Bolivian City to Castrate Rapists and Cut Off Hands of Thieves

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Thieves will be getting a lot more than a slap on the wrist in one Bolivian city, and convicted rapists will face something a whole lot worse.

Under a controversial, new law system for Bolivia’s indigenous people in the city of El Alto, thieves will have their hands amputated and those found guilty of rape will be chemically castrated.

After being sentenced in a newly created court, the unlucky crooks will be operated on by trained doctors paid to perform the procedures. However, if the doctors refuse to put the perps under the knife, lesser-trained, indigenous doctors from the surrounding highlands will be brought in to do the job.

Chemical castration is the administration of medication designed to reduce libido and sexual activity.

“Indigenous justice is handled differently, not between four walls as ordinary justice is. We will not be sending people to jail in these cases,” said Carmelo Titirico, leader of the National Council for Ayllu y Marka people, according to the New York Daily News.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Has Firm Belief in Man-Caused Global Warming, Says ‘We’ve Got Obligation’ to Act

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President Barack Obama held his first postelection press conference today, Nov. 14, 2012, in the East room at the White House. The president took eight questions from the White House press corps; one of those questions was on the subject of Global Climate Change, and the President’s plan to “tackle the issue of climate change”.

Mark Landler, part of the White House press corps and a journalist for the New York Times, asked the President the following question on Global Climate Change.

“Mr. President. In his endorsement of you a few weeks ago, Mayor Bloomberg said he was motivated by the belief that you would do more to confront the threat of climate change than your opponent. Tomorrow you’re going up to New York City, where you’re going to, I assume, see people who are still suffering the effects of Hurricane Sandy, which many people say is further evidence of how a warming globe is changing our weather. What specifically do you plan to do in a second term to tackle the issue of climate change? And do you think the political will exists in Washington to pass legislation that could include some kind of a tax on carbon?”

The president did not shy away from the question, saying, “I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions.”

“You know, as you know, Mark, we can’t attribute any particular weather event to climate change. What we do know is the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago. We do know that the Arctic ice cap is melting faster than was predicted even five years ago. We do know that there have been extraordinarily — there have been an extraordinarily large number of severe weather events here in North America, but also around the globe. And I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions. And as a consequence, I think we’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Federal Housing Administration Running Out of Money, May Need Bailout

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If you thought bailouts were the stuff of 2008 you may want to think again.

A federal housing agency responsible for insuring hundreds of thousands of home loans may be running out of money and could soon be asking for a bailout from the government.

The Federal Housing Administration is so loaded with delinquent mortgages that its reserves are running low, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal the afternoon. The Journal, whose Nick Timiraos cites people familiar with the matter, notes that 9.6% of the FHA’s $1.08 trillion mortgage guarantees are more than 90 days past due or in foreclosure.

Just how bad is the FHA’s reserve problem? Last year the difference between its reserve amount and the money it would need if had to pay all its projected losses was just $1.2 billion , or .12% of its loan guarantees, the Journal reports. To put that in perspective, the agency is required to keep it above 2%.

If the FHA is indeed in need of a bailout then an already fragile housing recovery could be in trouble.

Read more from this story HERE.

Israel Kills Hamas’s Chief Military Leader (+video)

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Israel has announced that an early morning strike targeted and killed Hamas’s senior military leader, Ahmed Jabari. Palestinian officials claim six people in total have been killed by the Israeli airstrikes.

The Israeli airstrikes were a response to rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip, which was targeting Israeli civilians. Hamas security officials claim two Hamas training facilities were among the targets of the Israeli airstrikes.

Rather than the single-action responses from the Israeli military prior to the 2012 US presidential elections, this morning’s actions indicate a new attitude on the part of Israeli leaders. Read more from this story HERE.

White House Petition Frenzy: New Petition to Strip Citizenship of Secession Signers Gains Steam (+video)

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On President Barack Hussein Obama’s WhiteHouse.gov petition website, a new petition has been posted that seeks to strip the citizenship of all citizens who have signed secession petitions. Created on November 12, the petition now has 7,917 signatures.

To meet the White House’s 25,000 signature threshold for consideration, the petition requires – at the time of this posting, an additional 17,083 by December 12, 2012. At the current rate of over 4,000 signatures per day, it seems pretty apparent that this petition will reach its signature goal.

The creator of this most recent petition is “Douglas H.” from Escondido, California.

This new petition – as well as the secession petitions that have been filed since last week’s election – stand little chance of going anywhere despite the Obama administration’s attempt to create false expectations by citing to successful petitions relating to the women’s right to vote, slavery, and civil rights under the link, “History of Petitions.” The White House conveniently leaves out that such “petitions” required constitutional amendments and/or congressional action as well.

Other disappointing features of the WhiteHouse.gov petition site include the “We the People” wording on the headers of each page as well as the shaded “TAX CUTS” phrase immediately above “We the People.” The Obama administration likely got some real humor out of the inclusion of both phrases, given its antipathy to both Tea Party “We the People” ideals as well as tax cuts.

