Genuine Animosity Rules As Booker, Lonegan Hit Homestretch For U.S. Senate (+video)

Photo Credit: Lincoln Park – Newark NJMudslinging has reached a fever pitch in the race for U.S. Senate in New Jersey.

During Wednesday night’s contentious debate, Democrat Cory Booker accused his opponent of being tea party extremist, while Republican Steve Lonegan said Booker is nothing but a Hollywood stand-in for President Barack Obama.

The Senate showdown will continue until voters go to the polls next week, CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reported Thursday.

Newark Mayor Booker took time out from his campaign to announce that upscale supermarket Whole Foods will open a branch in his city, a branch, officials said, that will charge “affordable” prices for local residents.

“If you have an impossible dream; if you have an impossible dream, don’t give up,” Booker said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Family Calls 911 for Medical Help, Cops Show Up and Kill Son (+video)

Photo Credit: WTEV-ScreenshotA Georgia family claims they called 911 in order to get medical help for a member of the family suffering an adverse reaction to diabetes medication.

But instead of an ambulance, the dispatcher sent two police officers, who proceeded to shoot and kill the 43-year-old Jack Lamar Roberson in front of his mother and fiance.

“They just came in and shot him,” said Roberson’s fiance, Alicia Herron, in a statement to First Coast news. “He didn’t say nothing, the police didn’t say nothing, anything, it was like a silent movie. You couldn’t hear anything, all you could hear were the gun shots go off and I seen them going into his body and he just fell down.”

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Watchdog: NYC Mayor’s Race Could Affect School Choice

Photo Credit: ijreviewNew York City’s public charter schools are at stake in November’s mayoral election.

While Democrat candidate Bill de Blasio says he will charge rent to the 108 charter schools running in Department of Education-owned buildings — which charter school proponents and operators say would be devastating — Republican candidate Joe Lhota plans to double the number of charter schools and allow them to continue running rent-free.

Neither campaign returned repeated calls for comment.

New York City’s 183 charter schools, which accept students based on a lottery drawing, serve 70,000 students.

Read more from this story HERE.

Michelle Obama’s ‘Just Move!’-Inspired Stamps Halted Due to Safety Concerns

Photo Credit: Letsmove.govThe U.S. Postal Service halts its Michelle Obama-inspired “Just Move!” stamp series because many of the children depicted in the stamps aren’t wearing safety gear, The Daily Caller reported.

“The stamps are on hold with the printer and we have not made a decision at this point, right now, with respect to how we are going to move forward,” a USPS spokesman told the website.

Read more from this story HERE.

Suit: Woman Suffered Broken Bones At Hands Of Skokie Cop (+video)

Photo Credit: CBSA Chicago woman is suing the village of Skokie, claiming one of its police officers used excessive force that left her in need of surgery.

Cassandra Feuerstein admits to driving drunk when she was picked up in March but says her treatment by Skokie Police Officer Michael Hart was unnecessary.

In a civil rights lawsuit, Feuerstein claims Officer Hart shoved her into a concrete bench – breaking bones in her face and that required a titanium plate.

Read more from this story HERE.

Teacher Accused of Urging Students to Fail Test Resigns

Photo Credit: Candie_N (Welcome Spring)An Ohio teacher accused of instructing her gifted students to fail an exam has reportedly resigned.

Heather Campbell, 39, was in her second year teaching fifth and sixth grade students at Waggoner Road Junior High School, the Columbus Dispatch reports. District investigators said Campbell encouraged student to fail a science pretest by drawing pictures of a cat or rock or to answer the question using texting shorthand such as LOL.

The investigation was launched in September after a parent called the school when her child said Campbell asked the class to “do poorly” on the pretest. Of the 68 tests, 54 were considered “not sufficient attempts,” mostly because students scribbled or drew pictures in the short-answer response questions, the newspaper reports.

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Limbaugh: Obama’s Approval Down to 37% and Republicans Still Think They’re Losing?

