Oregon Bakery Refuses to Make Same-Sex Wedding Cake

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GRESHAM, Ore. — The Oregon Department of Justice is looking into a complaint that a Gresham bakery refused to make a wedding cake for a same sex marriage.

It started on Jan. 17 when a mother and daughter showed up at Sweet Cakes by Melissa looking for the perfect wedding cake.

“My first question is what’s the wedding date,” said owner Aaron Klein. “My next question is bride and groom’s name … the girl giggled a little bit and said it’s two brides.”

Klein apologized to the women and told them he and his wife do not make cakes for same-sex marriages. Klein said the women were disgusted and walked out.

“I believe that marriage is a religious institution ordained by God,” said Klein. “A man should leave his mother and father and cling to his wife … that to me is the beginning of marriage.”

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Obama Misses 4th Consecutive Budget Deadline

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Photo Credit: U.S. Embassy Jakarta, IndonesiaPresident Obama missed the Monday deadline for submitting a budget to Congress, marking the fourth time in five years he has been late — and in a town where missing deadlines is routine, this one is beginning to get noticed.

The Budget Act requires that he submit a blueprint for taxes and spending by the first Monday in February, but only once, in 2010, has he met that deadline. This year, the White House hasn’t yet said when it will have a plan.

“Focus on substance over deadlines,” White House press secretary Jay Carney urged reporters aboard Air Force One as the president jetted to Minnesota to campaign for stronger gun controls.

But in an ironic twist, the president missed the deadline the same day he signed the aptly named “no budget, no pay” act, which withholds pay from members of Congress if they don’t pass a budget by their own legal deadline of April 15. That was attached to a bill that waives the federal debt limit through mid-May.

Republicans are trying to turn Washington’s focus toward the budget process and what they hope will be a renewed debate on spending cuts.

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NRA’s LaPierre Singles Out Violent Chicago, Calls For 1,000 Federal Agents To Patrol Its Streets

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On Fox News Sunday, National Rifle Association’s Wayne la Pierre came out with both barrels blasting, singling out the gun violence in Chicago.

Chicago, a city with one of the nation’s strictest gun control laws, is also one of the nation’s most violent, leading it in death by gunfire.

LaPierre took on the violence in Chicago and noted that if federal gun laws already on the books were enforced, instead of putting even more restrictions on gun legal ownership, it could help solve the city’s violence problems.

“We are all obsessed with the Taliban and we ought to be. What about the gangs?” “They are ruining neighborhoods all over the country? We need a federal task force, if it takes 500 agents; if it takes a thousand agents, go into Chicago.”

“Every gang member on the street of Chicago, starting tomorrow morning, let’s pick ’em up, we’ve got a federal law to get them off the street and put them in prison, and that would cut crime and we’re not doing it.”

There seems to be a lack of will to enforce existing gun laws. New York for example, has a mandatory law requiring prison time for anyone found with an illegal gun in his possession…Yet the law is full of loopholes and less than half of those arrested for illegal gun possession face any prison time.

There are over nine thousand gun laws on the books already. Perhaps it’s time for existing gun laws to be enforced, before any new laws are proposed.

Several years ago a city in the San Francisco bay area was suffering from a massive wave of violence. East Palo Alto was becoming a shooting gallery; so violent it was dangerous for the thousands of motorists who used its main artery daily to travel to other parts of the bay. Shootings, rapes, armed robbery, arson, carjacking and open drug dealing were the norm. The local police department was not up to the task to protect its citizens and put a halt to the crime.

To combat this unprecedented crime wave, communities in the San Francisco bay area & the state of California pitched in with extra police forces to swarm the city. They soon had rounded up gang leaders and the violent individuals who were creating much of the crime. They had a task force that instantly responded to crime and aggressively hunted down the criminals. Existing laws were enforced and soon the streets of this city were relatively safe. The criminal element had been broken.

LaPierre’s suggestion for federal intervention in Chicago is a good one. Bring in federal police forces to help patrol the violent streets. Make it a national priority to protect the law abiding citizens of Chicago. When the criminals are taken off the streets, the percentage of gun violence will be drastically reduced.

This same formula should be used to target other crime and violence plagued cities. Disarm and jail the criminals who use guns, enforce the existing gun laws.

Secret Memo Reveals Obama Justification for US Drone Strikes

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Photo Credit: The TimesPresident Obama is using the British government’s Iraq war-era legal arguments as part of the secret justification for the United States drone programme.

A leaked memo drafted by the US Department of Justice cites a legal argument given by Lord Goldsmith, Tony Blair’s Attorney General in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq.

The 16-page memo makes the case that America’s drone programme is legally justified in targeting US citizens as part of wide-ranging extra-judicial powers granted to the President.

The emergence of the document, which was obtained by NBC News, is the first time the Obama Administration’s secret legal justification for deadly drone strikes against US citizens has been published.

The Department of Justice argues that Mr Obama can order the killing of senior al-Qaeda operatives even if there is no evidence they are planning an attack against the United States.

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Obama Embraces ‘Dark Money’

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Photo Credit: APThe creation of the dark-money group Organizing for Action is a sign President Barack Obama has no intention of repudiating the role of corporate money in political life during his second term, campaign finance experts suggest.

