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Contract negotiations are stalled for thousands of workers at casinos on the Strip and in downtown Las Vegas to the point where they may go on strike — and the sticking point is Obamacare. On Feb. 20, thousands of housekeepers, porters, cooks, cocktail servers, and others represented by Nevada’s largest union, the Culinary Union Local 226, voted to end a contract extension the workers agreed to last summer. The union wants to maintain its current benefits — including health care coverage at no cost to workers, pensions, and guaranteed 40-hour workweeks. Rising health care costs due to provisions in the...

A handful of Democratic Senators are up in arms about the Golden Globe awards. No, they’re not upset that Breaking Bad beat out House of Cards for best Television Drama Series. Instead, they’re fuming about a few actors using electronic cigarettes during the award show broadcast. They’ve fired off a strongly worded letter to NBC Universal and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for “glamorizing” the use of e-cigarettes. And now they’re going even further in advocating for a ban on these products in the U.S. Capitol. Banning consumption of electronic cigarettes in public has become a troubling trend of paternalistic...

The winners have accepted their statuettes at the 86th Annual Academy Awards show at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. This is the complete list of Oscar award winners:

Joseph Stalin’s firearms confiscation was a tremendous success for the Socialist state.Under the Tsar, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. That all changed when Stalin and the communists took control. Stalin was able to control, starve, punish and imprison a defenseless people… after he took their guns. (Zinnfigur) Ukrainian citizens and gun owners are demanding their own Second Amendment in the country’s constitution. Doug Ross reported: The Ukraine Gun Owners Association wants the new government to add their own right to bear arms to the country’s constitution. As of today Ukrainian Gun Owners Association will...

The French minister for industry, Arnaud Montebourg, has announced the creation of a national company of mines aimed at securing the supply of raw materials and exporting French know-how abroad, EurActiv France reports. The industry minister kicked off the start of the “mining revival” of France recently during his visit to the largest underground gypsum quarry in Europe, located in the French Val d’Oise. […] “The creation of a national company of mines in France will allow us to control the prices, the quantities and our sovereignty. In the past, I have provided a number of mining permits to foreign...

<p>The picture above shows the scene earlier today in Kiev, as Ukraine's parliament voted to hold early elections and dismiss President Viktor Yanukovych.</p> <p>It's a heart-warming image. The bloody, protracted protests in Ukraine seem to have achieved their goals: Yanukovych is gone, new elections are due, and Yulia Tymoshenko, a key figure in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, has been freed from prison. Ukraine looks as though it might have pulled back from the brink.</p>

A member of Ukraine’s opposition movement has called on Jewish and Muslim billionaire businessmen to force the president, Victor Yanukovich, to step down. In a speech in Kiev’s Independence Square, the unnamed protester, who said he was Muslim, urged Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Victor Pinchuk and David Zhvania -oligarchs with links to the protest movement - to talk to the president. He said: “You practice Judaism. In the holy synagogue, you have seats with placards. And you, today, are the only people who have access to Yanukovich. “In another week, your businesses, which you have earned in this land through the work...

The head of Russia’s Communist Party held up a hammer-and-sickle Soviet banner during a flower ceremony at the Winter Olympics, leading to a confrontation with staff over violating Olympic rules that bar political statements at the games. A series of photographs taken Friday night shows Gennady Zyuganov in a group of five men in the stands displaying the historic Soviet Banner of Victory toward the podium while medals were being awarded in three short track speedskating events at the Iceberg Skating Palace. The banner was a replica of the flag raised by Soviet soldiers in Berlin in 1945, in victory...

After FCC commissioners announced they have reached a deal to approve the merger of Sirius (NASDAQ:SIRI) and XM (NASDAQ:XMSR), Stern ranted about Democrats’ ‘gangsterism’ and ‘communism’ and the obstacles to the merger. Stern described a phone conversation he had with his agent, who he described as a “liberal Democrat kind of guy.” “I go, ‘That’s it!’” Stern said. “[I] go, ‘You know what Don, I’ve voted Republican and I’ve voted Democrat. I have vowed I will never vote for a Democrat again. I don’t give a [expletive] – no matter who they are. I don’t care if God becomes a...

Free Speech » Matthew Clark » Docket Blog Why is the Obama Administration Putting Government Monitors in Newsrooms? The Obama Administration’s Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is poised to place government monitors in newsrooms across the country in an absurdly draconian attempt to intimidate and control the media. Before you dismiss this assertion as utterly preposterous (we all know how that turned out when the Tea Party complained that it was being targeted by the IRS), this bombshell of an accusation comes from an actual FCC Commissioner. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai reveals a brand new Obama Administration program that he fears...

