Guns or Marijuana? A New Choice for Many

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Photo Credit: Svadilfari

Photo Credit: Svadilfari

Among the many problems that the federal/state marijuana-standoff is now causing: access to constitutional rights.

Federal law dictates that Americans buying firearms from licensed dealers are required to fill in a form — Form 4473 – which asks the following question: “(11E) Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?” For many Americans, this is now a difficult inquiry to answer. In Washington and Colorado it is no longer unlawful to use marijuana for any reason; and, in a bunch of other states, medical patients are permitted to do so under strict regulation. Under the federal Controlled Substances Act, however, all of these people are breaking the law. This has led to something of an impasse.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ex-EPA Official Told Lawmakers of Project to ‘Modify the DNA’ of Capitalism

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A former high-ranking EPA official who recently was sentenced to prison for fraud told lawmakers last month that, before he left the agency, he was working on a “project” examining ways to “modify the DNA of the capitalist system.”

The startlingly blunt comment was included in newly released transcripts of John Beale’s deposition before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. One group that is frequently critical of the Obama administration’s energy policy, the Institute for Energy Research, said the claim is a “smoking gun” that reveals the administration’s true intentions.

Beale’s credibility is not exactly ironclad. He was sentenced last month to 32 months in prison for bilking taxpayers out of nearly $1 million by pretending to be a CIA agent.

But, in the transcripts, he spoke in great detail about meetings he supposedly had with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, back when she was heading the Office of Air and Radiation.

Beale said they started meeting in mid-2009. At a lunch, he claimed his “fabricated story about working at CIA came up,” but that they also discussed various projects. Beale recalled telling her about a project he wanted to work on, which he described as “green economics.”

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Facing Tough Re-Election Fight, Begich Seeks Cover Under Murkowski’s Voting Record

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Photo Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo

Photo Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, might not want her Democratic colleague, Mark Begich, to win re-election in 2014, but her habit of breaking with the GOP on several key votes could give him some political cover ahead of 2014.

“As an Alaska delegation, we’ve got to be working on those issues that are important to our constituents,” Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News this week. “Sen. Begich has been keying in on the issues that I think Alaskans are worried about and doing what he was tasked to do.”

“I’m going to be working to get Republicans elected,” she later added.

Murkowski’s more moderate voting record could help Begich, given how much the two Alaskans overlap on some issues. Begich faces a tough re-election fight this year in a state that has traditionally elected Republicans to Congress. There’s a competitive GOP primary in August to determine his opponent.

Murkowski, once a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, has broken ranks several times since her 2010 re-election victory as a write-in candidate. Murkowski votes with her party only 61 percent of the time, according to data compiled by the Washington Post’s Congress Votes Database.

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Administration Fears Part of Health Care System so Flawed it Could Bankrupt Insurance Companies

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

While the administration publicly expresses full confidence in its health care law, privately it fears one part of the system is so flawed it could bankrupt insurance companies and cripple ObamaCare itself.

“Week after week, month after month,” says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, “the Obama administration kept telling us everything’s working fine, there’s no problem and then they turn on a dime and fire their contractor.”

To justify a no-bid contract with Accenture after firing CGI as the lead contractor, the administration released documents from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services that offered a rare glimpse of its worst fears, saying the problems with the website puts “the entire health insurance industry at risk” … “potentially leading to their default and disrupting continued services and coverage to consumers.”

Then it went even further, saying if the problems were not fixed by mid-March, “they will result in financial harm to the government.”

It even added that without the fixes “the entire health care reform program is jeopardized.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Listen to Joe Miller’s Interview with Tea Party Express: Miller has Proven History of Challenging the Status Quo, Taking on Establishment

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unnamedIn this week’s “On the Campaign Trail” podcast, we are joined by Joe Miller. Joe discusses his campaign for the U.S. Senate in Alaska where he hopes to replace Democrat incumbent Senator Mark Begich.

Joe Miller shocked the political world on August 24, 2010 when he came out of nowhere to defeat incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski in the Alaskan Republican Primary. He then entered into a contentious three-way general election, where federal contractors and others who benefited from the status quo waged a multimillion-dollar campaign and managed to help narrowly defeat Joe.

Joe talks about the important lessons he learned from his 2010 Senate race, as well as the NSA surveillance scandal, the FBI investigation of the IRS, and the news that for the first time in the history of the Index of Economic Freedom, the United States is ranked outside the top ten.

You are really going to enjoy this interview with a candidate who has a proven history of challenging the status quo and taking on the political establishment.

LISTEN NOW!

2014 is going to be a huge election year as we fight to hold onto the House and are poised to take the gavel out of Harry Reid’s hands and take control of the Senate. It is important that we enter 2014 prepared and informed. Here is your chance to get to know one of the outstanding U.S. Senate candidates, Joe Miller.

