More Evidence Zimmerman Trial Really Was About Second Amendment (+video)

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Attorney General Eric Holder took aim at Stand Your Ground laws Tuesday, saying the measures increase the chance for violence.

“These laws try to fix something that was never broken,” Holder said in a previously-scheduled speech to the NAACP convention in Orlando that marked the Obama administration’s first new policy announcement since neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman was acquitted last weekend in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

“By allowing and perhaps encouraging violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety,” he said.

More than 30 states have passed Stand Your Ground laws, which eliminate the duty to retreat before using deadly force in self defense.

The doctrine has long been recognized across the country with respect to home invasions. But the new laws expand the concept — doing away with the duty to retreat in a variety of other venues. The Florida law authorizes an individual to use deadly force as self defense “in any…place he or she has a right to be.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Dr. Ben Carson: This Is the Beginning of the Collapse of Obamacare (+video)

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Photo Credit: APBy Greg Richter. Delaying implementation of key parts of the healthcare law and losing the support of labor unions are just the beginning of trouble for Obamacare, says Dr. Ben Carson.

“It’s gonna be a lot worse than this. This is the beginning of the collapse,” the retired Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon said on Fox News Channel’s “Your World” on Tuesday.

“Usually when you roll out a big program, you roll it out bit by bit. You determine what’s working. You can change things,” Carson said. “But to try to roll out something this massive without really knowing what the intricacies are is quite foolish.” Read more from this story HERE.

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photo credit: azrainmanGOP-controlled House to vote Wednesday on delaying key parts of ObamaCare

By Fox News. The Republican-controlled House will vote Wednesday on delaying key parts of ObamaCare, the party’s latest effort to dismantle the law amid distress signals from inside the administration.

The lawmakers will vote on bills to delay the start of the law’s separate employer and individual mandates, which respectively require smaller businesses and Americans to purchase insurance next year or face penalties.

The Obama administration earlier this month delayed the start of the employer mandate, saying the decision was in response to business owners expressing concerns about the law’s complex reporting requirements.

Late Tuesday, the White House issued a threat to veto the Republican bills, saying their passage would help “further efforts to repeal a law that is already helping millions of Americans stay on their parents’ plans until age 26, millions more who are getting free preventive care that catches illness early on, and thousands of children with pre-existing conditions who are now covered.”

Political analysts said that delaying the start until 2015 was an attempt to slow Republicans during next year’s elections from pinning ObamaCare problems on Democratic candidates — particularly those in Congress who supported the 2010 law and are seeking re-election. Read more from this story HERE.

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74% of small businesses will fire workers, cut hours under Obamacare

By Paul Bedard. Despite the administration’s controversial decision to delay forcing companies to join Obamacare for a year, three-quarters of small businesses are still making plans to duck the costly law by firing workers, reducing hours of full-time staff, or shift many to part-time, according to a sobering survey released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Small businesses expect the requirement to negatively impact their employees. Twenty-seven percent say they will cut hours to reduce full time employees, 24 percent will reduce hiring, and 23 percent plan to replace full time employees with part-time workers to avoid triggering the mandate,” said the Chamber business survey provided to Secrets.

Under Obamacare, just 30 hours — not the nationally recognized 40 hours — is considered full-time. Companies with 50 full-time workers or more are required to provide health care, or pay a fine.

The administration recently decided to wait a year before businesses had to comply, but many are trying to get ready anyway. The president did not delay the mandate that Americans must have health insurance or pay a fine, however.

The Chamber’s second quarter small business survey found that just 30 percent are ready for the law and even understand what is required. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APLooking to keep GOP out of health care decisions, Obama threatens to veto bill backing his own delay

By Tom Howell Jr. President Obama has threatened to veto a House bill that would put into law a decision he made two weeks ago.

In a statement, the White House said the Obama administration “strongly opposes” a pair of Republican-led bills to delay the employer mandate and individual mandate within the president’s signature health care law.

