Freedom News Hour - 03/20/14

Co-hosts Walt Thiessen and Bill Westmiller discuss ObamaCare revisions, challenges to NSA surveillance, and monetary developments.

 

Four out of 19 cancer hospitals will not be covered by ObamaCare plans and some cancer drugs will cost patients up to $2,000 more every month. The Massachusetts Health Exchange, which served as a template for Obamacare, is still down and won't be active for another six months. Meanwhile, unions are still trying to get an exemption for their lavish health plans, distinct from individual or employer programs.

 

Senator Rand Paul got standing ovations from a Berkeley audience, demanding a new committee to curb NSA abuses and "watch the watchers". New Snowden documents reveal another NSA program: "MYSTIC" scoops up all phone communications in selected foreign countries, keeping them for up to thirty days. British ministers confess that the Snowden revelations have  "dwarfed" the meagre reports they had been receiving from GCHQ. The U.S. House is on the verge of introducing legislation to ban NSA bulk data collection.

 

New FED Chair Janet Yellen says "no more thresholds" to indicate when national banks will start increasing interest rates. They'll look at all their numbers and do whatever they please. A half-dozen foreign countries are conducting a "fire-sale" of the U.S. Treasuries, either because of concern about arbitrary U.S. sanctions or the fading confidence in the Dollar as a standard reserve. Russia, in particular, is responding to U.S. sanctions against their Crimean "acquisition", which affect several prominent Russian politicians and corporations.