At Least 19 Firefighters Dead Fighting Arizona Wildfires (+video)

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Photo Credit: Cece N Mando Aguirre

Photo Credit: Cece N Mando Aguirre

By Fox News 10. Prescott Fire Department confirmed 19 firefighters have died while battling the Yarnell Hill Fire on Sunday night. They’re part of the Prescott Granite Mountain Hotshots.

The firefighters reportedly got near the front lines of the fire and somehow the fire changed direction and they became caught up in it.

We’re told they tried to get under their protective covers, but didn’t make it.

The wildfire was likely caused by a lightning strike Saturday night.

The Yarnell Hill Fire, about 35 miles southwest of Prescott, has burned about 2,000 acres and forced the evacuation of 50 homes. Read more from this story HERE.

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19 firefighters dead in Yarnell Hill Fire

By Jackee Coe and Laurie Merrill. Arizona forestry officials confirmed Sunday night that 19 firefighters have died in the Yarnell Hill Fire that has ripped through half of the town, sent residents to Prescott for safety and given the state its worst wildfire firefighter tragedy.

“It’s a dark day,” said Mike Reichling, Arizona State Forestry Division spokesman.

Reichling said the 19 firefighters were found in an area that also had 19 fire shelters deployed. Some of the firefighters were inside a shelter, which is typically used as a last resort to withstand the fire as it blows over. Some of the crew members were found outside the shelters.

Officials said 18 of the dead were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots team. It’s unknown which fire crew the 19th firefighter belonged to. The firefighters are part of a team that is typically sent in first to help cut off the fire, Reichling said.

“They were up there doing what they normally do,” he said. Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine: “Are We Moving Toward Tyranny or Liberty?” (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

United States Representative Jim Bridenstine, R-Oklahoma, took a minute on Friday to lambast Obama’s fundamental transformation of America, contending that we are rapidly moving away from liberty, toward tyranny:

The president decided to raise energy prices on all Americans, which adversely affects the poor the most and he didn’t ask Congress. The president decided to unilaterally reduce our strategic nuclear deterrent when more countries than ever have nuclear weapons, no treaty that would require consent of the Senate. The president has decided which health insurance plans the people are allowed to have. The president didn’t ask congress or the people for that matter. The list goes on.

In America, we are either moving more towards liberty or more towards tyranny. Well I think, we should ask ourselves what tyranny would look like in the United States of America. An executive branch that picks and chooses which laws it wants to enforce. A judicial branch that would allow to do so on grounds of the executive branch did not defend the laws in the court. The legislative branch would have very limited power because they turned it all over the president and the people would feel like they had no representation.

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Greenwald: NSA Can Store One Billion Phone Calls Per Day, Intent is to “Destroy All Privacy” (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald hasn’t published the story yet, but he gave the Socialism Conference in Chicago a big taste of his next reveal:

The National Security Agency can store one billion phone calls each day.

Speaking to a raucous audience via Skype on Friday, Greenwald said the NSA’s “brand-new technology” gives it the power to “redirect into its own repositories one billion cell phone calls every single day.”

“But what we’re really talking about here is a globalized system that prevents any form of electronic communication from taking place without its being stored and monitored by the National Security Agency,” Greenwald said. “It doesn’t mean that they’re listening to every call; it means they’re storing every call and have the capability to listen to them at any time, and it does mean that they’re collecting millions upon millions upon millions of our phone and email records.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Nation’s First Monument to Atheism on Government Property Erected: “It’s Only the Beginning” (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A monument to atheism now sits near a granite slab that lists the Ten Commandments outside a courthouse in a conservative north Florida town.

The New Jersey-based group American Atheists unveiled the 1,500-bound granite bench Saturday as a counter to the religious monument in what’s called a free speech zone.

Read more from this story HERE.

Nation’s Oldest Leftist Weekly Demands President’s Impeachment Over Mass Surveillance

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

In the pages of The Nation, the oldest continuously published weekly in the country and the self-described “flagship of the left,” a former member of the House of Representatives has called for the impeachment of the president over revelations of massive government surveillance of ordinary citizens.

Democrat Elizabeth Holtzman of New York, who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate era, powerfully yet dispassionately lays out the case for the immediate impeachment of the president.

“Nothing less is necessary to protect our constitutional system and preserve our democracy,” she declares.

The last straw for the retired Congresswoman was the revelation that the president “directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans” (a number that is likely conservative).

“As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment,” writes Holtzman in her bombshell treatise. “A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law — and repeatedly violates the law — thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office.”

[Editor’s Note: This piece is somewhat satirical. The Nation link above is directed to a 2006 article calling for Bush’s impeachment. Restoring Liberty contacted the author who stated the following: “go to the piece in The Nation. Each time you see Bush, insert Obama — particularly in the parts about mass surveillance. Does the case for impeachment still apply? If so, what does that say about the character and credibility of The Nation?”]

Read more from this story HERE.

After Being Deceived by Rubio on Amnesty, Conservatives Say it Won’t Happen Again

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Many conservatives gave Sen. Marco Rubio the benefit of the doubt when he said securing the border first was a top priority for the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform effort. Later, when those conservatives realized that Rubio’s plan would first legalize the country’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, and only then put new border security measures in place, they expressed deep disappointment and disillusionment.

