Biden: Brain Surgeon Told Him He Had Less Than 50% Chance of ‘Being Completely Normal’

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Photo Credit: AP

Speaking at the White House National Conference on Mental Health on Monday, Vice President Joe Biden told a sometimes serious and sometimes jocular story about the two brain surgeries he needed in 1988 to deal with cranial aneurysms.

Biden told the White House audience “they take a saw and they cut your head off” and “they literally had to take the top of my head off.” He also recounted that as he was being wheeled into surgery he asked the neurosurgeon, “What are my chances of getting off this table completely normal?” The surgeon told Biden he had a better chance of living—and that that chance was in the 35 to 50 percent range.

“The only totally un-chartered portion of the universe is the brain,” Biden said in his White House speech. “You know, as we used to say in the Senate, excuse the point of personal privilege here: I had two cranial aneurysms, and they literally had to take the top of my head off. I mean, they take a saw and they cut your head off, and go in to find the artery that is–one was leaking, the other that hadn’t, before it burst.

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Lawless Aristocracy for a Dominated People

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A few weeks ago, as the Senate Judiciary Committee was debating immigration reform, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) told everyone the story of Candida Gutierrez, a Houston schoolteacher whose identity was stolen by an illegal alien named Bentia Cardona-Gonzalez. This was a big-time identity heist, as Cardona-Gonzalez opened bank accounts and secured credit cards, a drivers’ license, employment, a mortgage, and health care with her stolen identity over the course of 12 years. Gutierrez’ stolen name even wound up on the birth certificates of the illegal alien’s U.S.-born children. The authorities didn’t catch her; Gutierrez’ husband (the one thing Cardona-Gonzalez didn’t steal!) tracked down the thief and turned her over to the feds.

With this story in mind, Grassley proposed an amendment to immigration reform that would require amnesty-seeking illegals to hand over every name and Social Security number they had used to gain employment in the United States. Grassley’s amendment didn’t explicitly bar identity thieves from receiving amnesty, or mandate their arrest, but would have authorized federal agencies to notify the rightful owners of stolen identities. He called it “the first step to helping clean up the mess that’s been created for the victim of identity theft.”

That was too much for Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who took immigration reform from the youthful hands of Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and turned it into the usual Democrat nightmare of vote-buying giveaways. As chronicled by CNS News, Schumer explained that identity theft is perfectly normal and understandable behavior for those who cross the border illegally. It would be unfair to expect them to comply with any other American laws they find inconvenient, in addition to the one about not violating our border…

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U.S. Gives Saudi Airlines ‘Unrestricted’ Access to American Skies

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Photo Credit: CNS News

The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed an Open Skies agreement that will “permit unrestricted air service by the airlines of both countries between and beyond the other’s territory.”

The agreement means Saudi airlines may fly from any point in the kingdom to any point in the United States, and that U.S. airlines may fly from any point here to any airport in Saudi Arabia.

The deal was signed May 28 in Jeddah by U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James B. Smith and Dr. Faisal bin Hamad Al-Sugair, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Director of the General Authority of Civil Aviation.

In addition to permitting each nations’ airlines to provide unrestricted air service to any point in the other country, the agreement also eliminates restrictions on how often the carriers can fly, the kind of aircraft they can use and the prices they charge.

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TSA Drops Plan to Allow Small Knives on Planes

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The Transportation Security Administration has abandoned a plan to let passengers carry small knives on planes, following a steady outcry from lawmakers and industry advocates.

The TSA announced on Wednesday that it would stick with its current policy on carry-on baggage. The agency said it “appreciates the varying points of view shared throughout the review process.”

Those points of view were largely negative.

Skeptical lawmakers, airlines, labor unions and some law enforcement groups complained that the knives and other items in the hands of the wrong passengers could be used to injure or even kill passengers and crew.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., praised the decision to back off the policy change.

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Tea Party Mom Blasts US Gov’t at Congressional Hearing: “You’ve Forgotten Your Place” (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

At yesterday’s House Ways and Means Committee testimony on the Obama Administration’s IRS abuses, the President of the Wetumpka Tea Party had sharp words for the federal government.

Her heart-felt comments can be heard in the video below. Here’s are some of her more memorable statements:

“In Wetumpka, we are patriotic Americans; we peacefully assemble; we petition our government; we exercise our right to free speech. We don’t understand why the government tried to stop us. I’m not here as a serf or a vassal. I’m not begging my lord for mercy. I’m a born-free American woman, wife, mother, and citizen, and I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place.”

“I’m not interested in scoring political points. I want to preserve and protect the America that I grew up in. The America that people crossed oceans and risked their lives to become a part of, and I’m terrified it’s slipping away.”

Ghost Student: Obama’s Columbia 30th Reunion and NO Classmate Remembers Seeing Him

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7811068144_dd61720aec_b (1)I just returned from New York, where I attended my 30th Columbia University reunion. I celebrated with my esteemed classmates. Everyone except Barack Obama. As usual – he wasn’t there. Not even a video greeting. Not a personalized letter to his classmates. Nothing. But worse, no one at our 30th reunion ever met him. The President of the United States is the ghost of Columbia University…

I am a graduate of Columbia University, Class of 1983. That’s the same class Barack Obama claims to have graduated from. We shared the same exact major- Political Science. We were both Pre-Law. It was a small class – about 700 students. The Political Science department was even smaller and closer-knit (maybe 150 students). I thought I knew, or met at least once, (or certainly saw in classes) every fellow Poly Sci classmate in my four years at Columbia.

