Governor Jerry Brown Heads to China to Beg for California Bail-Out

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Photo Credit: Washington Times

California Gov. Jerry Brown has designs on building some of the most expensive public works projects in the nation and wants to keep the state moving forward in its slow recovery from the recession.

Where better to go searching for the money to further those interests than the world’s second largest economy and a country that has piles of cash to invest around the globe?

The governor of the most populous U.S. state heads to China next week to begin a weeklong trade mission that he hopes will produce investments on both sides of the Pacific. Brown will lead a delegation of business leaders in search of what he calls “plenty of billions.”

“They’ve got $400 billion or $500 billion they’re going to invest abroad, so California’s got to get a piece of that,” Brown said in an interview last week ahead of his seven-day trip to China.

The governor and business leaders accompanying him are trying to rebuild the state’s official relationship with China after the state closed its two trade offices and others around the world a decade ago in a cost-cutting move. California finds itself playing catch-up to other states that have had a vigorous presence in China for years.

Read more from this story HERE.

Politico Story Falsely Portrays Democratic Front Group as Hunters Backing Gun Control

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Photo Credit: AP

The liberal media will do anything to pressure lawmakers to support President Obama’s gun-control agenda. Politico published a story Wednesday with this headline: “Hunting Group Wants Background Checks.” The story gave the false impression that the millions of hunters in the U.S. support Mr. Obama’s push for “universal background checks.”

That is way off target. In fact, 31 well-known hunting and conservation groups sent a letter to Capitol Hill Thursday expressing opposition to intrusion by the federal government into private firearm transfers.

Politico only cites one small group in its story, Bull Moose Sportsmen, which claims 5,000 members. The story gives no context for the size of this group in relation to other hunting advocacy groups, nor its prominence in the community. The single poll cited in the Politico story is one commissioned by the group itself and claims 72 percent of hunters support “criminal background checks with some exceptions.”

None of the major hunting groups which represent the millions of law-abiding sportsmen was mentioned, nor the polling of those members.

In fact, Bull Moose Sportsmen is a fringe organization run by Democratic activists that has been rejected from membership into the major gun and hunting groups’ umbrella organization because it refuses to reveal its funding sources.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boomtown 2: Taxpayers Have Spent $15 Trillion on 'War on Poverty'

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Since President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared “war on poverty,” U.S. taxpayers have spent $15 trillion on so-called anti-poverty programs—a figure slightly less than the national debt.

Sean Hannity, Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer, and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon explored the explosive growth of the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in a one-hour Fox News special tonight titled “Boomtown 2: The Business of Food Stamps.”

In 1969, just 2.8 million Americans received food stamps. Today, over 47 million Americans are on food stamps. The Fox News special explained that one contributing factor to the massive expansion of the food stamp program is the crony capitalism that has cropped up around the anti-poverty program.

Soda makers, for example, bag an estimated $4 billion a year in taxpayer money through the food stamp program. Efforts to kill the so-called “soda subsidy” have been met with fierce resistance and lobbying by the soda industry.

In Florida, State Senator Ronda Storms (R-Valrico) introduced a bill last year that would keep taxpayer-funded SNAP benefits from being spent on non-essential items like sodas, candy, chips, ice cream, and other junk foods.

Read more from this story HERE.

Afghan Car Bomb Kills Six Americans Including Secr. of State John Kerry's Aide

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Photo Credit: Rich Anderson

A car bomb blast killed five Americans, including three U.S. soldiers and a young diplomat, on Saturday, while an American civilian died in a separate attack in the east.

The diplomat and other Americans were in a convoy of vehicles in Zabul province when the blast occurred, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.

The soldiers and the diplomat died in the blast along with a civilian employee of the Defense Department and Afghan civilians, Kerry said. His statement gave no overall death toll.

The Washington Post identified the diplomat as Anne Smedinghoff, 25, citing her parents. Smedinghoff was Kerry’s embassy guide and aide when he visited Afghanistan last month, the paper said.

Local and international officials in the region said earlier that six people died in the blast: three U.S. soldiers, two U.S. civilians and an Afghan doctor. Provincial governor Mohammad Ashraf Nasery was in the convoy, but was unharmed, local and NATO officials said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Christians Killed, Shops Destroyed in Egypt Again

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Five Egyptians were killed and eight wounded in clashes between Christians and Muslims in a town near Cairo, security sources said on Saturday, in some of the worst sectarian violence in Egypt for months.

