House Votes to Limit Homeland Security’s Gun Ammunition Buys

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Photo Credit: M. Spencer Green

Lawmakers voted late Wednesday for limits on the amount of ammunition that can be purchased by the Department of Homeland Security.

The measure — a proposal to amend the DHS spending bill — came by way of Republican Rep. Mark Meadows and passed 234-192, The Associated Press reported. The amendment prohibits taxpayer dollars from being sent to DHS for ammunition buys unless the agency first sends a report to Congress detailing its previous like purchases.

The report must also include the agency’s past ammunition usages, AP reported.

Read more from this story HERE.

New York Times: Obama Has Lost All Credibility; Phone Surveillance Was Tipping Point for Gray Lady

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New York Times editorial board says administration has ‘lost all credibility’

By Fox News. The New York Times editorial board, which twice endorsed President Obama and has championed many planks of his agenda, on Thursday turned on the president over the government’s mass collection of phone data — saying the administration has “lost all credibility.”

The grey lady’s editorial section lately has shown frustration with the administration’s civil liberties record. It has criticized the escalation of the lethal drone program, and it lashed out after the Justice Department acknowledged seizing reporters’ phone records last month.

The report that the National Security Agency has been collecting phone records from millions of Verizon subscribers appeared to be the last straw.

An editorial published late Thursday said the administration was using the “same platitude” it uses in every case of overreach — that “terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us.”

The editorial continued: “Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility.” Read more from this story HERE.

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New York Times Editorial: President Obama’s Dragnet

By The Editorial Board. Within hours of the disclosure that federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue [Editor’s note: the New York Times altered this sentence by adding the words “on this issue” after the initial posting; see Mr. Howerton’s article below]. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.

Based on an article in The Guardian published Wednesday night, we now know that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency used the Patriot Act to obtain a secret warrant to compel Verizon’s business services division to turn over data on every single call that went through its system. We know that this particular order was a routine extension of surveillance that has been going on for years, and it seems very likely that it extends beyond Verizon’s business division. Read more from this story HERE.

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Hannity Slams the New York Times for quietly altering it’s scathing Obama editorial

By Jason Howerton. The New York Times created a stir on Thursday when it published a scathing editorial, slamming the Obama administration for its drastic domestic surveillance efforts. The “administration has lost all credibility,” it read.

But it was only a few hours before the Times quietly altered that harsh statement, adding the words “on this issue.” Though a small change, it completely changes the meaning of the sentence…

Fox News host Sean Hannity caught the sneaky edit and slammed the publication for once again caving to protect President Obama. Read more from this story HERE.

The Face of Obamacare Failure: John Edwards Will Resume Suing Medical Providers

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Photo Credit: Irish Central

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, famously said on the eve of the vote for Obamacare: “To find out what’s in the bill, we’ll have to pass the bill”

Well Ms Pelosi, we know what is not in the bill: Any real attempt to get the legal industry’s snouts out of the country’s multi hundred billion dollar medical care system. Because of this and other failures to reform skyrocketing costs of healthcare, Americans are starting to reject Obamacare. See story

The trial lawyer lobby, which is a stalwart supporter and funder of the Democrat party, made sure no real tort reform would be contained in Obamacare. The Heritage Foundation wrote a revealing article on this unnecessary burden by tort lawyers…and the fear of tort lawyers who increase the cost of healthcare by at least 200 billion per year See article

One of the highest profile lawyers who has preyed on the healthcare industry in the past, is Democrat Senator and presidential contender John Edwards. Yesterday Edwards announced he is opening up his law practice to resume his lucrative career of suing healthcare, after taking a hiatus for his political ambitions. See USA Today

After suffering national scandal for an affair and an out of wedlock child while his wife was suffering from cancer, Edwards evidently missed the percs the income from his malpractice lawsuits brought him in the past…Such as a 30,000 square foot mansion and all of the attendant wealth that lifestyle brings.

At the core of John Edwards extravagant wealth and lifestyle, has been his ability to successfully convince gullible juries that a medical misstep, an honest mistake, or really nothing at all, by a doctor or hospital, is enough to reward his plaintiffs tens of millions of dollars.

Edwards’s courtroom antics went as far as to dramatize the events at birth by speaking to jurors as if he were the unborn baby, begging for help, begging to be let out of the womb. One of those cases saw him hit the jackpot for 23 million See Washington Times story

But the dirty little secret behind Edwards and others like him, is that all Americans subsidize their wealth.

