Thief Who Stole Packages From Neighbor’s Doorsteps Turns Out To Be Eight-Year-Old Girl

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CLERMONT — If you’re expecting packages shipped to your home this time of year, you may be worried about thieves grabbing them from your doorstep before you get home.

A number of missing packages in one Lake County neighborhood prompted neighbors to set up a sting, and now, police said they believe they’ve cracked the case.

Jessica Araujo runs a business from her Clermont home, where she regularly receives shipments. Over the last few months, she thought several packages worth more than $1,800 never arrived, but she said she didn’t suspect they were stolen.

That is, until last week, when her neighbors on Briar Run Drive reported they also had packages of gifts stolen from their front doorstep.

According to police reports, the packages included Barbie dolls, children’s makeup and children’s cell phones.

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Three-Time Olympian Worked as $600/hour Escort

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A three-time U.S. Olympian who was publicity exposed on Thursday as an elite $600-an-hour escort has revealed that her husband knew about her double life and tried to put an end to it. Suzy Favor-Hamilton, a 44-year-old married mother of three, has been working with one of Las Vegas’ top agencies to book ‘dates’ across cities including Las Vegas, Chicago and Houston.

Despite using the name ‘Kelly Lundy’ as she advertised her services through Haley Heston’s Private Collection, her double life has been revealed after she told clients about her real identity, believing there was an unwritten rule they would not speak out.

But now at least one of these clients has contacted The Smoking Gun, which in turn has revealed the details of Favor-Hamilton’s clandestine career, which she now calls a ‘huge mistake.’

Soon after the story appeared online, instantly sparking a furor in the media, Favor-Hamilton took to Twitter to offer her 3,183 followers her side of the story. In one missive, the 44-year-old mother explained that she was initially drawn to escorting ‘because it provided many coping mechanisms for me when I was going through a very challenging time with my marriage and my life.

‘It provided an escape from a life that I was struggling in. It was a double life,’ she wrote.

In another, Favor-Hamilton wrote that the reasons behind her decision to turn to a life of prostitution, while seemingly irrational now, ‘made sense at the time’ and were closely related to depression. ‘As crazy as I know it seems, I never thought I would be exposed, therefore never hurting anybody,’ she said in one Twitter post.

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Legislative Proposal to Rebate Alaska Property Taxes for Private and Home Schoolers

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This legislative proposal will permit boroughs to rebate a portion of a parent’s property tax if he or she is either homeschooling their children or enrolled them in a private school.

But first we have to determine what’s fair.

Let’s say, for example, that 70% of your property taxes go toward funding your local public school district. But out of your own pocket, without any exogenous financial assistance, you’re also paying for your child’s enrollment in a private school.

You’ve paid for your child’s education, twice. Is that fair? Why or why not? If it isn’t fair, how much of that 70% should go toward your child’s education? All of it? Part of it? Why?

If you’re separately paying for your child’s non-public education, are you still obligated to pay into the public school system? Why?

What if you’re homeschooling your children and forsake employment in order to provide your children with a quality education? In some cases, that means that the homeschooling parent paid three times for the cost of an education, if you include the sacrifice of income.

During the latter half of this month, we’ll conduct a teleconference comment session in regards to our legislative proposal. If you would like to participate, please RSVP to [email protected] and we’ll reply with the date, time, and telephone number.

Our teleconference will focus on the issues that support the equitability of the proposal. In other words, we’ll try to ascertain what is considered to be a fair amount and who should qualify for a rebate.

We’ve formed an independent committee that is chaired by Mrs. Nicole Gates. Her committee will consolidate the input and feedback, evaluate the morals, ethics, values, and principles of each issue raised, and submit their recommendations that will be incorporated into the proposal. Please contact [email protected] if you’d like to serve on that committee.

Federal Spending Up 78% After Inflation Since 1998

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President Obama says he wants a “balanced” approach to the fiscal cliff. But critics argue the real problem is spending, which has far outstripped rising tax revenue as well as economic growth.

