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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum's main message to Republican voters in Huntsville Thursday was simple. "Obamacare is, in fact, the death knell for freedom, and that's why it must be repealed," Santorum told a large crowd at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center five days before the state's GOP primary. He referred to the Affordable Care Act passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama in 2010.

Santorum said the law is the "linchpin, if you will, that would tip the scales toward a country that would no longer be free." Mitt Romney, the GOP front-runner who signed a similar health care law while governor of Massachusetts, "is singularly the worst person to make that case," Santorum said.

Praising what he said was the Founders' vision of a country with limited government and maximum freedom, Santorum said, "We have a president who believes in a country that is antithetical to that country.

"He takes more and more freedom from you, takes more and more money from you and believes, as he's doing so, that he's making your life better," Santorum said. Instead, it's "a welfare state he's growing here in America."

Defeating Obama makes the 2012 election the most important "maybe in the history of this country," Santorum said.

Speaking to a friendly crowd about twice as large as the 400-500 drawn by Newt Gingrich two days earlier in the same place, Santorum did touch on one hot social issue. Human rights don't come from the U.S. Constitution, Santorum said, but from "the dignity of being created by a loving God.

"We believe ... in the dignity of all human life, the ability of every person in America, as imperfect as we are, to continue to refine and perfect ourselves to recognize the dignity of all human life," Santorum continued, "although we still fall short in a very critical area, and that is life in the womb."

The crowd applauded loudly when he mentioned that his family home-schooled their seven children and also when he promised to balance the budget in five years, but not cut defense spending and to "invest in the technology we see in Huntsville."

"I support Paul Ryan's budget," Santorum said, referring to the Republican congressman's plan that would, among other things, repeal the health care law, cut taxes on the highest-income individuals and corporations while closing tax loopholes, turn Medicaid into a federal block-grant program, and replace Medicare with private insurance subsidized by the government.

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Santorum says health care law 'death knell for freedom'

OPINION:Media freedoms are absolutely essential to the long-term health of any democracy. New Zealand is no exception.

The production order used by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) against the National Business Review demanded that NBR give up their records, including sources, of the NBR inquiry into the South Canterbury collapse.

That collapse caused hundreds of millions of dollars of cost to tax payers. The huge losses led to allegations of improper behaviour by South Canterbury Finance.

Serious questions were also raised about incompetence of the Government and its Ministry (the Treasury).

They allowed the size of that risk to grow by hundreds of millions after the Crown guarantee was granted, and rejected alternative ways of solving the problem which may have saved tens if not hundreds of millions.

NBR was right to inquire into what had gone wrong. The SFO interference in the NBR proved beyond doubt that the SFO powers are excessive and undermine the important role of a free media.

The SFO issued that order against the NBR with no outside oversight.

The excessive powers of the SFO mean that they do not have to get a warrant from a judge. Records they take are kept by the SFO. Refusal by the media to comply with an order from the SFO put the journalist and the NBR automatically in breach of the law, and at risk of criminal prosecution and fines. Just for protecting their source!

In contrast the similar power proposed for police investigating of even more pernicious organised crime requires the police to get a warrant from a Judge, which may be declined.

For the police any disputed records taken are to be secured and held by the High Court (not the SFO or the police). A High Court judge then decides whether the protection of media freedom provided for in the Evidence Act means the medias records and sources should remain confidential.

Link:
Media freedom and independence under threat

UPDATE: The Senate passed the bill 39-1. It now heads to Gov. Rick Scott.

Tax changes designed to help Verizon Communications and other telecom companies suddenly seem poised to pass on the final day of session, just two weeks after the measure appeared to stall.

At 7:42 p.m. last night, an amendment was filed to SB 1060 that would restore a controversial provision to the legislation, which deals with the states communications services tax.

Specifically, the language would give telecom companies more freedom to bundle together items that are subject to the CST (such as phone service) with items that they are not (such as home-security monitoring) into a combined package with one price for consumers. But they would only have to calculate taxes based on the hidden prices of the items that are subject to the tax.

Telecom companies say the legislation would ensure that they and their customers dont wind up being unfairly taxed on products that were never meant to be included under communications services and they say allowing them to package it all for a single price is a convenience for customers. But some tax-policy experts say the legislation creates a loophole through which companies will be able to deflate their tax bills, by minimizing the price of anything that is subject to the CST and maximizing the price of anything that is not.

State economists have struggled to understand the magnitude of the bundling provision, estimating it would cost the state and local governments a minimum of $35 million a year. A separate analysis by the Department of Revenue estimated the hit could be more than $300 million a year. The telecom industry disputes the estimates.

In addition to Verizon, Comcast Corp., AT&T and CenturyLink, among others, have been lobbying for the bill.