Here’s what the White House itself says about its petition process:

Huckabee Says There’s ‘Absolute Certainty’ of a White House Cover-up on Benghazi

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tells Newsmax it’s an “absolute certainty” there has been a cover-up involving the Benghazi terrorist attack and the White House “flat-out lied” to the American people about it.

He also maintains that Mitt Romney and the Republicans lost the election not because their message was wrong but because the Obama “machinery” was “staggeringly good.”

And Huckabee, who sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, says he won’t rule out another White House run in 2016.

CIA Director David Petraeus resigned his post after acknowledging an extramarital affair, and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee want to know why, after the FBI had been investigating this for months, they hadn’t been notified earlier.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Huckabee was asked if details of his affair were covered up by the White House to help Obama win re-election. Read more from this story HERE.

[Editor’s Note: Curiously, after posting the video of the Huckabee interview where the Governor makes the “absolute certainty” comment, Newsmax pulled it down. We have contacted Newsmax for an explanation but have not received a response back at the time of this posting].

Filmmaker Declines to Sell Footage of ‘Firenado’ to Al Gore Because ‘Science Isn’t Settled’ (+video)

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(The Blaze) Filmmaker Chris Tangey was surprised when he was contacted by Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project as the organization hoped to use his footage of a fire tornado — or “firenado” — shot in the Australian Outback in September. Tangey explained to NT News that they would need to convince him such an event was caused by man-made global warming before selling them the rights to it.

TheBlaze brought you both the story of Tangey’s “firenado” footage and also his refusal to grant rights to the Climate Reality Project. Now we’ve talked with Tangey directly about his thoughts on the use of nature footage and the context of man-made global warming, as well as why he rebuffed Gore.

Tangey, owner of Alice Springs Film and Television, in an email interview with TheBlaze explained that the first time he was contacted by Gore’s team, they were seeking rights to the footage for five years to be used in PowerPoint presentations. The second time the Climate Reality Project crew reached out, which was last week, it was for a 24-hour webcast taking place this Nov. 14 through 15.

After this initial request, Tangey said he researched climate change for himself.

“I came to the conclusion there is climate change,” he wrote. “But I am yet to see definitive evidence on its severity; how much of it is human induced; how long it has been going for and how long it is likely to go for; how much is due to the solar cycle; how much is due to the all sorts of variables in oceans which cover 71 percent of the planet’s surface and for which there is no all-encompassing historical data, nor can there be, or how capable the planet is of self-correction (which seems to be the big surprise among scientists, although they seem to be constantly ‘surprised,’ yet can be so definitive on climate change…).”

See video below. Full footage begins at 3:15:

Read more from this story HERE.

Petraeus’s Mistress Paula Broadwell’s Driver’s License Found in Capital Park (+video update)

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A Maryland National Capital Park Police spokesman confirmed that a jogger found a North Carolina license in Rock Creek Park belonging to Paula Broadwell. Park Police planned to hold it for 90 days, per policy, and then send it back to the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

The Park Police also alerted the FBI, says Bill Kellogg, a spokesman for the Park Police. The FBI did not initially return calls for comment on the report.

Broadwell’s attorney, Robert F. Muse, confirmed that Broadwell, a North Carolina resident, lost her driver’s license in the park…Muse did not immediately return calls regarding Broadwell’s current whereabouts. Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Ron Paul, “Secession is an American Principle”

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Ron Paul has joined the secession discussion. Today, the 2012 presidential candidate reaffirmed a position that he’s discussed before, stating at RonPaul.com that “secession is an American principle.”

Dr. Paul also included a video from 2009 where he discussed secession as “an important Constitutional principle.”

He contends that secession is “an American tradition. It’s very American to talk about secession. That’s how we came into being. Thirteen colonies seceded from the British and established a new country, so secession is very much an American principle.”

Paul also cites the US response to the disintegration of the former USSR: “What about all the strong endorsements we have given over the past decade or two of those republics that seceded from the Soviet system? We were delighted with this. We never said, “Oh no. Secession is treasonous”.

He concludes, “No matter what they do and how many promises they have and how many bailouts they have, they can’t do it if the money doesn’t work. So then, the independence of the states will come back and it doesn’t mean that you’ll be un-American to even contemplate what might have to be done once the dollar crashes.”

Report: Obama Asks Holder to Stay On for Second Term

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He’s back. President Barack Obama reportedly asked Eric Holder to stay as attorney general after he’s inaugurated for a second term, and the controversial Cabinet head agreed.

“I don’t know if everyone in the White House wants him [Holder] to stay, but the important guy does, and that’s all that matters,” a source told the New York Post.

Mr. Holder is one of the most controversial attorney generals in history. His Department of Justice is responsible for Fast & Furious, the gun walking operation that placed over 2,000 guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. These guns are connected to the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and over 300 Mexican citizens. Hundreds of guns are still missing. Another gun walking operation out of Dallas, TX is connected to the death of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata.

In July, the House of Representatives voted to hold Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress for not complying with an October 2011 subpoena over documents concerning Fast & Furious.

Read more from this story HERE.