Christian-Muslim confrontations have increased in Muslim-majority Egypt since the overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak in 2011 gave freer rein to hardline Islamists repressed under his rule.

Four Christian Copts and one Muslim were killed when members of both communities started fighting and shooting at each other in El Khusus north of the Egyptian capital, the sources said. State news agency MENA put the death toll at four.

An angry crowd smashed shops belonging to Christians, residents said. A Reuters reporter saw a burned-out Coptic day care center and several damaged shops belonging to Christian traders. An apartment inhabited by Muslims was also burned.

Residents said the violence broke out on Friday when a group of Christian children were drawing on a wall of a Muslim religious institute. A Reuters reporter saw what looked like a swastika drawn on the wall. Muslim residents said it had offended them because it looked like a cross.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pastor Rick Warren on His Son's Death: Today, We Need Your Prayer For Us

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Today, we need your prayer for us.

No words can express the anguished grief we feel right now. Our youngest son, Matthew, age 27, and a lifelong member of Saddleback, died today.

You who watched Matthew grow up knew he was an incredibly kind, gentle, and compassionate man. He had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room. He’d then make a bee-line to that person to engage and encourage them.

But only those closest knew that he struggled from birth with mental illness, dark holes of depression, and even suicidal thoughts. In spite of America’s best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided. Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his life.

Kay and I often marveled at his courage to keep moving in spite of relentless pain. I’ll never forget how, many years ago, after another approach had failed to give relief, Matthew said “ Dad, I know I’m going to heaven. Why can’t I just die and end this pain?” but he kept going for another decade.

Thank you for your love and prayers. We love you back.

Gay Marriage Champion Bill O'Reilly Given $10,000 Challenge to Fairly Debate Issue

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Photo Credit: futureatlas.com

A ministry is putting up $10,000 to challenge Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, regularly the top-rated show on cable television, for a debate over his description of Christians who follow the Bible as, well, “Bible-thumpers.”

Rev. Bill Keller, whose has created the Live Prayer presence on the web, and previously has been a guest on Fox shows such as O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Neal Cavuto, told WND he’s putting up $10,000 and challenging O’Reilly to do the same.

Then there would be a six-minute debate over homosexual “marriage” on O’Reilly’s show – O’Reilly talking for three minutes, then Keller making the biblical argument against homosexual “marriage” for three minutes. O’Reilly’s audience would determine the winner and the sum would go to a charity of that person’s choice.

“O’Reilly says that those who support God’s plan for marriage lose the argument because all they can do is ‘thump the Bible.’ Let him put his money where his mouth is. We will each put up $10,000 to the charity of our choice, he can make his case for gay marriage, and I will ONLY use the Bible to make the case for traditional marriage,” Keller said.

O’Reilly had originally said on his own program,””The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals. That’s where the compelling argument is. ‘We’re Americans. We just want to be treated like everybody else.’ That is a compelling argument, and to deny that, you gotta have a very strong argument on the other side. And the other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Colorado Undersheriff Claims DHS, State Police are Targeting Christians

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In the following letter posted at Restatements and republished by a number of news outlets throughout the country, an undersheriff in Colorado warns that he attended a law enforcement seminar where an officer funded by the Department of Homeland Security warned the group of Colorado law enforcers to be on the lookout for Christians, especially those who take the Bible literally. Here’s the letter:

From: rtrowbridge@[redacted]
To: forknown@[redacted]
Subject: CSP Training
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 10:30:22 -0600

On April 1, 2013 I attended training in La Junta, Colorado hosted by the Colorado State Patrol (CSP). The training was from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm and covered two topics, Sovereign Citizens, and Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. I was pretty familiar with motorcycle gangs but since we often deal with the so-called sovereign citizen groups I was interested to see what they had to say. The group consisted of police officers, deputies, and CSP troopers. There were about 20 people in attendance.

