Soldiers Survive Combat, then Lose their Jobs

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Photo Credit: William B. Plowman For thousands of career-military troops who endured combat and family separations during a dozen years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the end of hostilities brings a new directive from the government — your services are no longer needed.

Even as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Monday that future budget reductions cut “so deep, so quickly, that we cannot shrink the size of our military fast enough,” pinks slip were already on their way to soldiers.

In its first slice at reducing its force under budget pressure, the Army is letting 3,000 G.I.s go in order to thin ranks to 490,000 by the end of next year.

Ten Army officers — colonels and lieutenant colonels — learned while serving in Afghanistan in January that they would be forced to retire later this year.

And those are just the first firings. Tens of thousands more must be cut in the years ahead, and the services readily admit those separations won’t all be voluntary.

Read more this story HERE.

Media Expert Tim Graham: Fallon Biased for Obama (+video)

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Photo Credit: APNew “Tonight” show host Jimmy Fallon is a “complete tool” for President Barack Obama and the Democrats, says Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the Media Research Center.

Fallon took over from former “Tonight” host Jay Leno, and former “Saturday Night Live” star Seth Meyers has now replaced Fallon as the “Late Night” host. Fallon’s and Meyers’ political leanings have been evident right from the start, Graham said on “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.

Noting that Fallon is a big gain for Democrats, Graham said, “He’s a funny guy, people love him, but he is a complete tool for the Obamas. Obama can invite himself onto the Jimmy Fallon show and, of course, the Seth Meyers show starts tonight. One of his first guests, Joe Biden. Jimmy Fallon gets Michelle Obama, but Seth Meyers can only get Joe Biden,” Graham said Monday.

Read more this story HERE.

Seven Egyptian Christians Found Killed ‘Execution-Style’ on Libyan Beach

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty ImagesSeven Egyptian Christians were found shot dead on a beach in eastern Libya Monday, security officials and local residents told Reuters.

“They were killed by headshots in execution style,” a police officer said. “We don’t know who killed them.”

The Egyptians were living in Benghazi and, according to a local Egyptian worker who asked not to be identified, were kidnapped and dragged away from their homes Sunday night.

Read more this story HERE.

Conservative Hollywood Activist to Challenge GOP Rep. Paul Cook

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Photo Credit: Newsmax With some Republican House members under fire from tea party-backed insurgents, one of the more intriguing primary contests is between freshman Rep. Paul Cook of California and Rodney Lee Conover, a writer and longtime conservative activist in the entertainment community.

Cook was elected in California’s Eighth Congressional District in 2012 with the backing of outgoing Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis. A former state assemblyman, Cook has generally voted a conservative line. His district encompasses much of California’s Inland Empire, the area east of Los Angeles that has been a Republican stronghold despite California’s trending blue.

By voting for the continuing House resolution that funded Obamacare, Cook, 70, opened himself up to dissatisfaction from the right and a challenge in the June primary.

“Along with the funding of Obamacare and voting to cut military pensions, the congressman also opposed [California Republican] Rep. Tom McClintock’s bill to rein in the excesses of the National Security Agency,” Conover, 54, told Newsmax.

“These are critical issues, and he’s on the wrong side of all of them,” Conover said.

Read more this story HERE.

FDA Weighs Risks of 3-Person Embryo Fertilization

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Photo Credit: euthman/flickrFederal health regulators will consider this week whether to green light a provocative new fertilization technique that could eventually create babies from the DNA of three people, with the goal of preventing mothers from passing on debilitating genetic diseases to their children.

The Food and Drug Administration has framed its two-day meeting as a “scientific, technologic and clinical” discussion about how to test the approach in humans. But the technique itself raises a number of ethical questions, including whether the government should sanction the creation of genetically modified humans.

The FDA panel will hear from several prominent critics who oppose any human testing of the approach, arguing that it could be a slippery slope toward “designer babies,” – in which parents customize traits like eye color, height and intelligence.

But the field’s leading U.S. researcher will be on hand to explain and defend his work, which he describes as “gene correction,” rather than “gene modification.”

“We want to replace these mutated genes, which by nature have become pathogenic to humans,” says Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov, who will present on Tuesday. “We’re reversing them back to normal, so I don’t understand why you would be opposing that.”

Read more this story HERE.

New PAC To Protect Tea Party Candidates Against GOP Establishment Attacks (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreU.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert says a new PAC he has created will raise funds to help tea party candidates unfairly under siege from the Republican rank-and-file — and insists it is not there to spark a GOP civil war.

“Some in the establishment of the Republican Party are saying, gee, this is wrong, but this is not declaring a war against Republican candidates. In fact, it is defensive,” the Texas Republican told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.

“There are people, including our speaker [John Boehner] who wanted to declare war on tea parties. These are conservatives who simply want elected officials to do what they promised when they got elected.

“[But] if you don’t go along with what the leadership says, they’re going to see that you don’t get any financial help, they’re not going to help you raise money.”

Read more this story HERE.

Is Alaska Republican Party Platform Being Hijacked?

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photo credit: donkeyhoteyAnchorage, AK – Restoring Liberty received word last week of an effort underway to convene a series of closed-door invitation-only meetings intended to rewrite the Alaska Republican Party Platform in order to make it “reasonable-sounding to the average voter.”

