Veteran Congresswoman Hammers IRS Contractor’s Questionable Veteran’s Disability Claim (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

At a House oversight hearing Wednesday on “questionable contracting practices at IRS,” Illinois Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth hammered an IRS contractor for claiming a suspect veterans disability to get a competitive advantage for his business.

Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran and double amputee eviscerated Braulio Castillo, the CEO of Strong Castle, Inc., who used an injury he sustained at a military prep school to qualify for a veterans disability, 27 years after the fact.

“I’m sorry that twisting your ankle in [prep] school has now come back to hurt you in such a painful way — if not also opportune for you to gain the status for your business as you were trying to compete for contracts,” Duckworth said.

According to a report on the matter House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa released Tuesday, Braulio Castillo was able to get a designation under the VA’s Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business program for his business — as a result of the injury he sustained at U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School, which he attended for one year.

Castillo went on to play football as a quarterback at San Diego City College and later played at the University of San Diego.

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Homosexuals Flock to California City Halls for Marriages; Last Minute Appeal Filed to Stop Ceremonies (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Same-sex couples dressed in jeans, shorts, white dresses, and the occasional military uniform filled San Francisco City Hall on Saturday as clerks resumed issuing marriage licenses one day after a federal appeals court removed the last obstacle to making gay marriage legal again in California.

But lawyers for the sponsors of California’s same-sex marriage ban have filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the federal appeals court.

Attorneys with the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom said they submitted the petition on Saturday to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who handles motions dealing with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Senior Counsel Austin Nimocks says a three-judge 9th Circuit panel acted prematurely and unfairly when it lifted the hold on same-sex marriages it had put in place while a challenge to the ban made its way through the courts.

Nimocks says the Supreme Court’s consideration of the case is not done yet because his clients still have 22 days to ask the justices to reconsider their decision holding that Proposition 8′s backers did not have legal authority to defend the ban.

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Doctors Perform Thousands of Unnecessary Surgeries (+video)

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Photo Credit: Kevin Moloney

Photo Credit: Kevin Moloney

Tens of thousands of times each year, patients are wheeled into the nation’s operating rooms for surgery that isn’t necessary, a USA TODAY review of government records and medical databases finds. Some … fall victim to predators who enrich themselves by bilking insurers for operations that are not medically justified. Even more turn to doctors who simply lack the competence or training to recognize when a surgical procedure can be avoided, either because the medical facts don’t warrant it or because there are non-surgical treatments that would better serve the patient.

The scope and toll of the problem are enormous, yet it remains largely hidden. Public attention has been limited to a few sensational cases, typically involving doctors who put cardiac stents in patients who didn’t need them.

In fact, unnecessary surgeries might account for 10% to 20% of all operations in some specialties, including a wide range of cardiac procedures — not only stents, but also angioplasty and pacemaker implants — as well as many spinal surgeries. Knee replacements, hysterectomies, and cesarean sections are among the other surgical procedures performed more often than needed, according to a review of in-depth studies and data generated by both government and academic sources.

Since 2005, more than 1,000 doctors have made payments to settle or close malpractice claims in surgical cases that involved allegations of unnecessary or inappropriate procedures, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the U.S. government’s National Practitioner Data Bank public use file, which tracks the suits. About half the doctors’ payments involved allegations of serious permanent injury or death, and many of the cases involved multiple plaintiffs, suggesting many hundreds, if not thousands, of victims.

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School District Receives Grant for Students to Indoctrinate Parents About Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Heartland

Photo Credit: Heartland

The Los Angeles Unified School District will use a state grant to train teens to promote ObamaCare to family members. Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange, announced grants of $37 million on May 14 to promote the nationally unpopular law.

LAUSD will receive $990,000. The district listed as a primary outcome for its project, “Teens trained to be messengers to family members.”

Covered California spokeswoman Sarah Soto-Taylor said staff have not questioned this goal.

“We have confidence that the model LA Unified brought to the table will be successful in reaching our target population, which includes family members of students,” she said.

LAUSD will also use tax-paid staff to promote ObamaCare through phone calls to students’ homes, in-class presentations, and meetings with employees eligible for ObamaCare’s taxpayer-covered healthcare, the grant award says.

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Jimmy Carter Compares Catholic Church to Islam on Women’s Rights

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says religious leaders, including those in Christianity and Islam, share the blame for mistreatment of women across the world.

The human rights activist said Friday religious authorities perpetuate misguided doctrines of male superiority, from the Catholic Church forbidding women from becoming priests to some African cultures mutilating the genitals of young girls.

Carter said the doctrines, which he described as theologically indefensible, contribute to a political, social and economic structure where political leaders passively accept violence against women, a worldwide sex slave trade and inequality in the workplace and classroom.

“There is a great aversion among men leaders and some women leaders to admit that this is something that exists, that it’s serious and that it’s it troubling and should be addressed courageously,” Carter said at an international conference on women and religion.

The 39th president is hosting representatives from 15 countries at The Carter Center, the human rights organization he launched in 1982 after leaving the White House.

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Student Buys Bottled Water, Gets Thrown in Jail

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Photo Credit: dotjay

Photo Credit: dotjay

When a half-dozen men and a woman in street clothes closed in on University of Virginia student Elizabeth Daly, 20, she and two roommates panicked.

That led to Daly spending a night and an afternoon in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Her initial offense? Walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream just purchased from the Harris Teeter in the Barracks Road Shopping Center for a sorority benefit fundraiser.

A group of state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents clad in plainclothes approached her, suspecting the blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water to be a 12-pack of beer. Police say one of the agents jumped on the hood of her car. She says one drew a gun. Unsure of who they were, Daly tried to flee the darkened parking lot.

“They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform,” she recalled Thursday in a written account of the April 11 incident.

