Local Government Orders Christian Ministers: Perform Same-Sex Weddings or Face Jail, Fines

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Photo Credit: ADF Media[Coeur d’Alene] City officials told Donald Knapp that he and his wife Evelyn, both ordained ministers who run Hitching Post Wedding Chapel, are required to perform such ceremonies or face months in jail and/or thousands of dollars in fines. The city claims its “non-discrimination” ordinance requires the Knapps to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies now that the courts have overridden Idaho’s voter-approved constitutional amendment that affirmed marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

“The government should not force ordained ministers to act contrary to their faith under threat of jail time and criminal fines,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “Many have denied that pastors would ever be forced to perform ceremonies that are completely at odds with their faith, but that’s what is happening here – and it’s happened this quickly. The city is on seriously flawed legal ground, and our lawsuit intends to ensure that this couple’s freedom to adhere to their own faith as pastors is protected just as the First Amendment intended.”

“The government exists to protect and respect our freedoms, not attack them,” Tedesco added. “The city cannot erase these fundamental freedoms and replace them with government coercion and intolerance.”

The Hitching Post Wedding Chapel is across the street from the Kootenai County Clerk’s office, which issues marriage licenses. The Knapps, both in their 60s and who themselves have been married for 47 years, began operating the wedding chapel in 1989 as a ministry. They perform religious wedding ceremonies, which include references to God, the invocation of God’s blessing on the union, brief remarks drawn from the Bible designed to encourage the couple and help them to have a successful marriage, and more. They also provide each couple they marry with a CD that includes two sermons about marriage, and they recommend numerous Christian books on the subject. The Knapps charge a small fee for their services.

Coeur d’Alene officials told the Knapps privately and also publicly stated that the couple would violate the city’s public accommodations statute once same-sex marriage became legal in Idaho if they declined to perform a same-sex ceremony at their chapel. On Friday, the Knapps respectfully declined such a ceremony and now face up to 180 days in jail and up to $1,000 in fines for each day they decline to perform that ceremony.

Read more from this story HERE.

Press Release: Vote YES on 2 Group Misleading Voters with Arrest Data

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Photo Credit: matthew kenwrickThe Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is misleading Alaska voters. Their campaign is claiming marijuana arrest rates that are patently false and inflated by nearly 25%. The data they used is outdated, as is evidenced by a recent and comprehensive report prepared by the Analytical Statistics Center at the UAA Justice Center which was widely distributed to and reported by media in September.

In its recent reporting of arrest rates, the proponents of legalization of marijuana in Alaska, use common propaganda techniques to sway the public into believing that great numbers of Alaskans are being jailed for small marijuana possession offenses. Kalie Klaysmat, executive director of the Alaska Association of Chiefs of Police explains, “The data source they draw upon, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, reflects specifically defined and reported data elements.

For example an “arrest” as defined by UCR includes not only those physical arrests when someone is booked into jail, but also includes actions as simple as a summons into court, where the person is released on a promise to appear in court, similar to a traffic citation. Unfortunately, proponents of the measure prefer that the public imagine all arrests to involve handcuffs and jail and they make no effort to define that term in its proper context to the voters.“

On the last prison census date, there were only 4 prisoners in Alaska jails who had been convicted of Misconduct Involving Controlled Substances in the 6th degree which includes marijuana possession, and each of these prisoners also had other concurrent convictions— sometimes multiple convictions— which could keep them in prison even if their marijuana conviction did not exist.

The concurrent convictions for these 4 inmates included attempted 2nd degree sexual assault, 4th degree assault, driving under suspension, parole violation, misconduct involving weapons, and misconduct involving controlled substances in the 3rd degree. None of these convicts were imprisoned for marijuana offenses alone.

This misleading of voters is part of a pattern that has emerged from the proponents of ballot measure 2 and it’s a tactic that the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington D.C. based organization backing the Alaska measure, has used in other states. Recently former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper was touted as a proponent of legalization without mention of his troubled law enforcement career that ended 15 years ago in controversy. He is now an activist against law enforcement. ( see : https://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19991207&slug=3000005)

The Alaska Association of Chiefs of Police was established as a voice to represent all law enforcement executives in Alaska. Membership includes Chiefs and Commanders from local, state and federal criminal justice agencies, including law enforcement, corrections, prosecutors, security professionals and others and their mission is to enhance the quality and effectiveness of Alaska’s criminal justice system.

