Judge Grants Exemption for Hobby Lobby in ObamaCare Challenge

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By Associated Press. Hobby Lobby Inc. was given a temporary exemption Friday from a requirement in the new federal health care law to offer insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency birth control methods or face steep fines.

U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton issued the preliminary injunction for the Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts chain and stayed the case until Oct. 1 to give the federal government time to consider filing an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ruling was welcomed by the Christian owners of Hobby Lobby and its sister company, the Mardel Christian bookstore chain. Attorneys for the Green family have argued that their religious beliefs are so deeply rooted that having to provide every form of birth control would violate their conscience.

“We’re just very excited. This is a great step for us,” Hobby Lobby president Steve Green said.

Members of the Green family say they believe life begins at conception, and oppose birth control methods that can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, such as an intrauterine device or forms of emergency contraception. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: WNDCourts prevent feds from enforcing abortion-drug mandate

By WND. A federal court Friday granted a preliminary injunction to Hobby Lobby, preventing the Obama administration from enforcing the Obamacare abortion-drug mandate against the Christian-run company while the case is in progress.

The case brought by Hobby Lobby is just one of dozens pending in courts now over the Obamacare demand that employers provide abortifacients to their employees – irrespective of whether such actions violate the employers’ beliefs.

The Becket Fund, which is representing the company, said the court found there is a “substantial public interest in ensuring that no individual or corporation has their legs cut out from under them while these difficult issues are resolved.”

“The tide has turned against the HHS mandated,” said a spokesman for the organization.

Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, said every American, including family business owners, should be free to live and do business according to their faith. Read more from this story HERE.

Iran’s Mullahs Demand Justice for Trayvon – Really

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Photo Credit: APIran’s foreign ministry on Friday criticized the acquittal of George Zimmerman and chastised the United States for widespread “racial discrimination.”

“The acquittal of the murderer of the teenage African American once again clearly demonstrated the unwritten, but systematic racial discrimination against racial, religious, and ethnic minorities in the US society,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Araqchi was quoted as saying by Iran’s state run Fars News Agency.

“The court ruling has also seriously put under question the fairness of the judicial process in the United States,” Fars reported Araqchi as saying.

Iranian officials said that Zimmerman’s trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin should have been conducted in a more “accurate and fair” manner.

“Several months on since a probe was launched [into the murder], the public opinion in the U.S. and across the world expect transparency, an accurate and fair judicial investigation into the case, with due regard to human rights principles for American citizens and a ban on discrimination against minorities in the country,” Araqchi said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Another Conservative Black Pastor Weighs in on Zimmerman, Calls Jackson and Sharpton ‘Race Hustlers, Poverty Pimps’ and Says Trayvon Martin was a Thug (+video)

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Photo Credit: CNNThe Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, president of the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny (BOND), a conservative nonprofit, made some contentious statements on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” on Thursday. In addition to lambasting Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson for inserting race into Trayvon Martin’s death and George Zimmerman’s subsequent trial, he called the 17-year-old shooting victim a “thug.”

The exchange began with Peterson claiming that race played no role in the highly-publicized tragedy.

“This case was not about race at all and what happened – you have the race-hustlers and poverty pimps like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and others who turned it into a race issue in order to gain power and wealth,” he charged.

Read more from this story HERE.

Charles Barkley: I Agree with the Zimmerman Verdict (+video)

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During an interview with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley made a few surprising comments about the Zimmerman verdict and racism:

Well, I agreed with the verdict. I feel sorry that young kid got killed. But they didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. Something clearly went wrong that night. Clearly something went wrong and I feel bad for anybody who loses a kid, but if you looked at the case and you don’t make it — there was some racial profiling, no question about it. But something happened that changed the dynamic of that night, and I know that’s probably not a popular opinion among most people but just looking at the evidence I agreed with the verdict.

I just feel bad because I don’t like when race gets out in the media because I don’t think the media has a pure heart, as I call it. There are very few people who have a pure heart when it comes to race. Racism is wrong in any, shape, form. There are a lot of black people are racist too. I think sometimes when people talk about racism, they say only white people are racist. There are a lot of black people who are racist. I don’t like when it gets out there in the media because I don’t think the media has clean hands.

Secret Court OKs Continued US Phone Surveillance Program for Another Three Months (+video)

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By Fox News. The secret intelligence court that signs off on giving the U.S. government the authority to monitor hundreds of millions of telephone records has renewed the government’s request to do so for another three months.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced Friday its authority to maintain the program expired on July 19 and that the government had sought and received a renewal from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

National Intelligence Director James Clapper announced the new order.

The surveillance program has been under intense scrutiny since June, when former CIA employee and National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of two top secret U.S. surveillance programs that critics say violate privacy rights. Read more from this story HERE.

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Secret Court Renews NSA’s Phone Records Collection

By Todd Beamon. The FISA Court in Washington oversees U.S. surveillance programs. It consists of 11 federal judges, all whom have been appointed by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

The White House disclosed the FISA’s stamp of renewed approval of the court order in an effort at greater transparency after former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of the National Security Agency’s secret U.S. surveillance programs to the media.

But bipartisan criticism continues to mount on Capitol Hill over the NSA’s collection and stockpiling of millions of Americans’ phone records without individual warrants or suspicions of connections to terrorism.