Of course tort lawyers like John Edwards can claim they do a lot of good by weeding out incompetence and dangerous medical practices. But many in the healthcare industry dispute that and claim they do great harm to healthcare.

In reality, if the designers of Obamacare were serious about checking runaway healthcare costs, their main target would have been the revamp of the medical malpractice tort system at all levels.

Easy to understand changes could have been incorporated into Obamacare to stop the abuse of the system; such as creating medical/legal boards with the ability to suspend healthcare providers personally found to be incompetent or dangerous. These same boards could be responsible for awarding damages to victims of medical malpractice, without going through lawsuits and the resultant out of proportion judgments.

Make it easier to fine/imprison CEO’s and directors of pharmaceutical, medical device companies who market products that harm the public, or do not do the job they promise. Make responsibility and punishment personal, instead of impersonal.

With a few changes and safeguards in place, malpractice suits could easily be capped by what regional medical/legal boards decide to be the real costs of damages.

But none of these reforms are in Obamacare and lawyers like John Edwards will take advantage of that fact, as we are all forced to pay the exorbitant costs of medical care that are baked into the Obamacare cake.

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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.

The ‘Strange’ IRS Audit of a Romney Fundraiser and Her Extended Family

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

The Internal Revenue Service’s political targeting might not have been limited to a few “rogue Cincinnati agents” or even organizations seeking nonprofit status. A major Mitt Romney fundraiser and campaign official — along with her husband and three other family members — all a visit from the taxman in 2012.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, Kit Moncrief, a big-money fundraiser and state chair in Texas for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, recounted an unusual telephone call she received from an IRS agent on her personal cell phone in the spring of last year.

“The first place [the agent] called me was on my cell phone,” Moncrief said, explaining that she believed the only place the agent could have accessed the number was from a Romney list. “The number is listed under my husband’s name. She wouldn’t have been able to be able to have my cell phone number because on the IRS form it shows the office number.

“She would have had to have gotten it from the Romney list. That’s the only way I can figure out how she got the number,” Moncrief said.

Read more from this story HERE.

China Hacked Into Obama, McCain Campaigns

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Photo Credit: ALAMY

Hackers, who penetrated the 2008 presidential campaigns of President Barack Obama and his GOP challenger Sen. John McCain, were not the work of a dirty tricks brigade, but rather sophisticated computer spies employed by the Chinese government.

NBC’s “Nightly News” reported the revelation on Thursday’s broadcast, including the fact that the McCain campaign had been “spooked” by a surprising call from a top Chinese diplomat at the time about a letter McCain had written on a campaign computer to the new president of Taiwan.

“The problem was that letter had not yet been delivered,” reported NBC’s Michael Isikoff.

Meanwhile, in Chicago at then Sen. Obama’s campaign headquarters, a “phony” meeting agenda email had been circulated among top campaign staffers with a hidden computer virus.

Obama told reporters at the time: “Hackers gained access to emails and a range of campaign files from policy position papers to travel plans.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Cruz Announces Early Opposition to Obama’s Blame-America-First UN Nominee; McCain Announces Support for Obama Pick

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President Obama’s nominee to replace Susan Rice as the next U.N. ambassador is running into early opposition from conservative Jewish groups and at least one Republican senator, as she prepares for what could be a tough confirmation.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, shortly after Obama nominated Samantha Power, called the selection “deeply troubling.”

Never shy about his views, Cruz bluntly questioned a series of statements Power has made, including a 2003 essay in which she called for the U.S. to institute a “doctrine of the mea culpa” to enhance credibility.

“No nation has spilled more blood or sacrificed more for the freedom of others than ours, and yet Ms. Power has publicly embraces the need for America to continue apologizing to the world for perceived transgressions, going so far as to explicitly urge ‘instituting a doctrine of the mea culpa’,” Cruz said in a written statement.

It’s unclear whether other conservatives will join Cruz or mount a sizeable opposition. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., already has said he would support Power, while other influential lawmakers have not yet offered an opinion on her credentials.

Read more from this story HERE.

Massachusetts Governor Got Drunk, Left Bar Without Paying Tab After Boston Bombing

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Photo Credit: Jared Wickerham

It was a very drunk governor Deval Patrick who sat in a restaurant in the Berkshires for some alone time in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings and ended up drinking heavily, the Boston Herald reported on June 6 after the governor gave a candid talk to employees and revealed that he had become drunk.

At the time, the drunk governor didn’t even have the money to pay for his food or drinks at the West Stockbridge bistro called Rouge. Still drunk, Gov. Patrick left Rouge without paying his bill that night, but he did return at some point later and pay up, said Rouge co-owner Maggie Merelle, who served him.