The Alaska Peace Officers Association (APOA) is a dynamic, professional and fraternal organization. Their membership consists of law enforcement, corrections, prosecutors, security professionals and others at the local, state and federal levels. APOA represents peace officers and their issues and is one of the oldest and largest nonprofit associations in the state.

Point of Contact:

Kalie Klaysmat, Executive Director
[email protected]

Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid Of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook And Google

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Photo Credit: TechCrunchAccording to Edward Snowden, people who care about their privacy should stay away from popular consumer Internet services like Dropbox, Facebook, and Google.

Snowden conducted a remote interview today as part of the New Yorker Festival, where he was asked a couple of variants on the question of what we can do to protect our privacy.

His first answer called for a reform of government policies. Some people take the position that they “don’t have anything to hide,” but he argued that when you say that, “You’re inverting the model of responsibility for how rights work”:

When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights.

He added that on an individual level, people should seek out encrypted tools and stop using services that are “hostile to privacy.” For one thing, he said you should “get rid of Dropbox,” because it doesn’t support encryption, and you should consider alternatives like SpiderOak. (Snowden made similar comments over the summer, with Dropbox responding that protecting users’ information is “a top priority.”)

Read more from this story HERE.

TEARING DOWN FENCES: The Debate Over Marijuana Legalization Intensifies

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A young John F. Kennedy, having just fought through the horrors of WWII, was compelled to write in his personal journal, “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up.” No small display of wisdom for a man just 28 years old.

Likewise, theologian and novelist C.S. Lewis cautioned, “Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.”

As Alaskans we are being asked to follow blindly in the steps of Colorado by tearing down the fence which makes the recreational use of marijuana illegal by taxing and regulating it just as we do alcohol. We should do so only if we understand why its use was made illegal in the first place, and with the certainty we are not making the characteristic mistake of our time.

We need look no further than our own history to find what happens when we tear down fences first intended to protect us. In 1975 the Alaska Supreme Court essentially did what the supporters of Measure 2 would like to do in 2014: it legalized recreational marijuana use. Shortly thereafter the rate of drug use by Alaskan teens was more than double the national average. The legislature learned the lesson and built another fence: it recriminalized recreational marijuana.

While others hold a nostalgic view of a bygone era when a few friends sat around smoking a joint and listening to what became classic rock-and-roll, we must understand that the marijuana of today is drastically more powerful than the marijuana of just twenty years ago.

The drug in the marijuana leaf is called THC. In the 1960’s and 70’s the average potency, or percentage of THC, was about 2%. That rose to 10% by 2009, a five-fold increase. (See Marijuana Legalization: The Issues , p.22).“ According to the latest data, the average amount of THC in seized samples has reached 15.1 percent. This compares to an average of just under four percent reported in 1983 and represents more than a tripling of the potency of the drug since that time.” (See US Department of Justice, p.3)

Alaskan grown marijuana is some of the most potent in the world. What we are being asked then is to make readily available to all Alaskans, including our children, something that is certainly not our parents’ pot. Indeed, Ballot Measure 2 doesn’t even address, let alone restrict, marijuana with dangerously high levels of THC.

The advocates of Measure 2 would have us believe that marijuana holds some measure of medicinal value. Nothing could be further from the truth. The American Medical Association, the American Society of Addiction Medicines, the American Cancer Society, the American Glaucoma Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics all find no documented medical value in marijuana use. (See U.S. Department of Justice , p. 1)

We’ve all heard the claim that marijuana is not a “gateway” to “hard” drugs, but the evidence clearly suggests otherwise. Teens who have been heavy marijuana users are 30 times more likely to use cocaine and crack; 20 time more likely to use Ecstasy; 15 times more likely to abuse prescription pain relievers; and 14 times more likely to abuse over the counter medications. This is clear evidence that teens who regularly use marijuana are abusing other illegal drugs “at a much higher rate than teens who do not smoke marijuana, or smoke less often.” (See U.S. Department of Justice ,p. 14) So, why would we Alaskans knowingly choose to put retail marijuana outlets in our towns and neighborhoods?

