A Love Letter to Barack Obama

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

April Fool’s!

President Obama gets a lot of undeserved criticism from conservatives. He’s a well-intentioned guy who is doing the best he can, and I think it’s time I came clean about something that I’ve been hiding for a long time: I love the president. Here’s a love letter that best reflects how I feel.

Barack, I love that you always follow through with your promises. Like closing Guantanamo Bay, ending extraordinary rendition, terminating the “war on terror,” not using drones to kill innocent women and children, and not unconstitutionally carrying out wars on foreign nations like Libya. Even your “kill list” is pretty bad*ss.

I love how you respond to foreign policy crises with skill and aplomb: like your “flexibility” with Russia, for example. I love how you schmooze with dictators and take selfies at funerals. It’s just fantastic how everyone loves America now that you’re in charge.

I love how you play lots and lots of rounds of golf, are off doing more important things when our diplomats and troops are in harm’s way, run guns to Mexican drug cartels and fail to track them, leak intel secrets before the election, claim credit for the SEALs’ killing of bin laden and then declare Al Qaeda all but dead.

I love how you use the word “I” repeatedly, can’t give a speech without a teleprompter, make a big deal out of your NCAA brackets, go on niche comedy shows and hobnob with celebrities when you should be doing other things, skip out on intel briefings and jobs council meetings for months on end… I love it all. And I love you.

Read more from this story HERE.

WATCH: Gunman Invades Dollar General, Meets Concealed Carry Permit Holder

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

Another story crosses our desk, courtesy of Rationality Rebooted. I’ve gone through a few reports of this story and it’s still not clear why Kevin Mclaughlin went into the Dollar General in Orrville, Alabama last week, but it certainly wasn’t to find a good deal on tube socks. He began shouting and waving a gun around, herding customers and an employee into a back room. Things were looking bad, but that’s when he ran into Marlo Ellis.

One person is dead after a customer at the Dollar General in Orrville began shouting and waving his gun in the air.

Dallas County Sheriff Harris Huffman said the incident appeared to be a case of self-defense and no one has been arrested in connection with the shooting Thursday afternoon.

The incident occurred when Dallas County resident Kevin Mclaughlin entered Dollar General reportedly waving a pistol in the air, Huffman said. Mclaughlin then ushered a group of people inside the store into a break room.

“It appears that once the cashier got inside the break room, a customer that was walking into the break room shot the individual, the white male, with the pistol,” Huffman said. “There was only one shot fired and that shot struck the individual with the pistol causing the disturbance.”

Read more from this story HERE.

EPA Agents Raid Ammunition Company On Alleged ‘Environmental Violations’

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Environmental Protection Agency and FBI agents raided the ammunition company USA Brass over alleged “environmental violations” early Thursday morning.

NBC Montana was tipped off by witnesses that federal investigators were there until at least 4 a.m. on Thursday. Federal agents could be seen going through the company’s building and taking items to a truck parked outside. EPA lead criminal investigator Bert Marsden said that the agency was looking into alleged “environmental violations” by USA Brass.

“We are investigating alleged violations of environmental law,” Marsden said on Thursday. “An investigation takes as long as it takes, and I can’t provide any details as it relates to that.”

“I can make a statement that there is no immediate threat to the public or the community at this time,” said Marsden.

Read more from this story HERE.

Islamic Group Gets Go-Ahead to Cut Crosses Off NY Church

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A city board on Thursday gave a Muslim group the go-ahead to remove six crosses from the roof and spires of a century-old former Catholic church so the now-vacant Gothic structure can be used as a mosque.

More than 200 people had signed an online petition calling on the Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board to deny an application by North Side Learning Center, the church’s new owner, to remove the crosses and build a six-foot chain-link fence.

Before the vote to allow the church alterations, Chairman Don Radke said the board cannot interfere with a decision that involves religious freedom.

About a dozen people who spoke at the meeting were evenly divided for and against the church conversion, The Post-Standard reported.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pin Drop! Obama Lawyer Stuns Supreme Justice

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

By Greg Corombos.

In a dramatic moment at the Supreme Court Tuesday, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told justices that U.S. business owners have no religious freedom to reject government mandates forcing them to cover abortions.

Justices and lawyers also sparred over whether businesses actually have religious freedom and whether striking down the Obamacare mandate makes women second-class citizens.

The notable abortion exchange between Verrilli and Justice Anthony Kennedy came during oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius, two cases linked by the companies’ owners objecting to the Department of Health and Human Services requirement that businesses fully cover the contraception costs for their employees. That mandate includes coverage of abortafacient drugs, also known as the “morning-after pill.”

Family Research Council Senior Fellow for Legal Studies Cathy Ruse was in the gallery during oral arguments and said that was the most remarkable moment in the court session Tuesday.

“This was actually the most exciting part of the oral argument this morning, when Justice Kennedy asked the government’s lawyer, ‘So under your argument, corporations could be forced to pay for abortions, that there would be no religious claim against that on the part of the corporation. Is that right?’ And the government’s attorney said yes,” Ruse said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Company Owners Refuse To ‘Sacrifice Our Obedience To God’

By Alana Cook.

Advocates of religious freedom and family values who had gathered outside the Supreme Court today greeted the Hahn and Green families of Conestoga Wood Specialties and Hobby Lobby as they came to the building’s snow-capped steps to give statements after the court heard oral arguments in their high-profile cases.

