Russia Sends Troops, Obama Administration Sends A Selfie

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Photo Credit: Getty (left) and Twitter (right)

Photo Credit: Getty (left) and Twitter (right)

Russian leader Vladmir Putin sent in troops and tanks to invade neighboring Ukraine and the Obama administration is coming to the rescue with . . . selfies!

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was mocked Thursday after posting a photo of herself on Twitter holding a sign that read #United­For­Ukraine @State­Dept­Spox.”

Psaki, who has worked closely with President Obama since his 2008 campaign and is the chief communications adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry, is smiling and giving a thumbs-up in the photo.

But the cheerleading for beleaguered Ukraine wasn’t trending or scaring off bully Putin, said critics in the blogosphere.

“Presenting The Latest US Strategy to Counter ‘Russian Aggression,’ ” a snarky blogger posted on zerohedge.com. “#Selfies!”

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

At Obama-Putin Phone Call, A Whole Lot Of Talking And Very Little Listening

By Soopermexican / IJ Review.

While we’ll never know exactly how the phone call went, if you read how the Obama administration described the conversation between Putin and Obama, and how the Russians described it, you’d think they were two completely different phone calls. Here’s the readout from the Obama admin:

President Obama underscored to President Putin that the United States continues to support a diplomatic path in close consultation with the Government of Ukraine and in support of the Ukrainian people with the aim of de-escalation of the crisis. President Obama made clear that this remains possible only if Russia pulls back its troops and does not take any steps to further violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. President Obama reiterated that the United States has strongly opposed the actions that Russia has already taken to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Every sentence begins with words making it appear that he was in charge, “underscoring,” “making clear,” and “reiterating” his demands to Putin. Now here’s Russia’s version:

Vladimir Putin drew Barack Obama’s attention to continued rampage of extremists who are committing acts of intimidation towards peaceful residents, government authorities and law enforcement agencies in various regions and in Kiev with impunity.

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Feds Spent $700,000 On A Climate Change Musical

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Carlo Allegri

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Carlo Allegri

It looks like the National Science Foundation has been handing out grants for some unorthodox research projects, according to House Republicans.

This includes $700,000 in funding for a climate change musical.

House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith questioned White House science czar John Holdren in a Thursday hearing over whether or not the National Science Foundation (NSF) should have to justify its use of taxpayer dollars to fund projects. Smith pointed out some examples of questionable projects the NSF has funded.

• $700,000 on a climate change musical
• $15,000 to study fishing practices around Lake Victoria in Africa
• $340,000 to examine the “ecological consequences” of early human fires in New
Zealand
• $200,000 for a three-year study of the Bronze Age around the Mediterranean
• $50,000 to survey archived 17th Century lawsuits in Peru
• $20,00 to look at the causes of stress in Bolivia

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More Parents Choose Homeschooling Due To Common Core

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

As Common Core champions like Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce continue to attack parents, teachers, and taxpayers for what they claim are “myths” spread about the centralized standards initiative, many parents across the nation are not convinced.

They are refusing to subject their children to the stress, pressure, and confusion associated with the Common Core by opting out of the assessments aligned with the standards, or by withdrawing them from school and choosing homeschooling instead.

WHNT 19 News in Alabama reports a growing number of families making the decision to withdraw their children from school in order to homeschool because of “confusion,” “chaos,” and stress related to the Common Core standards.

“It [Common Core] has caused chaos in our house, and it’s not worth it,” said Lori Peden, who has withdrawn two of her children from McBride Elementary in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. “The teachers are not comfortable teaching it. They’re frustrated. Parents are upset, kids are not making good grades. That’s what I’ve seen.”

Peden said she never had plans to homeschool her children, but did so after she observed her son struggling with Common Core math assignments in which he was required to find and learn up to half a dozen different pathways to the same final answer, an endeavor that created confusion and constant stress.

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

School district to mother: No Common Core opt-outs, let us humiliate your kids

By Robby Soave.

An Ohio school district told a worried parent that she wasn’t allowed to opt-out of Common Core testing for her kids–and then it forced the kids to be weighed and measured as part of body mass index testing.