If you think teens are using less marijuana these days, think again. This from the U.S. Department of Justice: “The 2011 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study found that nine percent of teens (nearly 1.5 million) smoked marijuana heavily (at least 20 times) in the past month. Overall, past-month teen use was up 80 percent from 2008.” (U.S. Department of Justice ,p. 4)

As I see it then, there are 1.5 million teens in this country who are heavy users of marijuana. And we know that heavy use leads to vastly greater abuse of drugs like crack, cocaine and Ecstasy. But the proponents of Ballot Measure 2 are trying to make marijuana more available, not less! At some point here we need to question either their reasoning skills, or their motivations.

Others, who claim to be of libertarian bent, believe it is an individual’s right to enjoy a joint as long as it hurts no one else. It’s a matter of liberty they say. But what Measure 2 is explicitly designed to accomplish is to compel the state of Alaska to both regulate and tax marijuana just as it does alcohol. I fail to see how having the government both regulate and tax us more somehow adds to our liberty.

Indeed, to even suggest that someone sitting at home smoking a joint can hurt no one is nonsensical. In Denver, where marijuana was decriminalized two years ago, 39% of violent crime arrestees and 34% of domestic crime arrestees tested positive for marijuana, while over 50 % of arrestees claim to be regular marijuana users. (See Marijuana Legalization: The Issues ,p. 21)

Even the means by which marijuana is consumed has changed drastically, and not for the better. Much of the pot now being sold in Colorado is packaged as food. Pot bars, pot gummy bears, pot suckers, pot hard fruit candies, pot sodas are the norm. THC, packaged as gummy bears, can do nothing but entice and then harm our children. (See Growing Like a Weed) (See Why Eating A Marijuana Candy Bar Sent Maureen Dowd To Paranoia Hell )

To think that marijuana is no more problematic than alcohol denies the fact that addiction rates for marijuana users are significantly higher than they are for alcohol. Of the 16.7 million regular users of marijuana in 2009, 25.7% were either abusers or drug dependent. Of the 136 million regular users of alcohol, 13.7% were either abusers or alcohol dependent. (See Marijuana Legalization: The Issues ,p. 21)

Approval of Measure 2 will impose a significant financial cost on our state. The Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development estimates just the first year implementation costs of Ballot Measure 2 will range from $3.7M to $7.0M. Just the first year! And all this just so a small minority of Alaskans can get stoned on some of the most powerful pot in the world… while the rest of us get to pick up the tab.

Even state and local drug sniffing dogs will be in jeopardy, just as they are now in Colorado. Some departments are considering replacing all their dogs since a dog trained to alert on marijuana can’t reasonably be untrained. In Alaska it costs $15,000 to buy and equip a drug-sniffing canine. It costs another $17,000 to train and house it, for a total of $32,000. If the dog is a dual purpose canine (both drug detection and law enforcement) those costs double! Who’s going to pay for that? Not someone making regular visits to the government taxed and regulated neighborhood cannabis store, I suspect.

As some of our citizens rush forward to legalize marijuana the rest of us must first remember that even if Measure 2 passes on November 4th, the possession and use of the drug will not, in fact, be legal. Under federal law it will still be illegal, and prosecuted, albeit weakly, by the federal government.

Keep in mind as you consider supporting Ballot Measure 2, few (0.3%) of those who use marijuana are occasional users (those who use less than once a month); the vast majority are considered “heavy daily users.” Also note that nationwide 27% of seriously injured drivers also test positive for marijuana, even while more than 333,000 individuals entered drug treatment programs for marijuana addiction in 2011. (See Growing Like a Weed)

Finally, after years helping to lead efforts both for and against ballot measures here in Alaska I’ve learned to always do one thing – follow the money. “The Alaska Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol”, the main group pushing Measure 2, received $210,000 from The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), which is leading efforts across the country to legalize marijuana to include recent efforts in Colorado and Washington. The MPP is funded by billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis (late chairman of Progressive Insurance). (See George Soros’ Real Crusade) (To track the web of money flowing to groups promoting marijuana, see Going To Pot).

