Though reporters asked about it during President Obama’s Thursday press conference, media coverage of the gun-running “Fast and Furious” scandal has generally been lacking.

On Hugh Hewitt’s syndicated radio program Thursday, columnist Mark Steyn explained why he hasn’t ignored the story, and attacked the Obama administration’s involvement in the program.

“In this case the government of the United States is the gunrunner,” Steyn said. “That is basically what is happening here. There would be no guns running to these Mexican cartels if the United States government hadn’t instituted a program to facilitate it.”

Steyn noted the lack of media outrage compared with other scandals in the past.

“Now real Mexicans are dead,” he continued. “Does the president of the United States, does his attorney general, does CNN, does The New York Times, does NPR — do they not care about dead Mexicans?

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Read More at The Daily Caller By Jeff Poor, The Daily Caller

The Obama administration is arguing for the Supreme Court to violate a Christian church’s doctrine and subject a vast array of churches and ministries to the law of Mammon.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The case revolves around a teacher in the K-8 parochial school in Redford, Michigan, a hard-hit suburb of Detroit. (The school has since merged with another parochial school in Farmington Hills to become Concordia Lutheran School.) Cheryl Perich had been diagnosed with narcolepsy and given temporary leave. The school attempted to hold her job by combining three grades in one classroom for a semester, but when it became obvious she would be unable to return for an indeterminate period of time, the school moved to replace her. Adding to her problems, Perich did not file the required forms for her lengthy leave. In time, the school moved to end their relationship. The church laws of its sponsoring denomination — the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) — require the case to be handled by church tribunal, but Perich balked, suing the church in secular court under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The Obama administration’s EEOC joined the case against the church. It is joined by such legal and cultural left-wing stalwarts as the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, People for the American Way, the Anti-Defamation League, and, unsurprisingly, the National Employment Lawyers Association, which sees this as a possible source of new clients (from ambulance chasers to processional chasers).

At the heart of the matter is whether the school is subject to the ADA. The church school contends Perich was a “commissioned minister,” and lower courts have allowed for a “ministerial exception” to federal anti-discrimination laws. The courts agree churches, in accordance with the First Amendment, should appoint their own clergy without the federal intervention, and many have extended this same right to employees the church considers part of its ministerial team. The Obama administration would like to change that.

The Obama administration’s brief states that the school was a “commercial” entity, because it charged tuition (although the school was subsidized by the church). Since the school “required all teachers — called or contract, Lutheran or not — to perform the same job duties,” it did not matter whether she was a lay teacher or a ministerial teacher. Perich “taught secular subjects,” the administration argues. She read “secular textbooks commonly used in public schools,” and can only remember injecting Christian teaching into her subject matter in “two instances.”

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Read More at Floyd Reports  By Ben Johnson, The White House Watch

In 1911, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre Museum. Despite its seemingly eternal iconic status, prior to being stolen, historians assert the Mona Lisa was relatively unknown to the public. After knowledge about the heist was made known, the story is told that thousands of Parisians flocked to stare — at the empty spot on the wall where she once hung.

A few years back, I found myself also staring — down the gaping hole that would soon become “home” to my deceased husband. The events of that day are blurry, with the exception of the drive from the cemetery. The sun was quickly fading in the western sky as the funeral home limousine whisked me due east into the darkness of night and concurrently into the darkest season of my life. Peering through the window, grief-stricken, I explicitly remember thinking my life would never be the same. It wasn’t. And, over time, I realized how much I had taken for granted.

Though not as dramatic as grieving the loss of a loved one, or as superficial as grieving the loss of an inanimate object like the Mona Lisa, it seems a growing number of Americans are now in mourning for the America they didn’t fully appreciate until it was gone.

They are longing for the time when civility and unity had a place in Washington politics and America led the world economically, ethically, and militarily. A time when planning for the future was a positive thing. Gas and food prices didn’t force you to choose between basic necessities and your mortgage payment, jobs were in surplus, and unemployment was low.

If anything positive could be said about the upheaval that has marked the past few years, it’s that it sparked a reawakening to our national identity as a “shining city on a hill,” as Reagan so eloquently put it. At the same time, the Progressive Left has seized the opportunity to peddle their own propaganda and promote the “fundamental change” Obama so eloquently promised.

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Read More at Floyd Reports By Susan Stamper Brown, Floyd Reports

After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.

My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s governors to Congressional seats and the Presidency. We need to continue to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the “fundamental transformation” of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the rule of law.

From the bottom of my heart I thank those who have supported me and defended my record throughout the years, and encouraged me to run for President. Know that by working together we can bring this country back – and as I’ve always said, one doesn’t need a title to help do it.

I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs.

Those will be our priorities so Americans can be confident that a smaller, smarter government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people can better serve this most exceptional nation.

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Read More at Floyd Reports Floyd Reports