Cruz: Conservatism ‘On the Verge of a Rebirth’

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WASHINGTON — Newly minted Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Saturday offered an optimistic picture of conservatism’s future.

“We are on the verge of a rebirth,” Cruz declared to a conservative audience at the National Review Institute Summit.

Lambasting President Barack Obama’s inauguration speech as “an ode to liberalism” and as much of a lip-sync job as Beyonce’s version of the National Anthem, Cruz — who has been pushing his idea of “opportunity conservatism” — encouraged conservative not to lose hope, despite an emboldened Obama and Democratic majority in the Senate.

“We can stop this, we can turn it around and in fact, I am right now incredibly, incredibly optimistic,” he said.

Cruz offered two paths for the movement to follow, one short-term and one long. His short-term plan, he said, is largely directed to the Republican majority in the House of Representatives — what he called “the last bastion standing between us and oblivion.”

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Boy Scouts Likely to Approve Gay Leaders in Major Policy Reversal

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The Boy Scouts of America announced today, under pressure from questions raised by The Christian Post, that the organization is likely to allow professed homosexuals to become scout leaders and that a vote on the matter is scheduled at the group’s executive meeting in Irving, Texas, the first week of February.

When asked about the change by The Christian Post, BSA officials confirmed the major policy reversal just days before Scout Sunday, February 3, an annual event held in many churches around the country to promote and encourage participation in scouting. The organization originally planned to make the announcement at the Boy Scouts of America Annual Meeting in May.

A source who has knowledge of the situation told The Christian Post last week that the BSA’s top executives had met with top leaders at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, among others, over the last few weeks to inform them of the possibility of this policy shift.

Early Monday morning, the BSA responded to CP’s inquiry and released the following statement via email:

“For more than 100 years, Scouting’s focus has been on working together to deliver the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. Scouting has always been in an ongoing dialogue with the Scouting family to determine what is in the best interest of the organization and the young people we serve,” wrote Deron Smith, BSA’s Director of Public Relations.

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Sessions: Large-Scale Amnesty Likely to Add Trillions to Debt

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Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions voiced concerns over the bipartisan proposal for immigration reform introduced on Monday by eight senators, saying the plan will substantially increase the already sky-high national debt and criticizing the federal government for inadequately enforcing existing immigration laws.

“No one should expect the members of the Senate are just going to rubber stamp what a group who met decided,” Sessions said on the Senate floor.

While immigration system needs to be reformed, Sessions said, the country has been through this dance before.

The Alabama senator recalled the failed promise of enforcement following immigration reform in 1986, as well as the aborted attempts at immigration reform in 2006 and 2007.

The latter efforts, Sessions said, didn’t succeed “because it did not do what they said it would do. It did not end the illegality. It did not set forth a proper principle of immigration for America, [and] it did not sufficiently alter the nature of our immigration system to advance the national interest of the United States.”

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North Korean Cannibalism Fears Amid Claims of Starvation

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Reports from inside the secretive famine-hit pariah state, North Korea, claim a man has been executed after murdering his two children for food.

The grim suggestion that North Koreans are turning to cannibalism were reported by the Asia Press, and published in the Sunday Times.

They claim a ‘hidden famine’ in the farming provinces of North and South Hwanghae has killed 10,000 people, and there are fears that cannibalism is spreading throughout the country.

The reports come as sanctions are tightened against the backdrop of angry rhetoric over missile testing.

In one particularly disturbing report, a man was said to have dug up his grandchild’s corpse. Other lurid reports included the suggestion that some men boiled their children before eating them.

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Government Scraps Position Dedicated to Closing Prison at Guantanamo

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The State Department office responsible for helping facilitate the relocation of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has been closed, The New York Times reports.

The paper reports that Daniel Fried, who served as the special envoy for Guantanamo Bay since the position’s inception in 2009, has been reassigned. He will not be replaced, and his duties will now be “assumed” by the State Department’s legal adviser, according to an internal personnel announcement.

Relocating detainees had been seen as a vital step in the president’s promise to close the prison, which was frequently and vociferously criticized by liberal activists before Obama’s election.

“I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that,” Obama told CBS’ Steve Kroft in November 2008.

Obama also signed an executive order shortly after taking office that declared the prison for suspected terrorists would be shuttered “no later” than January 2010.

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Secret Service Dog Falls to Death While Doing Security Sweep for Biden

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NEW ORLEANS — A Secret Service dog fell to its death off a New Orleans parking garage while conducting a security sweep for Vice President Biden.

WWL-TV reports the dog fell off the six-story roof at the Premier Parking garage adjacent to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel where Biden was speaking for Sen. Mary Landrieu’s re-election fundraiser.

The Belgian shepherd was rushed to Metairie Veterinary hospital by motorcade but attempts to revive the dog proved unsuccessful.

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Milwaukee County Sheriff: Don’t Wait For Police; Arm Yourselves

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Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. has a message for residents in his jurisdiction: You can’t rely on him anymore. You need to arm yourself.

On Friday, the nominally Democratic sheriff issued a recorded public safety announcement on the radio and on the Web that encouraged residents to take their lives into their own hands.

Here’s the full transcript: “I’m Sheriff David Clarke and I want to talk to you about something personal: your safety. It’s no longer a spectator sport; I need you in the game. But are you ready? With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option. You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. But are you prepared? Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there. You have a duty to protect yourself and your family.”

Crime is relatively rare in Clarke’s jurisdiction: In 2010, the Sheriff’s Department reported two burglaries, nine robberies and zero murders. (Preliminary data from 2012 were not available, and it’s not clear if the department submitted its crime statistics to the FBI for 2011.)

Also rare are justifiable homicides in the U.S.: About 260 private citizens lawfully killed someone committing a felony in 2011, or less than one case per every 1 million people in the nation.

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Evidence Grows for Narcolepsy Link to GSK Swine Flu Shot

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(Reuters) – Emelie Olsson is plagued by hallucinations and nightmares. When she wakes up, she’s often paralyzed, unable to breathe properly or call for help. During the day she can barely stay awake, and often misses school or having fun with friends. She is only 14, but at times she has wondered if her life is worth living.

Emelie is one of around 800 children in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe who developed narcolepsy, an incurable sleep disorder, after being immunized with the Pandemrix H1N1 swine flu vaccine made by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline in 2009.

Finland, Norway, Ireland and France have seen spikes in narcolepsy cases, too, and people familiar with the results of a soon-to-be-published study in Britain have told Reuters it will show a similar pattern in children there.

Their fate, coping with an illness that all but destroys normal life, is developing into what the health official who coordinated Sweden’s vaccination campaign calls a “medical tragedy” that will demand rising scientific and medical attention.

Europe’s drugs regulator has ruled Pandemrix should no longer be used in people aged under 20. The chief medical officer at GSK’s vaccines division, Norman Begg, says his firm views the issue extremely seriously and is “absolutely committed to getting to the bottom of this”, but adds there is not yet enough data or evidence to suggest a causal link.

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Mark Levin: Obama Isn’t Destroying the GOP, the Republican Establishment Is (+Audio)

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On Monday’s broadcast of Sean Hannity’s radio show, Mark Levin said the Republican Party is destroying itself from within.

“[I]s Obama destroying the Republican Party?” Levin said. “No, the Republican establishment is destroying the Republican Party.

The only reason they’re in the majority in the House is because of conservatives — conservatives across the country, the grassroots. They lost the Senate.

They like to point to two races, one in Missouri and one in Indiana. I can point to 10 races where there were liberal-to-moderate Republicans who lost, and of course they never mention that.”

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