Congressman’s Bill Stops Federal Funds for Medical Centers Targeting Kids Like Justina Pelletier (+video)

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

Congressman Steve Stockman will introduce legislation cutting off funds to medical institutions that conduct greater than minimal risk research on wards of the state, deny First Amendment rights to parents and wards of the state, and take children away from their parents over disagreements on subjective medical diagnoses.

Such medical institutions include the National Institute of Health, state agencies, medical facilities, and hospitals. This bill would direct the Inspector General of Health and Human Services to withhold funds from these institutions for the aforementioned reasons.

he story of Justina Pelletier, who has mitochondrial disease and was declared a ward of the state over a custody battle regarding a subjective psychotropic drug diagnosis, motivated Congressman Stockman to introduce the legislation.

Lou and Linda Pelletier brought their daughter, Justina, to Boston Children’s Hospital for flu-like symptoms in February 2013. Justina had been diagnosed with and receiving treatment for Mitochondrial Disease, a genetic medical condition, since 2011. Less than 24 hours after being admitted to Boston Children’s Hospital, mental health workers disagreed with the Mitochondrial Disease diagnosis and insisted she had a psychiatric disorder called Somatoform (though there are no fool-proof medical or genetic tests to validate this as a legitimate medical condition).

Upon learning of the psychiatric diagnosis, the Pelletiers attempted to discharge Justina from the hospital. In response, the Hospital filed an allegation of medical child abuse against them. Justina has now been removed from her parents’ care, and has been under psychiatric treatment for over a year.

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Obama’s Foreign Policy of Denial

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Photo Credit: Charles Dharapak

Photo Credit: Charles Dharapak

Barack Obama’s 949-word response Monday to a question about foreign policy weakness showed the president at his worst: defensive, irritable, contradictory and at times detached from reality. It began with a complaint about negative coverage on Fox News, when, in fact, it was the New York Times’ front page that featured Obama’s foreign policy failures, most recently the inability to conclude a trade agreement with Japan and the collapse of Secretary of State John Kerry’s Middle East negotiations.

Add to this the collapse of not one but two Geneva conferences on Syria, American helplessness in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine and the Saudi king’s humiliating dismissal of Obama within two hours of talks — no dinner — after Obama made a special 2,300-mile diversion from Europe to see him, and you have an impressive litany of serial embarrassments.

Obama’s first rhetorical defense, as usual, was to attack a straw man: “Why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force?”

Everybody? Wasn’t it you, Mr. President, who decided to attack Libya under the grand Obama doctrine of “responsibility to protect” helpless civilians — every syllable of which you totally contradicted as 150,000 were being slaughtered in Syria?

And wasn’t attacking Syria for having crossed your own chemical-weapons “red line” also your idea? Before, of course, you retreated abjectly, thereby marginalizing yourself and exposing the United States to general ridicule.

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Pro-Russian Protesters Storm Prosecutor’s Office in Ukraine’s Donetsk

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Photo Credit: AP / Emilio Morenatti

Photo Credit: AP / Emilio Morenatti

Pro-Russian protesters stormed the prosecutor’s office in the separatist-held city of Donetsk on Thursday, lobbing stones and smashing windows after accusing the office of working for the Western-backed government in Kiev.

Donetsk, a city of about 1 million people in Ukraine’s industrial east, is at the center of an armed uprising across the steel and coal belt by mainly Russian-speakers threatening to secede from Ukraine.

The violence, in a city already largely under the control of separatists, underscored the shifting security situation and suspicions in the region.

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Federal Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin Voter ID Law

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A federal judge in Milwaukee has struck down Wisconsin’s voter Identification law, saying it unfairly burdens poor and minority voters.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman issued his long-awaited decision Tuesday. It invalidates Wisconsin’s law.

Wisconsin’s law would have required voters to show a state-issued photo ID at the polls…

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Edward Snowden: NSA Spies More on Americans Than Russians

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Photo Credit: NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP / Getty Images

Photo Credit: NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP / Getty Images

Edward Snowden told a crowd of fans Wednesday that the government’s surveillance programs collect more data on Americans than any other country.

“Does the NSA know more about Americans in America than Russians in Russia?” Snowden said, appearing by live video during an awards ceremony in Washington. “We watch our own people more closely than anyone else in the world.”

Snowden also took several shots at the National Security Agency and its top officials, and criticized the agency for wearing two contradictory hats of protecting U.S. data and exploiting security flaws to gather intelligence on foreign threats.

