‘Evil Flourishes When Good People Do Nothing’: Famed Comedian Joins Protest Against Harsh Shariah Laws in Brunei

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Photo Credit: David McNew / Getty

Photo Credit: David McNew / Getty

The Beverly Hills Hotel has a rich Hollywood history, but that hasn’t stopped comedians Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres, among others, from protesting and speaking out against its owners.

Leno joined protesters across the street from the hotel Monday to decry the fact that the hotel is owned by the oil-rich government of Brunei.

The Southeast Asian nation has been in the headlines of late over the phasing in of new Islamic laws that will enact harsh punishments for homosexuality, abortions and adultery.

Other celebrities like Sharon Osbourne and Richard Branson have also taken to social media to speak out against Brunei’s harsh criminal laws. On April 22, DeGeneres tweeted, “I won’t be visiting the Hotel Bel-Air or the Beverly Hills Hotel until this is resolved” (Brunei also owns Hotel Bel-Air).

Hassanal Bolkiah, sultan of Brunei, began enacting the new Shariah laws this month, which call for a range of punishments, including fines and imprisonment for those who fail to show up for Friday prayers or who get pregnant outside of marriage, the Washington Post reported.

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FEC Chairman’s Chilling Warning About ‘Disparate Treatment of Conservative Media and Agency’s ‘Impulse to Regulate’ Press

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Photo Credit: C-SPAN

Photo Credit: C-SPAN

Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman warned Wednesday that the “impulse to regulate the media” among officials at the agency is “alive and well.” Though the FEC is tasked with regulating money in federal elections, it sometimes attempts to interfere with press issues, he said.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Goodman specifically addressed concerns he has about the “disparate treatment of conservative media.” The warning comes as the “right has begun to break the left’s media monopoly.”

“Truth be told, I want conservative media to have the same exemption as all other media,” he added.

In another interview with FoxNews.com, Goodman brought up a 2013 case involving WCBV-TV in Boston in which the station was accused of illegally excluding a third-party candidate in a debate-style program. The FEC analyzed the case and mulled taking action. The case was eventually dismissed.

However, the mere fact that the FEC even looked at the case shows “that there are people in the FEC who believe we have the power to regulate the media,” Goodman said.

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Benghazi Debacle Defies Logic

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Photo Credit: Raw Story

Photo Credit: Raw Story

By Ted Nugent.

…No sane soul could keep a straight face when listening to strange-looking bureaucrats raving how we need to spend even more money on education when that very unaccountable system continues to produce the dumbest, fattest kids on planet Earth per dollar spent.

Someone might someday show the real number on Obamacare for a nationwide pukesfest.

We could listen to a gun-running attorney general how more Chicago-like gun-free zones is a good idea, and still lie about Fast and Furious.

But in a genuine effort to not get too angry, let us stick with the horror story that is Benghazi.

Some people are honest enough to know what basic self-defense responsibilities are and what qualifies as basic security versus bureaucratic gobblygook.

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Gowdy: Citizens Can Handle the Truth About Benghazi If They Get Access To It

By Katie Pavlich.

Yesterday afternoon House Speaker John Boehner officially announced Rep. Trey Gowdy will lead a new Benghazi select committee. As a former prosecutor, Gowdy is a seasoned investigator who asks tough questions.

Last night, Gowdy made an appearance On the Record to discuss his new role and his plans to get to the bottom of what happened.

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One Tax To Rule Them All

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Just one of Obamacare’s many taxes could cost the U.S. hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next decade, according to an industry report published Tuesday.

The National Federation of Independent Businessprojects that between 152,000 and 286,000 jobs will be lost by 2023 due to Obamacare’s health insurance tax. NFIB, a nonprofit association of business owners, actively supports the repeal of the tax.

The health insurance tax has proved to be one of Obamacare’s more controversial fundraising measures. The tax targets insurance companies, charging each one proportional to their market share — the more health plans sold (Obamacare’s goal), the more insurers are required to pay.

The report found that the tax will cause a spike in the cost of employer-sponsored health coverage, which will lead primarily small businesses to cut jobs. NFIB estimates that 57 percent of the job losses will come from small businesses — firms with under 500 employees, according to the federal Small Business Administration.

The cut in employment would results in a reduction of U.S. real output, or sales, of between $20 billion and $33 billion through 2023.

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John Kerry Won’t Testify About Benghazi Because He’ll Be in Mexico, Despite Subpoena

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Secretary of State John Kerry is planning to be in Mexico on the day of a congressional hearing on Benghazi for which he was subpoenaed to testify.

The scheduling conflict drew a befuddled response Wednesday from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has ordered him to appear.

“There appears to be some confusion between State Department staff and the Secretary, who said publicly yesterday that he would comply with the subpoena for his testimony,” committee spokesman Frederick Hill said. “The State Department has not contacted the Committee directly.”

The State Department announced Wednesday morning that Kerry is scheduled to be in Mexico City May 21-22, for talks on trade, education and security.

May 21 is when the House oversight committee wants Kerry to testify, to discuss newly uncovered documents regarding the administration’s public explanation of the attacks.

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Barack Obama’s Dysfunctional Washington

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Photo Credit: Benjamin Krain

Photo Credit: Benjamin Krain

Barack Obama fell in love with the sound of his voice at an early age. It’s the love that dares shout its name, and will not die even when everybody else has quit listening.