Advocates for reform, which Obama has previously claimed to support, are disappointed by his reversal.

“Organizing for Action marks a complete retreat for President Obama from his pledge to try to change the way we finance elections,” said Craig Holman, a government-affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen, a nonprofit organization opposed to corporate money in politics. “It makes a total mockery of any effort to try to limit corporate money.”

Organizing for Action, which will replace Obama’s Organizing for America campaign apparatus, will attempt to channel the grassroots energy from the 2012 election into support for the administration’s policy agenda. OFA already has started wooing corporate donors, according to Politico, and will not be required to disclose its funding sources as a 501(c)4.

Politico reported that corporate representatives were asked for contributions at OFA’s unveiling event in January. A spokesperson for Walmart stressed that the company was invited to the event by a group called Business Forward, not Organizing for America.

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Video: Ted Nugent Schools Piers Morgan Yet Again, Says He’s ‘Full of Crap’

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While President Obama was out on a tour of the country to promote his latest brand of tyranny, Piers Morgan was jonesing for another fight on gun control.

As one might expect, seeking out the Nuge wasn’t the smartest move Morgan has ever made.

Per usual, Piers was impervious to the facts. But hey, who can blame him? It’s a grand liberal tradition.

Nugent not only schooled Morgan in debate, he even allowed the gun-control advocate to try out an ‘assault rifle,’ which he had to admit was pretty cool.

Doctors to Obama: You’ve Failed Again

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Photo Credit: WNDMembers of the Christian Medical Association had harsh words for Barack Obama after his latest attempt to mandate abortion coverage in Obamacare: You have failed.

“This latest version of the contraceptives and sterilization mandate remains unacceptable,” said Dr. David Stevens, executive director of the Christian Medical Association. “Since when does the government get to pick and choose which groups will get to enjoy First Amendment protections?

Our founders intended the First Amendment to protect every American’s freedom to act according to one’s conscience,” he said. “They didn’t specify that only groups deemed religious will be afforded this protection; freedom of conscience applies equally to all Americans.”

Dr. Gene Rudd, CMA executive vice president, joined Stevens.

“The administration fails to understand that many employers and individual Americans, regardless of a religious label or not, maintain strong conscience objections to participating in any, way, shape or form in a plan that promotes pills that the FDA says can cause the demise of a living human embryo – a developing baby in her earliest stage,” Rudd said.

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Naval Cuts Jeopardize US War Readiness, Experts Say

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Photo Credit: AP/US NavyThe threat of sequestration and looming budget deficits is already impacting the military readiness of the U.S., according to some defense analysts.

A recent Defense Department memo outlined the difficult steps the armed services must take to cope with the nation’s perilous fiscal situation. The memo recommended that the department fire administrative personnel, cut down on research and development, and cancel routine maintenance checks for naval ships.

“Cancel 3rd and 4th quarter ship maintenance availabilities and aviation and ground depot level maintenance activities,” the memo suggested.

The maintenance recommendations are particularly worrisome, and impact the U.S.’s naval preparedness, said Brian Slattery, a defense expert at the Heritage Foundation.

“The military is already having trouble in some circumstances meeting its readiness requirements,” he said in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Maintenance is already a pretty significant concern, particularly with the navy.”

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Emails Expose Southern Poverty Law Center Collaboration With DOJ

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Judicial Watch (JW), a Washington D.C. based non-partisan educational foundation, released some two dozen pages of emails it obtained on Tuesday revealing connections between the Department of Justice Civil Rights and Tax divisions and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

According to JW, the e-mails reveal “questionable behavior by agency personnel while negotiating for Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) co-founder Morris Dees to appear as the featured speaker at a July 31, 2012, “Diversity Training Event.” Judicial Watch obtained the records pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) submitted to the DOJ on September 10, 2012:

The Judicial Watch FOIA request was prompted by an apparently politically motivated shooting at the Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters in August, 2012. At the time of the shooting, FRC president Tony Perkins accused the SPLC of sparking the shooting, saying the shooter “was given a license to shoot… by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations as hate groups because they disagree with them on public policy.” On its website, the SPLC has depicted FRC as a hate group,” along with such mainstream conservative organizations as the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, and Coral Ridge Ministries.

The FOIA request specifically requested “any and all records concerning, regarding, or relating to the Sothern Poverty Law Center” between January 1 and August 31, 2012, including the Dees’ presentation sponsored by the Civil Rights and Tax divisions of the DOJ.

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Former Reagan Budget Director Warns Of New Housing Bubble

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerThe market may be rising, but according to one expert, all is not well on the home front.

David Stockman, former director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan administration, insists that the housing market outlook is not as cheery as some say.

“I would say we have a housing bubble … again,” Stockman told the Daily Ticker. “We don’t have a real organic sustainable recovery, because in a world of medicated money by the central bank, things aren’t what they appear to be.”

Stockman pointed to artificially low interest rates and speculation in the real-estate market as culprits.

“It’s happening in the most speculative subprime markets, where massive amounts of ‘fast money’ is rolling in to buy, to rent, on a speculative basis for a quick trade,” he said. “And as soon as they conclude prices have moved enough, they’ll be gone as fast as they came.”

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