U.S. Attack Would Spark ‘Ball of Fire’ in ‘Whole Middle East,’ Syrian Official Warns

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Syrian government warned the United States not to launch any military action against Damascus over an alleged chemical attack, saying such a move would set the Middle East ablaze.

“The basic repercussion would be a ball of fire that would burn not only Syria but the whole Middle East,” said Syria’s Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi in an interview with Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV, dismissing the likelihood of American military intervention. “An attack on Syria would be no easy trip.”

The Syrian government also accused rebels of using chemical weapons Saturday. The accusations by the regime of President Bashar Assad against opposition forces came as an international aid group said it has tallied 355 deaths from a purported chemical weapons attack on Wednesday in a suburb of the Syrian capital known as Ghouta.

Syria is intertwined in alliances with Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and Palestinian militant groups. The country also borders its longtime foe and U.S. ally Israel, making the fallout from military action unpredictable.

Violence in Syria has already spilled over the past year to Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters have joined the combat alongside Assad’s forces.

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Gov. Mike Pence Delivers Weekly GOP Address: How Obamacare Hurts Jobs (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

GOP: In the Weekly Republican Address, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana discusses how Obamacare is “costing jobs, discouraging investment, and making the future bleak for too many families” nationwide. Unlike the Washington-knows-best mandates in Obamacare, Gov. Pence explains how his state has “lowered costs and improved outcomes” by “letting freedom and personal responsibility work together” through “a nationally–recognized program called the Healthy Indiana Plan.”

GOV. MIKE PENCE:

“Hello, I’m Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
“These are difficult days for too many Americans. Our economy isn’t growing as fast as we would like, and businesses aren’t creating as many jobs as we need. In states like Indiana, we’re working every day to give people more freedom to grow their businesses, but the over-regulation, higher taxes and new mandates coming from Washington, D.C. are stifling our economy and hurting efforts being made in states across the country.

“Everywhere I go in Indiana, I meet business owners and workers who are in survival mode. They’re trying to figure out how to survive the new normal of more regulations, higher taxes and the impending costs and mandates of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

“As implementation of this law gets closer, we are learning more about the burdens it will place on hardworking Americans. In Indiana, the Affordable Care Act will raise the average cost of health insurance in the individual market by an unaffordable 72 percent…

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Investigators Believe 8-Year-Old Intentionally Killed 90-Year-Old Woman (+video)

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Photo Credit: WAFB

Photo Credit: WAFB

East Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s Office officials say they believe an 8-year-old intentionally pulled the trigger and killed an elderly woman Thursday evening right after playing ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’. Although they believe it was an intentional crime, according to Louisiana law the child will not be charged.

In what is now being called a homicide, the Sheriff’s Office says it happened at the Country Breeze mobile home park on LA 67 near Slaughter, LA just after 5 p.m.

Investigators said they found a woman with a gunshot wound to the head. She was pronounced dead at the scene. According to family members of the victim, her name was Marie Smothers. Smothers was 90 years old.

In a release from the Sheriff’s Office, it says although the child initially told investigators that he accidentally shot Smothers while playing with a firearm, the investigation has led them to believe the child intentionally shot her. Smothers was shot in the back of the head while she was in the living room watching television.

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DOJ Tries to Stop School-Choice for Poor Children in Failing Louisiana Public Schools

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. Justice Department is trying to stop the state from distributing school vouchers in any district that remains under a desegregation court order.

In papers filed Saturday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, the Justice Department said Louisiana distributed vouchers in 2012-13 to nearly 600 public school students in districts that are still under such orders, and “many of those vouchers impeded the desegregation process.”

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal called the department’s action “shameful” and said President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder “are trying to keep kids trapped in failing public schools against the wishes of their parents.”

“The Obama administration thinks parents should have to seek their approval any time parents want to send their child to a school of their choice,” Jindal said in a news release. “After generations of being denied a choice, parents finally can choose a school for their child, but now the federal government is stepping in to prevent parents from exercising this right. Shame on them. Parents should have the ability to decide where to send their child to school.”

Louisiana has 70 school districts, and 34 remain under desegregation court orders, many of which are decades old.

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Donald Trump, ‘Trump University’ in $40 Million Lawsuit for ‘Deception at Every Stage’; Trump Says Suit is Political Extortion

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

New York’s attorney general sued Donald Trump for $40 million Saturday, saying the real estate mogul helped run a phony “Trump University” that promised to make students rich but instead steered them into expensive and mostly useless seminars, and even failed to deliver promised apprenticeships.

