Mississippi Bloodbath: 76 Year-Old Cochran Seeks Reelection Against Tea Party

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) announced Friday he would seek reelection to a seventh term in the U.S. Senate.

“I’m comfortable with my decision,” Cochran, who turns 76 years old this weekend, told Gannett on Friday. “I’m looking forward to it. People have been very generous and expressed appreciation. Some have even started sending contributions and helping in that way.”

Tea Party-backed State Sen. Chris McDaniel has already launched a bid for the GOP nomination for Cochran’s seat. In response to Cochran’s announcement, one that surprised most in GOP politics who expected him to retire, McDaniel said he is undeterred. “Sen. Cochran has had a long and distinguished career representing the people of Mississippi,” McDaniel said. “I look forward to a positive campaign based on the future of our state, our country, and the Republican Party. As a strong conservative, I will fight to bring those values to Washington.”

McDaniel has the support of an amalgam of state lawmakers in Mississippi, as several of his state senate colleagues have joined his campaign. He also has the support of conservative organizations throughout the state, plus national conservative support from groups like the Tea Party Express, Club for Growth, Madison Project, FreedomWorks, the Senate Conservatives Fund, and others.

In response to Cochran’s announcement he would be seeking reelection, Club for Growth president Chris Chocola said voters in Mississippi have a “real choice” between someone who is conservative and someone who is not.

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Judge Orders Baker to Serve Gay Couples Despite his Religious Beliefs

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A Colorado judge says a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony must serve gay couples despite his religious beliefs, a ruling that a civil rights group hailed as a victory for gay rights.

Administrative Law Judge Robert N. Spencer ruled Friday that Jack Phillips, the owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver, will face fines if he continues to turn away gay couples who want to buy wedding cakes.

“The undisputed facts show that Respondents (Phillips) discriminated against Complainants because of their sexual orientation by refusing to sell them a wedding cake for their same-sex marriage,” Spencer wrote.

Last year, David Mullins and Charlie Craig visited the Masterpiece Cakeshop to order a cake for their upcoming wedding reception. The couple had planned to marry in Massachusetts and hold a reception in Colorado.

Phillips told the men that he could not bake their cake because of his religious beliefs opposing same-sex marriage. He offered to make them any other baked item, but not a wedding cake. The couple immediately left the shop and later filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division.

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Immigrant Students Seek Georgia’s In-State Tuition Rates

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Photo Credit: stephenhanafin

Photo Credit: stephenhanafin

A judge said Thursday that he needs more information and time to decide the case of a group of young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and want the Georgia university system to grant them in-state tuition.

The roughly three dozen young immigrants have been granted temporary permission to stay in the U.S. under an Obama administration policy introduced last year. They filed a lawsuit in August asking a judge to instruct the university system’s Board of Regents to allow them to qualify for in-state tuition.

At a hearing Thursday, DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony Scott heard arguments on the state’s request to move the case to Fulton County Superior Court because that’s where the Board of Regents is located. Charles Kuck, a lawyer for the young immigrants, argued that the board can be sued in any county where it has a school.

Scott said the arguments were complex and asked both lawyers to submit an additional filing within 60 days.

The Board of Regents has repeatedly said it does not comment on pending litigation.

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Obama Gives Green Energy Cronies Green Light to Kill Eagles for Thirty Years

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Wind EagleThe Obama administration said Friday it will allow some companies to kill or injure bald and golden eagles for up to 30 years without penalty, an effort to spur development and investment in green energy while balancing its environmental consequences.

The change, requested by the wind energy industry, will provide legal protection for the lifespan of wind farms and other projects for which companies obtain a permit and make efforts to avoid killing the birds.

An investigation by The Associated Press earlier this year documented the illegal killing of eagles around wind farms, the Obama administration’s reluctance to prosecute such cases and its willingness to help keep the scope of the eagle deaths secret. The White House has championed wind power, a pollution-free energy intended to ease global warming, as a cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s energy plan.

