Uberly

More news with a little commentary mixed in.

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America doesn't have a "healthcare system"

We have no need for a Federal Healthcare law as long as we remain a free society capable of innovating many and varied alternatives – simultaneously – without an act of Congress.

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Judge Nap: Obama 'Went Outside Chain of Command,' Used British Spy Agency to Surveil Trump

The Justice Department on Monday asked lawmakers for more time to gather evidence related to President Trump's claim that former President Obama ordered wiretaps on Trump Tower's phones during last year's presidential campaign.

On "Fox & Friends" this morning, Judge Andrew Napolitano said that even if the Obama administration did spy on Trump, there may never be a way to prove it.

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Neiman Marcus is seeking a buyer

The retailer's latest sale is for itself.

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus today said that it is exploring "strategic alternatives" that could include a sale of the entire business. This comes two months after the Dallas-based company pulled an IPO registration that had been on file since August 2015, and amid a much broader slump among physical retailers (particularly those concentrated within shopping malls).

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Feminists Condemn Casey Affleck After Oscar Win, Urge That He Be Shunned

Speaking to The New York Times in November, Affleck said that the settlements were done to the satisfaction of every party, and that he had moved past the event. However, some people—especially those not part of the story—have used the controversy to propel themselves to fame.

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When the federal government is too powerful, our freedoms are put in jeopardy

Federalism is finally starting to make the comeback it has needed since Ronald Reagan left office. It’s wonderful to see so many politicians, journalists, and citizens starting to embrace the notion that we need a serious curtailing of DC powers. The timing for our party to emerge couldn’t have been better.

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President Donald Trump kept on the official whom President Obama and Secretary Kerry placed in charge of the negotiation for Iran to release American hostages. At the very least it is time to publish the hostage agreement that led to Iran receiving $1.4 billion.

Five weeks after Obama left office, Trump has the power to hold his predecessor to it and expose the true mendacity of Obama’s ransom deal.

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Yes, conservatives still care about Federalism even if Republicans run the government

Most conservatives seem to be hoping the Republicans will succeed but reserved in their predictions of success. They want a backup plan, and while we don’t see ourselves as the backup but rather the rising solution, we’ll accept their support in any way they’re willing to give it.

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It’s a scientifically and mathematically provable fact that all tariffs, at any time and in any country, will harm economic growth, eliminate net jobs, destroy prosperity, and lower the standard of living of the protectionist country because tariffs are guaranteed by the ironclad laws of economics to generate costs to consumers that outweigh the benefits [...]

To paraphrase Thomas Sowell, the first lesson of international economics is that free trade makes us better off and protectionism makes us worse off. The first lesson of politics when it comes to international trade is to ignore the first lesson of international economics, and impose protectionist trade policies when they further the political interests of short-sighted elected officials.

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Donald Trump & Media: Obama Downplayed Terror Threat

Trump’s real object here isn’t so much to pursue a feud with his media tormentors as it is to refocus the public on the threat of Islamist terror.

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Obama is leaving office on an anti-privacy note — and Donald Trump is coming in the same way

“Even if 15 of those agencies are filled with patriots who’d never dream of misusing data or metadata gathered on Americans, and who protect that data from being hacked with best practices, one agency might be corrupted by the president, or have poor information security,” he adds. “Bad actors at the top would seem to have more avenues for successful abuse, and innocents at the bottom would seem to have a higher risk of being subject to it.”

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Don’t Trust Congress to Eliminate Obamacare

The way to give Pres. Trump the opportunity to do the right thing on Obamacare is for Congress to do the right thing and get a full repeal to his desk. Personally, I think Congress is filled with Constitutional criminals, and there’s no way we should trust them to do this.

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Tom Coburn says restoring earmarks will backfire on GOP: 'Nothing but corruption and fraud'

One option House Republicans considered is to limit earmarks to specific areas of spending, such as water projects. Mr. Culberson’s suggestion to allow earmarks only for government agency projects could also curtail abuses such like the ones that put Mr. Cunningham in prison.

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Report: Trump has figured out who should pay for the wall, and it’s not Mexico

“We want President Trump to have all the tools he needs to build the wall,” Scalise said. “We’re in talks with him on the details of it as they’re still putting together their team. We still got a few months before there’s another funding bill that’s going to move. We’re going to work with him to make sure we can get it done. We want to build a wall. He wants to build a wall,” he said.

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(via Dakota Pipeline Protest NFL Vikings US Bank | Law News)

A Star Tribune report says play was not interrupted and the banners included the U.S. Bank logo and the phrase “Divest #NoDAPL.”  As the protest received widespread attention in the middle of an NFL game, media outlets reportedly began receiving statements saying, “We are here in solidarity with water protectors from Standing Rock to urge U.S. Bank to divest from the Dakota Access Pipeline.”

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Judge blocks Obama mandate forcing doctors to perform abortions, transgender surgeries

“Every hospital in our country has a medical staff and is required to have an organized medical staff, and the purpose for that medical staff is primarily and almost solely to ensure patient safety and the quality of care,” Mr. Wilson said.

“And it’s a frightening aspect of this whole initiative that that process has been effectively taken out of the hands of the medical staff and decided by a federal agency, which has now determined who can and can’t do it, who will and won’t do it and who must participate,” he said.

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Officially, the Shiite militias are under presidential control, the Iranian clients are behaving themselves, the Sunnis and Kurds are being respected… officially.

U.S. military advisors have been ordered to stay out of the front lines by the White House, except in the rare special operations missions accompanying elite Iraqi or Kurdish forces on a specific raid or operation.

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10 Notable Campus Stories From 2016

Jewish and pro-Israel students around the world have been facing a deluge of hostile activity in the form of Palestinian human-rights advocacy. This year, through the establishment of The Algemeiner’s Campus Bureau, we have have reported on this phenomenon. As 2017 kicks off, here is a list of what we consider the most significant examples from the past year.