Judge Orders Deployed US Sailor To Attend Custody Hearing Or Lose Daughter, Face Arrest

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Photo Credit: ThinkstockA U.S. Navy sailor from Washington State is currently serving on a submarine thousands of miles away in the Pacific Ocean, but a judge has ordered him into an impossible custody scenario: Appear in a Michigan courtroom Monday or risk losing custody of his 6-year-old daughter.

Navy submariner Matthew Hindes was given permanent custody of his daughter Kaylee in 2010, after she was reportedly removed from the home of his ex-wife, Angela, by child protective services. But now a judge has ordered him to appear in court Monday, or risk losing his daughter to his ex-wife in addition to a bench warrant being issued for his arrest, ABC News reports.

Hindes’ lawyers argue he should be protected by the Service Members Civil Relief Act, which states courts in custody cases may “grant a stay of proceedings for a minimum period of 90 days to defendants serving their country.”

But the Michigan judge hearing the case, circuit court judge Margaret Noe, disagrees, stating: “If the child is not in the care and custody of the father, the child should be in the care and custody of the mother.”

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Police Emails Indicate Plan to Hide the Use of Cellphone-Spying Devices From Courts

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Photo Credit: Harris CorpEmails revealed by the American Civil Liberties Union indicate that Florida police made an agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service to hide information about specific cellphone-tracking techniques and devices they used.

In the initial email exchange, a Sarasota Police Department sergeant wrote that in a warrant application to a judge, a North Port Police Department detective had “specifically outlined the investigative means used to locate the suspect,” and the sergeant asked that the detective “submit a new [probable cause affidavit] and seal the old one.”

In other words, fix the old affidavit and keep the use of StingRay equipment secret, according to the ACLU.

Although the Sarasota Police Department and the North Point Police Department did not own StingRay devices, the two departments had borrowed the cellphone trackers from the U.S. Marshals Service, which requested that they hide the use of the StingRays from judges and defendants, according to ArsTechnia.

The issue came up in the emails when Sarasota police realized that a North Point detective had shared too many details in a probable cause affidavit, specifically detailing “the investigative means used to locate the suspect.”

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American Muslims Flocking to Jihadist Group

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Photo Credit: APRadicalized young American Muslims — including as many as 15 Somali-born Minnesotans — have flocked to a jihadist group in recent months, lured by rap videos and hip social-media propaganda.

Security experts are calling it the “Jihad Cool” rebranding of terrorism, and say it’s highly effective in pushing Americans like Abdirahmaan Muhumed, a Twin Cities father of nine, to high-tail it to Syria to help the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant topple President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“I give up this worldly life for Allah,” Muhumed said of joining the Islamic State in a Facebook message earlier this year…

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Unreal: Obama Admin Urges Israel To Show “Restraint” In Hunt For Teens Kidnapped By Palestinian Terrorists…

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Photo Credit: Weasel Zippers Washington (AFP) – The United States on Wednesday called on both Israel and the Palestinians to show restraint as Israelis tightened their grip on the West Bank hunting for three kidnapped teenagers.

“We recognize this is an incredibly sensitive and difficult circumstance on the ground, and we feel all sides should exercise restraint,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

Israeli troops have pressed their biggest arrest operation in years, imposing a tight lockdown on huge swathes of the West Bank in the hunt for the three boys kidnapped six days ago.

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14-Year-Old Risks Life to Save Man, Dog in Fire

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Photo Credit: WNDA brave Bay Area boy is being called a hero after risking his life to pull a disabled man and his dog from a burning building. He ignored the danger and a Fairfield man is alive tonight because he did.

Latrell McCockran and his friend, Isaiah Taylor, were enjoying their first weekend of summer vacation when Isaiah’s mom, Rhonda Evans, came running in.

“And I said, ‘Get here, it’s a fire! It’s a fire! Get here now, it’s a fire!” Evans said.

McCockran, a 14-year-old student at Fairfield’s Golden Hills High School, grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to the apartment of his disabled neighbor.

“I saw the guy kind of stumble and it was like, ‘he’s out of it, he’s been breathing in all the smoke inhalation,'” McCockran said.

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Presbyterian Assembly: Gay Marriage Is Christian

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Photo Credit: PargonThe top legislative body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has voted by large margins to recognize same-sex marriage as Christian in the church constitution, adding language that marriage can be the union of “two people,” not just “a man and a woman.”

The amendment approved Thursday by the Presbyterian General Assembly requires approval from a majority of the 172 regional presbyteries, which will vote on the change over the next year. But in a separate policy change that takes effect at the end of this week’s meeting, delegates voted to allow ministers to preside at gay weddings in states where the unions are legal and local congregational leaders approve. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia recognize same-sex marriage.

The votes, during a national meeting in Detroit, were a sweeping victory for Presbyterian gay-rights advocates. The denomination in 2011 eliminated barriers to ordaining clergy with same-sex partners, but ministers were still barred from celebrating gay marriages and risked church penalties for doing so. Alex McNeill, executive director of More Light Presbyterians, a gay advocacy group, said the amendment was “an answer to many prayers.”

The Rev. Krystin Granberg of the New York Presbytery — in a state that recognizes gay marriage — said she receives requests “all the time” from friends and parishioners to preside at their weddings.