In Colorado, Amendment 64, which is the model for our Measure 2, was 67% funded by Soros and Lewis. In Washington State the marijuana legalization effort, “New Approach to Washington”, was 68% funded by the two men. Nationwide, Soros gives approximately $4M per year to the “Drug Policy Alliance”, which also advances marijuana legalization nationwide. To suggest that any endeavor in our country to legalize recreational marijuana is a “grassroots” effort is deceitful at best. I guess that Soros just wants a piece of the estimated $10-$120 billion marijuana industry. (See How Big Is The Marijuana Market?)

So, we Alaskans are being asked by George Soros, et al, to approve a regulatory and tax mechanism for a dangerous and very addictive drug that will cost all of us a great deal, both financially and culturally, and for what? Really, for WHAT?!

As C.S. Lewis understood, every age is “specially liable to make certain mistakes.” The research, and even our own short history, clearly demonstrates that by passing Measure 2 this November we would be making a big mistake. Let’s keep in mind that Measure 2 has nothing to do with personal liberty but instead asks all of us to put a great deal at risk so that just a few can commune together in an addictive, drug- induced fog as they try to reminisce about an era they may barely be capable of remembering.

Obama: I Hugged and Kissed Emory Hospital Nurses and I Don't Have Ebola …

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Photo Credit: TownHallBy Daniel Doherty.

White Press Secretary Josh Earnest answered questions today at the White House about why the president cancelled two out-of-state fundraising visits in order to meet with “cabinet agencies” about the growing Ebola threat. The president rarely if ever cancels fundraisers so the maneuver certainly raised some eyebrows in Washington.

“The president was not able to host that meeting and travel at the same time,” his spokesman said. “If the president determines it’s time to return to the White House to fulfil his responsibilities as president and commander in chief…he will alter his schedule accordingly.”

His spokesman, however, also sought to assuage concerns that a mass Ebola outbreak is imminent in the United States. He reminded the public that the chances of that happening are exceedingly slim.

“The way that Ebola is transmitted is very clear,” he said. “And is something that is not likely to happen in the United States. Ebola is not like the flu….the only way that a patient can get Ebola [is through bodily fluids].”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Handout photoSecond Texas nurse tests positive for Ebola

By EMILY SCHMALL and NOMAAN MERCHANT.

The Ebola crisis in the U.S. took another alarming turn Wednesday with word that a second Dallas nurse caught the disease from a patient and flew across the Midwest on an airliner the day before she fell ill, even though government guidelines should have kept her off the plane.

Amid growing concern, President Barack Obama canceled a campaign trip to address the outbreak and vowed that his administration would respond in a “much more aggressive way” to Ebola cases in the United States.

Though it was not clear how the nurse contracted the virus, the case represented the latest instance in which the disease that has ravaged one of the poorest corners of the earth — West Africa — also managed to find weak spots in one of the world’s most advanced medical systems.

The second nurse was identified as 29-year-old Amber Joy Vinson. Medical records provided to The Associated Press by Thomas Eric Duncan’s family showed she inserted catheters, drew blood and dealt with Duncan’s body fluids.

Duncan, who was diagnosed with Ebola after coming to the U.S. from Liberia, died Oct. 8.

Read more from this story HERE.

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21 Days Not A Long Enough Quarantine For Ebola, New Study Suggests

By Jon Fortenbury.

A 21 day quarantine, after being infected with the Ebola virus, has become the standard quarantine recommendation for avoiding the spread of the virus. That’s not long enough to eliminate the risk, suggested a new study published yesterday in PLOS Currents: Outbreaks.

By looking at data from past Ebola outbreaks, as well as the first nine months of the current Ebola outbreak, Drexel University environmental engineering professor Dr. Charles Haas pointed out that between 0.1 and 12 percent of the time, the incubation period for someone infected with Ebola was longer than 21 days. The 0.1 figure comes from the 1976 Ebola outbreak in Zaire, which had far fewer cases analyzed than the other Ebola outbreaks looked at in this study that have had a higher number of cases with longer incubation periods, such as the Ebola outbreak in Congo in 1995 and the current outbreak in West Africa.

Read more from this story HERE.

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CDC Demands 132 Passengers That Flew With 2nd Ebola Patient Report For Testing

By Tyler Durden.

But, but, but they said it wasn’t contagious unless you came into contact with bodily fluids. According to the CDC, the 2nd health-care worker infected with Ebola traveled on Frontier Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas on October 13th and are asking all 132 passengers on the flight to get tested. One question… what about the thousands of people that those 132 passengers came in contact with in the last 2 days?

