Establishment Betrayal, Other Factors Leading Republicans to Abandon Party Label

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Photo Credit: legalinsurrectionThis week, The Frontier Lab published the results of months of research into why some Republicans are refusing to go by the label “Republican,” choosing to identify as anything but. I was the Research Director for this study, which applied a research approach called “Behavioral Event Modeling,” which essentially reverse engineers and maps all events that precede an individual’s disaffiliation…

The results were fascinating; after combining the flowcharts from individuals who share conservative or moderate views and no longer will use the label “Republican” to describe themselves, we ascertained four core patterns that they had in common:

1. Rejection of the “Lesser of Two Evils” argument;
2. Articulation of “Loss of Hope” in the GOP;
3. Affiliation with a new community, and
4. Incident of perceived betrayal by the GOP establishment.

…Disaffiliation from the Republican label is not only, or even primarily, a matter of philosophical differences. Rather, the perception of former Republican adherents that their party has personally attacked them, continued to present choices as a “lesser of two evils,” select candidates and principles unpalatable to voters to the point where they retain “no hope,” and failed to provide the sense of community that other outlets like talk radio and the Tea Party provide, reveal that ideology takes a back burner to what is essentially a hollow brand for those disaffiliating.

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IRS’s Lois Lerner Who Claimed She “Did Nothing Wrong,” Wants Full Immunity to Testify

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Photo Credit: APEmbattled IRS official Lois Lerner will not testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee unless she’s given immunity from prosecution, her lawyer told POLITICO Tuesday.

“They can obtain her testimony tomorrow by doing it the easy way … immunity,” William W. Taylor III said in a phone interview. “That’s the way to resolve all of this.”

The comments reflect the hard-line approach Lerner, the former head of the IRS division that scrutinized conservative groups, and her legal team are taking in defending her role in the agency’s scandal.

Taylor, a founding partner of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, is even shrugging off the possibility that the full House might vote to hold Lerner in contempt.

“None of this matters,” he said. “I mean, nobody likes to be held in contempt of Congress, of course, but the real question is one that we’re fairly confident about, and I don’t think any district judge in the country would hold that she waived.”

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Arizona Schools Getting $465k Grant from Islamic Group With Muslim Brotherhood, Terror Ties

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Photo Credit: YouTubeLast week, the governing board of the Tucson Unified School District asked the school board to accept a $465,000 curriculum grant from the Qatar Foundation International, a global philanthropic organization with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of the terrorist group Hamas.

The grant money is intended to implement “innovative curricula and teaching materials to be used in any Arabic language classroom,” reports the Arizona Daily Independent.

Two Tucson schools, Safford K-8 Magnet School and Cholla High Magnet School, will be the recipients of the infusion of the terror-infested cash, according to Tucson News Now.

About 100 students at Cholla High Magnet School are learning Arabic. At Safford K-8 Magnet School, 125 students are learning the language.

Last year’s grant for Arabic language from the Qatar Foundation was $55,000.

Read more from this story HERE.

GSA Parody Videos Released by Watchdog Group (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeA conservative watchdog group released more than a half-dozen movie parody and comedy skit videos Tuesday that were removed from the General Services Administration website last year after a scathing inspector general report revealed the agency overspent taxpayer money on a lavish Las Vegas conference.

Judicial Watch used the federal Freedom of Information Act to obtain the videos, which include costumed GSA employees in parody movies scenes from “Rocky,” “The Godfather,” and “Mission Impossible.”

In the parody of “Rocky,” senior GSA officials lead employees on an extended jog through the corridors of the agency’s New York office and the streets of Manhattan, with the movie’s theme music playing. In another video, officials and employees participate in an elaborate “Jeopardy” game show parody, complete with theme music, light-up board and canned audience applause.

The group says it was tipped off about the videos from GSA whistle blower Linda Shenwick.