“I couldn’t put my windows down unless I started my car, and when I started my car they began yelling to not move the car, not to start the car. They began trying to break the windows. My roommates and I were … terrified,” Daly stated.

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Ann Coulter Flips, Turns on Chris Christie Over Amnesty Bill

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Conservative firebrand and best-selling author Ann Coulter has changed her tune and flip-flopped on her support for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

In a Thursday tweet, she wrote: “@GovChristie’s dead to me.”

The tweet came on the heels of Republican Sen. Jeffrey Chiesa’s vote to end debate on the immigration reform bill. Mr. Chiesa was appointed to the seat by Mr. Christie after Sen. Frank Lautenberg died.

At the tail of her tweet, Ms. Coulter also added: “Jeffrey S. Chiesa R NJ votes ‘Aye’ on Amnesty bill.”

The denouncement is a major turn for Ms. Coulter, who pushed hard for Mr. Christie to run for president against Barack Obama in 2011. In February of 2011, she told Fox News: “I don’t care if [Chris Christie] wants to run, his country needs him, it appears.”

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Alaska Volcano Eruptions Get Worse: `We Can’t Explain’ Says Geologist (+video)

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volcanoAlaska volcano eruptions are entering a more powerful phase. After six weeks of Alaska volcano eruptions reaching five miles into the sky, covering nearby communities with ash and shutting down air flights, there looks to be no end.

Alaska volcano eruptions 2013 started in May at the Pavlof Volcano, which is located about 590 miles southwest of the major city Anchorage, in the Alaska Peninsula. The most powerful phase of Alaska volcano eruptions started with low-level rumblings.

According to scientists at the federal-state Alaska Volcano Observatory, the latest phase of Alaska volcano eruptions started late on Monday and continued through the night into Tuesday. The blasts emanate from the crater of a 8,261 foot volcano.

Tina Neal, an geologist at the observatory said, “For some reason we can’t explain, it picked up in intensity and vigor.”

In May, Alaska volcano eruptions sent a smaller ash cloud 15,000 feet into the air. The ash was visible for miles. Residents were worried that it would damage power generators.

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Students: Professor Forced us to Wear ‘Gay’ Ribbons

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Photo Credit: gernhaex

Photo Credit: gernhaex

Several students are demanding a Tennessee community college psychology professor be disciplined for persistently pushing her pro-”gay” views on her students and even forcing students to identify themselves as in favor of the LGBT agenda in a mandatory project.

The Alliance Defense Fund is representing the students who objected to the classroom tactics of Columbia State Community College professor Linda Brunton. The students say any views opposed to Brunton’s were not welcome, and any opposition to the homosexual agenda was considered to be the thinking of “uneducated bigots” who “attack homosexuals with hate.”

But one assignment in particular triggered the protests.

“She assigned the class to wear rainbow coalition ribbons in support of homosexual behavior for at least a day on campus and wherever they went off campus. Students then had to write a reaction paper from wearing those ribbons and how they were allegedly discriminated against while wearing the ribbons,” Alliance Defense Fund attorney David Hacker told WND. “Several students contacted us, just objecting to this. It’s a very clear case of a government official, a state college professor, compelling students to speak in a way they disagree with.”

Hacker said it’s fine for teachers to have students consider ideas from different perspectives, but Brunton clearly crossed the line.

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How Long is Alec Baldwin Going to be Given a Pass For His Homophobic Rants?

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Photo Credit: Irish Central

Photo Credit: Irish Central

Has Alec Baldwin finally skewered the wrong herd of sacred cows?

Alec Baldwin had another one of his legendary foul mouthed meltdowns the other day, complete with his usual “four letter word” demeaning of individuals, including threats of physical violence.

Although this emotional outburst wasn’t directed at a child this time, it was directed at another familiar target, a working class “little person” trying to make a living.

The “Tourette Syndrome like” actor’s venom was directed at a gay journalist who had the temerity to report Baldwins wife used twitter while attending James (Tony Soprano) Gandolfini’s funeral in New York. That report has since been found to be incorrect due to different interpretation of time zones.

See obscenity/homophobic laced Baldwin tantrum here on E News.

Although Baldwin has repeatedly insulted America with his language throughout his career….He seems to have a “get out of jail free” card that lets him slip away unscathed.

The reason for the gentle treatment of Baldwin is that he is a member of the Hollywood left wing elite, “Limousine Liberal Division,” who never have to answer for their conspicuous consumption or outrageous behavior.

But perhaps this time Baldwin went a bridge too far revealing in a Rorschach test like manner, what his true inner feelings were with his gay slurs and crude homophobic remarks.

In this day of intolerance under cover of being tolerant, will the left finally have to admit the Alec Baldwin elephant in their “tolerant” living room is a bigot and must be dealt with severely?

If past performance is any predictor of the future, Alec Baldwin will skate because he is a lefty

But in a flagrant show of the brutal double standard that is the lefts guiding star, another celebrity is now being publicly crucified for one word she said over 30 years ago.

Paula Deen, a celebrity cook and television personality while under oath during legal questioning, was asked by an attorney if she ever used the racial slur “N” word in her life?

Deen replied yes she did, she uttered it almost almost 30 years ago. See Paula Deen story here.

Since Paula Deen is not politically correct and not a member of the Hollywood “Limousine Liberal” class, a firestorm of outrage erupted in all corners of the media.

A firestorm over one word she uttered 30 years ago has cost her major financial sponsors and her very popular television show….It looks as if her 20 million dollar food empire is threatening to collapse, due to an orchestrated outrage directed at her by a left tilting media machine.

Does anybody grasp the utter hypocrisy of all of this? Or is it just me and 100 million or so other aware Americans?

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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.