NEW TEXAS EBOLA PATIENT FLEW DOMESTICALLY NIGHT BEFORE FEVER APPEARED — CDC

Via Bloomberg,

Second health-care worker with Ebola traveled on Frontier flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas on Oct. 13, CDC says in e-mailed statement.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APMEDICAL RESEARCH ORG CIDRAP: EBOLA TRANSMITTABLE BY AIR

By CHRISS W. STREET.

The highly respected Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota just advised the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) that “there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles,” including exhaled breath.

CIDRAP is warning that surgical facemasks do not prevent transmission of Ebola, and healthcare professionals (HCP) must immediately be outfitted with full-hooded protective gear and powered air-purifying respirators.

CIDRAP since 2001 has been a global leader in addressing public health preparedness regarding emerging infectious diseases and bio-security responses. CIDRAP’s opinion on Ebola virus is there are “No proven pre- or post-exposure treatment modalities;” “A high case-fatality rate;” and “Unclear modes of transmission.”

In April of 2014, CIDRAP published a commentary on Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) that confirmed the disease “could be an aerosol-transmissible disease, especially in healthcare settings,” similar to the known aerosol transmission capability of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Although CIDRAP acknowledges that they were “first skeptical that Ebola virus could be an aerosol-transmissible disease,” they are “now persuaded by a review of experimental and epidemiologic data that this might be an important feature of disease transmission, particularly in healthcare settings.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Exclusive: Christian Magistrate Resigns After Being Ordered to Violate Conscience and Preside Over Homosexual Weddings

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In a case certain to be replayed in judicial chambers throughout the United States, a North Carolina magistrate had to decide this week whether he would violate deeply held religious convictions and submit to the tyranny of the state or lose his job.

His predicament started with a ridiculous ruling from a Bush-appointed federal judge who ordered North Carolina to marry homosexuals despite the fact that such marriages were illegal under state law. The federal judge parroted other activist rulings throughout the country that have commandeered the Constitution’s equal protection and due process clauses to invalidate state voters’ efforts to protect traditional marriage.

Of course, there’s absolutely no way that the drafters of the federal Constitution (and its amendments) ever intended such provisions to mandate homosexual marriage. Every state in the union – until relatively recently – criminalized sodomy.

Not buying the argument that the Constitution intended to protect homosexual marriage, a magistrate refused to marry two homosexual men in Pasquotank County, North Carolina. The state court system reacted swiftly, issuing a memorandum ordering all judicial officers to officiate over such marriages or face termination.

That prompted Rockingham County Magistrate John Kallam, Jr. to resign. The committed Christian stated that when he began work as a judge, there was no expectation that he would preside over homosexual weddings. He also noted that marrying two men, or two women, “would desecrate a holy Institution established by God Himself. Since performing marriages is an integral part of being a Magistrate and in light of recent changes in North Carolina law, I can no longer fulfill my oath of office in good faith.”

He concluded his resignation letter with the words of King David: “‘He that rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God’. Where there is no ‘fear of God’ there can be no justice!”

Judges in Alaska are now faced with a similar predicament. After a Bush-appointed federal district court judge in Anchorage used the same twisted logic to invalidate the state constitutional amendment approved by an overwhelming number of Alaskans, Governor Sean Parnell asked the judge to stay his order while it was appealed. The activist judge rejected the Governor’s request, even though the Ninth Circuit subsequently granted a hold until the Supreme Court could review it.

Ultimately, Justice Kennedy, on behalf of the Supreme Court, refused to delay implementation of the Anchorage federal judge’s decision. That means, any day, the Alaska Court System – presided over by a justice who previously ordered a privately owned hospital in the valley to abort babies – will likely issue a directive similar to the North Carolina decree. It remains to be seen how magistrates will respond here.

It also remains to be seen how “We the People” will react to the elites’ hijacking of our Constitution and culture. The majority of Americans still believes, despite the endless efforts of Hollywood and judicial activists, that God ordained marriage as between a man and a woman. Given this commitment to God over man, the elites’ dogged efforts to consolidate control and impose their immorality on the rest of the nation may have just hit a massive speed bump.