Photo Credit: Rush Limbaugh RUSH: So Bo Snerdley walks into my compound here, broadcast facility, oh, I guess about an hour ago. And he’s somewhat stuttering, trying to pay me a compliment. He says, “How did you… I mean, well, I know you know, but how did you… how did you…” I said, “What are you talking about?”

“How did you know we were winning this?” He had just seen the AP story with Obama’s approval rating at 37%. Grab sound bite number two. Barack Obama’s approval rating at 37%. That fact is in an AP story. Would you like to hear the headline of that AP story? I have it right here my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. “Poll: GOP Gets The Blame In Shutdown.” And then if you read the story, you find out that as an incidental item, the president of the United States’ approval number is at 37%.

This is before that insulting, juvenile, petulant, spoiled-rotten little kid press conference from yesterday, about which there was not one question asked about Obamacare and its rollout. Not one question in that presser yesterday. We have also learned that the Park Service and Obama okayed a pro-amnesty immigration reform rally on the National Mall that is closed to everybody else, including World War II vets. Nancy Pelosi and a number of Democrats, who are, I think, in a time warp, a bunch of them went over there and got arrested as though this is still the 1960s. John Lewis got arrested. Charlie Rangel got arrested, as though it’s some badge of honor to get arrested. These people are totally tone-deaf.

The president’s at 37%. The shutdown is going on. Now we learn that five military families were insulted profoundly with the way the deaths of their service member relatives were treated. Folks, it is obvious that this administration is acting purposely to inconvenience and to harm people it considers its political enemies. Why in the world, in the middle of this, when you’re losing, why call that press conference yesterday and why go out there and keep saying, “I’m willing to negotiate” and this sort of thing, why do that on the same day that you are permitting — I mean, you talk about a thumb in the eye. You talk about almost being spat upon to allow the closed — because of the shutdown — National Mall to open up for a pro-amnesty immigration rally. The people allowed in there were illegal. They were not American citizens.

Meanwhile, outside the fences, not permitted in, American citizens, World War II vets and their families are not allowed to go to the World War II Memorial. And the Democrats and the media and the president somehow think that this is adding up to their benefit? Here’s Pelosi yesterday. Grab sound bite 13. This is Pelosi yesterday on the National Mall during a rally in favor of amnesty, comprehensive immigration reform.

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House Republicans Eye Short-Term Debt Ceiling Fix, Ahead of White House Meeting

Conservative lawmakers are exploring the possibility of a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, perhaps trying to seize the opening after President Obama said a day earlier he would consider the option.

Members of the Republican Study Committee, the most conservative bloc in the House, told Fox News they’re looking at that possibility. Their inclination is to consider a short-term increase only if there is an agreement on a broader spending framework.

But the option could help buy time for lawmakers to nail down the specifics of a longer-term deal. The U.S. government is facing what the Treasury Department says is an Oct. 17 deadline to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

Though a short-term deal would by definition be only a stopgap fix, the development Wednesday pointed to at least a sliver of possible common ground — something to potentially work toward, after nine days of a partial government shutdown during which lawmakers seemed to mostly talk past one another.

“Clearly, Republicans want to avoid default,” Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said, adding they also want to cut spending.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Bigger Battle Behind the Shutdown

Photo Credit: saul loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesAt its core, the shutdown is part of a much bigger battle to restrain the federal government. It is spending $3.6 trillion per year without a budget, and its expenditures are expected to increase rapidly in the years ahead.

Meanwhile, the government has piled up $17 trillion in debt and $60 trillion more in unfunded spending promises. The Federal Reserve will borrow $1.1 trillion in 2013 alone to buy bonds—and it reserves the right to borrow unlimited amounts for future bond purchases without congressional or presidential permission.

These are crisis-level problems. Whether the government is open or closed, they are surely grounds for immediate talks between the president and Congress on ways to pare ineffective federal programs, restrain spending and reduce borrowing.

