Tahmooressi's Mother Makes Fourth of July Appeal to US Ambassador to Mexico

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Photo Credit: Fox News On the eve of Independence Day, the mother of a Marine jailed in Mexico for three months appealed to America’s top diplomat south of the border, asking for help winning the freedom of her 25-year-old son, Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi.

Jill Tahmooressi, of Weston, Fla., sent a letter June 30 to E. Anthony Wayne, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, requesting his help in getting a Mexican federal judge to give an expedited review to her son’s case, after his representation had been botched by two previous attorneys who failed to submit any evidence for the court to review.

“If any consideration can be made to expedite the reviews before the federal judge so that he will be closer to probable freedom, those actions would be much appreciated,” Jill Tahmooressi wrote Wayne.

Her son has been held in Mexico since March 31, when he was arrested after accidentally crossing into Mexico with three legally-purchased guns in his pickup truck. Fox News has highlighted how poor signage, as well as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Tahmooressi got from serving two tours in Afghanistan, could have contributed to his mistake.

Tahmooressi hopes to have her son’s case fast-tracked, but according to attorney Fernando Benitez, the Mexican judicial system will have to run its course, regardless of efforts made by the Marine’s supporters.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rick Perry Calls for National Guard to Defend the Border

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreThe situation at the Texas border is getting worse by the day, and the federal government, who should be providing adequate resources to solve the issue is nowhere to be found.

Texas has seen an astronomical increase in unaccompanied children flooding across the border since October. Emergency stations have been converted to house the kids and resources to provide care are starting to dwindle.

In response to the situation, Texas created their own border security patrol units that have been working tirelessly to prevent illegals from coming across the border, but more help is needed.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is calling on the government to send National Guard troops down to the border to militarize the area in order to reduce the number of illegals entering the country.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Peace Process Is a Game Israel Can’t Win

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Photo Credit: FrontPageMagNo matter what terrorist atrocity was committed against Israel yesterday, the call goes out for a return to the peace process today. For two long decades of terror that has never changed.

Diplomacy is a strange twisted business of lies, deceit and badly mixed drinks served at hotel bars that are a year away from being blown up. The motives are so twisted that everyone often ends up doing the opposite of what they set out to do. But even by the standards of international diplomacy where mixed motives and terrible ideas stew in a solid gold pot for years before they explode, the peace process between Israel and the PLO terrorists is in a horrible class of its own.

The one thing that everyone involved in the process, from the PLO terrorists to the Israelis to the international diplomats who arrive with a Bluetooth in one ear and a talking point in the other, can agree on is that it will never work. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in a million years.

But that doesn’t mean that they’re about to stop.

Israel realized it wasn’t working a few years in after buses began blowing up more often than they were arriving on time. And the PLO can’t reach a final agreement because it’s not an independent actor. From its earliest days, before the Six Day War, it was a puppet of other countries. It’s still a projection of state power by Muslim countries in the region who want to perpetuate a conflict with Israel without spending too much money on bombs and guns.

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Miller: Same Revolutionary Beliefs Still At Issue Today

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Photo Credit: WND

John Kennedy, in his Inaugural Address, spoke words that could have just as easily been uttered on Independence Day. “We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom—symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning—signifying renewal, as well as change.” He continued, “The world is very different now…And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

Two-hundred and thirty-eight years ago this day our Founding Fathers boldly announced our nation’s independence proclaiming, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

While we would like to think these truths, once proclaimed, would always be adhered to, the course of human history and our own nation’s experience tell a different story. Liberty is a fragile thing, and the price of preserving it is, as Jefferson reminds us, “eternal vigilance.”The trend-line is towards bigger, more intrusive government, unless the people take a stand. And the larger the government grows, the less freedom the people have.

Our own times have shown this to be true. Gallup released a poll this week finding a dramatic drop in the freedom Americans believe they have. It is no wonder with ObamaCare’s mandates, the surveillance state, higher taxes, the IRS targeting of political groups, and the myriad of other lawless acts of this Administration.