Merelle, in fact, said that the drunk governor was so well-behaved that she didn’t even realize that he’d had a few too many. The drunk governor wasn’t even tipsy, she said.

But Gov. Patrick has owned up to his heavy drinking that night. “By the end of the meal, I was actually quite drunk, by myself,” he conceded to his employees.

Read more from this story HERE.

Kathleen Sebelius Advocates for GaybamaCare

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This is June, and Barack Obama has transformed a month that used to be about fatherhood and dragging out the barbeque into 30 days of homage to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (and Questioning) pride. That’s right, count ’em: 30 whole days to rejoice in LGBTQ-ness.

Along with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Barack must feel it’s time that fairness be extended to the gay community. That’s why, for those who tend toward melancholy and depression, if ever there were a time to be gay, this would be it. Why? Because in addition to reassuring college grads that free birth control should give them peace of mind and sharing the roster at Girl Scout conferences with late-term abortionists, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wants to commemorate LGBTQ month by making it one of her priorities to actively advocate on behalf of the sexually confused, conflicted, and/or questioning.

When not sending out clandestine e-mails on her secret Obama-established e-mail account, Mrs. Sebelius is about the important business of spreading the word that she’ll be doling out privileges to the LGBTQ community based solely on non-traditional sexual preference. And although she doesn’t expound on exactly how they’ve been pushed to the side, Sebelius feels that “for too long … [LGBTQ people] were pushed to the side.”

To prove how committed she is to preferential treatment for homosexuals, Sebelius has refused to override a policy that will deny help to a dying 10-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis in need of a lung transplant. Because of government regulation concerning adults getting first dibs on adult lungs, the woman who has been integral in directly benefiting victims of HIV/AIDS has declined the opportunity to intervene.

Sebelius concurs that in the case of Sara Murnaghan, it is an “incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies.” So in other words, if you’re 10 years old and your name is Sara Murnaghan and, through no fault of your own, you have a deadly lung disease, you will be “pushed to the side.” On the other hand, if you’ve participated in promiscuous, risky lifestyle choices and simply refused to join the Rubber Revolution or attend Condom University, or if you’re a 12-year-old girl trapped in a 12-year-old boy’s body and desire sex reassignment surgery, by way of GaybamaCare, Kathleen Sebelius will override any policy obstacle that might stand in the way of realizing your dream to be prom queen.

Read more from this story HERE.

Study: Facial Expressions of Unborn Babies in the Womb Show They Feel Pain

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Photo Credit: Life News

A newly-published research study shows unborn children are capable of feeling pain in the womb, as evidenced by the grimaces they show in their facial expressions…

Researchers from Durham and Lancaster Universities in England say unborn babies learn to show pain in their facial expressions as part of the process of fetal development. They took 15 scans of healthy unborn children and found that, when responding to painful stimuli, the babies were capable of one-dimensional expressions of pain in their faces at 24 weeks — such as moving their lips in a negative fashion.

At the 36th week of pregnancy, the researchers found unborn children can perform complex multi-dimensional facial expressions similar to what children make after birth.

Read more from this story HERE.

Admiral on China: ‘We’re in Another Cold War with Another Communist, Totalitarian Regime’

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China is claiming control over the vast majority of the South China Sea in its latest effort to challenge U.S. authority, and President Obama must make it clear that cannot happen, warns retired U.S. Navy Admiral James “Ace” Lyons.

The New York Times recently reported that China is quietly distributing official maps to foreign diplomats showing it controls 80 percent of the South China Sea, considerably more than it has publicly claimed in the past. Six different nations have competing claims for various parts of the sea, which is rich in oil, gas and minerals. If China were recognized as controlling 80 percent of the sea, foreign planes and ships would have to seek permission to enter those critical waters.

Lyons, who served 36 years in the U.S. Navy and completed his career as commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, told WND this simply cannot be allowed to happen, and it’s incumbent upon President Obama to stop it.

“President Obama has to be very clear and let China know we will not tolerate their illegal claims to these vast ocean areas that have been recognized for centuries as international waters,” said Lyons, who argued that Obama has a golden opportunity to set things straight this week when he meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in California. “This will probably be one of the first issues discussed at the summit, and I’m sure that our allies will be watching carefully how President Obama handles this issue.”

According to Lyons, the U.S. Navy policy on the South China Sea has been consistent from the beginning of our nation, and he said China benefits from the longstanding policy as well.

Read more from this story HERE.