“U.S. government policy directed by the NSA … is now making a choice, a binary choice, between security of our communications and the vulnerability of our communications,” Snowden said, suggesting the government was biased toward the latter activity.

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Mike Lee Wants to Fight Cronyism in Government to Restore American Exceptionalism

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) spoke about the problems of cronyism in American government during a speech he gave at the Heritage Foundation Wednesday.

“Cronyism simultaneously corrupts our economy and our government, turning both against the American people,” Lee said. “It forces American families who ‘work hard and play by the rules’ to prop up, bail out, and subsidize elite special interests that don’t.”

Cronyism is leading to unequal opportunity in the United States. Lee said the GOP must address this threat to American exceptionalism by rooting out cronyism privilege and restoring fairness.

“Free enterprise works—morally and materially—because it aligns the interests of the individual and society,” Lee said. “It’s a system governed by an ‘invisible hand’ that rewards the creation of value, and by an ‘invisible foot’ that punishes complacency, especially at the top.”

Lee went after both indirect and direct subsidies in his speech.

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Largest Coal Producing State Slams Administration Over EPA Rules

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The American coal industry is accusing the Obama administration of using the Environmental Protection Agency to end the use of coal despite the president’s claim of having an “all of the above” energy policy.

Earlier this year, the EPA issued its Mercury Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which the agency said will eliminate 90 percent of mercury and acid gas released into the air by coal-fired power plants.

“I would say this administration is certainly unfriendly towards coal,” Wyo. Governor Matt Mead said. “And in my view it is a war on coal.”

Mead proudly pointed out that Wyoming is currently the nation’s largest coal producing state. “We export more coal than any other state by far…about 400 million tons per year. Wyoming coal produces a lot of electricity in this country,” he said.

He and others in the coal industry are concerned, however, that the EPA’s MATS rules, which go into effect in January 2016, will devastate coal production in America and force many older power plants to close because the cost of retrofitting them will be too high.

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Cruz: ‘Where We Are Today Reminds Me a Great Deal of the Late 1970s’ & Carter

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The economic and political scene in America today is similar to what was occurring in the late 1970s, but this is not all bad news for conservatives because “it took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a tele-town hall sponsored by the conservative group ForAmerica.

“I understand that looking at what’s happening in this country, it’s easy to be demoralized, to feel despondent at the continual assault on our liberty,” said Cruz. “But I want to encourage everyone — it often takes things getting really bad, to wake people up. It took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan.”

Cruz drew a comparison between what was happening under President Jimmy Carter with the last five years under President Barack Obama, along with other observations about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), youth unemployment, the national debt, foreign policy, and the Benghazi scandal.

ForAmerica, which sponsored the tele-town hall on April 29, was founded by author, columnist, and activist L. Brent Bozell III. ForAmerica supports personal freedom, a limited, constitutional government, a strong national defense, and a commitment to Judeo-Christian values.

Bozell is also the president of the Media Research Center, the parent organization of CNSNews.com.

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Alaska State Fair Books ‘Duck Dynasty’

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Photo Credit: Dave Nelson / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Dave Nelson / Creative Commons

A contentious cable television reality show star will be among the highlighted acts at this year’s Alaska State Fair, officials announced Wednesday.

Phil Robertson and other members of the show “Duck Dynasty” will headline the concert venue Aug. 30, fair marketing director Dean Phipps said.

Set in Louisiana bayou country, A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” follows a family that manufactures duck calls and loves to go bird hunting.

Robertson, the family patriarch, was briefly suspended by A&E last year after GQ magazine quoted him declaring that gays are sinners and African Americans were happy under Jim Crow laws establishing segregation. Supporters of Robertson’s right to voice his opinions flocked to his defense before the network reinstated him.

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Obama’s 2014 Golf Outings Cost Taxpayers Nearly $3M

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Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn Martin

Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn Martin

President Obama’s golf outings in 2014 cost taxpayers nearly $3 million – $2,952,278 – for just flight expenses alone, according to records from the Department of the Air Force obtained by Judicial Watch.

“According to the Department of Air Force documents, the flights to and from, Palm Springs for the February 17-20, 2014 trip totaled 9.8 hours at $210,877 an hour, which comes to a total of $2,066,594.60 in flight expenses,” according to Judicial Watch. “The total cost for flights to and from Key Largo, Florida for the March 7-9 trip totaled 4.2 hours at $210,877, which comes to a total of $855,683.40 for flight expenses.”

The trip in Key Largo was spent at the exclusive Ocean Reef Club, which “boasts two championship 18-hole courses, a rarity in the Florida keys…

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