Multiple conservative leaders in Anchorage have voiced concern over the secret meetings they believe are designed to purge the platform of social conservative values.

New information lends the appearance of a coordinated effort with acting State Chair Peter Goldberg and RNC representative Mike Shirley who were carbon copied on an email outlining the agenda for the “platform workshops.”

Such a move is sure to raise tensions ahead of the Juneau Convention scheduled for early May.

Many are already upset that the left-leaning State Central Committee voted to hold the State Convention off the road system for the second time in the last four years, presumably to block participation from more conservative areas of the state. The trip to Juneau is cost prohibitive for many.

The 2008 and 2012 Conventions on the road system ended poorly for party boss Randy Ruedrich and his “moderate” friends. After narrowly escaping majority opposition led by Joe Miller and former Governor Sarah Palin who sought to remove him as party chair in 2008, Ruedrich shut down the 2012 Convention prematurely in order to avert a rules change that would have done exactly that.

A subsequent reconvene granted at the parliamentarian’s insistence that the party comply with Robert’s Rules was also shut down when the former party chair took to the public airwaves and the press to discourage participation in order to block a quorum.

Coming on the heels of media reports linking US Senate candidate Dan Sullivan to a left-leaning cabal of outside billionaires seeking to remake the Republican Party by offering amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and pushing the door open for acceptance of gay marriage, more traditional Republicans are understandably nervous.

In the email forwarded to Restoring Liberty, failed 2012 party chair candidate Bruce Schulte opined that “our platform should not be an Albatross hung around the neck of every Republican regardless of the office they seek or the makeup of their constituency.”

It also outlined a list of objectives for the re-write: including, to “make the platform more inclusive of different perspectives [and] demographics . . . more positive . . . Alaska-centric . . . [and] to avoid alienating too many people.”

Attachments were provided to guide the process, inclusive of Republican platforms from Alaska, Utah and New Mexico, as well as those of the Alaska Democrat and Libertarian platforms.

Restoring Liberty was not invited, nor are we privy to who was blind copied on the email.

Benghazi Justice Could Help Hillary Run

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThe Obama administration is under growing pressure to make an arrest in the Benghazi attack to quash lingering criticism of its response and help clear the road for a possible Hillary Clinton presidential run in 2016.

Blame for the shortcomings that contributed to the deaths of four Americans has increasingly focused on the former secretary of State as she weighs her next move. That heat is only expected to intensify as the U.S. prepares to pass the 18-month mark since the attack on the U.S mission.

Republicans have revived their probes into the attack ahead of the 2014 mid-term elections, with the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees both releasing reports in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence panel used their additional views on a recent bipartisan investigation to pin the blame on Clinton for embassy security failings and excoriate the slow pace of justice.

“There simply is no justification … for not doing more to capture and interrogate terrorists who caused the deaths of four Americans,” they wrote in the Jan. 15 report. “The United States can and should do better.”

This past week, the chairman of the House oversight committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), traveled to New Hampshire to “hopefully shape the debate for 2016.” He used the occasion to tear into Clinton, accusing her of preventing the Department of Defense from sending forces to relieve the besieged Americans, despite the Pentagon’s own conclusion that it had no forces in the area ready to be deployed.

Read more this story HERE.

Report: Pentagon to Propose Shrinking Army to Pre-WWII Level, Scrapping Some Jets

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/LUKAS BARTHBy Reuters.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will propose on Monday a reduction in the size of the U.S. Army to its smallest size since before World War Two and scrapping a class of Air Force attack jets, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The plans, which the paper said were outlined by several Pentagon officials on condition of anonymity, would be aimed at reducing defense spending in the face of government austerity after a pledge by President Barack Obama to end U.S. involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read more this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUEU.S. governors plan to urge Obama not to downsize National Guard

By Aruna Viswanatha.

Governors from both U.S. political parties plan to talk to President Barack Obama on Monday about preventing potential cuts to National Guard units, several governors said on Sunday.

“In downsizing the military, we want to make sure that reserve and National Guard is protected in our country,” Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I’m going to have that discussion with the President tomorrow,” Malloy, a Democrat, said.

Many governors are in Washington this week for a national conference of state executives. They are scheduled to have dinner at the White House on Sunday and meet with Obama on Monday.

Several appeared on Sunday morning talk shows, where they said they wanted to speak to the president about the potential cuts to the National Guard. The Guard is a reserve force that is part of the Army but serves state governments often at times of crisis, such as during floods or after hurricanes.

Read more this story HERE.

Former Justice Stevens: Change 2nd Amendment to Improve Constitution

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Photo Credit: AFPFormer Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has released a new book focused, in part, on “improving” the Constitution through amending the Second Amendment–by making the rights protected therein applicable only to a militia instead of the citizenry at large.

Stevens’ book is titled Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution.

As written, the text of the Second Amendment is: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Stevens believes recent court decisions–notably District of Columbia v Heller (2008) and McDonald v Chicago (2010)–placed too much emphasis on individual rights, rather than on what he believes was the Founding Fathers’ primary goal: namely, to answer “the threat that a national standing army posed to the sovereignty of the states.”

Read more this story HERE.