.

The spokesman said that Israel is upset over the victory of Hassan Rouhani in the presidential elections, and that it fears that the international community will relax its pressure on Iran in order to create a better environment for negotiations with the new president.

‘They’re edging up to the red line. They haven’t crossed it yet,’ Netanyahu said on CBS News’s ‘Face the Nation.’

‘They’re getting closer and closer to the bomb. And they have to be told in no uncertain terms that that will not be allowed to happen.’

Netanyahu went on to say that Israel had a more narrow timetable than Washington, implying it may have to take unilateral action to halt Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

‘Our clocks are ticking at a different pace. We’re closer than the United States. We’re more vulnerable. And therefore, we’ll have to address this question of how to stop Iran, perhaps before the United States does,’ he said.

Netanyahu said Iran’s nuclear policies were unlikely to change under its next president, former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rouhani, who will assume power on August 3.

‘He’s criticizing his predecessor (President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) for being a wolf in wolf’s clothing. His strategy is be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Smile and build a bomb,’ Netanyahu said.” Read more.

Flashback: New Pro-Nuclear Iranian President Bragged About Deceiving The West In The Past, And May Be Used To Deceive The West Again – “For 16 years starting in 1989, Mr. Rohani served as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. During his tenure on the council, Mr. Rouhani led the crackdown on a 1999 student uprising and helped the regime evade Western scrutiny of its nuclear-weapons program… As Mr. Rouhani said at a pro-regime rally in July 1999: ‘At dusk yesterday we received a decisive revolutionary order to crush mercilessly and monumentally any move of these opportunist elements wherever it may occur.’ … While Iranians may know him as the man behind a brutal crackdown (one I witnessed as I was in Iran at the time), most Western diplomats know him as a nuclear negotiator during the last years of the Mohammad Khatami administration. Years later, Rouhani bragged about how he deceived the West.” Read more.

Egypt: More Than 100 Christian Families Flee The Sinai After Islamists Threaten To Kill Them All

John 16:2b, “… the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God.”

AsiaNews – “More than a hundred Christian families have fled El Arish in the Sinai after receiving death threats from Islamist groups following the fall of Mohamed Morsi. On 6 July, a 39-year-old priest, Fr Mina Haroan Abboud, was killed. On 11 July, the body of another Christian, a merchant from Sheikh Zowayd, was found decapitated. He had been kidnapped a few days before. Currently, Coptic churches in northern Sinai have cancelled all services and meetings, except for a Mass on Friday. No Christians are left in the towns of Rafah and Sheikh Zowayd.

The Sinai Peninsula has always been a home for Islamist groups, many of them linked to Hamas in Gaza. For decades, they have fought against the Egyptian army as it tried to stop weapon supplies and smuggling into the Gaza Strip. Under Morsi and the Brotherhood, the army had reduced pressure on them but now the military is back in force following the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s successor.

In the few days since Morsi’s removal, the Sinai has seen dozens of attacks against police stations, army checkpoints, and individual members of the Armed Forces. But attacks have also been carried out against the Christians, ‘guilty’ of supporting Morsi’s fall.

On 5 July, a Jihadist group using the name Ansar al-Shari’a in the Land of Kinaanah (i.e. Egypt) issued a statement promising to respond to the ‘war against Islam in Egypt,’ a war waged by ‘secularists, atheists, Mubarak loyalists, Christians, security forces and the leaders of the Egyptian Army.’

In its statement, the group describes democracy as ‘blasphemous’ in assuming one of God’s prerogative and warns of impending ‘massacres of Muslims in Egypt’.

Christians, especially Patriarch Tawadros, are accused of conniving with the army to remove Mohamed Morsi.

Coptic Patriarch Tawadros and the Grand Imam of Al Azhar Mosque Ahmed al-Tayeb were present at the ceremony in which Morsi’s removal was announced.

In many pro-Morsi manifestations organised recently by the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Tayeb is branded as a ‘traitor.’

The Coptic patriarch has also been accused of betraying Egypt. Three days ago in Heliopolis, at least 2,000 young members of the Muslim Brotherhood wrote ‘Down with Tawadros’ on the walls of a (Catholic) church during a demonstration that lasted several hours.

It is likely that the Coptic minority will be scapegoated for President Morsi’s fall and the Brotherhood’s loss of power.

‘Tensions are high,’ Christian sources in Egypt told AsiaNews, also because the Brotherhood, aided by infiltrated jihadists, is planning a series of anti-Christian terrorist attacks.” Read more.

Flashback: Egypt: Rising Islamic Leader Declares ‘We Will Launch a Campaign of Islamic Conquest Throughout the World’, ‘Exterminate’ Christians Who Get In the Way of Sharia – “A rising leader in the radical Islamic movement in Egypt that has become a major political player since the demise of Hosni Mubarak’s regime says Christian churches may need to be blown up and Christians exterminated to allow the advance of Islamic law, or Shariah. The comments come from Sheik ‘Adel Shehato, a senior leader with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad terrorist group… The sheik, a senior jihadist leader, responded to a question about using violence against Christians, who make up a substantial minority in Egypt.” Read more.

Nigeria: Islamist Leader Promises To Murder More Students, Kill Teachers In Front Of Children And Force All To Worship Allah

Revelation 13:12a, 15b, “It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast … and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.”

By Monica Mark, The Guardian – “The leader of Nigeria’s Islamist militant group Boko Haram has called for more attacks against schools, describing western education as a ‘plot against Islam’, in a video released days after his fighters killed 46 students in an assault on a dorm.

