Clashes in Ukraine as Putin Stays Defiant

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Photo Credit: AFP / Dimitar DilkoffPro-Russian activists with clubs and whips clashed with pro-Kiev supporters Sunday as tens of thousands rallied across Ukraine in rival protests, and Russian President Vladimir Putin dug in his heels in the standoff with the West.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a strong rebuke to the Russian strongman, telling him a planned Crimean referendum on joining the Russian Federation was illegal and deploring the lack of progress on creating an international diplomatic group to resolve the crisis.

In phone conversations with Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron, Putin in turn accused Ukraine’s new leaders of failing to rein in “ultra-nationalist and radical forces”.

Defying Western condemnation of the March 16 referendum, he asserted the pro-Russian authorities in Crimea organising the vote were legitimate and acting “based on international law”.

But Kiev got crucial backing as US President Barack Obama invited interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to the White House on Wednesday to show support.

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Snowden Claims He Raised Concerns about NSA Internally 10 Times Before Leaking Documents

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Photo Credit: AP / THE GUARDIANEx-NSA contractor Edward Snowden said he tried more than 10 times to go through official channels to alert someone about government spying programs, but nobody listened.

According to The Washington Post, Snowden claimed in European Parliament testimony that he reported policy or legal issues about the NSA to more than 10 officials, but as a contractor he had no legal avenue to pursue the matter.

“As an employee of a private company rather than a direct employee of the U.S. government, I was not protected by U.S. whistle-blower laws, and I would not have been protected from retaliation and legal sanction for revealing classified information about lawbreaking in accordance with the recommended process,” Snowden said in his testimony.

Snowden was at the CIA before becoming an NSA contractor. He was working for Booz Allen Hamilton at an NSA facility in Hawaii when he leaked information about the NSA spying programs to the press, The Washington Post reported.

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Huckabee: Time for Government, Not ‘People of Faith to Scale Back’

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreFormer Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) didn’t disguise his presidential ambitions on Thursday, touting his socially conservative bona fides and blasting both President Obama and Hillary Clinton in his Conservative Political Action Conference speech.

“These are the things that I know. I know there is a God, and I know this nation would not exist had he not been the midwife of its birth. And I know that this nation exists by the providence of his hand, and if this nation forgets our God, then God will have every right to forget us,” Huckabee said. “I hope that we repent before we ever have to receive his fiery judgment.”

Huckabee is making strong signs he’ll make another run for the White House in 2016, positioning himself as a favorite of social conservatives.

The speech from the Baptist pastor was predictably heavy on social issues. Huckabee warned that “a society that sacrifices its own children is no better than the ancient Philistines,” and criticized the Obama administration for its policy requiring contraception coverage in insurance plans, warning they’re impeding on religious liberty.

“When the government begins to say ‘it’s okay if you have faith but you can only have this much of it because, when you have this much of it, it may somehow conflict with something government has passed, here’s what I know: It’s time for the government to scale back, not for people of faith to scale back. Religious liberty should be unimpeded in this nation.”

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Dr. Ben Carson: ‘We Can’t Be Free If We Are Not Brave’

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Photo Credit: APFew people have emerged on the conservative scene in recent years who have become as instantly beloved as Dr. Ben Carson, the renowned pediatric neurosurgeon and Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who endeared himself to the Right by speaking on conservative values at the National Prayer Breakfast just inches away from captive audience member Barack Obama.

That was the case again on Saturday, when the good doctor visited the CPAC main stage to deliver his remarks.

Dr. Carson spoke about how America for him is the land of dreams, of his no-excuses mother, and of belief in God. Upon his recent retirement, the doctor imagined he would learn to play the organ and get in some golf, but, “The good Lord had a different plan.”

Since that time, Carson and his wife of 39 years, Lacena, whom he introduced at the top of his remarks, have traveled around the country, visiting states both red and blue. What he found, whatever their political persuasion, was a people that are beaten down. Dr. Carson referenced Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, and how one of the so-called rules is to make people believe that there is only one correct way to think, and it is not their way.

Dr. Carson hates political correctness. He talked about it at that legendary prayer breakfast, and he talked about it at CPAC. What is PC today is what is espoused by left wing “ideologues,” but Dr. Carson found his own words catching on as he traversed the country, because people recognized “common sense” when they heard it. The practice of medicine, according to Carson, promotes out-of-the-box thinking as well as familiarity with controversy. It was missed by few that “common sense” falls under the out-of-the-box column and is controversial in a PC world.