Federal government revenue rose from $1.7 trillion to $2.4 trillion from fiscal 1998 to 2012, slightly exceeding inflation. Revenue growth averaged 2.9% annually, despite two recessions, bear markets — and tax cuts.

But federal spending rose nearly twice as fast — 5.7% per year — surging from $1.6 trillion to $3.5 trillion over that same span.

The spending spike also exceeds growth in the population.

Some of the spending surge came during the Bush administration — the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, increases in non-defense discretionary spending and the creation of the Medicare prescription drug entitlement.

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Must Watch Video: Gun Owners of America Larry Pratt Skewers Anti-Gun Piers Morgan

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Piers Morgan loses it in this exchange, calling 2nd Amendment patriot Larry Pratt “incredibly stupid,” among other things. What made Morgan so mad? Mr. Pratt ran circles around him:

MORGAN: Can you answer my question?

PRATT: I’m answering your question. I wish you could understand it. Because you’re talking against self-defense.

MORGAN: Would you like to see — would you like to see — would you like to see —

PRATT: You’re talking against people being able to protect themselves.

MORGAN: Would you like to see teachers armed —

PRATT: And you don’t want to hear it, that’s why you keep interrupting me.

MORGAN: No, no, I don’t mind hearing it. I think it’s complete nonsense. But I mind hearing it. You would like to see —

PRATT: Well, Brits tend to do that, don’t they?

MORGAN: Stop being so facetious. I just want you to answer this one question. Post what happened at Sandy Hook, your answer to this problem of repeated use of this weapon with these high-capacity magazines is to continue letting Americans buy them with impunity, and to not concern yourself with these mass shootings. Is that right?

PRATT: The Second Amendment means what it says, and meanwhile, you want to continue laws against self-defense. Laws that prohibit self-defense. Laws that prohibit teachers and other faculty, other members of the administration in schools from being able to defend themselves if they have a concealed carry permit. The laws prohibit them right now. We have been lobbying against those laws since they were put on. We will continue to do so, pointing out that that is where the problem is. And for you to support them means that you’re really blind to the role that that plays in enabling murderers to operate within impunity.

MORGAN: Yes, I know — I know why sales of these weapons have been soaring in the last few days. It’s down to idiots like you. Mr. Pratt, thank you for joining me. When we come back —

PRATT: Thank you for your high-level argument, Mr. Morgan. It’s really very good.

MORGAN: You know what, you wouldn’t understand the meaning of the phrase high-level argument. You are a dangerous man espousing dangerous nonsense. And you shame your country.

PRATT: Disarmament is dangerous. Ask Neville Chamberlain, your role model.

MORGAN: Yes. Sure. I know all about role models and you’re not one of them.

Robert H. Bork, Conservative Judicial Icon, Dies at 85

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Robert H. Bork, the conservative jurist who fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973 and whose failed nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 sparked an enduring political schism over judicial nominations, died Dec. 19 at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County of complications from heart disease. He was 85.

The death was confirmed by Judge Bork’s daughter-in-law, Diana Culp Bork.

For decades, Judge Bork was a major architect of the conservative rebuttal to what he considered liberal judicial activism. He criticized civil rights legislation and rulings in cases involving the “one man, one vote” principle and the constitutional right to privacy.

His unrelenting calls for judicial restraint and his opposition to “imperialistic” liberal judges, who he said read their values into the Constitution, made him an iconic figure in conservative legal circles.

In his writings and in debates on legal doctrine, the burly, bearded, chain-smoking ex-Marine was sharply confrontational. But friends and enemies alike found him a man of great charm, compassion and intellect, with a wit so sharp a close friend once called it dangerous.

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Bipartisan Impeachment Threat?

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., and Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., along with retired senior defense intelligence officer Col. Walter P. Lang and the Veterans for Peace today said Congress must be consulted before Barack Obama would send American troops into Syria.

