Missisippi Burning UPDATE: McDaniel Offers $15k Reward

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Photo Credit: TownHallAs my colleague Guy Benson has said at various panels and conferences, when you’re wrong, own it. After all, it’s the right thing to do. Last week, I wrote a post about how voter outreach and cultural ties helped Sen. Thad Cochran win in the Mississippi runoff against his challenger State Sen. Chris McDaniel.

As for the cultural ties, Mississippi voters still like their pork projects and the long-serving lawmakers who bring home that bacon. But, as for voter outreach, I jumped the gun. While evidence is still accumulating and being analyzed, there are some very questionable practices that have been alleged surrounding the get-out-the-vote effort on Cochran’s behalf that deserves some attention.

Investigative reporter Charles Johnson alleges that the Cochran camp bought the votes of black Mississippians. Matt Lewis at the Daily Caller wrote that:

The African-American pastor alleging that he was offered money to buy votes for Thad Cochran was also paid by the reporter for the story. This is both ironic and problematic: If you’re the kind of person who is willing to participate in a vote-buying scheme, isn’t it possible you’d also be the kind of person who is willing to make up a wild story in order to get paid by a reporter?

Another interesting wrinkle is that the person making the allegation claims he received the walking around money to distribute to African-American voters but never got paid the money he was promised for his services (note: Always get paid up front!).

Read more from this story HERE.

American Exceptionalism – How the World’s Greatest 'Turnaround' Nation Will Do It Again

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Photo Credit: TownHall Individual liberty, rule of law, and economic freedom are central to what makes America unique in world history. Our success, our power, and our global influence rest strongly on the values on which this country was founded.

English author G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed…It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just.” The creed Chesterton refers to is, of course, the Declaration of Independence. This endowing document approved by Congress 238 years ago tomorrow proclaims that all people are created free and equal.

Sadly, an entire generation of young Americans is emerging from our schools and universities that is no longer being taught what it means to be an American. The cries of political correctness and the one world movement insist that teachers and professors not acknowledge excellence, either for individuals or for our country. It is all an effort to level the playing field.

However, much is to be said for American exceptionalism. The truth is that in 5,000 years of recorded human history, there has never before been a nation like America. A leader throughout the agricultural, industrial, and technological eras, America stands alone in the advancement of human innovation. When we think of America’s inventive genius, our country is responsible for the birth of technologies used around the world every day: personal computers, the internet, GPS, the lightbulb, the telephone, and the airplane.

Read more from this story HERE.

Colorado's DMV Website Overwhelmed by Non-Citizen License Requests

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Photo Credit: Colorado.govThe website for Colorado’s Division of Motor Vehicles was briefly shut down late Wednesday, the same day non-citizens were allowed to begin making appointments to obtain driver’s licenses.

Daria Serna, a spokeswoman for the agency, confirmed the brief shutdown on Thursday, saying the website was back online as of 5 a.m. Thursday local time. On Tuesday, the “Schedule an Appointment at a Driver’s License Office” page averaged 70,000 hits per hour, including a high of 107,500 hits hourly, compared to its hourly average of 8,126 hits per hour.

“There is clearly a great deal of interest by the community to obtain these services,” Barbara Brohl, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Revenue, said in a statement to FoxNews.com.

In all, a total of 823 appointments were scheduled, Serna told FoxNews.com, or 100 appointments an hour specifically related to SB 12-251, the Colorado Road and Community Safety Act, which authorizes the issuance of state driver’s licenses to individuals who cannot demonstrate lawful presence in the United States or can only show temporary lawful presence beginning Aug. 1, 2014. Licenses to verified applicants begin being issued at that time.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hiring Pickup Aided By Rare Source of Strength: Governments

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The recent hiring spurt—one of the best stretches since the late 1990s—has gotten a surprising lift by a major sector: government.

In June, all levels of government added a seasonally adjusted 26,000 employees. That gain outpaced the manufacturing and construction sectors — combined. Rising government employment not only adds to the total hiring figure, it also represents growth in a relatively well-paying field.

Public-sector employment grew by 54,000 so far this year. While that’s a modest fraction of the 1.4 million workers added to payrolls in 2014, it comes after five straight years of shrinking in the government workforce.

Government workers tend to be paid better than those in the fast-growing fields of retail and food service, and they typically receive health and retirement benefits. Well-compensated workers could support stronger spending and faster economic growth.

Read more from this story HERE.

Feds Hand Out Border Pass To Mexican Snitch

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Photo Credit: The Smoking Gun Looking to enter the United States from one of our neighbors to the south?

Well, forget about dealing with unsavory coyotes and enduring dangerous nighttime treks to the border. There is a much easier way to gain access–legal access–to the U.S.: Start diming out narcotics smugglers.

According to federal court records, a Mexican informant who has provided “credible information” to U.S. law enforcement agencies about narcotics trafficking was to be compensated “with the ability to cross the border legally into the United States for at least one year.”

The arrangement with the informant was disclosed last year following the arrest of a Mexican woman who allegedly sought to smuggle 17.2 pounds of cocaine and 5.3 pounds of methamphetamine into California via the San Ysidro port of entry.

Read more from this story HERE.

July 4 Barbecue Costs Climb to Record

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Photo Credit: Bloomberg Rising prices for beef, ice cream and lettuce mean Americans will spend the most ever for Fourth of July barbecues this year.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows an index tracking U.S. retail prices for seven foods commonly consumed while grilling climbed 5.1 percent in May from a year earlier to the highest ever for the month, the latest data from Bureau of Labor Statistics show.