We can restore freedom, but it is going to take more than victory by the Republican Party this fall. If merely having the GOP in control were the answer, we would not have seen the largest expansion of the federal government in recent times (prior to Barack Obama), when the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the Presidency just this past decade for the first time since the 1950s.

Real victories in the cause of freedom in our country have come when a group of committed Americans have grabbed on to time-tested, eternally true principles and applied them to the challenges at hand. It was true in the Revolutionary War Era, the Civil War Era, the Women’s Suffrage Movement, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, and more recently the Reagan Revolution. All were periods of fundamental recommitments to our Founding principles.

The answer for our day is no different than theirs. But just like those Americans who have gone before, we will need the courage to believe and to act. “With a firm reliance on divine Providence,” let’s pledge ourselves together to that task. I know we can do it! Happy Independence Day!

Gov’t Scientists: Antarctic Sea Ice Is Growing — Because Of Global Warming (+video)

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Photo Credit: The New AmericanGovernment scientists are not only blaming global warming for the centuries-long collapse of western Antarctic ice sheets, but global warming is also being blamed for record levels of sea ice in the South Pole.

Antarctica’s sea ice set another record this week, reaching 815,448 square miles above normal, breaking a record set this past weekend of 800,776 square miles above normal ice coverage.

These two records set within a week of one another shattered the previous ice extent record of 710,428 square miles above average that was set back on December 20, 2007.

But record-breaking ice coverage still worries scientists who argue that it’s being caused by global warming.

“The primary reason for this is the nature of the circulation of the Southern Ocean — water heated in high southern latitudes is carried equatorward, to be replaced by colder waters upwelling from below, which inhibits ice loss,” Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told author Harold Ambler in an email.

Read more from this story HERE.

What Makes You A Patriot?

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Photo Credit: The FederalistWhat makes you a patriot? There are so many things on the 4th of July that inspire us – today, we asked our contributors to share the odd little found elements of patriotic flavor which extend into our lives from surprising sources and inspire us on a day to day basis. Here are just a few, and we encourage you to share your own.

Neal Dewing

Most treacly paeans to America are odes to Sacred Freedom, our place in history, or (in a more immediate, personal way) our troops. All fine things to commemorate, very fine, and moving. But what impacts us day to day, after the bunting’s taken down and the haze from the fireworks wafts away? This question requires some thought.

I am tempted to cite my daily interactions with agents of the United States government as an inspiration to my patriotism. Lest that sound even remotely like a compliment, I assure you: few things stir revolutionary, patriotic fervor quite like attempting to wrestle money away from Leviathan. Give me Liberty or Give me Death – after going round and round with them, either is good by me.

Sorry – I have a real answer. As a matter of fact, I have caught myself feeling deeply grateful to have been born in this country. It happens most often when I’m out in my garden, digging in my dirt. I own the property. I can cultivate a plant, watch it grow, harvest and eat it – or I can do nothing. It’s all up to me. There are places where the government tells you what to grow, how much, and where. They labor not for their own benefit but for the State.

What I do as a hobby could just as easily be oppression. Sometimes I stand up, lean on my garden hoe, and marvel at that. I say a silent, brief prayer of thanks.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ranchers Told "Look the Other Way or Face the Consequences"

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Photo Credit: KRGVRanchers along the Rio Grande say immigrant smugglers threaten them constantly.

One Cameron County rancher said smugglers ordered him to look the other way or face the consequences.

The landowner said smugglers are using trails on his property to bring illegal immigrants into the country.

The rancher said he fears for his safety.

“You don’t see anything; you don’t talk to anybody,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Vet Dies Waiting 30 Minutes for Ambulance from Hospital Five Minutes Away

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Photo Credit: APWhile it is just a tragic anecdote, the latest story surrounding the chronic and too often fatal inefficiency of Veterans Affairs hospitals is illustrative of a much larger problem.

“A veteran who collapsed in an Albuquerque Veteran Affairs hospital cafeteria, 500 yards from the emergency room, died after waiting 30 minutes for an ambulance,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday. “Officials at the hospital Thursday confirmed it took a half an hour for the ambulance to be dispatched and take the man from one building to the other, which is about a five minute walk.”

