Wyoming Welder Faces $75,000 a Day in EPA Fines Over What He Built on His Own Property

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Photo Credit: Andy Johnson/FacebookAndy Johnson, a hardworking welder in Wyoming, and his wife put their “blood, sweat and tears” into building a stock pond on their 8-acre farm. They constructed it with their bare hands, filling it with brook and brown trout and even bringing in ducks and geese to float on the clear water.

However, Johnson’s dream of a pond quickly turned into a nightmare when the federal government stepped in and threatened him with civil and criminal penalties, including a potential $75,000-a-day fine.

In an interview with FoxNews.com, Johnson defiantly proclaimed: “I have not paid them a dime, nor will I.”

“I will go bankrupt if I have to fighting it. My wife and I built [the pond] together. We put our blood, sweat and tears into it. It was our dream,” he added.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims Johnson violated the Clean Water Act by “building a dam on a creek without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers,” according to the FoxNews.com report. The federal agency also says material from his pond is leaking into other waterways.

Read more from this story HERE.

Louisiana Bans Use of Welfare Benefits for Tattoos, Lingerie, Jewelry

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Photo Credit: APLouisiana welfare recipients will be prohibited from spending the federal assistance at lingerie shops, tattoo parlors, nail salons and jewelry stores, under new limits enacted by state social services officials.

The Department of Children and Family Services announced the emergency regulations late Thursday. They cover the Family Independence Temporary Assistance Program — commonly known as welfare benefits — and the Kinship Care Subsidy Program.

Both programs pay cash assistance to low-income families for items like food, clothing and housing.

DCFS Secretary Suzy Sonnier said the agency decided to ban the use of electronic benefit cards, which work as debit cards, at stores that don’t sell items that are considered basic needs for families.

Read more from this story HERE.

WATCH: NY Gun Owners Burn Assault Weapon Registration Forms Mandated by ‘SAFE’ Act

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Photo Credit: benwatts / Creative Commons In the state of New York, hundreds gathered near Sarasota Springs in a fiery act of civil disobedience aimed at gun control lawmakers.

According to the Post Star, “nearly a thousand gun registration forms were turned into ashes Sunday.” Under NY’s SAFE Act, those who possess what the State of New York considers to be military-style “assault weapons” have to register by April 15th.

“Once the Second (Amendment) falls, the rest will go with it. It’s an unconstitutional law, done in the middle of the night with no input from the public,” E.J. Stokes told the Post Star.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaskan Police Fatally Shoot Man who Discovered the Body of ‘Into the Wild’ Wanderer

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Photo Credit: APA man fatally shot by authorities in Alaska over the weekend was a moose hunter who found the body of a young wanderer whose story was featured in the movie “Into the Wild,” his nephew said Friday.

Gordon Samel was shot Sunday night after he backed his pickup toward a Wasilla police officer north of Anchorage, Alaska State Troopers said. An investigative report will be provided to the state Department of Law to determine if deadly force was justified by a trooper and a Wasilla police officer, according to troopers.

Samel, 52, was among three hunters who discovered the body of Christopher McCandless in an abandoned bus on the Stampede Trail near the interior Alaska town of Healy in 1992. McCandless was made famous by the book by Jon Krakauer and subsequent film directed by Sean Penn.

Read more from this story HERE.

MA Firefighters Sing to Soothe Scared Little Girl (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsIt may not be in their job description, but that didn’t stop firefighters in Reading, Mass., from singing to a scared little girl.

Kaelyn Kerr, 4, got stuck in an elevator with her mother and baby brother on Wednesday. The only way out was up a ladder and over a wall, prompting Kaelyn to panic.

The firefighters learned that Kaelyn likes the Disney movie, “Frozen,” so firefighter Scott Myette pulled out his phone and began playing the movie’s theme song, “Let It Go.”

Read more from this story HERE.

How Sanctions Against Russia Could Signal the Beginning of ‘World War III’

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Photo Credit; AP Photo/Alexander ZemlianichenkoRussia is preparing to fight World War III against the United States, not with conventional weapons but with the American dollar, a financial analyst told TheBlaze.

Kevin Freeman, a global financial analyst with expertise in financial warfare and terrorism, warned that Russia, along with allies like China, could cripple the U.S. financial system.

It’s not a theory but a “very real reality” that should not be ignored, he said.

“The real risk is if we go after them with economic weapons, they come back after us and this creates World War III,” said Freeman, who has consulted for the Pentagon, CIA and FBI. “This is a very tough game of chicken that we’re playing, and Putin is serious.”