Independence Day is the most popular time of the year for Americans to cook outdoors, according to the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association. The holiday falls on a Friday this year, increasing chances that revelers will keep celebrating into the weekend. Prices for ground beef are 16 percent higher than a year earlier, while ice cream climbed 1.7 percent and tomatoes soared 12 percent, government data show.

Read more from this story HERE.

Team McDaniel: We Have Found 3,300+ Ineligible Votes, Half of Number Needed for Challange

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Photo Credit: APState Sen. Chris McDaniel’s campaign told Breitbart News that the conservative firebrand is already halfway to finding enough allegedly ineligible votes counted to launch a legitimate challenge to the results of last Tuesday’s GOP primary runoff against incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS).

With more than half of the state’s counties—and many of the state’s African American-majority counties, where many of the ineligible crossover votes are suspected to have occurred—still uncounted, McDaniel’s team told Breitbart News he has at least 3,300 ineligible votes counted. That 3,300 is, according to the McDaniel campaign, just from looking at voters who voted in the June 3 Democratic primary, then crossed over—allegedly illegally—to vote in the June 24 GOP primary runoff.

“Our volunteers on the ground have found over 3,300 irregular votes after examining fewer than half of Mississippi’s counties, and that total does not include the Delta counties or even the more than 18,000 absentee ballots, which are sure to include many more irregularities, since that was the prime focus of Cochran’s Get Out the Democrat Vote strategy,” McDaniel spokesman Noel Fritsch told Breitbart News.

Breitbart News has not independently verified any of the ballots the McDaniel campaign says are illegitimate.

Election integrity group True The Vote alleges, in a new lawsuit filed on Tuesday against Mississippi GOP chairman Joe Nosef and Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, that the two are not cooperating with McDaniel’s campaign’s or other independent groups’ efforts to verify the election results. True The Vote’s lawsuit seeks a federal judge to order the state government and party officials to share election records to be inspected for ineligible votes.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APThad Cochran’s Campaign Hangs Up On Entire National Media

By Matthew Boyle.

Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-MS) top campaign operatives hung up on numerous members of the national media after a press conference call Wednesday. The call was intended to rebut state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s campaign’s allegations of voter fraud in Mississippi’s GOP primary runoff. Instead, it turned into a circus.

“Quick question,” an unidentified man interrupted senior Cochran campaign adviser Austin Barbour on the press call.

“You’ll have an opportunity to ask a question at the end of the call,” Barbour fired back. “Listen, I will give everyone an opportunity to ask a question when we get through. We’ll be happy to answer any questions from any members of the media.”

As Barbour tried to get going again with his message, the man interrupted him again: “I’d like to know if black people were harvesting cotton, why do you think it’s okay to harvest their votes? They’re not animals. Why are you treating black people like they’re animals?”

“Sir, I don’t know where you’re calling from,” Barbour responded. “But I’m happy to address any question, no matter the lunacy of it, when we get to the end of this call.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Senate Candidate Dan Sullivan says He Passed 'Stand Your Ground' in Alaska: Politifact Truth-O-Meter Says 'False'

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Photo Credit: PolitifactIn his campaign for Senate, Republican front-runner Dan Sullivan touts his history of protecting Second Amendment rights in the hunting-loving state of Alaska.

But a recent pro-Sullivan ad might have stretched the rifle and pistol expert’s record a little too far.

“As Alaska’s attorney general, Sullivan successfully fought to protect our Second Amendment rights and passed ‘stand your ground,’ ” said a recent radio ad out of the Sullivan campaign.

Our ruling

We found that evidence of Sullivan’s support for “stand your ground” is dubious at best. We couldn’t find any public proof of his support, and multiple attorneys under him spoke out against the law. Even if he had publicly shown support for “stand your ground,” he wasn’t in a position to push the legislation forward when the law finally passed in 2013.

We rate this claim False.

Read more from this story HERE.

Responsibility and Freedom

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Photo Credit: TownHall By Jackie Gingrich Cushman.

We declared our independence from Great Britain 238 years ago this week. It was a declaration long in coming, brought about by the overreaching rule of King George III and Britain’s insistence on taxation without representation.

The taxation began in the 1760s, the Boston Massacre occurred in 1770, the Boston Tea Party in 1993 and the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April of 1775.

Patrick Henry’s call to action, “Give me liberty or give me death,” was the first strong public statement that, if we were to be free, if we were to have liberty, then we would have to fight Britain. Prior to Henry’s speech to the gathering of Virginia delegates in Richmond, the prevailing belief was that we could negotiate with Britain.

Henry laid down the gauntlet and clearly presented his understanding of what we were facing.

Our choice was liberty or death.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Andy Carpenean / Laramie Boomerang / APLand of the free? Not so much. Americans’ sense of freedom drops, poll finds.

By Gram Slattery.

This Independence Day, Americans will celebrate the nation’s core values, especially freedom. But according to a new international poll, Americans have become significantly “less satisfied with the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives.”

Seventy-nine percent of US residents are satisfied with their level of freedom, down from 91 percent in 2006, according to the Gallup survey, released Tuesday.

That 12-point drop pushes the United States from among the highest in the world in terms of perceived freedom to 36th place, outside the top quartile of the 120 countries sampled, trailing Paraguay, Rwanda, and the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Read more from this story HERE.

WATCH: President Demanding ‘Fundamental Change’ Now Blaming Republicans for Not Keeping Things the Same

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I consider it a special mission of mine that I watch MSNBC shows so that my fellow conservatives aren’t exposed to the vapid ignorance of liberal cable news anchors like Rachel Maddow. Here’s a great example – while mindlessly joining in on Obama’s taunting of John Boehner and the Republicans, she aired a clip of him saying Republicans didn’t support the building of bridges and roads, that we have been doing “for fifty, a hundred years…”

Read more from this story HERE.