Or else.

At a press conference, Jones discussed his resolution to oppose American involvement in Syria without first consulting Congress.

His resolution, H.Con. Res. 107, expresses “the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a president without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.”

Jones was responding to the growing potential for direct American involvement in Syria to support the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

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‘Citizen Drone Warfare’: Hobbyist Explores a Frightening Scenario (+video)

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Less than a month ago, rumors that celebrity news and gossip website TMZ was interested in obtaining a paparazzi drone prompted privacy concerns and public debate about the appropriate personal and commercial uses of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Now, a new online video poses a more troubling question: What if civilian drones are equipped to shoot more than just pictures?

Titled “Citizen Drone Warfare” and posted to YouTube last week by an anonymous man calling himself “Milo Danger,” the video shows a hobbyist drone equipped with a custom-mounted paintball pistol flying over a grassy field and peppering human-shaped shooting-range targets with pellets.

Following an attack pass by the drone, one of the targets sports three large red blotches on its head and neck area.

“I wanted to show an inevitability of what I think will happen with these drones,” said “Milo,” who lives on the West Coast and spoke to The Washington Times on condition of anonymity. “I’m not advocating bad activities. But I wanted to raise some of the ethical issues we need to think about with this new technology.

See video below:

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Conservatives Denounce Voting for Boehner’s Plan B

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Prominent conservative leaders, including former attorney general Edwin Meese III, Ken Blackwell of the Conservative Action Project, Brent Bozell of ForAmerica, Colin Hanna of Let Freedom Ring, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, David Bossie of Citizens United, Gary Bauer of American Values, Jim Backlin of the Christian Coalition of America, Richard Viguerie of ConservativeHQ.com, Al Regnery of the Paul Revere Project, and Andy Roth of the Club for Growth, among a myriad of others, scheduled a press conference this afternoon to denounce Speaker John Boehner’s “Plan B” tax increase for addressing the fiscal cliff. Some are accusing Grover Norquist of giving cover to the establishment to facilitate this cave-in and hand President Barack Obama a liberal victory.

The group released a statement this afternoon:
“As leaders of broad based American citizen groups we call upon Republican House Members to vote no on Speaker Boehner’s Tax Hike known as “Plan B.” This tax increase bill is just like the tax increase proposal Nancy Pelosi offered last year on May 23rd.

Speaker Boehner, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and too many Members of the Republican conference have forgotten that the problem in Washington is too much spending and not too little taxation.

When the American people voted to return the Republican majority in the House last month we sent you to cut spending. Instead, you are now voting on the Pelosi plan to increase taxes next year.

We urge Members of the House to vote no on the procedural rule to stop the Pelosi/Boehner tax plan from coming to the House floor for a vote.”

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Guns Out of Stock at Wal-Mart as Magazine Prices Surge On

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With President Barack Obama endorsing sweeping gun restrictions in the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, prices for handgun magazines are surging on EBay (EBAY) and semi-automatic rifles are sold out at many Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) locations.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said yesterday that it would continue to sell guns, including rifles like the one used at Newtown, where 26 people, most of them children, were killed on Dec. 14. By contrast, Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. (DKS) suspended sales of similar guns at its more than 500 stores.

Searches of five kinds of semi-automatic rifles on Wal- Mart’s website showed them to be out of stock at stores in five states, including Pennsylvania, Kansas and Alabama. Wal-Mart doesn’t sell guns online, instead asking customers to input a zip code to see if their local store carries a specific weapon.

“We remain dedicated to the safe and responsible sale of firearms in areas of the country where they are sold,” David Tovar, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, said yesterday. He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.

Wal-Mart has about 10 modern sporting rifles, the gun industry’s term for firearms that look like an M-16 military rifle, listed on its website. The retailer removed a description and picture of the Bushmaster AR-15, which was the model used in Newtown, after the shootings.

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