Man in Same-Sex Marriage May Wed Woman Too, Says North Dakota

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Photo Credit: midwest/rgbstock.com

Photo Credit: midwest/rgbstock.com

A man already married to another man in a state that permits same-sex marriage could wed a woman in North Dakota without breaking state laws, the state’s top attorney has found.

The finding raises potentially complex issues about Social Security and death benefits, tax exemptions and even possible prosecutions for bigamy or polygamy, said a constitutional law expert.

Those issues are likely to arise more often with 16 states plus the District of Columbia now recognizing same-sex marriage while a majority of states still ban it, said Jeffrey Shaman, a professor at DePaul University’s College of Law.

The issue came up when a man giving only his first name called Burleigh County Recorder Debbie Kroshus in September to ask if he could marry a woman in North Dakota if he were already married to a man in another state, she said.

“I didn’t ask where this caller was calling from or where he planned on getting a marriage license,” Kroshus said in a telephone interview, adding that it was not possible to determine if the man had applied for a marriage license.

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Ted Cruz Defends ‘Duck Dynasty’ Star Phil Robertson

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, defended “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson Thursday by saying “free speech matters.”

Cruz made an announcement on his Facebook page in defense of Robertson, who made national headlines when an interview with GQ was released quoting the reality TV star expressing his views on homosexuality.

“The reason that so many Americans love ‘Duck Dynasty’ is because it represents the America usually ignored or mocked by liberal elites: A family that loves and cares for each other, believes in God, and speaks openly about their faith,” Cruz said.

Cruz went on to say that “if you believe in free speech or religious liberty, you should be deeply dismayed over the treatment of Phil Robertson.”

Robertson was suspended by A&E, the network that hosts “Duck Dynasty,” which has very high ratings, for his comments.

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The Top Seven Global Warming Alarmist Setbacks in 2013

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Japan Meteorological Agency/MTSAT/Handout via Reuters

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Japan Meteorological Agency/MTSAT/Handout via Reuters

Hold your champagne glasses high this holiday season, because the end of 2013 marks the 17th year without global warming.

This year has been trying for climate scientists and environmentalists who have been trying hard to explain away the 17-year hiatus in global warming and link “extreme weather” to rising greenhouse gas emissions — despite strong evidence to the contrary. There has been a breakdown in the manmade global warming consensus, and some even argue we are headed for an ice age.

In honor of the 17th year without global warming, The Daily Caller News Foundation has put together seven setbacks for global warming alarmism.

1) Studies show that the world was warmer than it is today during the Roman Empire and when the Vikings were plundering Europe and North America. In fact, even in the 19th Century, there were discussions surrounding the fact that the Vikings could settle the northernmost reaches of Greenland and North America because there was less ice coverage.

2) During the second week in December, the U.S. saw more than 2000 record low temperatures and record snowfalls, according to the National Weather Service and HamWeather records center. There were 606 record low temperatures, 1,234 low maximum temperatures and 285 record snowfalls across the country. In the meantime there were only 98 high temperature records and 141 high minimum temperature records.

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Judge: Obama’s DHS Facilitating Drug Cartels’ Human Trafficking

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

By Matthew Boyle.

A United States federal judge has accused President Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of being complicit in helping Mexican drug cartels and felons inside America smuggle illegal aliens into the country.

In a court order he signed on Dec. 13, 2013, U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Texas wrote that four times in the last four weeks he has heard troubling cases involving the DHS’s complicity in helping smuggle people across the border to their final destination.

This particular court opinion involved a case where Mirtha Veronica Nava-Martinez attempted to smuggle a ten-year old El Salvadorean female, whom Judge Hanen referred to only by her initials Y.P.S. to protect the minor’s identity, into the country. Nava-Martinez pled guilty and has been sentenced; Judge Hanen wrote after the case:

On May 18, 2013, Nava-Martinez, an admitted human trafficker, was caught at the Brownsville & Matamoras Bridge checkpoint. She was trying to smuggle Y.P.S. into the United States using a birth certificate that belonged to one of her daughters. Nava-Martinez had no prior relationship with Y.P.S. and was hired by persons unknown solely to smuggle her into the United States. Nava-Martinez is a resident alien and this was her second felony offense in three years, having committed a food stamp fraud offense in 2011. She was to be paid for smuggling Y.P.S. from Matamoras to Brownsville, although the identity of her immediate payor and the amount are unknown. The details as to how Y.P.S. got to Matamoros, Mexico from El Salvador, and how she was to get from Brownsville to Virginia, were also not disclosed to the Court.

Hanen noted that the “conspiracy” began when Y.P.S.’s mother, Patricia Elizabeth Salmeron Santos, “solicited human traffickers to smuggle” her daughter from their home country of El Salvador into the United States and onward to her residence in Virginia.

Read more from this story HERE.

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DHS Helps Drug Cartels Get Rich Off Human Trafficking Of Children

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY.

Border: A federal judge finds that the Department of Homeland Security, instead of arresting cartel members and the clients who pay them to smuggle children into the U.S., helps the drug lords complete the transactions.

Read more from this story HERE.

Putin: Jealous of Obama’s Surveillance State

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Photo Credit: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images

Photo Credit: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the U.S. National Security Agency, and even said he envies President Barack Obama in light of the NSA revelations “because he can get away with it.”

Putin’s comments at a Thursday news conference reflected support for the NSA surveillance as a necessary tool to fight terrorism, but added that government rules should “limit the appetite” of the data-collecting agency, CBS News reports.

