Ohio School District Agrees to Keep Portrait of Jesus off Wall, Pay $95G Fine

Photo Credit: APAn Ohio school district has agreed to keep a portrait of Jesus Christ off school property and pay a $95,000 fine in the face of legal pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Jackson City School District, located in Jackson, reached a deal on Friday after the ACLU, along with the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation, sued the district in February, citing “unconstitutional” actions and charging that students and visitors to the school “will continue to suffer permanent, severe and irreparable harm and injury,” according to the lawsuit.

The picture had been hanging in Jackson’s high school since 1947 as part of a “Hall of Honor” display meant to highlight famous historical figures.

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IG That Watchdogs IRS–And Uncovered Targeting of Tea Party–‘Shut Down’ (+video)

Photo Credit: AP/Charles DharapakWhile the Treasury Department has continued its basic operations since the government “shutdown” last Tuesday–collecting tens of billions in taxes and spending even more–the Office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), which conducts audits and investigations of the IRS, and which uncovered the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups, has been “shut down.”

“As of October 7 at 8:30 am, due to the continued lapse in appropriated federal funding, TIGTA’s normal operations are shut down,” says the recorded message at an “emergency notification” phone line that the IG’s office set up for its workers. “Employees should’ve already received instructions to not report to work, and to not incur any work related expenses.”

“We anticipate full cessation of audits, inspections and evaluations during the shutdown period,” says a TIGTA document obtained by CNSNews.com. The document is entitled “Bureau Shutdown Plans During Periods of Lapsed Appropriations, September 2013.”

According to the document, in addition to ceasing audits, investigations and evaluations, TIGTA is also furloughing 61% of its staff.

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Ready to Hear Latest Lie about Obamacare?

Photo Credit: WNDThe Obama administration is gushing that Obamacare will change the lives of three uninsured women – but none of the women have actually enrolled in the program.

Twitchy noted that the HHS blog “offers the stories of three women as if they’re Obamacare ‘success stories.’”

However, a close reading of their statements reveals Caroline, Kate and Elizabeth say they are “looking to buy,” “still shopping” and “still trying to decide.”

The HHS blog says Caroline, a 27-year-old substitute teacher and part-time guidance counselor in Washington, D.C., who has been uninsured since 2009, wants to “get insurance on the Marketplace” so she can avoid expensive emergency hospital bills.

According to HHS, Kate, a 30-year-old consultant for a non-governmental organization said she is “overwhelmed” by her options on the Marketplace and is “still shopping to make sure I make the right decision.”

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‘Shutdown’ Day 7: Government Buys $47,174 Mechanical Bull

Photo Credit: mechanicalbullsales.comThe government shutdown may be keeping furloughed federal workers at home, but on Monday the U.S. Army contracted to buy a mechanical bull.

The $47,174 contract was awarded on Oct. 7 to Mechanical Bull Sales Inc. of State College, Penn.

According to the General Services Administration (GSA) listing, the National Guard of Utah made the request for a “bull which needs to be durable and low maintenance.”

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Edward Snowden ‘Pictured out Shopping in Russia’

Photo Credit: LIFE NEWSA photograph purporting to show Edward Snowden, the US intelligence leaker, out in public for the first time since being granted asylum, has been published by a Russian news website.

In the blurry image published by Life News, a casually dressed man sporting a goatee with sunglasses perched on his head is pictured pushing a supermarket trolley full of groceries across a road.

A car with partly legible Russian plates and a crossing sign identify the scene as in Russia.

“The photograph was taken in Moscow,” said Life News, which is known for its close ties to the Kremlin and security services.

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Anonymous to March on DC on Guy Fawkes Day

Photo Credit: APDemonstrators involved with Anonymous, a loose collective of online “hacktivists,” will gather on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 5 to march for a vast, nearly innumerable number of causes and issues.

Flyers began appearing around downtown D.C. over the weekend advertising the “Million Mask March,” which will take place on Guy Fawkes Day.

Anonymous members, when they appear in public, are known for donning masks of Guy Fawkes, who unsuccessfully tried to blow up the England’s House of Lords on Nov. 5, 1605, and restore Catholicism to England.

The group supports leakers of government secrets, such as Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, and Edward Snowden. It was also closely allied with the now-moribund Occupy movement.

Anonymous hackers often target large governments and companies who oppose their interests with malicious cyber attacks.

