Immigration Reform Could Hinge On Handful Of Tea Party Conservatives

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

They’re not the conservative faction that has been front and center in the opposition to giving undocumented immigrants a chance to legalize their status and stay and work in the United States.

The toughest stumbling block to a comprehensive immigration reform agreement in the House of Representatives, The Hill reports, may well be a quiet group – a handful of Tea Party conservatives who aren’t the kind of fixtures in front of the camera that other immigration hardliners, such as Rep. Steve King of Iowa and Rep. Louie Gomert of Texas, have been on the emotionally-charged issue.

Those quiet critical few, The Hill said, include Reps. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), Trey Gowdy (S.C.), Justin Amash (Mich.), Renee Ellmers (N.C.) and Steve Scalise (La.).

These lawmakers are likely to look to conservative peers – not lobby groups or the GOP establishment – for cues on how to move on the immigration issue, the publication said.

House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, has said he will push a measure if it gets a majority – or 117 – of the 233 members of the Republican conference.

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Coburn Says ObamaCare Cost him Coverage for Cancer Doctor

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn revealed Tuesday that his ObamaCare insurance plan does not cover his cancer specialist, forcing him to pay out of pocket — in the latest reminder of complications with the health law as President Obama prepares to address the nation.

The Oklahoma senator, who has been suffering from a recurrence of prostate cancer and plans to retire at the end of the current session, briefly discussed his personal situation in an interview Tuesday morning.

“I’m doing well from a health standpoint, got great docs and fortunately, even though my new coverage won’t cover my specialists, I’m going to have great care and I have a great prognosis,” he said.

Politico reported that Coburn’s office confirmed his coverage was cut and he lost coverage for his oncologist. However, Coburn reportedly will pay out of pocket in order to keep seeing the specialist. Coburn spoke earlier on MSNBC.

Like other congressional lawmakers, Coburn, 65, was required to go on the ObamaCare exchanges. Coburn’s case is one of many that will hang over the president as he delivers the State of the Union address Tuesday evening. While Obama plans to focus on economic issues — and especially agenda items like the minimum wage — lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are not letting him forget about the widespread and bipartisan concerns with the health care law.

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Fed’s Predator Drone Used in North Dakota to Convict Farmer Acquitted of Original Charges

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

By Fox News.

What began as a wild west-style cattle-stealing case may have ushered in a brave new world of law enforcement officials using drones to gather evidence to put Americans behind bars.

In the first-ever case of a U.S. citizen being convicted and sentenced to prison based in part on evidence gathered by a drone, Lakota, N.D., farmer Rodney Brossart got a three-year sentence for his role in an armed standoff with police that began after he was accused of stealing his neighbors’ stray cattle in 2011.

Brossart was arrested on June 23, 2011, but his family refused at gun
point to let authorities armed with a search warrant onto their 3,600-acre property to investigate the neighbors’ complaint. Brossart was later released on bail, and warrants issued for his three sons, but the family refused for months to respond to orders to appear in court, prompting Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke to have the U.S. Border Patrol deploy a Predator drone conduct live video surveillance of the farm.

The drone monitored the family’s movements on the farm following the armed standoff. It was not clear how long the drone was deployed or whether it gathered evidence of the alleged cattle theft.

But the eye in the sky gathered enough evidence to prompt Janke’s men to finally move in in November 2011, arresting five family members on terrorizing charges.

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Lakota, N.D., farmer sentenced to 6 months in terrorizing case

By Steve Lee.

Lakota, N.D., farmer Rodney Brossart was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison, with all but six months suspended during 2.5 years of supervised probation for terrorizing law enforcement officers who arrested him over a neighbor’s stray cattle in June 2011.

The unusual case attracted wide attention because Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke took up the U.S. Border Patrol’s offer of live video surveillance from a large drone of Brossart’s three sons before arresting them at their farm southeast of Lakota the day after he was arrested.

“This case should have never happened,” state District Judge Joel Medd said. “Chalk it up to stubbornness, to stupidity, to being at odds with your neighbors or any combination of those. We should never have been here if the cows would have just been returned.”

Brossart was convicted in November of terrorizing two law enforcement officers who arrested him June 23, 2011, over a neighbor’s three cows and their calves that strayed on to his farm. It’s a felony with a top sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Also Tuesday, Brossart’s three sons — Thomas, Alex and Jacob, all in their 20s — pleaded guilty each to a misdemeanor charge of menacing law enforcement officers, reduced from the felony terrorizing charge, in an agreement with prosecutors.

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Dad With Cancer Writes Daughter 826 Notes to Read Throughout High School

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Photo Credit: GARTH CALLAGHAN

Photo Credit: GARTH CALLAGHAN

Ever since his daughter Emma started kindergarten, Garth Callaghan has been making her a lunch to take to school every day.

“I went to lunch with her at school one day,” Callaghan, from Richmond, Va., told FoxNews.com. “I actually chose to buy lunch with her, and I thought, ‘This is really not delicious.’ So we decided as a family we were going to limit the time Emma bought lunch and make lunch as much as possible.”

When Callaghan first started putting together his daughter’s lunches, he wanted to do a little something extra for her. So each day, he would write a special note on a napkin and leave it in her lunch sack.

Initially the notes started off as sketches or easy phrases she could understand, but as she grew older, the messages slowly evolved into thoughtful quotes or words of inspiration.

“The notes took on more sophistication,” Callaghan said. “I wanted her to be more supported. I really wanted to her have a strong sense of self…. So I started to search out quotes and things that were positive. I was actually spending more time putting together her napkin than putting together her lunch.”