“On the Campaign Trail” is a weekly podcast that features interviews with House and Senate candidates as well as Tea Party leaders to provide voters with a regular discussion of important political issues and campaigns.

A new Tea Party Express podcast will be available every Tuesday on the Tea Party Express website HERE or it is available by subscription on both RSS and iTunes.

Pentagon to Relax Rules On Personal Religious Wear — Including Beards, Turbans

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Photo Credit: Brett Flashnick / AP file

Photo Credit: Brett Flashnick / AP file

The Pentagon on Wednesday is expected to announce widespread changes to rules governing religious items and religion-based physical attributes that service members can maintain while in uniform — including beards, some religious tattoos, and turbans.

NBC News obtained an early draft of the new Department of Defense instruction which states that the military will make every effort to accommodate “individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs” (conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs) of service members.

It goes on to say that unless doing so could have an adverse impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, health and safety, or any other military requirement, commanders can grant service members special permission to display their religious articles while in uniform.

Requests for religious accommodation can be denied when the “needs of mission accomplishment outweigh the needs of the service member,” the directive will explain.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: Tea Party Expands Influence Even in Democratic-Leaning Districts

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Photo Credit: fibonacci blue

Photo Credit: fibonacci blue

Despite national polls showing dwindling voter support for the Tea Party, House Republicans are embracing the movement’s issues tighter than ever, setting up a potential clash with voters in districts that lean Democratic, according to a new study of key House votes.

On average, said the study provided in advance to Secrets, House Republicans in Democratic-leaning districts or those that voted for President Obama over Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 sided with the Tea Party about 81 percent of the time on key votes like defunding Obamacare, blocking an increase of the debt limit and supporting a government shutdown.


“When swing Republicans grumble that [House Speaker John] Boehner should stand up to the Tea Party caucus they should be looking in the mirror,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of the progressive group Americans United for Change, which sponsored the study.

“The beauty of this report,” he added, “is that it doesn’t take an ounce of spin — it comes straight from their own votes and those scored by what are undoubtedly Tea Party groups.”

Read more from this story HERE.

EPA Decree Shrinks Size of Wyoming by a Million Acres

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Photo Credit: dantekgeek

Photo Credit: dantekgeek

Why is the EPA altering state boundaries in Wyoming – and reversing over 100 years of established law? Well, apparently the city of Riverton now falls under the jurisdiction of the Wind River Indian Reservation. This, obviously, isn’t sitting well with the governor’s office – which is urging the EPA to reconsider its ruling and respect the rule of law.

Reacting to the decision to reduce the size of Wyoming by about a million acres, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead warned of the dangers to all Americans of this type of unilateral land redistribution by the EPA:

“I understand that the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes have a different opinion about the Wind River Reservation Boundary. My deep concern is about an administrative agency of the federal government altering a state’s boundary and going against over 100 years of history and law.

“This should be a concern to all citizens because, if the EPA can unilaterally take land away from a state, where will it stop?” Governor Matt Mead said in a press release on January 6.


Read more from this story HERE.

Teachers ‘Instructed’ to Teach ‘All Right Wing Extremist Groups’ are Fascist

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Photo Credit: abdulrahman.stock

Photo Credit: abdulrahman.stock

Hillsdale professor Terrence Moore, author of “Story Killers: A Common Sense Case Against Common Core,” exposed some of the more distressing aspects of the controversial Common Core education standards program, saying that all teachers must tell young students that all right-wing groups are fascist.

Moore highlights how it is not just the reading lists and course materials — which have already attracted a large amount of criticism — that need to be examined by parents. It’s also the teaching notes and standard curriculum; the notes and standards come as part of a comprehensive package. Moore noted through his research that a distinctly political slant is introduced, one which dictates not only what children are taught, but also how they should be taught.

“For example, take the novel Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which is a great classic, we all know it,” he told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview. “Just because it’s part of our culture.”

Moore calls Common Core and what goes on in school “frightening” and “monstrous.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Iranian Official on Nuke Deal: ‘We Did Not Agree to Dismantle Anything’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted Wednesday that the Obama administration mischaracterizes concessions by his side in the six-month nuclear deal with Iran, telling CNN in an exclusive interview that “we did not agree to dismantle anything.”

Zarif told CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto that terminology used by the White House to describe the agreement differed from the text agreed to by Iran and the other countries in the talks — the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

“The White House version both underplays the concessions and overplays Iranian commitments” under the agreement that took effect Monday, Zarif said in Davos, Switzerland, where he was attending the World Economic Forum.

As part of the accord, Iran was required to dilute its stockpile of uranium that had been enriched to 20%, well above the 5% level needed for power generation but still below the level for developing a nuclear weapon.

In addition, the deal mandated that Iran halt all enrichment above 5% and “dismantle the technical connections required to enrich above 5%,” according to a White House fact sheet issued in November after the initial agreement was reached.

Read more from this story HERE.