Impeachment Warning to Obama (+video)

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Congressman Walter B. Jones (R-NC) held a press conference, Sept. 21, in Rayburn B-318, to discuss House Concurrent Resolution 107. Rep. Jones was joined by a group of senior retired military officials, constitutional lawyers, and congressional co-sponsors, to discuss HCR 107 (the bill to send an impeachment warning to Obama), which currently has 11 cosponsors.

This bi-partisan resolution, introduced in March of this year, reasserts the power of Congress to declare war, and states that any President who circumvents Congress, unless the United States is attacked, will face an article of impeachment.

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Muslim Leaders Demand that the United Nations Criminalize Criticism of Islam

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Egypt’s president and other Muslim leaders should demand the U.N. criminalize contempt of religion after the release of an anti-Islamic film and cartoons which demonstrate growing racism, said the leader of the biggest ultra-orthodox Islamist party.

Despite doctrinal and political differences with President Mohamed Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafist Nour Party played a key role in supporting it during presidential elections in June.

Led by Emad Abdel Ghaffour, it now ranks as the second-largest party in parliament and plays a formidable force in Egypt’s new politics.

“We call for legislation or a resolution to criminalize contempt of Islam as a religion and its Prophet,” said Ghaffour, one of four permanent assistants to the president, on Saturday.

“The voice of reason in the West will prevail if there is mutual respect, dialogue and efficient lobbying for this critical resolution,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: A Flag Worth Burning

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Since this story exploded two days ago on social media, Obama’s campaign has doubled-down, continuing to sell sacrilegious symbol. An Alaskan supporter sent me the following picture today, suggesting that this is one flag burning he could support:

Photo credit: Chuck Green

In case you aren’t aware of the controversy, the below video provides two short reports from CBN and Fox News:

Prisoners Sue for $500 Million Because They Don’t Have Dental Floss

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Some jail inmates are trying to put a $500 million bite on a suburban New York county in a lawsuit demanding access to dental floss.

Eleven inmates in the Westchester County jail in Valhalla say in a federal civil rights lawsuit that they are losing their teeth and suffering pain because they aren’t allowed dental floss.

Several say in the complaint that they brush three times a day, ‘tongue and gums included,’ but still get cavities and suffer bleeding gums, constant dental work for temporary fillings, and mental anguish.

The Journal News first reported on the lawsuit.

Deputy Correction Commissioner Justin Pruyne defended the ban, saying that dental floss ‘potentially can be used as a weapon.’

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Lying for Hispanic Votes: Claims at Univision Forum that Fast & Furious was Started by Bush

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Asked about the Fast and Furious program at the Univision forum on Thursday, President Obama falsely claimed that the program began under President George W. Bush.

“I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration,” the president said. “When Eric Holder found out about it, he discontinued it. We assigned a inspector general to do a thorough report that was just issued, confirming that in fact Eric Holder did not know about this, that he took prompt action and the people who did initiate this were held accountable.”

In actuality, the Fast and Furious program was started in October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency.

Previous programs involving ATF agents allowing guns to “walk” across the border so as to trace them were run during the Bush presidency, but not this particular “field-initiated program.”

White House officials did not respond to a request for comment after the falsehood was pointed out to them.

Read more from this story HERE.

100 Days Until Taxmageddon

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Photo credit: AllenWestForCongress

Sunday will mark the start of the 100-day countdown to “Taxmageddon” – the date the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2013:

First Wave: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief. In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for small business owners, families, and investors (later re-upped by President Obama and Democrat Congress in 2010). The following tax hikes will occur on January 1, 2013:

Personal income tax rates will rise on January 1, 2013. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which the majority of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates.

Higher taxes on marriage and family coming on January 1, 2013. The “marriage penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of taxable income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level.

Middle Class Death Tax returns on January 1, 2013. The death tax is currently 35% with an exemption of $5 million ($10 million for married couples). For those dying on or after January 1 2013, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

Higher tax rates on savers and investors on January 1, 2013. The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 23.8 percent in 2013. The top dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 43.4 percent in 2013. This is because of scheduled rate hikes plus Obamacare’s investment surtax.

Read more from this story detailing the Second Wave (20+ new Obamacare taxes) and the Third Wave (AMT Increases and Employer Tax Hikes).