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Atheists Want Iconic 17-Foot Steel Beam Cross Removed from 9/11 Museum

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Photo Credit: Jeff Kubina / flickr Atheists are trying to oust the “Miracle Cross” from the 9/11 museum arguing that its inclusion would violate the Constitution’s separation of church and state.

But Eric Baxster of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty told MyFoxNY that the cross is part of the story of 9/11 and that museums don’t censor history.

“They tell history as it happened,” Baxster said.

The 17-foot cross-shaped beam was discovered in the devastation at Ground Zero and became a symbol of comfort and hope after the horrific terrorist attack.

But American Atheists say the cross is a part of religious history and are challenging its inclusion in the new National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum which opens in May.

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Cheney: ‘No Question’ Putin Believes Obama is Weak (+video)

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Photo Credit: Evan Vucci/APFormer Vice-President Dick Cheney said Sunday there is “no question” Russian President Vladimir Putin believes President Obama is weak. In response to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, he said, there are steps the U.S. could take to send a “strong signal” to European friends and allies that America honors its commitments.

“I think there’s any – no question he believes he is weak,” Cheney said in response to a question on CBS’ “Face The Nation” about Putin’s assessment of Obama.

“We have created an image around the world, not just for the Russians, of – of weakness and indecisive – the Syrian situation’s a classic. We got all ready to do something, a lot of the allies signed on. At the last minute, Obama backed off.”

Cheney was referring to the state of affairs last fall, when Obama threatened punitive military strikes in Syria in response to a deadly August chemical attack blamed on the Assad regime. Struggling to win congressional support, Obama backed away from the threat after Russia mediated a deal to have Damascus hand over its chemical weapons stockpile for destruction.

Cheney also cited Obama’s “reset policy” with Russia, and his decision to shift course in 2009 on a ballistic missile defense (BMD) program strongly opposed by Moscow.

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Top Democrat Sees Another Train Wreck Coming for Own Party

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Photo Credit: WNDA former high-ranking Clinton administration official and law partner with Hillary Clinton sees potential political disaster for Democrats in 2014 over Obama administration health-care policies.

But it’s not just Obamacare that has Webb Hubbell, former chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court and associate attorney general of the U.S., concerned about the political fortunes of his party. It’s what he calls “tinkering with Medicare, the tried and true social insurance program that so many older Americans rely on – which so many future older Americans will rely on, too.”

“You have to wonder why the administration would hand the Republicans such a gift,” he writes in a commentary piece in WND today.

What concerns Hubbell, who served 21 months in prison in the 1990s after pleading guilty to federal charges of overbilling clients at the Rose Law Firm where he was partnered with Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster, is a proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services to allow insurance companies to limit Medicare coverage for certain classes of drugs, including anti-rejection medications for transplant patients and medications to treat depression and schizophrenia in the elderly.

“The proposal isn’t based on a needs analysis but on an actuarial cost study that has drug companies, patient advocates and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress all up in arms,” says Hubbell. “And when Republicans and Democrats agree on anything, we all stand up and take notice.”

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NARAL President Says “Anti-Abortion Is Anti-American”

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsEverybody says something stupid and offensive at one time or another. But it takes a special kind of ideologue to turn it into a speech repeated over and over. And that ideologue is NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue.

We missed it the first time she told a crowd that pro-lifers are “un-American.” That was at a Feb. 4 event in Washington, D.C. marking the pro-abortion group’s 45th anniversary (see video below). But Hogue liked it so much she said it again in San Francisco on March 4, at an event featuring Sandra Fluke, America’s most famous birth control user.

And lest anyone miss Hogue’s eloquence, NARAL tweeted it on March 6: “‘That, my friends, is not anti-abortion — what it is is anti-American.’ – @ilyseh on current anti-choice efforts in the US.#NARAL45.” Continues after video.

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Global Debt Exceeds $100 Trillion as Governments Binge

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Photo Credit: APThe amount of debt globally has soared more than 40 percent to $100 trillion since the first signs of the financial crisis as governments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession and companies took advantage of record low interest rates, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

The $30 trillion increase from $70 trillion between mid-2007 and mid-2013 compares with a $3.86 trillion decline in the value of equities to $53.8 trillion in the same period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The jump in debt as measured by the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS in its quarterly review is almost twice the U.S.’s gross domestic product.

