Emails Reportedly Show Close Coordination Between CNN Team, Emanuel on ‘Chicagoland’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Chicago Tribune reviewed more than 700 emails pertaining to the making and filming of “Chicagoland,” an eight-part series which finished airing last week.

Though coordination can be expected in any documentary series, the emails reportedly show the Emanuel administration playing an active role in the narrative — and producers encouraging them to play ball.

One email showed executive producer Marc Levin appealing to the mayor’s office last May to be “on the phone in his SUV, in city hall with key advisers and his kitchen cabinet and meeting with CPS head BBB (Barbara Byrd-Bennett) and with CPD (Superintendent Garry) McCarthy.”

The first episode of the series showed several such scenes.

In a separate exchange, the daughter of a PR executive who helped arrange the CNN/Emanuel project reportedly emailed the mayor’s press secretary asking for “the list of story/interview ideas that you and your team were going to put together” for the producers.

Read more from this story HERE.

Cops Arrest Man for Quoting Winston Churchill

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

The leader of an anti-immigration pressure group has been arrested for quoting Winston Churchill. Paul Weston, chairman of LibertyGB, was taken into custody in Winchester, southern England, after delivering a speech in which he quoted an excerpt from the wartime Prime Minister’s book The River War.

Addressing a gathering of people from the steps of Winchester Guildhall, Weston quoted the passage:

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.”

A woman came of the Guildhall and asked Weston if he had authorisation to make the speech. He replied that he did not, at which point she called him “disgusting” and called the police. At least six police officers arrived, questioned by-standers and arrested Weston and took him away. Britain’s ITV News is now reporting the story.

Read more from this story HERE.

ObamaCare and Common Core – Both are Bad to the Bone

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

By Bruce Deitrick Price.

Medical insurance and public education might seem to be two different worlds with different problems. But the proposed solutions by the left were essentially the same. Here are ten descriptions that apply equally to ObamaCare and Common Core:

1) Huge federal power grab: The obvious result from both ObamaCare and Common Core is that Obama and his Czars get a bigger government to administer, more money to play with, more jobs for their loyal troops, and more control over people’s lives.

2) Unresponsive to popular demand.:ObamaCare and Common Core were massive, top-down interventions demanded by leftwing politics and ideology, not something the public asked for. Alleged problems were used as an excuse for adopting solutions that would grow government. The big question was, what can they get away with? (We see the same dynamics playing out in climate change.)

3) Incomprehensible by design: A sentence was not used if a paragraph could be concocted. Thousands of new requirements, regulations, laws, and standards were contained in dense verbiage that neither Congress nor the public would ever read and couldn’t understand if they did. Almost every paragraph includes expanded powers and hidden consequences. Citizens would be further reduced to a childlike dependence on bureaucrats.

4) Public excluded from legislative process. The complexity of the political process, plus the density of jargon and propaganda, ensured that John Q Citizen was ignored. These programs were passed by stealth, chicanery, arm-twisting, and bribes. The Cornhusker Kickback put ObamaCare over the top. Similarly, so-called stimulus money earmarked for shovel-ready jobs was used as grants (i.e. bribes) to persuade the states to embrace Race to the Top, a precursor of Common Core. The fix was in.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Sara Caldwell / The Augusta Chronicle / ZUMAPRESS.com

Photo Credit: Sara Caldwell / The Augusta Chronicle / ZUMAPRESS.com

Pushback Continues: States Grow Increasingly Wary of Common Core

By Brittany Corona.

Common Core is on the ropes. More and more states are pulling back from the national standards as the 2014–15 school year implementation deadline looms near.

In Louisiana, Governor Bobby Jindal (R)—formerly a Common Core supporter—is now encouraging the legislature to remove the state from the Common Core aligned Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers (PARCC) test. And if they don’t act, he will.

Jindal’s new stance comes after eight members of the Louisiana State House of Representatives sent him a letter, informing him of his prerogative to opt out of the standards and encouraging him to do so. As The New Orleans Advocate reported:

Gov. Bobby Jindal said Monday that a gubernatorial order for the state to drop controversial Common Core tests is a ‘very viable option’ if state lawmakers fail to act. Jindal made the comment in response to a letter from eight House members who said the governor can opt the state out of the exams and should do that… ‘We believe you have the authority, as governor, under the 2010 PARCC memorandum of understanding, to opt out of the consortium,’ state Rep. Brett Geymann, (R–Lake Charles), and seven other legislators wrote.

Read more from this story HERE.

Qaeda Chief Urges Kidnappings of Americans

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called in an interview for militants to kidnap Westerners, especially Americans, to exchange them for jihadist captives.

In the second part of an interview with Al-Qaeda media arm As-Sahab, which the US-based SITE monitoring service said a jihadist posted on Twitter, Zawahiri was asked what Muslims should do to free militant prisoners.

Read more from this story HERE.

More Renounce US Citizenship

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Photo Credit: AP / Carol Tapanila

Photo Credit: AP / Carol Tapanila

Inside the long-awaited package, six pages of government paperwork dryly affirmed Carol Tapanila’s anxious request. But when Tapanila slipped the contents from the brown envelope, she saw there was something more.

“We the people….” declared the script inside her U.S. passport — now with four holes punched through it from cover to cover. Her departure from life as an American was stamped final on the same page: “Bearer Expatriated Self.”

