Judge Rules Chicago Gun Ban is Unconstitutional (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A federal judge ruled Monday that Chicago’s ban on virtually all sales and transfers of firearms is unconstitutional.

“The stark reality facing the City each year is thousands of shooting victims and hundreds of murders committed with a gun. But on the other side of this case is another feature of government: certain fundamental rights are protected by the Constitution, put outside government’s reach, including the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment,” wrote U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang.

“Chicago’s ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms,” he continued.

Chang explicitly did not rule out other types of regulation, short of a complete ban, in order to “minimize the access of criminals to firearms and to track the ownership of firearms.

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Utah Gun Maker Turns Down $15M Deal With Pakistan

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Photo Credit: Thomas Cooper

Photo Credit: Thomas Cooper

A Utah-based gun manufacturer has turned down a $15 million deal to supply Pakistan with precision rifles, citing concerns they could eventually be used against U.S. troops.

Mike Davis, sales manager at Desert Tech, said the company was on a short list for a contract with Pakistan, but spurned the opportunity because of unrest in Pakistan and ethical concerns.

It was a difficult decision because of the amount of money involved, he said, and the sale of rifles to Pakistan would have been legal.

“We don’t know that those guns would’ve went somewhere bad, but with the unrest we just ended up not feeling right about it,” Davis told KTVX-TV.

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Millionaire Obama: I Hate Income Inequality

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Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty

Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty

Back from his $4 million Hawaii vacation, President Barack Obama seems poised to sound the populist trumpet in an effort to turn the page on 2013’s disastrous Obamacare rollout.

Many pundits are speculating that Obama, seeing the popularity of liberal populists like New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio, will use the current debate over unemployment insurance to engage in more divisive rhetoric:

The Obama administration has set the stage for a push that could rekindle cries of class warfare — calling for renewed long-term unemployment benefits, a minimum wage increase and a campaign against what Democrats call “income inequality.”

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Coastguard Battles Ice to Keeping Shipping Lanes Open as U.S. is Hit by Coldest Weather in Decades

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Photo Credit: MLIVE.com/Landov/Barcroft Med

Photo Credit: MLIVE.com/Landov/Barcroft Med

The U.S. Coast Guard has been forced to use ice-cutting vessels to try and keep the shipping channels open, as the big freeze has frozen over huge lanes between America and Canada.

As the nation struggles to function in spite of the plunging temperatures caused by a ‘polar vortex’ that has led to the coldest morning in decades, heavy ships that can break chunks of ice are working around the clock to clear major shipping routes and ensure freighters don’t get stuck in the thick ice.

The ice cutters make clear paths through St. Mary’s River and the Soo Locks as blocks of ice forms in the Great Lakes, where ice can form up to a foot thick in the waterways.

Four of the gigantic vessels have been working around the clock to keep the shipping lanes open for freighters that connect the river paths to deliver goods between the Midwest and the East Coast, ABC reported.

The turbulent weather conditions have been caused by a ‘polar vortex’ of frigid arctic air, which is predicted to bring record-breaking cold temperatures to the East and Northeast today.

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Watch Another High School Student Take Down Common Core (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

Another high school student at Farragut High School in Knox County, Tenn. is receiving widespread attention for an eloquent speech he made against Common Core at a school board meeting.

This time the student, Kenneth Ye, gave a rousing speech before the Knox County school board urging it to drop the Common Core standards because they make learning joyless and, in fact, turn American schools into something approaching Chinese sweatshops.

“Our schools are being turned into data-run factories,” Ye charges around the 4:30 mark in the video, “factories based on speedily-approved standards that are now being implemented around the country.”

Ye observies that he has been a student of both the American and Chinese education systems.

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Coroner: Priest Beaten to Death with Stake, Pipe

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Photo Credit: Jim, the Photographer

Photo Credit: Jim, the Photographer

A beloved priest who was killed in the Northern California city of Eureka was beaten to death with a wooden stake and a metal gutter pipe, his autopsy shows.

Humboldt County Coroner Dave Parris said Monday that investigators don’t want to release more details of how the Rev. Eric Freed was beaten, pending further investigation.

But at his arraignment, Gary Lee Bullock, 44, of Humboldt County, was charged with murder with a special allegation of torture. He is also charged with burglary, arson and auto theft.

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The 12 Worst Ways Obama Has Assaulted Our Military

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Photo Credit: Western Journalism

Photo Credit: Western Journalism

They are extraordinary Americans. It is said that they sign a blank check to their country and their countrymen pledging that they will give their all, up to and including their lives, to defend the American way of life and their fellow Americans. They are the men and women who are currently serving or have previously served in the armed forces of the United States. They take an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic,” and they always live by that oath.

This blank check is readily accepted by our government and by other Americans who send these selfless individuals off to fight and die for our nation and its freedoms. Many of them have made the ultimate sacrifice and died in battle, while many others have returned home with shattered bodies and emotional scars. Unfortunately, they have often returned home to betrayal by some of their fellow Americans and particularly by their own government…

As for our government, we have a President of the United States, an administration, and a Congress that seems intent on breaking the morale of our soldiers and destroying their capability of protecting our nation. Their actions support the fact that there is an all-out assault on both our active duty military and our veterans. The elements of this assault consist of:

1) The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a bulletin to all police agencies in 2009 naming all military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as potential domestic terrorists.

2) Senator Dianne Feinstein declares that all veterans have PTSD and are therefore mentally ill and should not be allowed to own firearms.

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O’s Executive Order On Climate Change: ‘Excessively High Temperatures’ are ‘Already’ Harming Public Health

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Photo Credit: the bridge/flickr

Photo Credit: the bridge/flickr

In his executive order on climate change, Obama warned that too much rain – and not enough rain – also dictated that executive action against climate fluctuations:

“The impacts of climate change — including an increase in prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, more heavy downpours, an increase in wildfires, more severe droughts, permafrost thawing, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise — are already affecting communities, natural resources, ecosystems, economies, and public health across the Nation. These impacts are often most significant for communities that already face economic or health-related challenges, and for species and habitats that are already facing other pressures.”

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Rand Paul Blasts ABC Host on Obama Failure (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Democrats have pointed to Kentucky’s state health exchange as an Obamacare success story, but Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said on “This Week” that the system is “a mess,” describing how his son was incorrectly enrolled in Medicaid, and saying he’s unsure if his own family is currently covered.

“The other day I actually tried to get my son signed up through the Kentucky exchange, you know that the Democrats have said is so good. And I have here my son’s Medicaid card,” Paul told George Stephanopoulos Sunday, waving the card. “We didn’t try to get him Medicaid, I’m trying to pay for his insurance. But they automatically enrolled him in Medicaid.”

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CNN: Former White House Official Admitted Obama Not Good at Governing (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

President Barack Obama may be adept at campaigning but not at governing, a former White House official told CNN.

CNN reporter Peter Hamby recounted a recent conversation with the Democratic official and quoted him as saying, “He’s really good at campaigning. Maybe not governing.”

“I talked to a former Obama White House person, just before Christmas, when Obama was sort of adrift, figuring out what to do, his poll numbers were pretty low…

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