The administration quietly announced July 2 in a pair of blog posts that it would delay by one year, to 2015, penalties tied to a mandate requiring firms with the equivalent of 50 or more full-time workers to provide insurance or pay fines, citing the business community’s concerns about complex reporting requirements.

Eyeing an opportunity to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans cued up votes for Wednesday on bills to codify the White House’s delay and match it with a delay of the provision requiring most Americans to obtain some form of health insurance.

The votes will force Democrats to align with the president or distance themselves from the overhaul in the wake of its recent stumbles. Read more from this story HERE.

Broad Coalition of Gun, Drug, Privacy Groups Sue NSA, FBI Over Surveillance while Snowden Files for Asylum

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Photo Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPAPrivacy groups led by EFF sue to stop NSA and FBI electronic surveillance

By Associated Press. Rights activists, church leaders and drug and gun rights advocates found common ground and filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the federal government to halt a vast National Security Agency electronic surveillance program.

The lawsuit was filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents the unusually broad coalition of plaintiffs, and seeks an injunction against the NSA, Justice Department, FBI and directors of the agencies.

Filed in federal court in San Francisco, it challenges what the plaintiffs describe as an “illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance.”

The suit came after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked details about NSA surveillance programs last month, revealing a broad US intelligence program to monitor Internet and telephone activity to ferret out terror plots.

Snowden, who has been charged with spying and theft of government property, has spent the past three weeks in the Moscow airport transit zone. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AFPSnowden to stay in Moscow airport for now: lawyer

By Maria Antonova. US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden will stay in the transit zone of the Moscow airport where he has been holed up for three weeks while Russian authorities process his asylum request, a lawyer helping him said Tuesday.

Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer who helped Snowden file an application for asylum in Russia earlier Tuesday, told AFP the fugitive former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor was happy with his treatment at the airport.

“While all procedural questions are being decided, he will remain in the transit zone of the airport,” Kucherena told AFP in central Moscow when asked if Snowden would remain at Sheremetyevo airport until the asylum request was approved.

He confirmed that the asylum procedure could take up to three months, although a shorter period is theoretically possible.

Kucherena said he met Snowden at the airport on Tuesday to file the asylum request, with a translator the only other person present. Read more from this story HERE.

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Sen. Graham suggests US boycott Winter Olympics in Russia over Snowden

By Jeremy Herb, Julian Pecquet and Justin Sink. President Obama should consider boycotting the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia if the Cold War-era foe gives asylum to Edward Snowden, Sen. Lindsey Graham told The Hill on Tuesday.

“I would. I would just send the Russians the most unequivocal signal I could send them,” Graham (R-S.C.) said when asked about the possibility of a boycott.

“It might help, because what they’re doing is outrageous,” he said. “We certainly haven’t reset our relationship with Russia in a positive way. At the end of the day, if they grant this guy asylum it’s a breach of the rule of law as we know it and is a slap in the face to the United States.”

nowden, who has been charged with espionage for leaking details about two National Security Agency programs that collected information about U.S. telephone calls and international Internet usage, officially filed a request for temporary asylum in Russia on Tuesday. He pledged to abide by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands that he stop leaking information that could damage the United States.


Graham is the first senator to suggest a link between the Olympics and Snowden, who has been holed up in a Moscow airport for weeks. Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul Putting Hold on FBI Director Until FBI Answers Questions About Domestic Drones (+video)

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday afternoon he will put a hold on James Comey’s nomination as FBI director until the agency answers questions about the use of drones for domestic surveillance.

“I’m placing a hold on it, not because I have the intention of ultimately defeating him, but I’m going to slow it down enough to see if the administration will respond to my questions,” Paul said, speaking to Eric Bolling on Fox News.

Earlier this month, Paul said he would block Comey’s nomination until the FBI answered questions he sent to them over the government’s use of drones to monitor Americans on U.S. soil. He said Tuesday afternoon he has yet to receive a response and will move forward with the formal hold.

Paul also alluded to holding another marathon filibuster, a potential replay of his 13-hour talking filibuster in March, though he didn’t confirm if he planned to do so.