On Wednesday, The Blaze TV’s For The Record investigative news magazine show will examine the global impact of the Ukraine crisis in “Resistance” (8 p.m. ET). For The Record will take viewers into Ukraine and reveal firsthand accounts of the deadly violence that has gripped the country, and explain how the international tug of war over Crimea could change the world.

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Is Common Core Intentionally Designed to Make America’s Children Mentally Ill?

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Photo Credit: Natural NewsIf you look around America today, mathematical mental illness is found everywhere. It’s found in the federal budget, where numbers only mean what we are told they mean, not what they really mean. Mental illness is also found in medicine, where mentally ill victims of mercury in vaccines viciously attack parents who seek to protect their children from those very same vaccines. It’s also found in the new “Common Core” curriculum, spearheaded by the federal government, which seems intentionally designed to make children mentally ill and as confused as possible.

Case in point: See this homework assignment from an elementary school in New York. The “mathematics” exercise instructs children to “Draw the cubes you colored in the number bond” and then “Show the hidden partners on your fingers to an adult.”

The final instruction asks students to “Color the fingers you showed.”

I do PhD-level work in analytical chemistry and code complex relational databases, yes despite my best efforts to grasp this Common Core exercise, I have no idea what on Earth this lesson is attempting to teach.

Here’s the homework assignment. See if you can figure it out:

Read more from this story HERE.

Pelosi is No Longer Even Trying to Appear Sane… (+video)

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Photo Credit: SS&SS / Creative Commons By Sam Rolley.

Cue up the laugh track. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delivered some real gut-busters Thursday as she talked to reporters about President Barack Obama’s record and explained the finer points of his healthcare overhaul.

Pelosi has claimed that midterm voters will support Democratic candidates because November leaves time enough for them to reap the benefits of Obamacare and look past damning headlines from earlier in the year.

She doubled-down during her press conference, telling reporters that it simply isn’t true that Democrats are running away from Obamacare.

“This isn’t about politics. This is about the health of America,” she said. “We don’t weigh its value as to what it means politically. We weigh its value as to what it means to the health, well-being, economic and health security of America’s families. Just because people say, I don’t want to repeal it, but I do want to fix it, doesn’t mean they’re walking away from it.”

She also went off on a reporter who called the healthcare law Obamacare, contending that it was a derogatory moniker designed to make Americans forget that the coverage is affordable.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Pelosi: Stop calling it ObamaCare. It’s the Affordable Care Act. Affordable, affordable, affordable.

By Erika Johnsen.

Maybe if you just keep saying it, it will actually come true.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘LIBERTY TAX’: White House, Media Attack After Drudge Pays ObamaCare Opt-Out Penalty

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Associated PressA White House aide set off a stampede of liberal media criticism for Internet news pioneer Matt Drudge over Obamacare – but his critics don’t seem to understand how small businesses pay taxes.

The brouhaha started when Drudge tweeted, “Just paid the Obamacare penalty for not ‘getting covered’… I’M CALLING IT A LIBERTY TAX.”

Jesse Lee, the Director of Progressive Media at Barack Obama’s White House, responded that that was a “Flat lie, no fee for previous year,” adding, “Scary how much influence he once had.”

Lee’s response to Drudge set off a firestorm in the liberal media, with many mainstream media and left-wing reporters countering him on Twitter and in their own articles to claim he does not have to pay Obamacare’s Individual Mandate tax until next year. The individual mandate went into effect Jan. 1 of this year, and most people paying their taxes right now are paying taxes for 2013…

Drudge indicated in his followup tweets that since he is self-employed as the proprietor of The Drudge Report, he files as a small business. According to the IRS’s website for self-employed individuals, they are required to pay taxes quarterly.

Read more from this story HERE.

State That Has Long Been Disgraced by Some of the Strictest Gun-Control Laws, Now Has ‘Shall-Carry’

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Photo Credit: HeatherMG / Creative Commons Hawaii, a state that has long been disgraced by some of the strictest gun-control laws in the country, now has “shall-issue” concealed-carry — for now, at least. Per Guns.com:

In a decision released Thursday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in the case of Baker v. Kealoha, the court followed the lead of the recent Peruta case to declare Hawaii’s restrictions on firearms carry unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

The case was heard by the same trio of judges who sat on the earlier Peruta and Richards cases in California, which challenged the state’s restrictive ‘may issue’ policies that required concealed carry permit applicants to show “good cause” to warrant a permit. The judges, Diarmuid O’Scannlain, Sidney Thomas and Consuelo Callahan, heard Baker in December 2013 and issued their findings Thursday.

“In Peruta, we concluded that the Second Amendment provides a responsible, law-abiding citizen with the right to carry an operable handgun outside the home for the purpose of self-defense,” wrote O’Scannlain for the two-judge majority decision in a memorandum.

Read more from this story HERE.