The angry mother, Sarah Lewis, said her request to opt her kids out of any school-sponsored Common Core testing was vigorously rejected by Celina City SchoolsSuperintendent Jesse Steiner, according to The Heartland Institute.

“[O]n the recommendation of legal counsel, I am rejecting your request for your child to ‘Opt Out’ of any and all testing,” wrote Steiner in an email to Lewis. “Your child will be expected to follow the same educational procedures as the rest of the student body.”

Lewis opposes implementation of the Common Core standards, a controversial set of curriculum guidelines and standardized testing currently being implemented in most states.

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Religious Liberty on Trial Before the Supreme Court

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Photo Credit: Patriot Post

Photo Credit: Patriot Post

The Affordable Care Act is the law that keeps on giving. Last time it was before the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts validated the horror that is ObamaCare when he declared the individual mandate penalty to be a tax, and thus within the constitutional power of Congress to create. Tuesday, the Supremes heard another challenge to the law in the form of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius – both cases dealing with mandates and religious liberty.

Hobby Lobby is an arts and crafts chain owned by evangelical Christians. With more than 13,000 employees, the company faces potential fines of almost $475 million a year if it fails to comply with ObamaCare’s demands. Conestoga Wood Specialties is a kitchen cabinet manufacturer owned by Mennonites, and, with almost 1,000 employees, it faces penalties of $35 million per year for failure to comply. The owners of both companies contend that complying with ObamaCare’s mandate that employer-provided health insurance cover contraceptives – even more specifically the mandate that coverage include abortifacients – would force them to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. More than 300 plaintiffs in over 90 lawsuits have joined them in the fight.

The suit pits the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) against ObamaCare. Under RFRA, the government may not substantially burden the free exercise of religion unless it can show that the burden advances a compelling interest using the least restrictive means of achieving that interest. (This is the federal law that is mirrored in Arizona, the amendment of which was the subject of the kerfuffle there last month.)

The Obama administration argues that business owners from the corner dry cleaner to corporate giants like Exxon give up their constitutional right to exercise their religion when they establish a business. And in essence, leftists want the government to stay out of their bedroom, but they want taxpayers and employers to pay for what happens in it.

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US Appeals Court Upholds New Texas Abortion Rules

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A federal appeals court has upheld new abortion restrictions that shuttered many of the abortions clinics in Texas.

The New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit issued the ruling Thursday, overturning a lower court’s decision that the rules violated the U.S. Constitution and served no medical purpose.

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UN: No Obamacare for Illegal Aliens a Human Rights Concern

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The UN Human Rights Committee at its March 2014 session in Geneva adopted a list of “observations” for its fourth report on human rights in the United States, citing the denial of coverage through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, to illegal aliens as a human rights concern.

Under the heading “Immigrants,” in the “concluding observations” portion of the report, the committee questions the “mandatory nature of the deportation of foreigners” and then addresses health care for those in the United States illegally.

“Finally, the Committee expresses concerns about the exclusion of millions of undocumented immigrants and their children from coverage under the Affordable Care Act and the limited coverage of undocumented immigrants and immigrants residing lawfully in the U.S. for less than five years by Medicare and Children Health Insurance, all resulting in difficulties in access of immigrants to adequate health care,” the report states.

The Human Rights Committee, which comprises 18 independent legal experts who serve for four years, is a separate entity to the Human Rights Council (HRC), also based in Geneva, which the Obama administration joined in 2009.

“We’re committed to advancing a strong human rights agenda, working with multiple partners from all regions of the world,” then-Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner said in September 2009, the day the U.S. took up its seat on the HRC for the first time.

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Ted Cruz’s Dynamic New ‘Yes We Can’ Video Will Make You Ready for 2014

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]Sen. Ted Cruz has released a dynamic new video featuring highlights of the senator’s biggest moments.

Cruz encourages Republicans to stand for the rights enshrined in the Constitution, and to stand on principle.

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Sen. Jeremiah Denton–Who Spent 7 and a Half Years as POW in Vietnam–Dies at 89

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Photo Credit: AP / Mobile Register, Bill Starling

Photo Credit: AP / Mobile Register, Bill Starling

Former Alabama Sen. Jeremiah Denton, who survived 7½ years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and alerted the U.S. military to conditions there when he blinked the word “torture” in Morse code during a television interview, has died. He was 89.