“[A hold] is like the beginning of a filibuster. Should they bring [the hold] to the floor, and I choose to speak like I did on the drone subject earlier, then as long as I can speak I can stop the debate,” Paul said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gang of 8 Senators Join With Multinational Corporations to Target Tea Party House Members Opposing Amnesty

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Photo Credit: APBy John Bresnahan, Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer. Big Business, Senate Republicans and Democrats backing immigration reform have a target in their crosshairs: House Republicans.

Senators like John McCain (R-Ariz), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) met with tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Intel, and pro reform groups like FWD.us to discuss a coordinated campaign to target more than 100 House Republicans on reforming the nation’s immigration laws when they are at home in their districts over the next month, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

Graham suggested getting people to target Republicans at town hall meetings. Schumer said he wanted pastors giving sermons about the need for immigration reform.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), his former House colleague, should bring a negotiated immigration compromise to the floor even if it doesn’t have the support of the majority of Republicans, according to sources present.

McCain urged the group to push for the Senate bill by discussing its component parts — but not mentioning the overall bill. Read more from this story HERE.

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Amnesty Bill Will Put Citizens in Direct Competition With Illegal Aliens for Student Loans, Other Federal Benefits

By Aaron Klein. American citizens may soon find themselves competing with illegal aliens to secure government student loans and federal work-study assistance.

A WND review of the Senate’s immigration reform bill finds the legislation allows illegal aliens who are granted provisional status and who initially entered the United States before reaching 16 years of age to secure both federal student loans and federal work-study programs.

The provisional citizens would still need to meet the academic requirements necessary to obtain the aid.

The discovery is contrary to claims by proponents of the immigration reform bill who have repeatedly insisted the newly legalized residents will not be eligible for public funds.

The student financial assistance is not the only public benefits allowable under the legislation. Read more from this story HERE.

Controversial Statements from Obama’s Choice for UN Ambassador (+video)

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty ImagesAs the Senate prepares for confirmation hearings Wednesday to decide whether Samantha Power will be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, there are some controversial criticisms of America from her past that may be called into question.

Power, a former journalist turned political activist, once connected some of the tactics in the U.S. war on terror to French military support for the Hutu militia, which killed 800,000 people in the Rwandan genocide. She also has called Americans “stingy on foreign aid,” declared that the U.S. should apologize for slavery, and even made indirect references comparing U.S. involvement in the world to that of Nazi Germany.

At a 2002 discussion of her book at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Power questioned the U.S. cooperation with other countries in the war on terror, saying “we’re about to partner with regimes that if they’re not committing genocide they are certainly committing systematic atrocities against their people.”

Power has already come under fire for a New Republic article in which she called for Americans to follow the lead of German leaders post-Holocaust and apologize for their war crimes:

“U.S. foreign policy has to be rethought. It needs not tweaking but overhauling. We need: a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the United States. This would entail restoring FOIA to its pre- Bush stature, opening the files, and acknowledging the force of a mantra we have spent the last decade promoting in Guatemala, South Africa, and Yugoslavia: A country has to look back before it can move forward. Instituting a doctrine of the mea culpa would enhance our credibility by showing that American decision-makers do not endorse the sins of their predecessors. When Willie Brandt went down on one knee in the Warsaw ghetto, his gesture was gratifying to World War II survivors, but it was also ennobling and cathartic for Germany.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Media Apparently Oblivious to the Fact that Texan Sen. Wendy Davis is a Pro-Abortion Extremist

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Photo Credit: APAccording to abortion advocates, Wendy Davis is a voice for America’s silent pro-choice majority. The Texas state senator’s recent filibuster of a bill to outlaw abortions after five months of pregnancy won her media plaudits and catapulted her from obscurity to political stardom.

But the frenzy over Davis’s failed quest to defeat the legislation — which most likely ended last week when the bill passed the Texas Legislature — is hardly proof of a national reservoir of support for late-term abortion. Rather, it is evidence of the deep disconnect between perception and reality when it comes to U.S. citizens’ attitudes about the procedure.