Trump shot back that the Democrat’s lawsuit is false and politically motivated.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says many of the 5,000 students who paid up to $35,000 thought they would at least meet Trump but instead all they got was their picture taken in front of a life-size picture of “The Apprentice” TV star.

“Trump University engaged in deception at every stage of consumers’ advancement through costly programs and caused real financial harm,” Schneiderman said. “Trump University, with Donald Trump’s knowledge and participation, relied on Trump’s name recognition and celebrity status to take advantage of consumers who believed in the Trump brand.”

But Trump’s attorney accused Schneiderman of trying to extort campaign contributions from the real estate mogul through his investigation of Trump. Attorney Michael D. Cohen told The Associated Press on Saturday that Schneiderman’s lawsuit was filled with falsehoods. Cohen said Trump and his university never defrauded anyone.

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Rush Limbaugh: Nobody listens to Obama

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Rush Limbaugh doesn’t think it’s his fault that Republicans aren’t listening to President Barack Obama; the way he sees it, no one is listening to the president anymore.

“I think that nobody is listening to Obama anymore. I don’t think he commands nearly the attention or the interest that he [did] and so what he’s doing is going back to the greatest hits,” the conservative radio host said on his Friday show. “And like if you’re in a radio station losing audience, you’ll play hits … stop the new age stuff and go play the hits. Well he’s going back and he’s recycled this idea that Republicans are not cooperating with him because they’re afraid of what I’m going to say about him.”

Limbaugh scoffed at the notion that the GOP walks on egg shells when around him, insisting that the conservative lawmakers weren’t listening to him.

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Union: EPA Carbon Regulations Costing Jobs

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A Pennsylvania local union officer argued last week that hundreds of families will lose their jobs due to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) anti-coal agenda, according to the Pittsburg Post-Gazzette.

Raymond C. Ventrone, business manager of the Boilermakers Local 154 union, explained that the coal industry has already invested millions of dollars in clean air technology. Even though coal usage tripled in the last 30 years, sulfur dioxide levels fell by 56 percent thanks to this new technology.

However, according to Ventrone, the EPA disregarded these innovations by the coal industry.

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Sebelius Says Amnesty Needed to Increase Obamacare Enrollment

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Speaking Thursday at an event in Philadelphia, hosted by a Latino community service group, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius revealed that the success of ObamaCare is dependent upon the passage of comprehensive immigration reform and amnesty.

Susan Jones at CNS News reported Friday that, when asked if the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) will help “undocumented individuals,” Sebelius responded that it would not, and that this is the reason why immigration reform is so important.

“Well, the (Obamacare) bill is crafted in such a way that those who are undocumented will not have access to the tax credits or shopping in the (health insurance) marketplace,” Sebelius told Latinos at an event sponsored by Congreso. “That has been limited, which is, frankly, why — another very keen reason why we need comprehensive immigration reform.”

Sebelius went on to say, “Unfortunately, you can’t fix – we won’t fix the immigration system, unfortunately, through the health care bill, but I think having the immigration bill that passed the Senate, pass the House, would be a huge step.”

The immigration bill that passed the Senate would allow at least 11 million illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. First, however, they would gain provisional legal status.

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Martin Luther King’s Son: Trayvon Murdered Because He was Black (+video)

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Photo Credit: breitbart

Photo Credit: breitbart

On Saturday, Martin Luther King III, son of the civil rights icon, used a rally that honored the 50th anniversary of the Reverend Doctor’s “I Have a Dream” to politicize and inject race into the tragic death of Trayvon Martin, asserting he was killed because of the color of his skin.

“Sadly, the tears of Trayvon Martin’s mother and father remind us that far too frequently the color of one’s skin remains a license to profile, arrest, and to even murder with no regard to the content of one’s character,” Martin Luther King III declared. “Regressive ‘stand your ground’ laws must be repealed.”

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The Sportswriter who Blogged his Suicide

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

Martin Manley hated waking up early, but on his 60th birthday he did — or more likely, never went to sleep the night before.

At 5 a.m. he entered a police station parking lot in a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas, walked to a spot beneath a tree on its far south end and pulled out his phone.

He dialed 911.

He said this:

“I want to report a suicide at the south end of the parking lot of the Overland Park Police Station at 123rd and Metcalf.”

Then, the blogger and former sports reporter for the Kansas City Star pulled out his Saturday Night Special, a .380 pistol, and shot himself in the head.

Read more from this story HERE.