House: No Ethics Charges for Rep. Maxine Waters

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California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters won’t be charged with ethics violations following allegations she steered a $12 million federal bailout to a bank where her husband owns stock.

House Ethics Committee members said Friday at a hearing their investigation found no violation by Waters, a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee.

However, the committee said Waters’ chief of staff, Mikael Moore, did take actions in Congress in an attempt to help the bank and violated House standards of conduct. Moore likely will receive a letter admonishing him for his conduct but will not face more severe punishment, such as a reprimand, by the full House.

Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, acting chairman of the panel, announced the tentative findings at the hearing but noted the committee had not issued a final report.

Goodlatte said the committee was convinced that when Waters asked for a meeting at the Treasury Department to discuss financial help for minority banks, she believed she did so on behalf of all minority banks — not just OneUnited, where her husband owns stock. Goodlatte said the committee agreed with Waters’ assertion.

Read more from this story HERE.

Americans’ Distrust of Media Highest in History

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Americans’ distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004.

The record distrust in the media, based on a survey conducted Sept. 6-9, 2012, also means that negativity toward the media is at an all-time high for a presidential election year. This reflects the continuation of a pattern in which negativity increases every election year compared with the year prior. The current gap between negative and positive views — 20 percentage points — is by far the highest Gallup has recorded since it began regularly asking the question in the 1990s. Trust in the media was much higher, and more positive than negative, in the years prior to 2004 — as high as 72% when Gallup asked this question three times in the 1970s.

This year’s decline in media trust is driven by independents and Republicans. The 31% and 26%, respectively, who express a great deal or fair amount of trust are record lows and are down significantly from last year. Republicans’ level of trust this year is similar to what they expressed in the fall of 2008, implying that they are especially critical of election coverage.

Independents are sharply more negative compared with 2008, suggesting the group that is most closely divided between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney is quite dissatisfied with its ability to get fair and accurate news coverage of this election.

More broadly, Republicans continue to express the least trust in the media, while Democrats express the most. Independents’ trust fell below the majority level in 2004 and has continued to steadily decline.

Read more from this story HERE.

Teenage girls should be offered implants or IUDs as birth control

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Doctors should be recommending IUDs or hormonal implants as birth control to teenage girls, the nation’s leading gynecologists group said Thursday.

Though sexually-active teens may prefer the pill, the patch or even wishful thinking, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said that IUDs and implants are more long-lasting and effective alternatives that users don’t have to remember to use every time.

The IUD and implants are safe and nearly 100per cent effective at preventing pregnancy, and should be ‘first-line recommendations’, read the organisation’s updated guidance for teenagers.

Both types of contraception are more invasive than the pill, requiring a doctor to put them in place. That, and cost, are probably why the pill is still the most popular form of contraception in the U.S.

But birth control pills often must be taken at the very same time every day to be most potent. And forgetting to take even one can lead to pregnancy, which is why the pill is sometimes only 91per cent effective.

Read more from this story HERE.

How a Family of 4 Lives in a 320 Sq. Ft. Home (Pretty Happily)

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While many of us commit to the three decades it takes to pay off a mortgage, Hari and Karl Berzins come at home ownership from a completely different viewpoint.

They live in a tiny 8-by-21-foot home they built with salvaged materials in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Counting the loft space with its three feet of headroom, that’s 320 sq. ft., or about the size of most people’s master bedrooms.

It might be a tiny house, but it’s paid for. “We wanted to really cut back our overhead as far as we possibly could and own what we live in outright so we have the choice to do what makes us happy,” says Hari, who works part time for a non-profit while husband Karl works as a chef.

Sharing that 320 sq. ft. are the Berzins’ two kids, ages 7 and 9, and a Great Pyrenees, a 3-foot-tall dog weighing in around 90 pounds.

The inspiration to live tiny came to the Berzins after they lost both a business and a 1,500-sq.-ft. home in Florida during the recession. While they didn’t want to go into debt again, they do value home ownership, so Hari and Karl moved into an affordable two-bedroom rental and spent the next year saving $25,000 to buy the 3-acre lot in Virginia where their tiny house now sits.

Read more from this story HERE.