If you would like to know what the White House really thinks of Obamacare, there's an easy way. Look past its press releases. Ignore its promises. Forget its talking points. Instead, simply witness for yourself the outrageous way the White House protects its best friends from Obamacare.

Last year, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had granted 111 waivers to protect a lucky few from the onerous regulations of the new national health care overhaul. That number quickly and quietly climbed to 222, and last week we learned that the number of Obamacare privileged escapes has skyrocketed to 733.

Among the fortunate is a who's who list of unions, businesses and even several cities and four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee) but none of the friends of Barack feature as prominently as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

How can you get your own free pass from Obamacare? Maybe you can just donate $27 million to President Obama's campaign efforts. That's what Andy Stern did as president of SEIU in 2008. He has been the most frequent guest at Mr. Obama's White House.

Backroom deals have become par for the course for proponents of Obamacare. Senators were greased with special favors, like Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson and his Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary L. Landrieu and her Louisiana Purchase. Even the American Medical Association was brought in line under threat of losing its exclusive and lucrative medical coding contracts with the government.

Not only are the payoffs an affront to our democracy and an outright assault on our taxpayers, the timing itself of the latest release makes a mockery of this administration's transparency promises. More than 500 of the 733 waivers, we now know, were granted in December but kept conveniently under wraps until the day after the president's State of the Union address. HHS is no stranger to covering up bad news; in fact, this is becoming a disturbing pattern. Last year, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius hid from Congress until after the Obamacare vote a damning report from the Medicare and Medicaid Office of the Actuary showing Obamacare would cost $311 billion more than promised and would displace 14 million Americans from their current insurance.

Russian security officials are investigating the death of a colonel in Russian foreign intelligence, who apparently fell from the window of his 14th floor flat, media reports say.

The body of Col Gennady Ambarnov, 46, was found by passers-by hours later.

The colonel had been arguing with his wife and son, media reports say.

The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is one of the organisations that succeeded the Soviet KGB. It deals with intelligence gathering abroad.

The website Lifenews.ru said Col Ambarnov's 20-year-old son Andrey was suspected of being behind his death on the night of 29-30 January.

A blood-stained jacket was found in the flat, the website added.

I couldn't find statistics for local utility shut offs in my area, but I knew we would start to see more and more of this.

Houses everywhere are going vacant. People don't say goodbye, they don't leave a number, they just disappear. With their disappearance we add another vacant house to the street. But families living in housing without utilities is a new sight for me to behold. I spoke recently with a rep from So Cal Edison who, full time contacts residence who have had their electricity turned off due to non payment. She has a negotiator sent in and they work on a reduced payment. It's amazing to me, that now, it is becoming acceptable in California to camp out in your home.

People are losing their homes, losing their cars and losing their dignity. How are we going to afford kids clothes and school supplies for the coming year? How can we expect families to pay for all these additional costs when the economy is in the shape it in. I ask myself this everyday.

This is Commentary about Camden New Jersey cutting half of its police department, Flint, Michigan closing 2 fire houses and Detroit Schools. The video covers many economic realities faced by Americans.

Alpharetta, Georga -- The father and aunt of a 4-year-old girl have been charged with killing her.

According to Alpharetta Police Department spokesman George Gordon, the 4-year-old girl died as a result of "extreme alcohol toxicity."

Officers told Channel 2's Mike Petchenik that they were called to a condo unit on Homestead Trail in Alpharetta for a medical emergency just after midnight Friday. Neighbors said the home is occupied by a family with several children.

A 4-year-old girl was transported from the home to an area hospital and later died, police said. They aren't releasing the child's name because she is a minor.

The [Israeli] government approved on Sunday a proposal declaring pirate radio a threat that constitutes "aerial terror" and endangers the peace and security of passengers flying over Israeli skies.

The approval of the proposal, initiated by Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, means that the government will increase its activities against illegal broadcasting. For the first time, a pirate radio offense will be termed an "economic crime," and will be enforced as such.

The enforcement plan includes adding five police teams to deal with locating and dealing with pirate radio infrastructure, and placing two prosecutors with the economics crime division of the police to work on the legal end.

The tax authority will also be involved, by hunting advertisers, financers and broadcasters. The government will recommend that the attorney general prepare a punishment policy suited to the gravity of the offense.

A recent Russian intelligence assessment warned that the "Stuxnet" computer worm that's embedded itself into Iran's Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant could cause a "Chernobyl-like disaster" should the site be switched on.

The document was obtained exclusively by the Associated Press, which cited Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's envoy to NATO, as worrying that the Bushehr facility could end up like the Ukrainian nuclear site that experienced a nuclear disaster in 1986, rendering the city virtually uninhabitable.

The "Stuxnet" worm is malicious software code that makes nuclear centrifuges spin out of control. It targets computer control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens, commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other facilities.

Stuxnet is able to recognize a specific facility's control network and then destroy it, according to German computer security researcher Ralph Langner, who has been analyzing Stuxnet since it was discovered in June.

Snow plows have been out in full force in Wayne, N.J. since the storm hit. But some people who are digging out claim, some operators are plowing them right back in.

It's causing snow plow rage.

Nancy Snyder's husband is a public works employee. She says an angry resident attacked him with a bucket of salt.

"He sees the red face. He sees the anger in the resident. He sees the swinging bucket. And he even says, 'Roll down that window or I'm going to bust you in the head with it.' And boom," Snyder says.

Cairo - Foreign governments stepped up their warnings about travel to Egypt, with several urging their nationals to evacuate as soon as possible, further fueling uncertainty over where the Arab nation is headed after nearly a week of mass protests.

The fears of foreign tourists mirrored those of many Egyptians. Dozens with the means to do so rented jets or hopped aboard their own planes in a mad dash that did little to boost confidence in the future of a country that, until a week ago, had been viewed as a pillar of stability in a restive region. Those leaving included businessmen and celebrities.

The American, Swiss, Turkish and Dutch governments issued advisories encouraging nationals already in the country to leave and telling those who planned trips to Egypt to reconsider. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo said it was making arrangements to transport Americans who want to leave to "safehaven locations in Europe." Flights would begin on Monday.

Bodies littered the road outside a Cairo prison and troops with bayonets fixed moved into another facility after thousands of convicts broke out of jails or were abandoned by guards in protest-hit Egypt. Soldiers set up checkpoints along the Nile in the upmarket Maadi district, near the notorious Tora prison, searching cars for escapees, as protests against President Hosni Mubarak raged into a sixth straight day.

Troops took a man from a car, threw him on the ground and tied his hands with a scarf as they did not have handcuffs. Asked why the man was detained, a soldier told an AFP correspondent: "He's just escaped from prison."

At Tora prison, where many Islamist militants have in the past been detained and tortured according to rights groups, an AFP correspondent said that shots could be heard coming from inside while soldiers with bayonets fixed moved in.

The army blocked access to the prison and an armoured personnel carrier fired its heavy machine gun in the air to clear civilians from the area.