Prisoner of war Jeremiah Denton declared his loyalty to the U.S. government during a 1966 interview for what was supposed to be a propaganda film. But his enraged captors missed his more covert message: “T-O-R-T-U-R-E,” blinked into the camera in Morse code, a dispatch that would alert the U.S. military to the conditions he endured.

Denton, who would survive 7½ years confined in a tiny, stinking, windowless cell at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” and other camps before his release in 1973, died of heart problems Friday in Virginia Beach, Va., at age 89, his grandson Edward Denton said.

The elder Denton later became the first Republican from Alabama elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction, though the iron will that allowed him to persevere in captivity gave rise to criticism he was too rigid a politician.

In July 1965, a month after he began flying combat missions for the U.S. Navy in Vietnam, the Mobile native was shot down near Thanh Hoa. He was captured and recalled his captivity in a book titled “When Hell Was in Session.”

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New Questions About ex-CIA Director’s Benghazi Claims Ahead of Testimony

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

New allegations are raising additional questions about former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell’s involvement in crafting the administration’s flawed narrative on the Benghazi attack, ahead of his scheduled testimony next week on Capitol Hill.

Morell is set to testify publicly for the first time on Wednesday about his role in crafting the controversial Benghazi “talking points,” which initially blamed a protest for the deadly attack.

The former acting director, and deputy director, was called to testify to explain potentially conflicting testimony he gave Congress about the talking points and the administration’s role. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers told reporters this week — before news of his retirement was made public — that the rare, open session should “allow Mr. Morell to answer the questions that we know many people have about what he knew and when he knew it.”

But another detail is raising questions. According to a source with first-hand knowledge of events, during a secure video conference call two days after the Sept. 11, 2012 attack, Morell told the team in Libya that there was intelligence a demonstration preceded the assault. With that statement, Morell apparently dismissed the reporting of U.S. personnel on the ground, including the CIA’s top officer, known as the chief of station.

“We’ve done a forensic on that event. We never found a reference to demonstrations from individuals who were on the ground,” Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., told Fox News in a recent interview. Burr sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee which conducted its own investigation on Benghazi. The bipartisan findings released in January were highly critical of the State Department and the administration’s resistance to fully explain its role in the flawed talking points.

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Hey, ‘Noah’ Supporters, Enough with the Guilt Trip Already

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Hollywood director Darren Aronofsky promised to create the least biblical, biblical movie ever made. And based on the early reviews of his film — Mr. Aronofsky made good on his promise.

He left the word “God” completely out of his movie and turned Noah into a crazed environmentalist with anger management issues who wants to slaughter his family.

I also had some issues with the rock creatures portrayed in the film. Forefathers of “The Thing,” perhaps?

My beef is not with the director of “Noah.” He’s an atheist — he doesn’t know better.

My beef is with Christian leaders trying to guilt trip us into going to see the film. It’s as if we have some sort of moral obligation to throw our good money at a movie that makes a mockery of the Bible.

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‘NOAH’ REVIEW: BRILLIANTLY SINISTER ANTI-CHRISTIAN FILMMAKING

By John Nolte. When atheist director and co-writer Darren Aronofsky promised that his epic “Noah” would be “the least biblical film ever made,” that was not hyperbole. “Noah” is a brilliant, compelling, beautifully-mounted, beautifully-acted piece of storytelling conceived for the sinister purpose of leading people to believe that Christianity and Judaism are something they are not.

And I ask you, could anything make Satan happier than something that leads people to believe they are saved when they are not?

I have absolutely no problem with a filmmaker taking a biblical story and adding or subtracting from it as a way to craft a compelling film. There are all kinds of plot points in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 masterpiece “The Ten Commandments” that you won’t find in the Bible. . .

It is not about being faithful to the stories, plot points, and dialogue of the Bible. One of our greatest gifts from God is the muse of inspiration, especially artistic inspiration that is meant to glorify God.

What does matter, though, is The Message. The Message is everything. And this is where Aronofsky is the snake in the garden. Using a $135 million, he and Paramount have brilliantly and deviously disguised the Pagan god Gaia as the God of the Old Testament … as THE God. . .

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