Trooper Joe Kluczynski taught a 2-hour section on sovereign citizens. Kluczynski spent most of his two hours focusing on how, in his view and apparently the view of Homeland Security, people turn to the sovereign citizen movement. Kluczynski started off by saying there are probably some sovereign citizens in this room and gave a generalized list of those groups that have sovereign citizen views. Among those groups, Kluczynski had listed, were those who believe America was founded on godly principles, Christians who take the Bible literally, and “fundamentalists”. Kluczynski did not explain what he meant by “fundamentalists” but from the context it was clear he was referring again to those who took the Bible literally or “too seriously.”

While Kluczynski emphasized that sovereign citizens have a right to their beliefs, he was clearly teaching that the groups he had listed should be watched by law enforcement and should be treated with caution because of their potential to assault law enforcement. Kluczynski explained why he believed these groups were dangerous saying they were angry over the election of a black president.
When someone in the group suggested the failing economy was probably much more to blame, Kluczynski intimated that those who are not going along with the changes in America will need to be controlled by law enforcement. Kluczynski even later questioned some of the troopers present if they were willing and prepared to confiscate “illegal” weapons if ordered to.

Kluczynski’s assignment with the CSP was an Analyst for the Colorado Information Analysis Center, (CIAC). CIAC is funded by Homeland Security funds and run by the CSP. Kluczynski said he gets his information from the Department of Homeland Security. Kluczynski said he was leaving the CSP at the end of that week (March 29, 2013) to begin his new career with Homeland Security. I thought he was perfect for the job.

Ron Trowbridge
Undersheriff
Prowers County Sheriff’s Office

Read more from this story HERE.

Governor Blames the Court System For Violating Free Speech Rights; Senator says, 'This is an Outrage'

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In what is shaping up to be a major embarrassment for all branches of Alaska’s state government, Governor Sean Parnell yesterday blamed the Alaska Court System for blocking pro-life protesters and impeding their free speech rights.

He stated that, on Tuesday, “the Court System requested the Department of Administration use state vehicles to park in front of the protesters.” The Governor’s statement on Wednesday about the Tuesday fiasco acknowledged just one Department of Administration vehicle and made no mention of the Alaska Court System’s involvement in its use to block the protesters.

The Governor’s statement yesterday not only blamed the Court System for Tuesday, but also noted that on both days in question, “employees of the Legislature parked vehicles in front of the protestors.”

Juneau has still made no comment on the alleged assault and other improper behavior, including the forced removal of a sign, that occurred on Wednesday (you can see of video of what happened HERE).

Interestingly, Alaska’s media did not report on what happened in Juneau until Friday, days after Restoring Liberty informed Alaskans about what happened. This is despite the fact that a reporter was present on Wednesday who observed the protest and questioned the participants after the alleged assault.

We have demanded an investigation into what happened on both Tuesday and Wednesday. Those who have committed unlawful and/or improper acts should be held accountable.

The Governor’s and/or Legislature’s investigation must also get to the bottom of why the Alaska Court System would direct state resources outside its jurisdiction to violate protesters’ First Amendment rights.

Here’s what one Senator said to his colleagues about this “outrage” yesterday:

Restoring Liberty Passes Another Milestone: Over Two Million Views in March

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The second-most popular news site in Alaska, Restoring Liberty, passed another milestone in March, garnering well over 2,000,000 page views during that month. And its YouTube channel now has over 1.75 million views.

Since Restoring Liberty started its new format on July 4, last year, the site has seen explosive growth in pageview readership of almost 3000%.

As of the date of this article, the only Alaska online news source ranked higher in readership than Restoring Liberty is the ADN. Other major sites such as the Alaska Dispatch, Fairbanks News-Miner, Juneau Empire, and KTUU, have rankings far below this news site.

We remain Alaska’s primary conservative news outlet.

The staff of Restoring Liberty wishes to thank every one of you that has led to this extraordinary success. Your loyal readership has expanded our reach so that we are able to compete with the desperately biased media in the Alaska market. We also wish to thank our advertisers for helping to make this effort possible.

And I, Joe Miller, wish to thank our loyal, mostly-volunteer staff for their sacrifices in making this online publication a success.

If you wish to help us in our goal to hire reporters and produce more original content, please advertise with us or encourage the businesses you frequent to do so. And encourage your friends to sign up for our FREE daily news update.

Finally, please continue to send us your tips and advice. It is your help and readership that has made this success possible.