Now the Gang bill has passed the Senate and immigration is the work of the House, where former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan is a leading reform advocate. Ryan favors the same legalization-first sequence for immigration reform that Rubio and the Gang did. The difference is that now, more conservatives are aware of the basics of reform proposals. And that means Ryan might be in for a rougher ride with the conservative base than Rubio experienced.

That, at least, is one conclusion to take from Ryan’s appearance last Wednesday on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. Hannity interviewed Rubio several times during the Gang of Eight deliberations. In later interviews, Hannity became more skeptical and questioning, and in the last such interview expressed surprise that Rubio had declared legalization would come before border security. With Ryan in the interview chair, the first thing Hannity wanted to know was when securing the border would come in the sequence of immigration reform.

“I’m sure you are aware, a lot of conservatives including myself are angry,” Hannity told Ryan. “No border security first. How do you feel about it?”

Ryan stressed that the House would not take up the Senate Gang of Eight bill. “We want to have real triggers on the border, real triggers on what we call the E-Verify,” Ryan said. But Hannity wanted to know if that meant border security would come first: “Is securing the border first a top priority for you?” he asked.

Read more from this story HERE.

After Obama Says He Won’t Talk to World’s Leaders about Snowden, He Has Biden Contact Ecuador’s President (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Vice President Biden personally intervened in the case of Edward Snowden, calling Ecuador’s president to urge him to reject the NSA leaker’s asylum request.

The move comes after President Obama on Thursday said he had not phoned world leaders on the matter because he “shouldn’t have to” — and because he doesn’t want to start “wheeling and dealing” with other nations to extradite a “hacker.”

But as the stalemate dragged on, Biden on Friday phoned Ecuador’s Rafael Correa. It marked the highest-level conversation between the U.S. and Ecuador that has been publicly disclosed since Snowden began seeking asylum from that country.

Read more from this story HERE.

Chair of the RNC Pushes Amnesty Bill as “Human Rights Issue”

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Photo Credit: Chris Usher

Photo Credit: Chris Usher

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Saturday pitched a gathering of Hispanic public officials on the GOP’s support for immigration reform, characterizing the call for tougher border control as a human rights issue.

“We need a solution that strengthens families. We need a solution that expands economic opportunity. And one of the reasons we need improved border security — that is not mentioned enough — is to further prevent violence and drug trafficking… and the brutal human trafficking and exploitation of women and girls,” he said at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference.

Priebus added that it’s “important that Republicans are taking a lead in this policy discussion.”

The Senate on Wednesday passed an immigration reform bill, 68-32, with every Democrat and 14 Republicans voting in favor.

In its current form, however, the bill has little chance of passing the House, as Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said he won’t bring a package to the floor that doesn’t have the support of a majority of Republicans in the lower chamber.

Read more from this story HERE.

82% of Americans Agree Founding Fathers Would be Unhappy With Feds

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Photo Credit: cliff1066™

Photo Credit: cliff1066™

As Independence Day approaches, most Americans think the Founding Fathers would have had a sad celebration this year.

A Fox News poll asks voters what the Founding Fathers would think of Washington these days: Fully 82 percent think they would be unhappy with how things are going there.

That includes 96 percent of those who identify with the Tea Party movement, 95 percent of Republicans, 88 percent of independents and 68 percent of Democrats.

Democrats (23 percent) are about six times as likely as Republicans (4 percent) to think the Founding Fathers would be pleased.

Meanwhile, more than three-quarters of voters (77 percent) believe the United States would be a better country if we followed the ideas of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution more closely.

Read more from this story HERE.

Edward Snowden May Be the Last of the Human Spies

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Photo Credit: Colin Anderson

Photo Credit: Colin Anderson

Kurt Vonnegut once opined: “Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power.” That power corrupts is hardly debatable. For that reason, the evolution of espionage has run in parallel with the development of organised tribes of human beings that we now refer to as countries.

Human nature makes it predictable that organisations such as the NSA would be cataloguing phone calls and other electronic interactions between humans. But Edward Snowden’s revelations also tell us how far electronic snooping has yet to go. While the din of outrage still resonates, we should be thankful that Snowden – a human being – actually exists. In the future, the world may never be alerted to such breaches of privacy because there will be no humans involved in spying at all. Just as algorithms have conquered our stock markets and our musical tastes, so too will they conquer surveillance. Even the most human of tasks, snooping, will become the province of the bots.

While it’s true that the surveillance Snowden spotlighted is of a new and digital variety, it still required human levers to give it any meaning. The NSA, for example, using its call log data, would take an interest in people who repeatedly dialled the phone numbers of known troublemakers. Human agents would query the call-logging database and find out who a prime target in Yemen might be speaking with inside the US. The data is collected passively and electronically, but much of the intelligence and the methods to derive it come straight from human minds. But what will happen when a machine makes the rules?

In the late 1940s, Vonnegut observed how General Electric was replacing human machinists with computer-operated milling machines to cut rotors for jet engines. This passing of duties from humans to bots led Vonnegut to imagine a world where human chores of all manners would cease being the labour of men and become strictly the work of machines. Power and income, then, would be concentrated among the few who controlled the machines. Snowden and the teams of analysts at the NSA, CIA and GCHQ who sit in front of our stores of electronic intelligence will hardly be necessary in 15 years. Algorithms will have replaced them, leaving only a few humans, like General Keith Alexander of the NSA, left to watch the house.

Read more from this story HERE.