The president traveled this week to Hollywood, the reliable refueling stop for Democratic candidates, and preached to show-biz friends who paid up to $65,000 each for supper and had to eat it in a tent in the backyard. Everybody who was anybody was there, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Tom Rothman, James Brolin. Barbra Streisand, no doubt hoping Bubba might drop by unexpectedly, was there, too.

The president didn’t have to pay for a plate of beans and cornbread, so he returned the gift with his voice. Washington, he said, isn’t working because it’s “dysfunctional” and despite everything he has done “there’s still disquiet around the country.” (Jimmy Carter called it “malaise.”)

Mr. Obama, like Mr. Jimmy, railed about disquiet and dysfunction on the Potomac, forgetting that he lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, which is well within the District of Columbia and the fount of the bad stuff. The president is the very point of Washington. If Washington isn’t working, maybe it has something to do with what he brought to town.

But no, it’s not him. The disquiet, “an anxiety and a sense of frustration,” he said, “afflicts the body politic despite “a list of accomplishments.” It’s everybody else’s fault. It always is. He warned of a “self-fulfilling prophecy” in the midterm congressional elections, where “people who have the most at stake in a government that works, opt out of the system, and those who don’t believe government can do anything, are empowered. Gridlock reigns, and we’ve got this downward spiral of even more cynicism, and more dysfunction. And we have to break out of that cycle, and that’s what this election is all about.” So break out your checkbooks, and buy some more dysfunction.

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Can God Bless a Godless America?

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Picture - Declaration_independenceThe White House is waging an all-out assault on religious liberty. Public schools are indoctrinating our children with the gospel of secularism. Hollywood is spewing toxins into our homes. The soundtrack of our lives is a pulsating mix of sex and violence and filth. The American family is in ruins. What was once wrong is now right and what was once right is now wrong.

Our nation stands on a precipice. Freedom hangs in the balance. We live in a postmodern and post-God nation. The perfect storm is brewing. Do not be deceived. There may be a war on religious liberty, but the true target is Christianity.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, and Kelly Shackelford, president of Liberty Institute, penned an open letter to the American people last year. Hostility against religious liberty has reached an all-time high, they warned. The freedom of religion is being pushed out of public life, schools and even churches.

“Our Founding Fathers considered religious liberty our ‘first freedom,’ and the bedrock upon which all other freedoms rest,” the men wrote. “They understood that one’s right to worship God and follow his conscience according to the principles of his religious faith was foundational to civic tranquility. A man whose religious faith was repressed could never be a loyal citizen since the state was usurping his first allegiance and costing him his primary freedom. This is one of the most important distinctions that makes America an exceptional nation — if not the most important.”

Both groups document more than 600 recent examples of religious hostility. Six hundred. American stories. Our stories. Their documentation included many stories I have covered during my career at Fox News Channel.

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Feds Give Chinese-Backed Firm $47 Million to Build Wind Farm N.J. Doesn’t Want

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

New Jersey regulators rejected a Chinese-backed windmill project twice, but that didn’t stop the Department of Energy.

The federal government has awarded $47 million to sweeten the deal for a $188 million project the Garden State has deemed too risky for ratepayers.

Fishermen’s Energy wants to install five windmills off the coast of Atlantic City. Its leadership hopes the infusion of cash will sway the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, which up until this point has not been receptive to the project.

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WATCH: Dad Arrested While Protesting Sexually Graphic Book Assigned to 14-Year-Old Daughter

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

The father of a Gilford High School student was arrested at a school board meeting on Monday night after objecting that the school had assigned his 14-year-old daughter to read a pornographic book without his knowledge or consent.

William Baer, an attorney who moved to New Hampshire from New Jersey, registered his complaint about the book Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, which includes a graphic depiction of sex between two teenagers at the local school board meeting.

He asked the school board to read the offending passage, but members refused.

He also wanted to ask members why the school’s ninth grade English teacher had the class read the material without sending out notice – a policy the school had followed in previous years – but board members turned away questions. Instead, they said the question violated protocol and told Baer that his two minute time allotment had expired.

Another parent, Joe Wernig, said he supported the reading of the 2007 book, warning that if the school board bends, ”these people will be dictating what we can and cannot read.”

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Hillary Clinton Takes Aim at 2nd Amendment: Time to ‘Rein In’ An ‘Article of Faith’

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Photo Credit: Stephan Savoia

Photo Credit: Stephan Savoia

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday the nation’s gun culture has gotten “way out of balance” and the U.S. needs to rein in the notion that “anybody can have a gun, anywhere, anytime.”

The former Secretary of State and potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate said the idea that anyone can have a gun is not in the “best interest of the vast majority of people.” But she said that approach does not conflict with the rights of people to own firearms.

Clinton waded into the polarizing issue of gun politics during an appearance at the National Council for Behavioral Health conference in Oxon Hill, Md., pointing to recent shootings that involved teens who had been playing loud music and chewing gum and a separate incident involving the typing of text messages in a movie theater.

“I think again we’re way out of balance. I think that we’ve got to rein in what has become an almost article of faith that anybody can have a gun anywhere, anytime,” Clinton said. “And I don’t believe that is in the best interest of the vast majority of people. And I think you can say that and still support the right of people to own guns.”

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted against legislation pushed by President Barack Obama last year that would have expanded background checks for firearm purchases to gun shows and online sales. The legislation came in the aftermath of the deadly Sandy Hook elementary school shootings in Connecticut.

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