Keystone XL Pipeline: Obama Says He 'Won't Budge'

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Photo Credit: Danny Johnston / AP

Photo Credit: Danny Johnston / AP

The Obama administration has been calling 2014 a “year of action,” a phrase designed to emphasize how the president is using executive power on various fronts at a time of congressional inactivity.

With the looming prospect of executive action on immigration policy, a very big counter-example is also front and center in the news: President Obama’s long delay in taking a yes-or-no decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

It’s an oil conduit from Canada that a majority of Americans support, a construction project that many unionized workers would love to build, and an energy opportunity that could end up bypassing the US entirely without White House action.

It’s also something the president could approve without congressional action. Instead, it’s been mired in some six years of review – a delay that critics say is about environmental politics rather than due process.

Read more from this story HERE.

On the Plus Side, it’s Not the Ebola Cruise Ship…

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Photo Credit: Yoshikazu TAKADA / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Yoshikazu TAKADA / Creative Commons

More than 170 passengers and crew on a nearly month-long cruise that docked in California on Sunday fell ill with norovirus while on the ship, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Symptoms of norovirus include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, fever and body aches, which 158 passengers and 14 crew members have reported suffering from during the 28 days of aboard the Crown Princess, operated by Princess Cruises, according a statement from the CDC.

The Crown Princess was supposed to return to port in Los Angeles on Saturday, but the boat had to make a diversion to Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas Islands, last Monday when a crew member was stricken with an ailment that required emergency surgery due to an “entirely separate and individual medical issue,” according to a statement from Princess Cruises.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Volcanic Eruption Intensifies; Lava Advances in Hawaii

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Photo Credit: LA Times

Photo Credit: LA Times

A volcano in the Alaska Peninsula launched an ash plume 30,000 feet into the air on Saturday morning, while officials in Hawaii say lava continues to advance on a town that has been sitting in the path of a slow-moving molten slide since June.

Mt. Pavlof, which has been erupting since Wednesday, continues to see intense seismic activity, and pilots in the area were reporting ash clouds as high as 30,000 feet above sea level, according to the state’s volcano observatory.

The Federal Aviation Administration has yet to impose flight restrictions in the area, according to spokesman Ian Gregor, but the agency did issue several notices to pilots regarding the eruption.

Read more from this story HERE.

25% Of Connecticut Households Above Federal Poverty Level But Struggle To Meet Basic Needs

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Photo Credit: Johnathon Henninger / Special to the Courant

Photo Credit: Johnathon Henninger / Special to the Courant

About a quarter of Connecticut households are above the federal poverty level but have earnings or retirement income that is barely enough to meet basic necessities, the Connecticut United Ways say in a new report.

The income threshold varies by family size. A single mother with three children would need to have a combined $64,689 in wages and child support to get past what the agency characterizes as a “survival budget.” For a single person, the figure is $21,944.

When families are in this fix, the report says, the stress of juggling bills and trying to pick up extra hours means they may not have time to cook healthy food or exercise to stay healthy. Children may go unsupervised after school. The families might put off doctor or dentist visits, worsening health problems.

United Way calls families like these ALICE, for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. Seventy percent of the ALICE households are individuals or families where everyone is younger than 65.

“They’re our friends, the Little League coach, a family member,” said Richard Poth, head of the United Way of Connecticut.

Read more from this story HERE.

A Doctor’s Mistaken Ebola Test: ‘We Were Celebrating. . . . Then Everything Fell Apart’

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When Martin Salia’s Ebola test came back negative, his friends and colleagues threw their arms around him. They shook his hand. They patted him on the back. They removed their protective gear and cried.

But when his symptoms remained nearly a week later, Salia took another test, on Nov. 10. This one came back positive, sending the Sierra Leonean doctor with ties to Maryland on a desperate, belated quest for treatment and forcing the colleagues who had embraced him into quarantine.

“We were celebrating. If the test says you are Ebola-free, we assume you are Ebola-free,” said Komba Songu M’Briwa, who cared for Salia at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center in Freetown. “Then everything fell apart.”
Salia is now in critical condition at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, his family left to wonder what would have happened if he had received earlier treatment.

His wife, Isatu, lives in New Carrollton, and they have two children, 12 and 20, also living in the United States. He has been a visitor to their Maryland home but has devoted most of his time to his medical work in Freetown.

Read more from this story HERE.

In Ferguson, Tactics Set for Grand Jury Decision in Michael Brown Case

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Photo Credit: Whitney Curtis for The New York Times

Photo Credit: Whitney Curtis for The New York Times

Several dozen people gathered in a dim church basement here on Thursday night to share plans for what to do if a grand jury chooses not to indict the white police officer who shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black youth, three months ago. Among their ideas was to descend in large numbers on the nearby county seat of Clayton at 7 a.m. on the day after the grand jury’s announcement to snarl business.

A day earlier, a different group, chanting “no justice, no profit,” met in St. Louis to announce it will boycott the region’s retailers during the Thanksgiving shopping period as a response to Mr. Brown’s death.

Since August, a disparate array of demonstrators — some from longstanding organizations, others from new groups with names like Hands Up Unitedand Lost Voices — has been drawn here to protest not just the shooting of Mr. Brown, but also the broader issues of racial profiling and police conduct.