In other areas, too, such as the government’s support for corn-based ethanol to reduce U.S. dependence on gasoline, the White House has allowed the green industry to do not-so-green things. Another AP investigation recently showed that ethanol has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today.

Under the change announced Friday, companies would have to commit to take additional measures if they kill or injure more eagles than they have estimated they would, or if new information suggests that eagle populations are being affected. The permits would be reviewed every five years, and companies would have to submit reports of how many eagles they kill. Now such reporting is voluntarily, and the Interior Department refuses to release the information.

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Ted Cruz: Obama Disregards the Law Like in ‘Dictatorial Societies’ (+video)

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U.S. Senator Cruz speaks during the fifth annual Washington Ideas Forum at the Newseum in WashingtonBy Patrick Howley

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said that President Barack Obama disregards the law and behaves like the leader of “dictatorial societies.”

The conservative senator, who proudly calls himself a “Wacko Bird” to poke fun at establishment Republican criticisms of him, appeared on Fusion TV’s “America with Jorge Ramos” to accuse the president of outright law-breaking — on his own health-care law.

“One of the most disturbing aspects of the Obama presidency is the willingness of this president to disregard the law, to ignore the law,” Cruz said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Ted Rafael Caroline Cruz By Tal Kopan

Sen. Ted Cruz said while there are some differences between President Barack Obama and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Obama is displaying “dictatorial” tendencies as president.

During an interview by Jorge Ramos on Fusion, the Texas Republican was asked about comments his father has made comparing Obama to Castro and whether the analogy was “fair” and if he’d like to draw a distinction between the two.

“Obviously, there are enormous differences; the United States is not imprisoning and torturing political dissidents,” Cruz said on Wednesday. “But the point my father was making, he was focusing on a sentence that President Obama used in the last two State of the Union addresses where he said, ‘If Congress doesn’t act, I will.’”

Cruz said the line shows how the Obama administration has displayed “disturbing” tendencies similar to a dictatorship.

Read more from this story HERE.

Cruz’s Dad, Son Destined by God

Sarah Palin Reacts to Bashir Resignation (+video)

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Screen shot 2013-12-06 at 1.24.32 AMSarah Palin on Thursday dismissed the attacks of former MSNBC host Martin Bashir, saying in her first comments since his resignation that she’s “used to it.”

“At this point, I’m used to it. That’s kind of a sad state of affairs to have to admit that I am used to it,” Palin said on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”

Bashir quit on Wednesday for comments he made on his Nov. 15 broadcast during which he called Sarah Palin “a world class idiot” and referenced a diary of a former plantation manager who forced a slave to defecate in another slave’s mouth, adding Palin would be an “outstanding candidate” for such treatment.

However, Palin praised the media for criticizing Bashir’s remarks.
“It was refreshing to see though, that many in the media did come out and say, ‘Look our standards have got to be higher than this,’”

Palin said. “Those with that platform, with a microphone, a camera in their face, they have to have some more responsibility taken.”

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Polls Show Increasing Majority of Americans Oppose HHS Abortion Mandate

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Photo Credit: APAs Obama administration supporters struggle to cast religious opponents of Obamacare’s HHS Mandate as waging a war on women ahead of the Supreme Court deciding that controversy next year, polls show Americans support the rights of conscience for business owners who do not want to be complicit in abortion due to their religious faith.

With the Obama White House’s approval, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a regulation interpreting the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employer policies cover “preventive care” to include birth control and abortion-related services. Religious organizations and business owners object to this regulation as a violation of their rights of faith-based conscience, and the Supreme Court will decide the issue early next year in two cases consolidated under the name Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores.


Two new polls reveal growing opposition to the mandate. First is a WPA poll of 801 likely voters commissioned by the Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom, showing that 59 percent of likely voters oppose the mandate, while only 35 percent support the mandate. Second is a Rasmussen poll of 1,000 likely voters, showing 51 percent opposition to the mandate with 38 percent supporting.

The higher number showcasing the unpopularity of this Obamacare regulation in the first poll could be revealing. The wording of the Rasmussen question (the second poll) is: “Should businesses be required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved contraceptives for women without co-payments or other charges to the patient?”