The 16-year KGB veteran and former head of Russia’s primary espionage agency said that the American spy program “isn’t a cause for joy, it’s not a cause for repentance either.” He added that “on a political level, it’s necessary to limit the appetite of special services with certain rules.”

Russia granted former NSA contractor and leaker Edward Snowden temporary asylum in June, despite U.S. efforts for his return to America to face espionage and theft of government property charges.

Earlier this week, a U.S. federal judge ruled that the NSA’s mass collection of phone records is in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s ban of unreasonable searches, and a government appeal is likely to be issued in the near future.

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‘MUZZLED’: EPA Silenced Scientists that Challenged their Agenda

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

The Environmental Protection Agency silenced scientific advisers who expressed concerns over the agency’s proposed carbon dioxide emissions limits for coal-fired power plants, House Republicans claim.

Republicans on the House’s science committee wrote a letter to EPA administrator Gina McCarthy expressing concern that the agency ignored scientists charged with reviewing carbon emissions limits for new power plants. Scientists said that the agency rushed through the regulatory process and that the underlying science of the rule lacked adequate peer review.

“We are concerned about the agency’s apparent disregard for the concerns of its science advisors,” the Republican lawmakers wrote. “Science is a valuable tool to help policymakers navigate complex issues.”

“However, when inconvenient facts are disregarded or when dissenting voices are muzzled, a frank discussion becomes impossible,” the lawmakers continued. “The EPA cannot continue to rush ahead with costly regulations without allowing time for a real-world look at the science.”

Republicans previously asked the EPA about how it responded to the scientific reviewers’ concerns, but agency officials distanced themselves from their own advisers, according to the letter. Specifically, lawmakers questioned the agency’s requirement that coal plants must install carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology in order to be built. The agency, however, said that their new power plant rule does not need to address such concerns about CCS.

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Judge Strikes Down Utah’s Gay Marriage Ban as Unconstitutional

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

A federal judge struck down Utah’s same-sex marriage ban Friday in a decision that brings an increasing nationwide shift toward allowing gay marriage to a conservative state where the Mormon church has long been against it.

U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby issued a 53-page ruling saying Utah’s law passed by voters in 2004 violates gay and lesbian couples’ rights to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

Shelby said the state failed to show that allowing same-sex marriages would affect opposite-sex marriages in any way.

“In the absence of such evidence, the State’s unsupported fears and speculations are insufficient to justify the State’s refusal to dignify the family relationships of its gay and lesbian citizens,” Shelby wrote.

Late Friday, the state filed both a notice of appeal of the ruling and a request for an emergency stay that would stop marriage licenses from being issued to same-sex couples. It’s unknown when the judge will make a decision on whether to grant the stay.

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Gold Price Stumbles to 6-Month Low After Fed Stimulus Trim

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Photo Credit: Zeenews.com

Photo Credit: Zeenews.com

London: Gold slid more than 1 percent on Thursday to its lowest since late June after the U.S. Federal Reserve took its first step away from the ultra-loose monetary policy that had helped drive bullion prices to record highs in recent years.

The Fed said on Wednesday that the U.S. economy was finally strong enough for it to start scaling back its massive bond-buying scheme, winding down the era of easy money that saw gold rally to USD 1,920.30 an ounce in 2011.

Spot gold was down 1.2 percent at USD 1,203.85 an ounce at 1000 GMT, having earlier touched a low of USD 1,200.25. U.S. gold futures for February delivery were down USD 32.00 an ounce at USD 1,203.00.

That move came despite the Fed blunting its taper with a continued dovish message on interest rates – that tapering was not tightening.

“This is another sign of increasing normalisation for the world economy,” Macquarie analyst Matthew Turner said. “Gold’s insurance function is less desirable in that environment.”

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Craige McMillan: America, We’re in a Death Spiral

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Much of the national conversation now seems to be carried on by children under the age of 5, with 2 being the most common age.

The nation’s press corps, having seen the nation’s political discourse dumbed down to the point where they can now understand and report on it, eagerly encourage the resultant “debate.”

The vast majority of politicians – who understand that the nation’s memory, despite its young age, has reached the point of advanced Alzheimer’s – eagerly indulge them. After all, why try to explain what you are really doing when a pithy soundbite is what carries your re-election?

And that’s just the Republicans.

Make no mistake, folks; America is in the final stages of empireitis. I think in the aviation world it is referred to as a graveyard spiral or a death spiral. Everyone on board thinks things are fine, but the pilot has lost control of the airplane. While the Republicans and Democrats yell, scream and grandstand, arguing about who is going to spend the money on their pet projects, the ship of state is getting ready to crater.

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Hunters, Fishermen Targeted by Feds for Local Violations

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Photo Credit: peteSwede

Photo Credit: peteSwede

U.S. law enforcement agencies are conducting thousands of investigations using a law that makes violating state wildlife statutes a federal crime, often ensnaring hunters and fishermen for seemingly minor infractions.

Some even suffer stiff federal prison sentences.

Special agents and wildlife inspectors for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conduct about 2,500 investigative cases a year of violations of the Lacey Act, a 1900 law meant to combat illegal trafficking of wildlife. Additional probes of Lacey Act violations also are conducted by other federal agencies, as well as state and local governments.

Though a small percentage of the Lacey Act cases result in prison time, a high percentage plead guilty, consistent with a federal system in which 97 percent of cases end in plea deals.

But for those imprisoned, ensnared in costly investigations, or who pleaded guilty to reduced charges, the horrible repercussions can have a devastating impact on their livelihoods.

Read more from this story HERE.