“Rather than sacrifice our obedience to God, my family, the Green family, and many others have chosen to take a stand to defend life and freedom against government coercion,” declared Anthony Hahn, CEO of Conestoga Wood Specialties, a Mennonite.

The two cases, Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, challenge the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that employers provide a health-care insurance plan that includes no-cost access to all forms of contraception, including emergency abortifacients such as Plan B and ella.

“We didn’t choose this fight,” Hahn said. “Our families would have been happy to just continue providing good jobs and generous health-care benefits. But the government forced our hand.”

Hahn said the “choice that the government has forced on us is out of step with the history of our great nation founded on religious freedom.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Eleven Dumbest Common Core Problems

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is widely denounced for imposing confusing, unhelpful experimental teaching methods, involving test problems that lack essential information and sometimes make no sense whatsoever.

Some 45 states and the District of Columbia have so far adopted Common Core standards, leaving students all around the United States to puzzle over Common Core’s mysterious logic and language.

Here are eleven Common Core–compliant problems that have caused parents, students, and even teachers to scratch their heads or respond in outrage:

1. Starting with an easily solvable problem, New York takes the simple “7+7″ and complicates it with something called “number bonds.”

Common Core 1

2. Not willing to ruin addition alone, Common Core takes aim at subtraction as well, forcing students to make visual representations of numbers in columns.

Common Cor 2.

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Ted Cruz: Iran Move Is ‘Slap In The Face,’ Raises Question Of Obama Administration ‘Naivete’

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Photo Credit: AP Photo / Houston Chronicle, Michael Paulsen

Photo Credit: AP Photo / Houston Chronicle, Michael Paulsen

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Iran’s selection of Hamid Aboutalebi as its ambassador at the United Nations is a “slap in the face.”

During a Thursday appearance on Fox News, Cruz called the appointment “dismaying” and said it’s “another indication of how radical, how extreme, how anti-American Iran is.”

“This is not an accident, that they nominate and name, an admitted terrorist, someone who participated in holding Americans hostage for 444 days, and they propose to send him as their ambassador to the U.N., to live in New York City, in Manhattan,” Cruz said. “It’s designed to be a slap in the face.”


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What Happened to Chicago’s Murder Rate After Illinois Upheld Concealed Carry and Why it Matters

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

In July of 2013, Illinois became the last state in the union to enact a concealed carry law. In January of this year, the state began accepting applications for permits. This week, Chicago police announced that the city’s first quarter murder rate was the lowest since 1958.

Via ABC-affiliate Eye Witness News in the Windy City:

– The first three months of the year saw 6 fewer murders than the same time frame in 2013–a 9 percent drop–and 55 fewer murders than 2012, according to a statement from Chicago Police.

– There were 90 fewer shootings and 119 fewer shooting victims, drops of 26 and 29 percent respectively, according to police statistics.

– Compared to the first quarter of 2012, there have been 222 fewer shootings and 292 fewer shooting victims. Overall crime is down 25 percent from last year, and police said more than 1,300 illegal guns were recovered in the last three months.

Coincidence? Hard to say. And too early to tell. Although, I doubt that the anti-gun crowd is celebrating the good news.

Read more from this story HERE.

Palin on Budget: Rep. Paul Ryan Has ‘More Faith in Politicians Than I Do’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is standing firm in her objection to Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget proposal, which she told Sean Hannity will raise spending over 10 years nearly $1.2 trillion.

“That’s trillion with a T, and that stands for trouble. Trouble for our nation because it still is involving deficit spending, increasing debt and we can’t afford that,” Palin told Hannity.

Hannity told Palin that he’d had Rep. Paul Ryan on his radio show, and Ryan was adamant that Palin would come around to his budget if he could only explain it to her.

“Bless his heart. He probably has more faith in politicians than I do, because I’ve been in this political arena on the local, state and now national level for a long time,” Palin said.

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Woman, 73, Accused of Operating Drug Tunnel Uncovered Under Mexican Border

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Tucked inside one of a string of warehouses, hidden behind boxes of televisions and plastic three-wheel toys, under a concrete slab and down a 70-foot shaft, is a tunnel Mexican drug dealers hoped to use to move hundreds of pounds of marijuana and cocaine into the U.S.

But on Friday, agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Tuesday’s discovery of the tunnel and arrested the woman accused of overseeing its construction, 73-year-old Glennys “Gladys” Rodriguez, of Chula Vista, Calif. Authorities had been watching the warehouse for months.

“Here we are again, foiling cartel plans to sneak millions of dollars of illegal drugs through secret passageways that cost millions of dollars to build,” said U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy. “Going underground is not a good business plan. We have promised to locate these super tunnels and keep powerful drug cartels from taking their business underground and out of sight, and once again, we have delivered on that promise.”

This was the sixth cross-border passageway discovered in the San Diego area in less than four years. A seventh was found Thursday nearby. If laid end-to-end, the seven tunnels would extend a distance of nearly two miles.

Agents from the San Diego Tunnel Task Force uncovered the two sophisticated smuggling tunnels in an area known as Otay Mesa, an industrial park surrounded by rolling hills, desert and several major freeways connecting the U.S. to Tijuana and large manufacturing plants south of the border.

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