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In this video commentary, Morris discusses how Hillary knew of and used NSA wiretaps. Tune in!

Americans with chronic illnesses—who are expected to be among the biggest beneficiaries of the health law—face widely varying out-of-pocket drug costs that could be obscured on the new insurance exchanges. Under the law, patients can’t be denied coverage due to existing conditions or charged higher rates than healthier peers. The law also sets an annual out-of-pocket maximum of up to $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for families, after which insurers pay the full tab. But depending on the coverage they select, some patients on expensive drug regimens could reach that level fast.

California mom Maria Kang posted a Faceook photo of herself showing off six-pack abs in a sports bra and shorts posing with her three sons aged 3, 2 and 8 months, alongside the caption “What’s Your Excuse?” and the backlash has been extreme. The photo has received more than 12,000 Facebook shares and 16,000 comments. Most of them have not been complimentary and accuse Kang of mocking overweight mothers. "I don't feel this motivates people all that much, it's sorta just a prideful brag thrown onto Facebook in front of many women's faces just to tease and mock them," wrote...

National Guard and Reserve personnel preparing for training this weekend may want to make other plans. The federal government shutdown that started Tuesday has put all National Guard and Reserve training, both monthly and annual, on hold, according to Reserve and National Guard Bureau officials. Army Reserve personnel may not be ordered to active duty except in support of those military operations and activities necessary for national security. This includes activities necessary to meet pre-deployment requirements, according to guidance on the Reserve command's web site. Nationwide, the Guard has almost 50,000 so-called dual-status technicians --uniformed employees who drill and work...

....Illinois Review, a conservative blog, recently unearthed Illinois Senate records showing that then-state Senator Obama voted for and even co-sponsored a 2004 bill that expanded the protection of the state's 1961 stand-your-ground law to include immunity from civil liability for people who use deadly force to defend themselves or their property. The bill wasn't controversial in the liberal legislature, passing the Senate without dissent and the state House with only two nays before then-Governor Rod Blagojevich, also a Democrat, signed it.

Everyone is looking in the wrong place for the potential story. The story is not when Obama knew of the investigation, but when he knew of the affair. Timeline: June 2010. Obama is highly embarrassed by a story in Rolling Stone Magazine in which Gen. Stanley McChrystal makes disparaging remarks about Obama. The war is not going well and the comments make Obama look weak. June 2010. Barack Obama nominates Petraeus to succeed General Stanley McChrystal as commanding general of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. This is technically a step down from his position as Commander of United...

President Barack Obama heads into the first presidential debate with a narrow lead over Mitt Romney in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that illustrates each candidate's strengths and weaknesses entering the campaign's final stretch. President Barack Obama heads into the first presidential debate with a narrow lead over Mitt Romney in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that illustrates each candidate's strengths and weaknesses entering the campaign's final stretch.

People are going hungry, pulling their children out of school due to poverty, and joining criminal gangs to make ends meet in the poorest region of the Congo, the world’s second-poorest country. Residents of this African nation attribute this economic devastation to what they call “the Obama Law” — provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial “reform” law backed by Obama that have created a virtual embargo on minerals produced in the Congo’s desperately-poor mining towns. As David Aronson notes in The New York Times...

U.S. corn planted area for all purposes in 2011 is estimated at 92.3 million acres, up 5% from 2010 and the second-highest planted acreage since 1944, behind only the 93.5 million acres planted in 2007...(snip) USDA numbers have sent corn futures, which were previously working on the prediction that inclement weather had limited corn farmers to 90.7 million acres of planting, dropping significantly.

Mitt Romney may be leading in the polls, but his status as the GOP “frontrunner” is fragile at best. For all the talk of Romney’s “did-what-he-had-to-do” performance in the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire, it’s widely accepted that the former Massachusetts governor is an uninspired choice for the GOP nomination. ... Historically, Republicans have nominated the runner-up from the previous election cycle, and Romney was the runner-up in 2008. But his second-place finish was exceedingly narrow — and in the end, closely contested. Once John McCain beat him in New Hampshire and South Carolina — after Mike Huckabee had...

A strange thing is afoot in the little libertarian corner of the Republican presidential primary: a race to the left on immigration. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, until recently something of an immigration hawk — no amnesty, no birthright citizenship, no welfare benefits — has, as they say, evolved. Representative Paul was a tough critic of the Bush administration’s “comprehensive reform” (read: “surrender”) project; today, he is calling for amnesty in the form of “green cards with an asterisk.” .... .......................What’s got into Ron Paul? The best guess is: Gary Johnson. Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, has joined the...

Yesterday, House Republican Leadership allowed a bill to come to the floor of the House to expand the scope of an Obamacare program. The bill passed by a vote of 280-138—with 95 Republican votes. The Veterinary Public Health Amendments Act (HR 525), introduced by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), would increase the number of veterinarians with public health training via federal subsidies. One of the bill’s provisions expands the Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program—a loan program created in Obamacare (Title V, Section 5204)—to include veterinarians in the definition of eligible public health officials. After Obamacare was enacted, Democrats recognized that...

Well, this morning, the WSJ brings the grim, completely expected news that fast-food giant McDonald’s has notified the feds that it may be forced to drop health insurance for some 30,000 workers due to the Obamacare mandate:

JEFFERSON CITY -- One poll in the U.S. Senate race for Missouri this week has Republican Roy Blunt topping 50 percent support for the first time in the race. Another poll this week has Blunt in a statistical dead heat with Democrat Robin Carnahan. As can be expected this time of the election year, both camps are trying to make hay with each poll. The one that came out first, by Rasmussen, showed Blunt widening the lead he has had in several other polls, including the Post-Dispatch poll.

Using FREEPER posts on elections result through-out the night, I have calculated that an average Alaska GOP precinct reports approximately 200 votes. There are only 9 precincts left to report. If Murkowshi wins every single vote left, she still loses by about 100 votes.

That this magazine has not always agreed with Sen. John McCain’s judgments is an understatement. For a few years at the start of the decade, not an issue went by, it seemed, without our feeling obligated to criticize the Arizona Republican. That conservatives in his state should be in the market for a senator who agrees with them more consistently is not remarkable. If McCain had a different challenger, we might think differently. But, taken together, these considerations move us to suggest that Arizona Republicans nominate Senator McCain. If ever we needed legislators who favor a resolute foreign policy and...

A bill expected to pass the House today with overwhelming Democratic support would accomplish something peculiar for a liberal republic in the 21st century: It would partly disenfranchise a portion of one state’s residents, create a parallel government for those meeting a legislated criterion of ethnic purity, and would portend the transfer of public assets, land, and political power from those who fail to satisfy the standard of ethnic purity to those who do. For these reasons and many more, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act richly deserves opposition. Strangely, though, it has met very little resistance. The bill is...

This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR On Feb. 13, some 6,000 U.S. Marines, soldiers and Afghan National Army (ANA) troops launched a sustained assault on the town of Marjah in Helmand province. Until this latest offensive, the U.S. and NATO effort in Afghanistan had been constrained by other considerations, most notably Iraq. Western forces viewed the Afghan conflict as a matter of holding the line or pursuing targets of opportunity. But now, armed with larger forces and a new strategy, the war — the real war — has begun. The most recent offensive — dubbed Operation Moshtarak (“Moshtarak”...

In the matter of Obama v. Alito, I side with the president. I agree with him on the merits of the argument, but that’s beside the point.... Mark Salter is the former Chief of Staff to Senator John McCain, senior adviser to his presidential campaign, and co-author of his five books.