“This latest round of extravagant and embarrassing GSA videos is further evidence of a bloated federal government completely out of control,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

[Here’s a lengthy compilation of the skits. At about 7:50, you can watch a senior GSA employee rap, and at about 11:00, enjoy a GSA version of Jeopardy. And there’s much more, if you have the time to watch it]

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Obama Quietly Replacing US Ambassador Who Allegedly Trolled European Parks to Molest Children

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Photo Credit: Moyan_BrennPssst, did you hear? President Obama is replacing Ambassador Howard Gutman in Belgium. You remember Ambassador Gutman, don’t you? He’s the big Democrat donor President Obama nominated to represent his policies in Belgium and who, it is alleged, trolled for prostitutes — some of them children! — in a park near his official residence.

Late in the day on Friday, June 21, the White House released a list of new nominees for various posts, and Denise Bauer was listed for the United States Ambassador to Belgium post. For the cynics, this is similar to a Friday night document dump — a strategy the Obama Administration employs to release controversial information or items unflattering to them after the nightly news cycle is over and most people tune out for the weekend.

Denise Bauer was the Finance Chair of Women for Obama during the last election and served on the Obama for America National Finance Committee for the 2008 and 2012 elections. She was also a donor and a bundler. According to the New York Times, Bauer has raised $4,367,187 for Obama since 2007.

In a speech on May 5, 2013, Ambassador Gutman announced that he was leaving the post. CBS News reported about a month later that a memo obtained from the Department of State (DOS) Inspector General’s (IG) office noted that the DOS has known about the prostitution rumors since 2011, but higher-ups in the DOS stopped the investigation of Ambassador Gutman. He was allowed to remain America’s representative to Belgium for two more years, and, if the speech is any indication, he is leaving with his head held high, even amidst rumors that his pants had been around his ankles during much of his tenure.

The biographical information about Gutman on the website says he was a “Special Assistant to F.B.I. Director William H. Webster, focusing on counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence.” What do you think counter-intelligence officers from other countries would do with information that a U.S. Ambassador bought prostitutes of all ages in a park in Belgium? Can you say “blackmail”? His background seems to imply he should have known how risky and stupid actions like that could be, and yet, if the rumors prove true, he jettisoned his judgment in favor of his sexual proclivities.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democracy on Display as Millions of Egyptians Celebrate Ouster of President Morsi

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Photo Credit: Life News

Photo Credit: Life News

With a solemn speech and flanked by scores of leaders, Egypt’s top General announced the military has peacefully removed President Morsi from power.

The announcement was greeted by thunderous cheers from millions in the streets of Egyptians major cities. Citizens were proclaiming they do not want sharia law and a Muslim religious state shoved down their throat…. but they do want a democratically elected secular government. Many felt Morsi was chipping away at democratic freedoms and was steering Egypt towards a religious state.

The General claimed during his speech, the military had been trying to broker an agreement bringing all sides of Egypt’s factions together to discuss a new government, but Morsi rejected these efforts.

As a result the military stepped in today to remove Morsi and appoint the Chief Justice of Egypt’s Supreme Court as interim leader until new elections can be held.

Since Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood have been in power, an undeclared war on Christianity has been waged forcing over 200,000 Coptic Christians to flee the country.

Under Morsi, poverty has massively increased, murder and robbery have risen dramatically and the economy is in a death spiral….One of Egypt’s mainstays of its economy, tourism, has tanked because visitors were not safe.

Granted, Egypt’s economy wasn’t doing well when Morsi took over, but he took a bad economy and made it much worse increasing the suffering.

What we are witnessing is democracy in action at the most basic level…people taking to the streets to protest the way their government is working. It may not be pretty, but it is the catalyst that has established change throughout the world when a government does not respect the will of the people.

Lets hope that Egypt can take this opportunity to elect a government that is looking out for the best interests of the people, in a peaceful way.

On this July 4,perhaps the leaders in Washington can take a hint from the events in Egypt and listen to the growing chorus of voices who do not like the direction our country is being directed.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

House Republicans Launch Investigation Into Employer Mandate Delay

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

House Republicans said Wednesday they are launching an investigation into the Obama administration’s decision to delay the “employer mandate” provision in the new health care law.

Members of the Energy and Commerce Committee argued the White House’s consultations with business leaders ahead of Tuesday’s announcement were conducted in secret and raise questions about the administration’s ability to carry out other facets of the Affordable Care Act.