With the envelope’s arrival, Tapanila, a native of upstate New York who has lived in Canada since 1969, joined a largely overlooked surge of Americans rejecting what is, to millions, a highly sought prize: U.S. citizenship. Last year, the U.S. government reported a record 2,999 people renounced citizenship or terminated permanent residency; most are widely assumed to be driven by a desire to avoid paying taxes on hidden wealth.

The reality, though, is more complicated. The government’s pursuit of tax evaders among Americans living abroad is indeed driving the jump in abandoned citizenship, experts say. But renouncers — whose ranks have swelled more than five-fold from a decade ago — often contradict the stereotype of the financial scoundrel. Many are from very ordinary economic circumstances.

Some call themselves “accidental Americans,” who recall little of life in the U.S., but long ago happened to be born in it. Others say they renounced because of politics, family or personal identity. Some say signing away citizenship was a huge relief. Others recall being sickened by the decision.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Supreme Court says Tax Exemptions Cannot Be Denied to Gay Couples

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Photo Credit: Mel Green / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Mel Green / Creative Commons

Same-sex couples in Alaska must receive certain property tax exemptions given to married couples, despite a ban on gay marriage, the state Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

The decision in a lawsuit brought by three Anchorage same-sex couples represented a blow to the state, which had prevented gay and lesbian couples from taking advantage of a tax break for senior citizens and disabled veterans that, in some circumstances, takes into account marital status.

The ruling follows high-profile victories in recent months by gays and lesbians seeking the right to wed in several U.S. states.

Marriage rights have been extended to gay couples in 17 states and the District of Columbia in a trend that gained momentum when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last June that legally married same-sex couples nationwide are eligible for federal benefits.

In 1998, Alaska voters amended the state’s constitution to restrict marriage to between a man and a woman.

Read more from this story HERE.

N. Korea Says Army Must Develop to be Able to Beat U.S.

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Photo Credit: KCNA / Reuters

Photo Credit: KCNA / Reuters

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged the army to develop to ensure it wins any confrontation with the United States, the reclusive country’s news agency said on Sunday, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama warned the North of its military might.

Kim led a meeting of the Central Military Commission and “set forth important tasks for further developing the Korean People’s Army and ways to do so”, KCNA news agency said.

“He stressed the need to enhance the function and role of the political organs of the army if it is to preserve the proud history and tradition of being the army of the party, win one victory after another in the confrontation with the U.S. and creditably perform the mission as a shock force and standard-bearer in building a thriving nation.”

Obama said on Saturday on a visit to Seoul, where the U.S. army has a large presence, that the United States did not use its military might to “impose things” on others, but that it would use that might if necessary to defend South Korea from any attack by the reclusive North.

Read more from this story HERE.

Affirmative Action Lawyer Calls Supreme Court Decision on Michigan Schools ‘Racist’

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The civil rights lawyer who argued unsuccessfully before the Supreme Court to end Michigan’s affirmative action ban repeated Sunday that the high court’s decision was “racist.”

“This is a racist decision that takes us back to an era of state’s rights,” civil rights attorney Shanta Driver told “Fox News Sunday.” “This decision cannot stand.”

The high court’s 6-2 decision Tuesday upheld a voter-approved change to the Michigan Constitution in 2006 that forbids the state’s public colleges to make race, gender, ethnicity or national origin a factor in college admissions.

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California Bill Would Force Schools to Lecture Children on the ‘Racial Significance’ of Obama’s Presidency

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

California’s children will receive only the best educational opportunities, including thorough indoctrination into the “racial significance” of Barack Obama’s presidency, if a new state bill passes.

From CBS Sacramento:

The bill by Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, asks state education officials to include Obama’s election in history and social studies standards laying out what students are expected to learn.

High school history students already learn about recent presidents. But Holden says lessons about Obama also should focus on what his election meant for racial equality and civil rights…

Of course, California can take this bold step because children are so well educated in California (43rd in the country in math, and 42nd in reading) that teachers have plenty of time to add racially charged lessons to their curriculum.

Read more from this story HERE.

Muslim Brotherhood Member Rapes Boy for Supporting Anti-Brotherhood Revolution

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Photo Credit: FrontPageMag

Photo Credit: FrontPageMag

A young boy in Egypt, apparently no more than six-years-old, was recently raped by a Muslim Brotherhood member “angered” at the child for singing praises to Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, widely seen in Egypt as the hero of the revolution that saw the ousting of Muhammad Morsi and the Brotherhood in July 2013, and likely Egypt’s next president.

The details, including video interviews with the boy (whose face appears alternatively blotted out or hidden by his hands to protect his identity and dignity) and his father and mother, recently appeared on Egyptian journalist Wael Ibrashi’s television program (the same program that exposed Egypt’s “first sex-slave marriage” and how women were drinking camel urine in connection with Islamic teachings).

The story goes as follows: One day when the boy was singing praises to Sisi near his home, a neighbor, Ahmed Abu Sa ‘id (the Brotherhood member), called him over and took him to a nearby shed, saying he needed help with something. Once inside, Sa‘id locked the door, began tearing the boy’s pants off and raped him, saying, “You’re always holding pictures of this Sisi and singing his praises. Come, I’ll humiliate and break you—and your Sisi.”

The boy started screaming aloud, until the man was finished and released him. According to his mother, “I heard him crying and left my work [in the field] and ran up to meet him. He was holding his pants up. I thought some kids had beaten him!”… (She bursts into inarticulate tears when describing what actually did happen to him.)

Read more from this story HERE.