The wording in the Wilson Research (WPA) poll asks essentially the same question, but adds the information that insurance plans must “includ[e] drugs that can destroy a human embryo.” This is because some drugs required by the mandate prevent a human embryo from implanting in the uterus up to 10 days after an egg is fertilized, thereby resulting in its death.

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Obama Claims Health Care Problems don’t Reflect on his Management Style (+video)

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Photo Credit: APPresident Barack Obama said Thursday that problems with the Obamacare rollout don’t mean he needs to change his White House management style.

Instead, the health care mess is indicative of broader problems with the federal bureaucracy that he hasn’t been able to solve, Obama told Chris Matthews during an MSNBC interview.

“The challenge, I think, that we have going forward is not so much my personal management style or particular issues around White House organization,” Obama said. “It actually has to do with what I referred to earlier, which is we have these big agencies, some of which are outdated, some of which are not designed properly.”

Obama said “it was obvious that we needed additional controls in place” before Affordable Care Act enrollment began Oct. 1. Yet he said none of those controls center around the structure and style of his White House.

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Nelson Mandela Dies at Age 95

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Photo Credit: Fox News National leaders and ordinary citizens around the world joined Thursday in mourning Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years as a prisoner in South Africa for opposing apartheid, then emerged to become his country’s first black president, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an enduring symbol of integrity, principle and resilience.

Mandela died “peacefully” Thursday night at 95 at his home in Johannesburg, surrounded by family, according to South African President Jacob Zuma.

Zuma, dressed in black, announced Mandela’s death in a nationally televised address, saying ” Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father. Although we knew that this day would come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss.”

Mandela had spent almost three months in a Pretoria hospital after being admitted in June with a recurring lung infection.

Zuma said the man considered by many as the father of his nation would be accorded a full state funeral.

Read more from this story HERE.

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What You Might Not Have Known About Nelson Mandela

By AP News

The world knows Nelson Mandela as a man who forever changed the course of modern history and who will surely continue to leave his mark long after his death Thursday at the age of 95.

You may know that he spent 27 years in prison, that he led South Africa out of apartheid and that he served as his nation’s first black president.

But did you know about the role of rugby in his legacy? His musings on Valentine’s Day? The lessons he taught sympathetic prison guards during his time behind bars?

Here are some details from Mandela’s life that you might not have known.

FATHER OF THE NATION

Nelson Mandela’s place as South Africa’s premier hero is so secure that the central bank released new banknotes in 2012 showing his face. Busts and statues in his likeness dot the country and buildings, squares and other places are named after him. At Soweto’s Regina Mundi Catholic church, a center of protests and funeral services for activists during the apartheid years, there is a stained glass image of Mandela with arms raised. South African Airways even emblazoned his silhouetted image on planes.

VALENTINE’S DAY

A $1.25 million project to digitally preserve a record of Mandela’s life went online last year at https://archive.nelsonmandela.org. The project by Google and Mandela’s archivists gives researchers — and anyone else — access to hundreds of documents, photographs and videos. In one 1995 note, written in lines of neat handwriting in blue ink, Mandela muses on Valentine’s day. It appears to be a draft of a letter to a young admirer, in which Mandela said his rural upbringing by illiterate parents left him “colossally ignorant” about simple things like a holiday devoted to romance.

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White House Admits Fabricating Story about Obama Meeting his Kenyan Uncle

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Photo Credit: AP/MetroWest Daily News, Allan JungThe White House on Thursday admitted fabricating an earlier claim that President Obama had never met his Kenyan uncle, Onyango “Omar” Obama.

Approximately 3 years ago, as Uncle Omar was fighting deportation following a DUI charge, the White House asserted to The Boston Globe without any apparent qualification that Onyango Obama “has never met his famous nephew.”

That statement was untrue.

Uncle Omar testified at an immigration hearing earlier this week that the younger Obama had briefly lived with him for several weeks in the 1970s.

Read more from this story HERE.