Ducking governance decisions year after year will leave the U.S. too weak to face global challenges. Big government has meant slow growth, painfully high youth and minority unemployment and falling median incomes—except in the Washington, D.C., area, which recent census data show is growing ever richer.

Under current law, the federal government and Federal Reserve are in a sharp upward trajectory in their power and the riskiness of their policies. Federal domination of the economy and financial markets is only increasing. The government shutdown reflects a Republican demand for permanent new checks and balances—to restrain a government that spends wildly without a budget, buys $1 trillion per year in overpriced bonds from an already-rich Wall Street, and micromanages federal medical care but exempts unions and Congress from the sting of regulations that affect others.

Read more from this story HERE.

End the Tyranny

Over the last week we have witnessed unprecedented steps taken by our imperial President and his allies in the Democratically-controlled Senate to inflict pain on the American people.

Consider the spectacle of the administration spending money and resources in this time of dire fiscal crisis to enforce a shutdown of the World War II and Marine Corps Iwo Jima memorials, going so far as to threaten our elderly veterans with arrest if they dared to visit these monuments built in their honor.

Undoubtedly, these actions have consumed more time, energy and resources than would have been expended by simply leaving them open to the public.

On Saturday, Todd Starnes of Fox News reported that the administration has threatened to arrest contract chaplains for the military should they offer religious rites to our soldiers.

And across the country, national forests, parks and boat landings are closed to public use, including barricades set up to keep tourists from viewing Mount Rushmore. How patriotic is that?

Here in Alaska the federal government is denying hunters access to federal lands, which have remained open during previous shutdowns.

In North Carolina, the Mt. Pisgah Inn, a family-owned business on land leased from the federal government on the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, was ordered to close despite the fact that the Parkway remained opened.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Saturday that private citizens were forced by federal agents to evacuate their own homes inside the Lake Mead National Recreation area.

Armed Rangers at Yellowstone National Park detained tourists in their hotel, in order to keep them from catching a glimpse of the “closed” Old Faithful. Foreign visitors with the group thought they were being arrested.

Federal agents also prevented their tour bus from stopping to take pictures of buffalo on their way out of the park, and forbade the use of private restroom facilities during their 2.5 hour drive.

It was further reported recently on the Mark Levin radio program that federal employees were expressly told to “make the shutdown as painful as possible.”

Make no mistake about it, we are witnessing the birth-pangs of 21st Century tyranny!

We cannot allow “the last best hope of man on earth” to be subjugated to the whim and will of despotic government action, be it by the Congress, the President, or an overreaching federal bureaucracy.

Our Founders knew that the object of JUST government was the protection of God-given Rights.

Sadly, Alaska’s Senator Mark Begich has joined Barack Obama and Harry Reid’s contemptible campaign to make this government shutdown as painful as possible.

When constituents tried to reach out to his office this past week, they received only a voice mail telling them that there would be no service until the government was funded.

You can listen to the voice message below

One might be able to excuse Mr. Begich if other senators weren’t still serving their constituents, even under the funding shortfall.

Senator Mike Lee’s office informed us that every office was given the choice of whether they would provide constituent services. Senator Lee has made the choice to do exactly that, as has the rest of Alaska’s Congressional delegation.

If Mark Begich is more interested in playing political games than serving the people of Alaska, it is time for him to find a new line of work. With your help, we can send Senator Begich packing.

Senator Begich is now running radio ads calling the patriots who would save us from the devastating consequences of Obamacare “knuckleheads.”

It’s time for new representation in Washington. It’s time to serve the good of all, including our children who will pay the steepest price for Congress’ reckless behavior.

If I am elected to the United States Senate, I will confront the increasingly lawless Obama Administration and work tirelessly to restore the birthright of all Americans: to live in a land where our Constitutional freedoms are secure, and all are free to pursue their God-given dreams to the best of their ability.

I can’t do this without your help; but together, we can accomplish great things for the country we love.

Thank you for your support.