Vice President Biden's Son Kicked Out of Navy for Using Cocaine

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Photo Credit: APBy MarketWatch.

Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was discharged from the Navy Reserve this year after testing positive for cocaine, according to people familiar with the matter.

Hunter Biden, a lawyer by training who is now a managing partner at an investment company, had been commissioned as an ensign in the Navy Reserve, a part-time position. But after failing a drug test last year, his brief military career ended.

Biden, 44 years old, decided to pursue military service relatively late, beginning the direct-commission process to become a public-affairs officer in the Navy Reserve in 2012. Because of his age—43 when he was to be commissioned—he needed a waiver to join the Navy…

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesAshley Biden’s past is full of weed and wild parties

By Dan Mangan.

A decade before a friend came forward trying to sell a video that he claimed showed her snorting cocaine, Vice President Joseph Biden’s daughter was busted for pot possession.

Ashley Biden “was a hot freshman that every guy wanted to be with,” said Nat Berman, a Tulane University classmate, who said he bailed Ashley out of jail after her 1999 marijuana arrest in New Orleans, for which no conviction was recorded.

“She was very attractive.

“Everybody at Tulane knew that she was a party girl,” Berman said. “She wore some pretty short shorts — a lot.”

Berman, 30, wrote on his blog, Uncoached.com, after Joseph Biden’s election as vice president last November about Ashley’s partying.

Read more from this story HERE.

'Global Warming Scare' Declared 'Over'

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Photo Credit: WNDScientists and others on a team assembled by the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which focuses on free-market solutions to today’s problems, say the “scare” of global warming from the use of carbon fuels and other human activities “is over.”

It’s “past time” for the world to realize that and “stop the madness of wasting great sums of money on EPA’s imaginary threat,” contends Kenneth Haapala, the executive vice president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project at the Heartland Institute.

Institute experts said Thursday the Remote Sensing Systems, which provide data to NASA, NOAA and the National Science Foundation, have confirmed “the global mean surface temperature has not risen for 18 consecutive years.”

“This extends the so-called ‘pause’ in global warming to a new record, one not predicted by the climate models of the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change,” the organization said.

Craig Idso, senior fellow in environment for the Heartland Institute and co-editor of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, a counterpart to the IPCC, said that to “the world’s climate alarmists, atmospheric carbon dioxide is a dangerous trace gas, and for years, they have been insisting its increase will raise global temperatures and wreak havoc upon Earth’s climate and biosphere.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Viral Suicide: Obama DHS Now Expediting Visa Requests From Ebola-Infected Countries

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Wondering how Thomas Eric Duncan was able to enter the U.S. while suffering from Ebola? He asked for a visa and received one in August.

In fact, the Department of Homeland Security is proudly advertising its “Ebola Outbreak-related Immigration Relief Measures to Nationals of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone Currently in the United States.”

You read that right. Not only are the Obama Democrats leaving our doors wide open to those seeking entry from Ebola-infected countries, they’re actually expediting visa requests!

Here’s a more legible version:

With a 70 percent mortality rate and an incubation period in excess of three weeks, what possible reason could the Obama Democrats have for banning travel from West Africa?

Oh, that’s right. Sorry, I forgot. They hate America.

Update: The inimitable Thomas Lifson notes that the notice “ONLY applies to nationals currently in the USA. IOW, no new arrivals. Mainly, I think to avoid kicking out people and forcing them to return to the hot zone.”

Thanking him for his note, I responded that: “…the problem with this notice is that there is no cutoff date. In other words, if I make it into the U.S. today, then I presumably still qualify.”

Consider the notice: it doesn’t say “…in the United States as of 16 August 2014…”; no, if you make it into the U.S., you can apply for an extended stay and see your request expedited. Perfect, just perfect.

Posted in-full courtesy of Doug Ross, blogger and cartoonist at Doug Ross @ Journal. Please visit his website for more updates, and check out his novella “Hard-Boiled” at Amazon.com

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Photo Credit: Olivier Douliery-Pool / Getty Judicial Watch: Obama to Admit Non-Citizens for Ebola Treatment

By Newsmax.

The government watchdog group Judicial Watch alleged Friday the Obama administration is formulating plans to admit Ebola-infected non-U.S. citizens into the United States for treatment.