“By renewing the FISA court order, the Obama administration would reconfirm its support for the dragnet collection of telephone metadata, despite public outcry,” Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, told The Guardian newspaper of London.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, said the White House should have let the Verizon order expire. Read more from this story HERE.

Military Will Not Rescind Reprimand for Airman Who Criticized West Point Homosexual Marriage

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsThe Utah Air National Guard will not rescind the reprimand of an airman who complained last year about a gay wedding at West Point Chapel that he believed violated the Defense of Marriage Act, the airman’s attorney tells Fox News.

TSgt. Layne Wilson, a 27-year veteran of the military, was formally reprimanded for an email he wrote last December to the chaplain at West Point and his six-year reenlistment contract was reduced to a one-year contract.

John Wells, an attorney representing the airman, said the military coerced his client into signing the one-year extension after they cancelled medical benefits for his wife – who is suffering from stage four breast cancer.

“It would seem to me that cancelling the medical benefits for a sick cancer victim to coerce an underling to sign an illegal contract constitutes cruelty and maltreatment under the Utah Code of Military Justice,” Wells said. “This type of action is unconscionable and I would expect the Guard to initiate an investigation surrounding the case.”

Wilson, who is a devout Christian and has religious objections to gay marriage, found himself in trouble after he wrote an email to the chaplain at West Point.

Read more from this story HERE.

Disaster for Patient Care Looming: 60% of Doctors Say Providers will Retire Earlier Due to Obamacare

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Photo Credit: WNDIn a survey by a top research firm, six in 10 physicians said it is likely many doctors will retire earlier than planned in the next one to three years.

The same percentage say the practice of medicine is in jeopardy as medical experts lose control of their clinics and compensation with the implementation of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, or Obamacare.

A spokeswoman for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Jane Orient, was not surprised.

She told WND that doctors already have started leaving the profession through early retirement. Among those who remain, some will seek alternatives to what they see coming in the federal government’s takeover of health care.

“I think it’s a disaster for patients,” she said. “They may lose the doctor they relied on all their lives.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Largest Municipal Bankruptcy in History on Hold: Judge Says it’s Illegal (+video)

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Photo Credit: Dale G. YoungBy Gary Heinlein. Ruling the governor and Detroit’s emergency manager violated the state constitution, an Ingham County Circuit judge ordered Friday that Detroit’s federal bankruptcy filing be withdrawn.

“It’s absolutely needed,” said Judge Rosemary Aquilina, observing she hopes Gov. Rick Snyder “reads certain sections of the (Michigan) constitution and reconsiders his actions.”

The judge said state law guards against retirement benefits being “diminished,” but there will be no such protection in federal bankruptcy court.

State-level legal skirmishing over the Chapter 9 bankruptcy effort by Snyder and Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr now will quickly move to the Michigan Court of Appeals. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Fox Confusion in Detroit as judge challenges legality of bankruptcy

By Fox News.The ongoing crisis in Detroit took another — and confusing — turn Friday after an Ingham County judge ruled the city’s historic bankruptcy filing violates the state’s constitution and must be withdrawn.

“I have some very serious concerns because there was this rush to bankruptcy court that didn’t have to occur and shouldn’t have occurred,” Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said Friday in a spate of orders arising from three separate lawsuits.

There was no immediate response from Detroit Emergency Manger Kevyn Orr, who filed the bankruptcy document Thursday, and no indication if city officials planned to take any action in response to Aquilina’s ruling.

Aquilina said Michigan’s constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees, including those in the city of Detroit. She added that Gov. Rick Snyder and Orr overstepped their authority and violated state law by proceeding with the bankruptcy filing because they knew the outcome could affect benefits to thousands of Detroit residents. Read more from this story HERE.

Court Says Tracking by Cell Phone Signal Off Limits

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Photo Credit: WNDAmid revelations that the National Security Agency and others have monitored Americans’ cell phone calls, a state court has affirmed the privacy rights of cell phone users.

The decision this week by the New Jersey Supreme Court in the case of Thomas W. Earls applies only to residents of the state, but it is being watched as a possible bellwether in the surging dispute over the government’s surveillance powers.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center said the decision is the first to “establish a constitutional right in location data since the U.S. Supreme Court decided United States v. Jones, a GPS tracking case in which several justices expressed concern about the collection of location data.”

In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled police could not attach a tracking device to a suspect’s vehicle and follow him without probable cause and a warrant.

In the Earls case, the court upheld that “individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell phone location data.”

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP House Leadership Abandons Defense of Marriage

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Photo Credit: APThe Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are no longer planning to defend traditional marriage at the federal level.

By their own admission in a case challenging the definition of “spouse” as applied to veterans’ benefits, lawyers for the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, or BLAG, controlled by House Republicans, announced Thursday they will “no longer defend” the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, in federal court.

Documents hosted by BuzzFeed in the case of McLaughlin v. Panetta reveal GOP House attorneys essentially believe the Supreme Court has settled the issue.

“The Windsor decision necessarily resolves the issue of DOMA Section 3′s constitutionality in this case,” BLAG attorneys wrote. “While the question of whether 38 U.S.C. § 101(3), (31) is constitutional remains open, the House has determined, in light of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Windsor, that it no longer will defend that statute.

“Accordingly,” the lawyers filed, “the House now seeks leave to withdraw as a party defendant.”

Read more from this story HERE.