Borrowing has soared as central banks suppress benchmark interest rates to spur growth after the U.S. subprime mortgage market collapsed and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy sent the world into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yields on all types of bonds, from governments to corporates and mortgages, average about 2 percent, down from more than 4.8 percent in 2007, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Broad Market Index.

“Given the significant expansion in government spending in recent years, governments (including central, state and local governments) have been the largest debt issuers,” according to Branimir Gruic, an analyst, and Andreas Schrimpf, an economist at the BIS. The organization is owned by 60 central banks and hosts the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, a group of regulators and central bankers that sets global capital standards.

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Anti-Mushing Group Paints Unfair Portrait of the Iditarod

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Photo Credit: mypubliclands / flickrSled dog mushing as a sport and a recreational activity owes a great deal to the Iditarod. Every aspect of the art and science of sled dog racing has been honed by years of intense competition in this race. Dog harnesses and sleds, training methods and routines, diet and exercise, veterinary care and breeding strategies have all evolved at an unprecedented pace when considering the fact that the partnership between man and sled dog dates back at least 4,000 years.

The Iditarod has evolved as well. Recognizing that preserving the health of the dogs is critical to the sport, the Iditarod’s leadership has sought to provide open access to its athletes, and the veterinary community has responded. These sled dogs are unique in what they do and how they do it, and clinical study after clinical study has been undertaken to advance the science of canine care.

This openness has provided a pathway for animal rights activists. Marjorie Glickman, of Miami, Fla., visited a dog kennel in Alaska and decided to devote her life to ending the Iditarod — and perhaps all dog mushing in Alaska. She founded the Sled Dog Action Coalition (SDAC). Study of this entity, with Ms. Glickman as director, leads to little information aside from the fact that it is based in Miami. No board of directors or staff is noted, nonprofit tax filings are not to be found.

Whether this is an actual organization or merely Ms. Glickman, no national media attention on the Iditarod is safe from comment by the SDAC. If a small-town newspaper in Idaho highlights the adventures of a local musher competing in the Iditarod, the SDAC will most likely cut-and-paste tales of woe into the online comment section and direct readers to the SDAC’s website. And what a website it is.

The SDAC website inundates its visitors with more than 871 bulleted comments designed to create the impression that the Iditarod overflows with inhumane mushers who beat, kick, bite and even eat their dogs. Any aberrant behavior seen in the race’s history is projected onto every current musher. Medical studies that conclude that disease or injury “may” be attributable to the race are headlined stating that the condition “is” attributable to the race. Quotes are taken out of context to further the goal of ending the sport of sled dog racing. Practices of 40 years ago are presented as if they still occur. Even the experiences of mushers not participating in the Iditarod are presented over and over again as if they apply.

What is clearly missing from the SDAC website is perspective. There have been 41,296 individual starts by sled dogs; 852 mushers have completed the Iditarod. Even the sensitive subject of dog deaths needs to be considered against the historical density of sled dogs that have run this race. For illustration, if we assume that all of these dogs average 10 days on the trail, they have spent almost 12 million hours racing. This is hardly scientific, but perhaps it adds context to the claims made by the SDAC.

Ms. Glickman and the Sled Dog Action Coalition wish to end the Iditarod. They actively target sponsors and gleefully report every sponsor who buckles under activist pressure. It is a sad irony that they seek to end the best avenue for continuing to improve the lives of sled dogs. Poor dog yard conditions, the rejection of aberrant behavior and deliberate cruelty will best be addressed by a healthy and responsive Iditarod.

Veterinarian Emi Berger was a volunteer veterinarian and was interviewed by Randi Weiner of The Journal News on March 31, 2011. Ms. Glickman picked 13 words out of a 932-word article. Under the headline “Stomach ulcers are common,” Dr. Berger is quoted; “This year, the most common thing I saw was pneumonia and stomach ulcers.”

I will offer a few more words from Dr. Berger’s interview; “The … questions I get asked all the time are ‘Is it cruel?’ and ‘Are they cold?’ ‘Do they like it?’ When that dog is dropped off, they’ll howl. They want to be out (running). That’s all they want,” she said. “It’s like a Labrador wanting to play ball. It’s the ultimate fun thing for them to do.”

Perhaps Marjorie Glickman missed that quote?

Mike Kinville was born in Sitka, spent 24 years in the Alaska Army National Guard and retired in 2007. He works on Fort Wainwright as a contracted supply technician.

This article was published in-full on Restoring Liberty with permission from Author.