Two weeks ago, Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican who is sponsoring the bill, rewrote the legislation to take out all substantive changes and instead order only a study committee to evaluate the CST and recommend ways to modernize it before next years session. The amendment she filed last night would keep that committee, but also restore the bundling language.

The House bill (HB 809) is sponsored by Rep. Jamie Grant, a Tampa Republican, and it passed that chamber last month. The telecom industry has also worked on the issue with Rep. Chris Dorworth, the Lake Mary Republican tentatively in line to become House speaker after the 2014 elections.

More:
UPDATED: Tax changes for telecoms look pass Senate, head to governor

By G.E. Miller, Guest Columnist

If you're in your twenties, every financial action you take -- from accumulating debt, to saving for retirement, minimizing your expenses, or even negotiating a lower rate on your mortgage -- is compounded over time.

No pressure.

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But really, it's not time for excuses or to claim ignorance. Decades later, all of those woulda, coulda, shoulda thoughts won't add up to a dime.

Here are three ways you can start to optimize your finances.

1. Get your employer's 401(k) match and max out for the win! There is no better time to stockpile savings for retirement than in your twenties, particularly if you do not have children or a mortgage to balance yet. The power of compound interest is something you can't cram for like a final exam when you're in your fifties or sixties. Once you lose time, the power of compound interest is gone forever (see the Kiplinger.com tool The Power of Boosting 401(k) Contributions).

Maxing out your 401(k) contribution is encouraged but not easy to do for most. At the very least, take full advantage of the 401(k) match that your employer is offering you. Most employers who match employee contributions do so at the rate of 50% or 100% up to a given amount. You could invest in the stock market for the next 70 years and never get a 50% or 100% return on your investment in a given year, but that is what you are effectively getting with your employer's match. Free money!

This year ratchet up your 401(k) contribution as much as you can comfortably stomach. For the first time in four years, the IRS will increase the maximum 401(k) contribution allowed by employees. The 2012 maximum 401(k) contributionincreases to $17,000, up $500 over the 2011 401(k) maximum contribution. The increase also extends to 403(b) and 457(b) plans. See Retirement Account Contribution Limits for more information

2. Grab the saver's credit (while you still can). The unsung hero of tax credits has to be the Saver's Credit (aka the Retirement Savings Contribution Credit). If you qualify, you're turning your back on free money if you don't contribute to an IRA. The government will pay you in the form of a tax credit of up to $1,000 for a retirement account contribution of $2,000. This credit, which lowers your tax bill dollar for dollar, is available to lower-income taxpayers (highly correlated to younger folks), so grab it while you can.

Continued here:
3 Ways for Twentysomethings to Get Ahead Financially

Western workers are the civilian mercenaries of Africa. They are easy to spot in the continent's airports. Generally white and casually dressed, they travel in groups of three or four. They often seem to speak with Scottish accents and have little or no hand luggage, except possibly an iPad. And they are such seasoned travellers that they are generally the last to leave the bar when the flight is called.

"You do it for the money and only for a few years,'' said a Scottish welder I met recently at Luanda airport in Angola. All he knew of the country was the international airport and a hotel nearby where he had stayed while waiting for his helicopter transfer to the rig.

He works a 30/30 schedule: non-stop, 12 hours a day for 30 days, followed by a month off for 40,000 per year. That is the favoured work rhythm of employed oil workers who are a long way from home. Others work short stints for different companies as freelance contractors.

The untrained, entry-level staff, with no qualifications can expect to earn about 100 a day, but skilled staff can expect much more: senior construction project managers can pocket as much as 150,000 a year for their work, often much more than they could earn at home. In Nigeria, a project manager can take home 65,000 for helping to build hotels, according to one careers website yesterday.

The welder, a single man, said the best and worst aspect of his work was the monotony: jobs are narrowly defined for safety reasons but there also few surprises: "No bills to pay, no everyday dramas to deal with. They are waiting for me back home,'' he said. He was travelling back to Britain with a pipe fitter, a mechanic and a scaffolder, all working the same shift pattern.

Sites housing hundreds of expat specialists have everything: internet, swimming pool, gym and satellite television. Accommodation is five-star and is kept functioning by an army of housekeepers, plumbers and galley hands.

The downside is that the work takes place in remote and often dangerous regions where they risk being kidnapped or worse, as this week's events showed.

The companies involved are expected to provide security for their workers, but as message boards suggested yesterday, some areas of Africa, particularly Nigeria, remain highly dangerous for expat workers.

"I spent three months in Somalia two years ago and if u [sic] think Iraq is dangerous Somalia is much worse... The Niger Delta isn't much better. Having worked a lot in Africa I would advise u [sic] to think very carefully about going there at all," said one blogger.

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The expats: 'No bills, no everyday dramas' – until the unthinkable happens