Now, with the grand jury’s decision expected in the coming days, the groups are preparing with intricate precision to protest the no-indictment vote most consider inevitable. Organizers are outlining “rules of engagement” for dealing with the police, circulating long lists of equipment, including bandages and shatterproof goggles, and establishing “safe spaces” where protesters can escape the cold — or the tear gas.

Read more from this story HERE.

Police Hunt Suspect Who Pushed Man Onto NYC Subway Tracks

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A man standing with his wife on a Bronx subway platform was pushed onto the tracks Sunday morning by another man and was struck and killed by an oncoming train, police said. The assailant fled.

Police said an unidentified man pushed 61-year-old Wai Kuen Kwok of the Bronx off the platform at the Grand Concourse and East 167th Street station in the Highbridge neighborhood, an act that appeared to be unprovoked. Kwok was struck by a southbound D train at around 8:40 a.m. and pronounced dead at the scene; his death was classified a homicide. His wife was not injured.

There was no indication that Kwok knew the man or had had an altercation with him before he was pushed, police said. Witnesses told police they believed the man fled the subway station after shoving Kwok and jumped on a city bus.

Police later released video surveillance showing a man wearing a dark jacket getting off a city bus and walking into a store. The man emerges moments later smoking a cigarette and strolls away. Police said the man was wanted for questioning in connection with Kowk’s death.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obamacare Architect: Yeah, We Lied to The "Stupid" American People to Get It Passed

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Meet Jonathan Gruber, a professor at MIT and an architect of Obamacare. During a panel event last year about how the legislation passed, turning over a sixth of the U.S. economy to the government, Gruber admitted that the Obama administration went through “tortuous” measures to keep the facts about the legislation from the American people, including covering up the redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the sick in the legislation that Obamacare is in fact a tax. The video of his comments just recently surfaced ahead of the second open enrollment period for Obamacare at Healthcare.gov.

“You can’t do it political, you just literally cannot do it. Transparent financing and also transparent spending. I mean, this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes the bill dies. Okay? So it’s written to do that,” Gruber said. “In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in, you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed. Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical to get for the thing to pass. Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Duck Dynasty’s Alan Robertson: America Will Fall Like Rome Unless We Repent

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Photo Credit: AandE

Photo Credit: AandE

Duck Dynasty’s Alan Robertson, a Christian minister and the eldest son of Phil and Kay Robertson, said that God allows nations to be punished for their sinful actions and, like it was with the fall of Rome, America will also collapse because of egregious sin unless people repent and embrace the “principles of godliness” this country was founded upon.

“[I]t costs a society and a culture wherever sin reigns,” Al Robertsontold CNSNews.com. “Let’s look at human civilization and go back at all the great cultures that rose up, like the Romans or others, and it [sin] just weighs in on itself and it destroys. It becomes such a weighted-down culture in its own seeking of personal pleasure or personal gain, and then it collapsed. It’s happened every time, up to now.”

“Do I think it will happen to America? Absolutely,” he said. “Unless we somehow figure out that we were founded on the principles of godliness and following the law, because law is good and things like that. I think we have the element to repent.”

Al Robertson, who is co-executive editor with his father of the new study Bible, The Duck Commander Faith and Family Bible, said that people can seek to counter the effects of sin in the culture by “doing something different,” something that is positive, and he referenced the Duck Dynasty program as an example.

Read more from this story HERE.

Washington Cathedral’s First Muslim Prayer Service Interrupted by Heckler (+video)

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Photo Credit: libertynews

Photo Credit: libertynews

By Pamela Constable. In a corner of Washington National Cathedral, several hundred Muslim worshipers and other invited guests gathered Friday afternoon for a first-ever recitation of weekly Muslim prayers at the iconic Christian sanctuary and to hear leaders of both faiths call for religious unity in the face of extremist violence and hate.

The Arabic call to prayer echoed among the vaulted stone arches and faded away, followed by an impassioned sermon from . . . a Muslim scholar . . .

The event was closed to the public, and there was heavy security, with police checking every name and bag. Organizers from several area Muslim institutions said there had been concerns about security and threats after the event was publicized and that they and cathedral officials wanted to limit it to a small and selected group.

Nevertheless, the carefully scripted ceremony was marred once when one well-dressed, middle-age woman in the audience suddenly rose and began shouting that “America was founded on Christian principles. . . . Leave our church alone!” She was swiftly ushered out by security aides, and the service continued. . .

After the hour-long ceremony, which was covered live by several Arabic-language television channels, soft drinks and sweets were served to the guests, a mixture of people chosen to represent local mosques, churches and synagogues. Many seemed touched by the service . . .

Read more from this story HERE.
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Franklin Graham Condemns the Worship of Allah in a Christian Church

Franklin GrahamIn reaction to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. – one of the most prominent Episcopal churches in America– hosting a Muslim prayer service to Allah, Franklin Graham stated on his Facebook page that “It’s sad to see a church open its doors to the worship of anything other than the One True God of the Bible who sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to earth to save us from our sins. Jesus was clear when He said, ‘I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’ (John 14:6).”

You can like and share Franklin Graham’s post HERE.

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Representative Louie Gohmert Protests Muslims in Cathedral; Notes that Exactly 100 Hundred Years Ago, Caliphate Publicly Called for War Against Infidels