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New ‘R.I.P.’ Bullet Hailed as ‘One-Shot Man-Stopper’

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Photo Credit: Brennan Linsley

Photo Credit: Brennan Linsley

A newly developed bullet from G2 Research is being billed as the last round a gun owner will ever need: a smashing hunk of copper with full metal jacket power to shred through solid objects and stop attackers in their tracks.

G2R, the Windsor, Ga., company that created the Radically Invasive Projectile, or R.I.P., says the bullet is like a full metal jacket when it strikes and is designed “to take out all your vital organs.”

“I wanted to create a round that would work well against a home intruder,” company president Cliff Brown told the Blaze. “There were so many stories out there about a woman trying to defend her home and having to shoot someone five or six times and they’d still come after her. We wanted to create an effective one-shot man-stopper.”

The bullet is made with trocar angles — edges with three angles that lead into a single point — which enable it cut through an object’s layers with greater speed and efficiency than other forms of ammunition, according to the company’s website.

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GOP Ready to Surrender on Debt Ceiling

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The most senior figures in the House Republican Conference are privately acknowledging that they will almost certainly have to pass what’s called a clean debt ceiling increase in the next few months, abandoning the central fight that has defined their three-year majority.

The reason for the shift in dynamics in this fight is clear. Congress has raised the debt limit twice in a row without drastic policy concessions from President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats, essentially ceding ground to Democrats. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are again ruling out negotiations over the nation’s borrowing limit, which would leave Republicans fighting against a unified Democratic front. It’s a tricky situation for the GOP in an election year: They would have to pass a clean debt limit bill or risk default.

The vast majority of Democrats will vote against everything except a clean debt ceiling increase, so if Republicans try to tack extraneous policy onto a debt ceiling measure, they’ll have to pass it on their own. At least a dozen Republican aides and lawmakers are highly skeptical they will be able to craft something that will attract the support of 217 GOP lawmakers. In short, Republicans have few options and even less time: The Obama administration says the debt limit must be raised by the end of February. Republicans, though, are skeptical of that date.

“I’ve been saying publicly that once we voted for the budget, you knew that you were going to get a clean debt ceiling,” said conservative Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho), referring to the recently passed budget deal that he voted against. “The time to fight for spending cuts is when you’re talking about spending, not at debt ceiling time. So when people caved on the budget and caved on the [Ryan-Murray] agreement, it’s really hard for them to come back and say, ‘We don’t want to increase the debt ceiling’ when they’ve already voted for something that increases the debt.”

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Obama Vows to Act Without Congress in 2014, Amid Second-Term Woes

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

President Obama vowed Tuesday to use the power of the pen to chip away at his agenda in 2014, making clear he’ll sidestep Congress “wherever and whenever” he can while also lowering his sights for what is achievable at this stage in his presidency.

In his State of the Union address, Obama stopped short of proposing any sweeping new initiatives. He renewed his call for Congress to approve an immigration overhaul “this year,” but for the most part narrowed his focus to smaller-ticket items he’s vowing to do on his own.

Urging a “year of action,” he pitched what he called “concrete, practical proposals” to boost the middle class and build “new ladders of opportunity” for others to enter it.

“Some require congressional action, and I’m eager to work with all of you,” Obama said. “But America does not stand still – and neither will I. So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.”

The speech reflected a president struggling to advance his agenda partway through his second term, in the face of a divided Congress, flagging public support and several controversies. Instead of flatly declaring what will be achieved in 2014, the president said “let’s see” where both parties can make progress.

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Huckabee: Reporters Skewer Facts, Semi-Apologize Later (Shocker)

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

The media has an obligation not to rush into a story and influence it, but to report it as it is. Last week reporters from CNN, NBC and other news organizations rushed in and erroneously reported my remarks at the RNC. In their rush to report what they wanted to, they skewered the facts and left me spending my time having to answer ridiculous questions about this fake controversy.

My remarks in case you missed them are here:

“Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women. That’s not a war on them, it’s a war for them. If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control, because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it. Let us take that discussion all across America, because women are far more than the Democrats have played them to be.”

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‘Mental Disorder’ Largest Diagnostic Group Receiving Federal Disability; 43.2% in D.C.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

“Mental disorder” is the leading “diagnostic group” for disabled people receiving federal disability insurance benefits, with 35.5 percent of all disabled beneficiaries having such a disorder, according to the latest Annual Statistical Report on the Social Security Disability Insurance Program.

The report provides a statistical profile of the 10,088,739 disabled beneficiaries who were receiving federal disability benefits as of December 2012.

Those 10,088,739 disabled beneficiaries were almost double the 5,044,388 disabled beneficiaries who had been in the program as of December 1995.

DISABLED BENEFICIARIES-BY DIAGNOSIS-CHART-01-27-14

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“Good Luck Charlie” Brings First Gay Characters To Disney Channel. Miley Cyrus Praises, OMM Condemns(+video)

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Photo Credit: NewNowNext

Photo Credit: NewNowNext

Good Luck Charlie might not be aimed at NewNowNext readers, but its one of the Disney Channel’s most progressive shows: Last night, the sitcom introduced a lesbian couple who are moms to one of Charlie’s preschool pals.

According to TV Guide:

In the storyline, parents Amy and Bob Duncan (Leigh-Allyn Baker and Eric Allan Kramer) set up a playdate for preschooler Charlie (Mia Talerico) and one of her new friends. When the kid arrives, the Duncans learn that Charlie’s pal has two moms. That’s fine, but the potential new friendship is put to the test as one mom chats with Amy, and the other is stuck listening to Bob’s dull stories.

Disney had been hinting at these characters since late last year, and promised the story was developed in conjunction with child-development experts and LGBT community advocates. Last summer, when the plot was first announced, former Disney icon Miley Cyrus tweeted her support: “I commend Disney for making this step into the light of this generation. They control so much of what kids think!”

Read more from this story HERE.