“They want to be married in the church they love and they want me to do it,” Granberg said during the debate. “I want pastoral relief.”

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Horowitz: Fight for GOP Has Just Begun

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Photo Credit: APThe defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) last week was unparalleled in modern electoral history. Dave Brat, a man with almost no campaign, yet a powerful message, crushed the sitting majority leader while being outspent 42 to 1.

And even while the political carcass of Eric Cantor was still warm, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) – Cantor’s next-in-line as whip and a man who share’s the Virginian’s ideological profile – sewed up the nomination for Majority Leader.

McCarthy is generally regarded as a political animal: a shrewd operator without any particular loyalty to any of the ideological factions of the House GOP conference. On immigration, the issue that dominated the debate in the Brat-Cantor race, McCarthy shares Cantor’s support to grant amnesty to illegal aliens brought into the U.S. as minors if they enlist in the military, and is seen by the tech sector as a champion of increasing high-skill visas.

Yet, even with regards to politics, he was widely criticized for signing off on a redistricting plan for California that helped defeat six fellow Republicans. And he’s faced complaints about his whip operation during a tumultuous four years since the Tea Party wave of 2010 swept Republicans into control of the House.

House GOP leadership, anxious to return stability after Cantor’s shocking defeat, ordered the election for the vacant Majority Leader slot about as quickly as feasible. During the one week campaign, McCarthy was never forced to vouch for his position on immigration, especially in light of Cantor’s defeat. He never publicly forged a visionary plan for how he will deliver on the change in direction demanded by the party rank-and-file. He never explained how he plans to use the power of the purse manifest in the House to prevent a lawless president from fully shredding the Constitution in his last two years.

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Sen. Cruz Files S. 2510 to Prohibit Guantanamo Transfers Until Administration Justifies Release of ‘Taliban 5’

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Photo Credit: APU.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, with original co-sponsors Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, and Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, has filed legislation to temporarily halt further transfers or releases for detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Following the controversial prisoner swap the Obama Administration made earlier this month, resulting in the release of the Taliban 5 terrorists, further releases should be off the table until President Obama can explain how this swap was in the United States’ national security interests.

“Americans need to know how the Obama Administration thinks it has made our nation safer by negotiating with terrorists to release these five dangerous terrorist leaders,” Sen. Cruz said. “Until President Obama can make his case and convince the American public that this swap was in our national interest, prudence dictates that all further transfers and releases from Guantanamo Bay should be off the table.”

“With 29 percent of former Guantanamo detainees returning or being suspected of returning, to terrorism, the administration should not release or transfer Guantanamo detainees who could potentially return to the battlefield. The security of the American people, not a political promise to close Guantanamo Bay, should guide decisions regarding detainees,” said Sen. Ayotte. “Our common sense legislation would suspend the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to other countries until Congress can get more answers regarding the recent transfer of the Taliban Five. We need to better understand the risks associated with this transfer—including the likelihood they will return to terrorism and whether this transfer will encourage the Taliban and terrorist groups around the world to capture U.S. personnel in order to obtain concessions from our country.”

“The dangerous terrorists housed at Guantanamo Bay pose the same serious threat they always have,” Sen. Roberts said. “For this President to release five of the worst al Qaeda affiliates at the same time that terrorists are taking charge in Iraq is a dangerous game I am not willing to play. I don’t know why the President does not feel the same desire to protect our national security.”

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‘They Are Being Totally Intolerant’: Ben Carson Defends Biblical Definition of Marriage

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Photo Credit: AP / The Herald-Palladium, Jody WarnerRetired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson has freely shared his theological views since his bold 2013 National Prayer Breakfast speech catapulted him onto the national stage — and in a recent interview he affirmed his support for the biblical definition of marriage, encouraging Christians to stand up against “intolerance.”

When asked how Christians can “show God’s love to the gay community without compromising God’s word,” Carson, an outspoken Christian, told Charisma News that he believes consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want, but that the definition of marriage shouldn’t change.

“If they want to have [a] legal relationship so that they can have visitation rights and property transfer, I don’t have a problem with that,” he said. “What I do have a problem with is changing the definition of marriage. This is established by human history of thousands of years.”

Carson went on to note that, in the Bible, God compares marriage to the relationship that the Almighty has with the church, arguing that the definition of matrimony is extremely important and shouldn’t be amended so lightly.

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The White House is Incompetent and the Dumping of Illegals is Intentional (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP By Rusty Humphries.

“The White House is incompetent and the dumping of illegals is intentional.”

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio takes the dumping of illegal aliens in his Maricopa County as an “affront” because Arizona has been a high-profile critic of federal immigration policy, and Arpaio has been “like the poster boy” for slamming the Justice Department and the White House.

He doubts the massive wave of illegals, many of them unaccompanied minors, is a result of mere administration ineptitude.

“I got my own theory,” he said. “I think the White House sometimes is incompetent, but I can’t imagine them doing this without realizing that there was going to be controversy.”

Arpaio thinks President Obama is deliberately courting that controversy because the current crisis on the border gives him a chance to issue more executive orders, or prod Congress into passing immigration reforms that suit the president’s taste.

Read more from this story HERE.

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