In the 15-minute recording released at the weekend, Abubakar Shekau said schools would continue to be targeted ‘until our last breath’.

‘Teachers who teach western education? We will kill them! We will kill them in front of their students, and tell the students to henceforth study the Qur’an,’ he said, gesticulating energetically while dressed in military fatigues and a traditional hat.

Shekau denied that his fighters killed children. ‘Our religion does not permit us to touch small children and women, we don’t kill children,’ he said, reading from sheets of paper as he cradled a Kalashnikov. He also dismissed talk of a ceasefire. Last week the government said it had signed a deal with Shekau’s second-in-command.

With its ability to launch attacks reduced by a military crackdown, Boko Haram is redrawing the battle lines in Nigeria’s four-year insurgency by going after softer targets. A recent spate of attacks on schools is part of a two-pronged strategy that plays up the extremists’ ideology against western institutions while also providing a stream of potential new recruits as frightened parents pull their children out of education.

Unschooled and unemployed children are increasingly being recruited – sometimes forcibly – to fill the ranks of Boko Haram and unleash violence against their peers, the Guardian has learned. Witnesses say many are plied with dates stuffed with tramadol – a narcotic used to tranquilise horses – before being sent on missions.” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria: 30 Killed After Boko Haram Gunmen Attack Boarding School, Many Children Burned Alive – “Islamic militants attacked a boarding school in northeast Nigeria before dawn Saturday, killing 29 students and one teacher. Some of the pupils were burned alive in the latest school attack blamed on a radical terror group, survivors said. Parents screamed in anguish as they tried to identify the charred and gunshot victims. Farmer Malam Abdullahi found the bodies of two of his sons, a 10-year-old shot in the back as he apparently tried to run away, and a 12-year-old shot in the chest.” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria: Suspected Islamists Massacre Entire Christian Family, Including Five Little Children – “Christians in central Nigeria could mourn their dead Sunday, February 24, after the massacre of a Christian family while sectarian clashes killed one person and left churches, homes and mosques burnt, officials said. In one the worst incidents since Thursday, February 21, suspected Muslim attackers used machetes and guns to murder 10 members of the same Christian family in Plateau state, with half the victims under the age of six, the military and government confirmed.” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria: Islamists Tie Up And Slit Throats Of At Least 15 Men, Women And Children In Maiduguri – “SUSPECTED radical Islamist gunmen have attacked a village in northeast Nigeria, tying up men, women and children before slitting their throats and killing at least 15 in the troubled region’s latest attack. The assault happened early on Friday morning in the village of Musari on the outskirts of Maiduguri. The gunmen, suspected of being members of Boko Haram, shouted religious slogans and later ordered people to gather up into a group, said Mshelia Inusa, a primary school teacher in the village.” Read more.

Syria, Lebanon And Christian Genocide: Jihadists May ‘Finish Off What Was Left Behind By The Ottoman Turks’

And what the Ottoman Turks left behind was the genocide of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian Christians. The West is often all too willing to rebuke Israel when they defend themselves against Palestinian death-loving terrorists, but are all too often indifferent when it comes to the plight of Middle Eastern Christians just trying to survive …

By Joseph Puder, Frontpage Mag – “The destinies of Syria and Lebanon have been intertwined since the days of French colonial rule, in between the two world wars.  It is for this reason that the ongoing civil war in Syria has had its impact on Lebanon.  Lebanon is more divided on the issue of the Syrian uprising than any other country in the region.

The Syrian regime has dominated its smaller Lebanese neighbor since the mid-1970s.  It has loyal allies and sworn enemies.  The Syrian crisis threatens to escalate tensions between and within Lebanon’s largest religious communities, all of whom have a complex relationship with Syria’s President Bashar Assad. The Shiite-Muslims of Lebanon overwhelmingly support the Syrian government of Bashar Assad.  Hezbollah, in particular, has a close alliance with Assad.  The vast majority of Sunni-Muslims in Lebanon support the largely Sunni-led uprising in Syria. The Christians are divided between political parties that rely on Assad’s support.  Gen. Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, is allied with Hezbollah and Assad, while those Christian parties who are part of the March 14 Movement (allied with the Saudis and the U.S.) strongly oppose Syria and the Assad regime’s influence in Lebanon.

Joseph Hakim is a Lebanese native and President of the International Christian Union (ICU).  In Hakim’s view, the jihadi forces within the Syrian opposition and Hezbollah on the other side, have used the conflict in Syria to ethnically cleanse the Christians.  According to Hakim, the indigenous Christian minority in Syria is being ‘forced out of their native cities, towns, and villages.’  Hakim bemoaned the passivity of the free world as it witnessed Christians being slaughtered, churches firebombed, priests being beheaded, and bishops kidnapped. ‘I feel that I am being accurate in calling what is happening genocide.’

As far as Hakim is concerned, there is a coordinated effort to force the indigenous Christian communities in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria out of the Middle East. He sees the conflict in Syria as a war between the Shiite forces sponsored by Iran and supported by Hezbollah on the Assad regime side, with the Sunni jihadist side being sponsored and supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.  In the Lebanese context, however, Hakim considers Saad Hariri as the leader of the Sunni forces, and fears that he is taking orders from the Saudis, which will ultimately result in Al-Qaida insertion into Lebanon. That is true particularly in Sunni-majority cities like Tripoli and the Palestinians camps. ‘Hezbollah,’ Hakim maintained, ‘is the strongest party in Lebanon, and it is much stronger than either the Lebanese Army or the government.’

Hakim cited the recent clash near Sidon, Lebanon’s third largest city, as an example of how