“Just as the law was crafted out of sight from the American people, the administration is again taking care of some interests behind closed doors while struggling Americans are left to pay for the looming rate shock and grapple with the law’s complex mandates,” said committee Chairman Fred Upton, Michigan Republican.

The employer mandate required businesses with more than 50 workers to offer insurance to all full-time employees, or else pay a fine of $2,000 per worker. Business lobbied heavily against the mandate, and now it will not go into effect until after the 2014 mid-term elections.

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NSA Accused of Breaking More Rules to Spy on Citizens

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Much like some of the nation’s biggest gangsters have been taken down by the fine print – tax rules and the like – over the generations, it now appears that the National Security Agency’s massive spy-on-citizens scheme could unravel because officials reportedly failed to follow the rules.

The challenge is being raised by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which started protesting the NSA surveillance plans a few weeks ago, and promises to renew the protest every week until something happens.

It points out that the NSA’s search and copy functions regarding Americans and their telephone or other records, “also constitutes a legislative rule that ‘substantively affects the public to a degree sufficient to implicate the policy interests animating notice-and-comment rulemaking.”

What that means is that the organization believes the Administrative Procedures Act requires the NSA to open up its surveillance strategy for a public comment period – before it legally could begin those search and copy functions.

“Accordingly, the NSA’s collection of domestic communications, absent the opportunity for public comment, is unlawful,” the letter to NSA chief Keith Alexander and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel explains.

Read more from this story HERE.

Red, Divided and Blue Fly This Independence Day

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

It seems entirely revealing, if dispiriting, that the days before the July Fourth holiday showed Red America and Blue America pulling apart at an accelerating rate.

Of all of our national holidays, Independence Day is the one most intimately rooted in our common history and shared experience. Yet this year it arrives against a background of polarization, separation, and confrontation in the states and Washington alike. With municipal politics as the occasional exception, the pattern of solidifying agreement within the parties—and widening disagreement between them—is dominating our decisions at every level.

On almost all of our major policy choices, the common thread is that the election of 2012 did not “break the fever” of polarization, as President Obama once hoped it might. Last November, Obama became only the third Democrat in the party’s history to win a majority of the popular vote twice. But congressional Republicans, preponderantly representing the minority that voted against Obama, have conceded almost nothing to his majority—leaving the two sides at a stalemate. Meanwhile, beyond the Beltway, states that lean Democratic and those that lean Republican are separating at a frenetic pace.

Consider a few recent headlines. The Supreme Court decision upholding the lower-court invalidation of California’s Proposition 8 restored gay marriage in the nation’s largest state. It also capped a remarkable 2013 march for gay marriage through blue states, including Delaware, Minnesota, and Rhode Island (with Illinois and New Jersey possibly joining before long). The consensus is solidifying fast enough that 2014 could see several blue-state Republican gubernatorial candidates running on accepting gay-marriage statutes as settled law. Former California Lt. Gov Abel Maldonado, a likely 2014 GOP gubernatorial contender who this week reversed his earlier opposition to support gay marriage, may be an early straw in that breeze.

The story in red states, though, remains very different. Almost all of them have banned gay marriage.

Read more from this story HERE.

Human Liver Grown Inside a Mouse

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Photo Credit: Takanori Takebe/PA

Photo Credit: Takanori Takebe/PA

A human liver has been grown inside a mouse, giving hope that patients could receive new organs created from their own skin cells within a decade.

The breakthrough would eradicate donor waiting lists and the risk of the body rejecting a replacement organ.

Japanese scientists used stem cells to create liver ‘buds’ within mice which grew into a piece of human tissue measuring 5mm.

It is hoped the work carried out by researchers at Yokohama City University could also be used to grow other replacement organs.

‘This science opens up the distinct possibility of being able to create mini-livers from the skin cells of a patient dying of liver failure that, when transplanted, would not be subjected to immune rejection as happens with conventional liver transplants today,’ said Prof Malcolm Alison, stem cell biologist at Queen Mary, University of London.

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