The group, which cited one unidentified source, said the administration would aim to bring Ebola patients into the United States for treatment within the first days of diagnosis, and that it’s not clear who’d pay either for the transportation or treatment.

The group alleged the plan for treatment includes special waivers of laws and regulations that ban the admission of non-citizens with a communicable disease; Judicial Watch cited its source saying the administration has not told Congress about the plan.

Read more from this story HERE.

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URGENT: Congressman Comes Forward to Show How Obama is HELPING Ebola Come to the U.S.

By Conservative Tribune.

U.S. Rep. Ed Royce sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting that his department take the “prudent measure” of ceasing to issue visas in Ebola-stricken countries for travel to the United States.

The chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee said that he was “deeply concerned” to learn that the U.S. Embassies in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are continuing to process about 100 visa applications daily, according to Western Journalism.

“I was surprised that the Department of State has not already exercised its authority to suspend consular services,” the California Republican wrote, “which is standard procedure in countries experiencing a major security disruption.”

Royce recommended that the U.S. suspend not only visa processing, but all consular services in the three West African nations.

“This would be a prudent measure to mitigate the risk of Ebola exposure and contain its spread—a bedrock principal [sic] of health crisis management.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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World fears mount that Ebola battle being lost

By Jonathan Fowler.

The World Bank warned Friday the fight to stop Ebola was being lost, as the UN pleaded for more money to combat the escalating epidemic and global travel fears mounted.

As the death toll from the world’s worst-ever outbreak of the virus shot past 4,500, a glimmer of hope came from Senegal, which was declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization.

The United States, meanwhile, named an “Ebola czar” to coordinate its response, after criticism of how a Texas hospital handled a Liberian victim, with two nurses who treated him now infected.

And a researcher at British pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline said a vaccine may not be ready for commercial use until late 2016.

“We are losing the battle,” World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim warned, blaming a lack of international solidarity in efforts to stem the epidemic.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Reuters/StringerBritish Big Pharma warns Ebola vaccine will come ‘too late’ to halt spread

By RT.

One of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies says a vaccine to tackle Ebola will “come too late” to curb the current epidemic, as the UK and other European countries begin screening passengers for the virus at international airports.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a British multinational that produces pharmaceuticals, biologics and vaccines, said a working vaccine would not be readily available until late 2015, by which time the epidemic may have spread far beyond West Africa.

The statement follows warnings from the United Nations and World Health Organization (WHO) that there could soon be more than 10,000 new cases of Ebola per week if the spread of the disease is not curbed quickly.

“We either stop Ebola now or we face an entirely unprecedented situation for which we do not have a plan,” said the UN’s Deputy Ebola Coordinator Anthony Banbury on Wednesday.

“The WHO advises within 60 days we must ensure 70 percent of infected people are in a care facility and 70 percent of burials are done without causing further infection,” he added.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Watchdog: Obama to bring non-American Ebola victims to U.S. for treatment

By PAUL BEDARD.

While the bipartisan voice grows to ban Ebola victims from entering the United States, a new report claims that President Obama is considering a plan to bring the world’s Ebola patients to the United States to be treated.

Judicial Watch, the conservative public watchdog group, says in a shocking report that the president is “actively formulating plans” to admit Ebola-infected non-citizens just to be treated.

“Specifically, the goal of the administration is to bring Ebola patients into the United States for treatment within the first days of diagnosis,” said the group.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s ‘Blizzard of Lies’

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Photo Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty In 1996, the late, great New York Times columnist William Safire published a column, “Blizzard of lies,” in which he laid out a series of falsehoods by Hillary Rodham Clinton and declared “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar.”

Today, Americans of all political stripes are coming to a similar, sad realization about our president. A recent Fox News poll asked Americans “How often does Barack Obama lie to the country on important matters?” Thirty-seven percent said “most of the time,” 24 percent said “some of the time,” and 20 percent said “only now and then.” Just 15% said “never.”

Think about that: 81 percent of Americans believe that Obama lies to them at least “now and then” on “important matters.”

That is simply stunning.

These Americans are right. The latest evidence came when The Post revealed that on Friday, April 20, 2012, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan came to White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler with a specific, credible allegation of misconduct by a member of the White House advance team in Cartegena, Colombia.

Read more from this story HERE.