Link only - Angry Residents Wave Pitchforks, Torches In Protest Of Mayor's Crackdown On Homelessness

Across town, Maduro told his supporters that he would not back down in the face of what he said was a conspiracy by opponents to provoke violence and destabilise his government. "A Nazi-fascist faction has emerged that wants to take Venezuela down the path of violence," the 51-year-old former bus driver said. "What we're going to have is peace and prosperity." Protests also took place on Wednesday in other cities, including Merida and San Cristobal, where students have clashed with police in recent days. Merida's Mayor Carlos Garcia told the AP news agency that three people were injured by gunfire...

Rod Dreher asks in the wake of Assistant Secretary Nuland’s leaked phone call: But is Ukraine really so important a prize as to risk our relationship with Russia, and with the EU? A point that Mark Adomanis made very early on when the protests in Kiev began last year was that Ukraine is not a prize of any kind. It’s a huge liability for whichever patron has the “fortune” to “win” it. Indeed, thanks to the ongoing upheaval and Russia’s suspension of the aid that it had offered, Ukraine is on the verge of default and may soon become even...

Last week Samantha Power, who once discussed invading Israel and now serves as Obama's Ambassador to the United Nations, decided to use the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army to link it to the Syrian Civil War: "In 1945, Russian soldiers liberated Auschwitz. Sixty-nine year later, if the United Nations is to live up to the noble purposes for which it was founded, the world again needs Russia to use its influence." The theme of being liberated by communist forces is apparently also haunting The New York Times writers: "The Congressional Budget Office estimated on Tuesday...

Despite our endless blather about democracy, we Americans seem to be able to put our devotion to democratic principles on the shelf, when they get in the way of our New World Order. In 2012, in the presidential election in Egypt, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won in a landslide. President Obama hailed the outcome. One year later, the Egyptian army ousted and arrested Morsi and gunned down a thousand members of his brotherhood. The coup was countenanced by John Kerry who explained that the Egyptian army was “restoring democracy.” Comes now the turn of Ukraine. In 2010, Viktor...

MOSCOW - A 10th-grade student armed with two rifles burst into his Moscow school on Monday and killed his 76-year-old geography teacher and a policeman before being taken into custody, investigators said. None of the children in School No. 263 at the time were hurt, said Karina Sabitova, a police spokeswoman at the scene. The school is for children in grades one through 11, as is typical in Russia. The student gunman also seriously wounded a second police officer who had responded to an alarm from the school, police said. Such shootings in Russian schools are extremely rare, but Moscow...

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — In the shadows of an elevated highway, inside an out-of-the-way park, a hardy band of local Communist Party members staged the first formal protest of the Sochi Olympics. Miss it? That's not surprising. About 12 kilometers (seven miles) from the nearest Olympic venue, a handful of curious onlookers, a few mothers pushing young children in carriages, two TV cameras and a sprinkling of uniformed and plain-clothed police were there to witness Igor Vasiliev, leader of Sochi Communist Party Branch, and six supporters stage a peaceful rally on Saturday. Russian authorities are allowing public demonstrations during the...

GREENBURGH, New York — A New York politician is suggesting that a new bridge being built over the Hudson River be named for the activist folk singer Pete Seeger. Seeger died Monday at 94. Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner (FY'-nur) notes that Seeger fought to save the river from pollution...

In a surprise move, the CPUSA (Communist Party USA) has announced a lawsuit against the Democratic Party and its leadership for the alleged theft of intellectual property. The plaintiffs claim that the entire so-called "new" Democratic agenda is, in fact, the product of a decades-long, painstaking campaign by CPUSA theorists, agitators, and underground subversive cells - which makes it the intellectual property of the Communist Party USA, protected by American copyright laws. "They stole our entire platform, rebranded it 'progressive', and claimed it as their own," declared a CPUSA spokesperson at a press conference in San Francisco. "And we communists...

BERLIN—In a redrawn political landscape dominated by an alliance between Germany's two main parties, Chancellor Angela Merkel's most prominent opponent is now a 66-year-old former communist with a silver tongue and dreams of finally ending his party's fringe status. Gregor Gysi, a Berlin lawyer, is parliamentary leader of the radical Left Party—the largest opposition party remaining in the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag. That accords him the right to respond first to Ms. Merkel after she addresses lawmakers—a