But not Obama. No one ever met him. Even worse, no one even remembers seeing that unique memorable face. Think about this for a minute. Our classmate is President of the United States. Shouldn’t someone remember him? Or at least claim to remember him?

…Now you might argue this is all strange, but it’s possible. After all Columbia says he graduated. And I take my college’s word for it. Would one of the world’s greatest Ivy League institutions participate in a cover-up, thereby risking their billion dollar reputation? And there is one single article written for the Columbia newspaper with Obama’s name on it. A single photo also exists of Obama in his Manhattan apartment with the man he claims was his college roommate – a Pakistani foreign student. And one single radical leftist Columbia professor who hates Israel also claims he remembers Obama.

That’s the sum total of Obama’s existence at Columbia University, Class of ’83.

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

FBI Expert: Quran is ‘Revealed Word of God’

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Photo Credit: WND

The FBI has censored and modified hundreds of pages of materials to satisfy Muslim critics, including a change that was made because an agency “expert” insisted the Quran “is the revealed word of God.”

The details come from Judicial Watch, which obtained documentation of the hundreds of pages of FBI memos, training documents and other paperwork that the agency purged on the demands of Muslims.

“The FBI is rewriting history in order to help al-Qaida,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “This shows that the law enforcement agency is in need of serious top-to-bottom reform.”

Fitton said a lesson learned from the Boston Marathon terrorist attack is that the country is less safe when it allows radical Muslim organizations to tell the FBI how to train its agents and do its job.

“The FBI’s purge of so-called ‘offensive’ material is political correctness run amok, and it puts the nation at risk,” he said. “The Obama administration needs to stop putting the tender sensibilities of radical Islamists above the safety of the American people.”

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US Gov’t Still Hasn’t Released Ambassador Steven’s Autopsy, Won’t Deny Terrorist’s Claim that He was Killed by Lethal Injection

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Photo Credit: Ben Curtis

An al Qaeda terrorist stated in a recent online posting that U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens was killed by lethal injection after plans to kidnap him during the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi went bad.

The veracity of the claim by Abdallah Dhu-al-Bajadin, who was identified by U.S. officials as a weapons expert for al Qaeda, could not be determined. However, U.S. officials have not dismissed the terrorist’s assertion. [Editor’s Note: in September 2012, Restoring Liberty publicized the need HERE for the US Government to release the autopsy report to address allegations that the Ambassador had been sexually assaulted and suffered other abuses after capture]

An FBI spokeswoman indicated that the bureau is aware of the claim but declined to comment because of the ongoing investigation into the Benghazi attacks.

“While there is a great deal of information in the media and on the Internet about the attack in Benghazi, the FBI is not in a position at this time to comment on anything specific with regard to the investigation,” spokeswoman Kathy Wright said.

A State Department spokesman had no comment.

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US Gov’t Publicizes Super-Secret Israeli Missile Base, Shocking Ally (+video)

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Israel’s military fumed Monday over the discovery that the U.S. government had revealed details of a top-secret Israeli military installation in published bid requests.

The Obama administration had promised to build Israel a state-of-the-art facility to house a new ballistic-missile defense system, the Arrow 3. As with all Defense Department projects, detailed specifications were made public so that contractors could bid on the $25 million project. The specifications included more than 1,000 pages of details on the facility, ranging from the heating and cooling systems to the thickness of the walls.

“If an enemy of Israel wanted to launch an attack against a facility, this would give him an easy how-to guide. This type of information is closely guarded and its release can jeopardize the entire facility,” said an Israeli military official who commented on the publication of the proposal but declined to be named because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the facility. He declined to say whether plans for the facility have been altered as a result of the disclosure.

“This is more than worrying, it is shocking,” he said.

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The Rotten Heart of Europe: Continent-Wide Collapse Imminent? (+video)

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Photo Credit: Irish Times

Europe’s failing currency union … has been in crisis for more than three years, and there is a frighteningly high probability that it will end in continent-wide financial collapse and depression.

Nobody was more against the creation of the euro than Bernard Connolly, a senior European Commission official when the single currency’s foundations were being laid. He saw such danger in abolishing national currencies that he wrote a book warning against doing so in 1995. He has now republished the book (which cost him his job) with a new introductory essay [watch his engaging interview with Rick Santelli here]:

It is a timely contribution from someone who can lay more claim than most to foreseeing the long-unfolding crisis. Back in 1995 he wrote: “Trying to lock countries like France and Germany together via their currencies turns domestic monetary questions into international political conflicts. It damages the economic and political well-being of every country involved.” This now appears remarkably prescient.

Connolly’s argument was based on two pillars. The first was that Europe’s elites had become so obsessed with integration that they ignored all the risks and dangers of currency union in order to further their project. To this political argument he added an economic one: that the euro would not work because any and all attempts by governments to interfere in how markets determine exchange rates are economically and politically damaging…

Connolly dismisses as a “propaganda slogan” the claim that the EU has prevented war in Europe and describes those who talk of “building Europe” as being akin to Bolsheviks in their ideological single-mindedness.

Read more from this story HERE.