The media’s coverage of Davis’s opposition to the bill, which would also compel abortion facilities to follow the same rules and safety standards as ambulatory surgical centers, ranged from frivolous to fawning. Most media reports focused either on the pink sneakers Davis wore during her 11-hour filibuster or on how the resulting fame would affect her chances of winning the 2014 gubernatorial race.

Abortion advocates, meanwhile, asserted that Davis had given voice to the pro-choice views of Texas and the nation. One commentator referred to the filibuster as a “Texas spring,” a sudden awakening of the state’s pro-choice majority. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, said, “My mother would have said, ‘I hear America singing.’” A writer at Salon.com asserted, “It’s a Wendy Davis nation now.”

Most of the coverage failed to mention an important detail: The vast majority of Americans don’t come close to sharing Wendy Davis’s support for late-term abortion. Numerous polls find that most Americans oppose abortion after 20 weeks, except in rare circumstances, such as when the mother’s life is at risk (a circumstance for which the Texas law makes an exception). A University of Texas/Texa

Read more from this story HERE.

Bradley Manning Trial: Defense Counsel Ask How Passing Info to Journalist is “Aiding and Abetting the Enemy”?

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Photo Credit: APThe defence team representing Bradley Manning, the US soldier who leaked reams of state secrets to WikiLeaks, has made one last attempt to persuade the judge presiding over his court martial to dismiss the most serious charge against him: that he “aided the enemy”.

Manning’s civilian lawyer David Coombs said that to convict the army private of such a severe offence would set an “extremely bad precedent”. It would place US society on a “very slippery slope, of basically punishing people for getting information out to the press.”

Addressing the judge in a military court in Fort Meade, Coombs said that “no case has ever been prosecuted under this type of theory: that an individual, by the nature of giving information to a journalistic organisation, would then be subject to” a charge of “aiding the enemy”. Conviction of such an office would bring “a hammer down on any whistleblower or anybody who wants to put information out”.

The lawyer’s comments were recorded by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which is employing court stenographers during the Manning trial as a way of overcoming the high level of official secrecy that surrounds the case.

The “aiding the enemy” charge has become the seminal battle in Manning’s prosecution, with the US government, in its determination to come down hard on official leakers, ranged against advocates of freedom of information. Under the terms of the charge, Manning is accused of having given valuable intelligence to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and its affiliate groups simply by dint of having leaked documents that were then posted by WikiLeaks on the internet.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hispanic Networks Granted Exclusive Interviews With Obama But Fail to Ask Even One Question About Zimmerman

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Photo Credit: qnrLeading Hispanic television networks Univision and Telemundo were granted two interviews apiece with President Obama today, but not one interviewer asked the president a question about the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, according to transcripts and sources familiar with the interviews.

The four interviews were intended to focus on immigration reform, but the absence of any inquiry related to the high-profile court case surprised even the White House…

Television industry executives also expressed surprise: “It’s unbelievable that any journalist with access to the President this week wouldn’t ask the first African-American president about his reaction to the verdict,” said one D.C.-based executive.

Instead, the interviewers focused on immigration reform, giving President Obama the opportunity to tout the economic benefits of reform and to criticize House Republicans for opposing the immigration bill on political grounds.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hypocritical Nancy Grace Makes ‘Racist’ Claim that Zimmerman is Back to ‘Driving Through Taco Bell and Having a Churro’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Newsbusters Just when it seemed that the racial tensions couldn’t get any worse after George Zimmerman’s “not guilty” verdict regarding the charge of the second-degree murder of black teenager Trayvon Martin, along comes Nancy Grace, the host of a weeknight news/interview program on the HLN cable news network, who did her best to fan the flames even higher.

Responding to lead defense attorney Mark O’Mara’s closing argument on Friday night asking the jury to give Zimmerman his life back, the acerbic host growled: “Give Zimmerman back his life? He’s out on bond driving through Taco Bell every night, having a churro”…

Since then, Grace has been accused of using “a very poor choice of words” herself, with some even going so far as to call her a racist for the language she used.

Read more from this story HERE.