VA spokeswoman Sonja Brown defended the VA’s conduct in this case, telling reporters that the staff “followed policy in calling 911 when the man collapsed on Monday.” She added, however, that this policy is now under review.

It is unclear why the ambulance took so long to reach this veteran in need, and blaming the VA system in this instance may be entirely unfair. That said, it is also just another example that serves to reinforce the narrative that the VA system is hopelessly broken.

And the impression that the VA system is broken is anything but unfair.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Whistleblower Fights Back Against VA Hospital Over Secret Waiting Lists

By Michael Volpe.

Despite denials by the Department of Veteran Affairs, a whistleblower is standing by his claim that a Louisiana VA hospital maintained a secret waiting list for patient care.

According to a hospital employee named Shea Wilkes and internal emails leaked to the media, there have been wait times of up to fifteen months for appointments in the mental health department of the Overton-Brooks VA Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Stephanie Alexander, a nurse in the hospital, emailed James Patterson, the department’s chief of staff, and Ruthie McDaniel, the operations manager, to request overtime so that employees could catch up on scheduling the backlog.

“There are multiple lists, excel sheets, papers that contain names of patients that need to be scheduled- just a few at approximately 2400 existing patients- some have not been seen in as long as 12-15 months,” said Alexander in the email.

Wilkes told The Daily Caller that 620 veterans still need appointments.

Read more from this story HERE.

Iran Opposition Compares its Struggle to the American Revolution

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Photo Credit: Fox News The leader of the Iranian opposition likens its goal to overthrow the regime in Tehran to the war for American independence from Britain, the struggle to abolish slavery in the U.S. and the birth of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s.

“I am confident that the Iranian resistance, which seeks the proven values of advanced societies, will reach its goal of a free, prosperous, democratic, just and non-nuclear Iran,” declared Maryam Rajavi, the head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, in an exclusive Fox News interview.

“The experience is out there, including in the history of the United States, such as George Washington and the people of America who decided to stand up to colonialism to gain independence, such as Abraham Lincoln and the price he paid and the war he waged to abolish slavery and the price the people of America paid during the time of Dr. Martin Luther King for civil rights and the struggle of the people of America for the freedom of women,” she says.

“These are all historical experiences and I am, therefore, confident. My experience and that of the Iranian people tell us that when a people, a nation, decides to fight and pay the price for the rights it deserves, such as democracy, freedom and equality, when it decides to fight for these and pay the price, for values which shine in history of all human societies and in the progress of human society, it will certainly achieve it.”

Rajavi, based outside of Paris, is the leader of the largest Iranian resistance group that opposes the current Tehran regime. She is calling for regime change, free, democratic elections, and a non-nuclear Iran. The group held a massive hours-long rally last week, in which a variety of speakers, including many prominent former U.S. government officials, also called for a democratic Iran and tougher restrictions on Tehran in advance of the looming July 20 nuclear agreement deadline.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaskan Floating Strip Club Navigates Regulatory Trouble

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Photo Credit: jkbrooks85A new attraction on Alaska’s Kodiak Island features exotic dancers who entertain fishermen on a converted Bering Sea crabbing boat dubbed the “Wild Alaskan” — and it’s already encountered choppy regulatory seas.

Barely open for business, the floating bar and grill was briefly shut down by the Coast Guard after someone reported that a water taxi was overloaded as it transported patrons to the 120-foot vessel.

Wild Alaskan owner Darren Byler said he is “100 percent sure” that whoever notified authorities doesn’t like that he has stripping dancers aboard. He said he apologizes in advance to anyone in the public who doesn’t approve of that line of work.

“But let’s face it, this is business. It’s nothing personal,” he said. “And by the way, this business has been around for a while. I didn’t invent it.”

The water taxi is legally allowed to carry six passengers, Byler said, adding that four others aboard were crew members, so there were no violations.

Read more from this story HERE.