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Al Sharpton, ‘PoliticsNation’ Advertisers Targeted in New Boycott

Photo Credit: Earl Gibson III/GettyA group of conservative activists, tired of what they see as a persistent and little remarked liberal bias in the news media, are set to begin a series of boycotts aimed at advertisers who sponsor what they see as left-wing networks, outlets, and journalists.

On Sunday they announced their first target, the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil-rights leader turned MSNBC talk-show host whose PoliticsNation has grown in influence and audience since making its debut two years ago.

“Sharpton is a racial extortionist who has instigated racial animosities, violence, and division in America for the last forty years,” write the boycott’s organizers. “In better times, Sharpton would be stigmatized and condemned for the damage he has done. But today he is a primetime host on MSNBC—the charter cable news network for NBC News, and a favored outlet for the Obama administration’s spin doctors.”

The boycott is part of Truth Revolt, a new project by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a right-wing foundation that has focused on what it calls liberal bias in Hollywood and on college campuses. Truth Revolt, which says its purpose is to “unmask leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding bases,” is led by Ben Shapiro, an editor-at-large for the conservative website Breitbart News and the author, most recently, of Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America.

The first Sharpton sponsor the group is targeting is Ritz Crackers, owned by Chicago-based Mondelez International. Shapiro said Truth Revolt chose Mondelez because it bills itself as a “family-friendly company” and because it was one of the few advertisers to respond to the group’s inquiries about why it supports the Sharpton show.

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Rep. Al Green on Obamacare: ‘I Will Come Back in the Afterlife; I Will Haunt the Congress’ (+video)

Photo Credit: APSpeaking at a rally to demand Congress ends the government shutdown on Friday, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said he is “committed to the Affordable Care Act,” and he “will come back in the afterlife” to fight for it.

In his closing remarks he said: “My followers, listen friends. I am committed to the Affordable Care Act, and I just want you to know this: if for some reason I should have an untimely demise, I want you to know that not only am I going to fight for the Affordable Care Act in this life, I will come back in the afterlife. I will haunt the Congress of the United States of America.”

Prior to the government shutdown, the House passed numerous continuing resolutions that included language to defund Obamacare or delay the individual mandate.

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Self-Described Ex-Racist Shirley Sherrod Sues Nicest Person in Los Angeles (+video)

Photo Credit: AP/Gregory BullShirley Sherrod, the Department of Agriculture official who lost her taxpayer-funded sinecure after Andrew Breitbart posted a video of Sherrod revealing her struggle to overcome anti-white racism, has expanded her multi-year crusade against the late media entrepreneur by suing his unoffending widow, a mother of four who is loved by all who know her.

Sherrod, then-Georgia state director of rural development for the USDA, revealed in a March 2010 speech to the NAACP that she was initially unwilling to help a white farmer who sought assistance from her, but who, according to Sherrod, tried “to show me he was superior to me.” The incident she described happened in 1986 when she worked for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund.

After Breitbart posted a two-minute clip of Sherrod’s 43-minute stemwinder, Sherrod resigned under immense pressure from USDA and Obama administration bigwigs.

Although the Breitbart clip did indicate that Sherrod had eventually decided to place a higher value on class warfare than racial bigotry, the full import of her long speech became more clear after the full version was made public. In the full speech Sherrod, who had been made rich by a government settlement over discrimination against her collective farm, explained that she grew to realize America is divided between ”rich and poor” rather than “black and white.”

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The Cold Hard Facts of Obama’s Economy

Photo Credit: APThere’s an old adage, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.”

That could be the battle cry within the Obama administration when it comes to Obama’s work on the economy through his five plus years as president. But a close and objective look at the facts shows that the Obama-led and Obama-owned economy tells one and only one story — FAILURE.

Let’s begin on the labor front, where the numbers are atrocious. While the monthly unemployment rate is the headline-grabbing number so many flock to, it is far from the best gauge of labor market strength.

The unemployment rate currently stands at 7.3%. Obama backers will point to the fact… again let’s look at the facts, and rightfully say that the unemployment rate has steadily fallen from its peak of 10% in October 2009 and has remained below 8% since August 2012. These are indeed facts, but they mask the underlying and quite troubling data.

Understand that the unemployment rate is a rather simplistic calculation. The numerator is composed of the number of people unemployed and who have looked for work in the past four weeks. That number is then divided by the total number of individuals in the labor force.

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