Poll: Almost One-Third of Voters Believe Armed Revolution May Be Necessary

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Photo Credit: leewrightonflickrAccording to a survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University, nearly a third of registered voters — 29 percent — believe an “armed revolution” might be necessary in the next few years in order to protect liberties.

The poll from the university’s PublicMind explored perceptions regarding Congress’ latest gun control push as well as the Sandy Hook mass shooting. That legislative push, launched in the wake of the Connecticut shooting, fizzled last month after the Senate blocked a bill that would have expanded background checks.

The poll showed 50 percent of voters still believe Congress should pass laws to protect the public from gun violence, while 39 percent say the opposite. But there is a huge partisan divide. Among Republicans, 65 percent don’t see new laws as necessary.

And the survey could help explain why applications for gun permits have hit record highs and retailers report ammo has been flying off the shelves. Not only are gun owners worried about new gun laws, but the poll suggests some voters think a revolution could be on the horizon.

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North Korea ‘Scared to Death of Christianity’, Jails Christian American for 15 Years

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Photo Credit: ReutersNorth Korea’s sentencing on Thursday of a US citizen to 15 years of hard labor could be a ploy by leader Kim Jong-un to get a high-profile American visit and burnish his leadership standing

But there may be another explanation for what is the toughest sentence ever handed to an American by a North Korean court, some North Asia analysts say. Kenneth Bae, the Korean-American arrested in November 2012 and accused of attempting to overthrow the government, is a devout Christian.

“The regime is scared to death of Christianity,” says Michael Green, a former senior director for Asia on the National Security Council.

Mr. Bae, a tour operator from Washington state who was living in a Chinese city near North Korea, was charged with carrying out “hostile acts” against the state that included having unspecified materials in his possession that prompted the accusations of planning the overthrow.

Was Bae carrying a Bible when he was arrested? The North Korean regime is particularly harsh with anyone found with a Bible, says Mr. Green, now the senior vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

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Pentagon Report: N. Korea Will Eventually Reach US with Nuclear Arms

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Photo Credit: AFPNorth Korea’s continuing development of nuclear technology and long-range ballistic missiles will move it closer to its stated goal of being able to hit the United States with an atomic weapon, a new Pentagon report to Congress said on Thursday.

The report, the first version of an annual Pentagon assessment required by law, said Pyongyang’s Taepodong-2 missile, with continued development, might ultimately be able to reach parts of the United States carrying a nuclear payload if configured as an intercontinental ballistic missile.

North Korea launched a multi-stage rocket that delivered a satellite into orbit in December, an advance that “contributes heavily” to the country’s development of a long-range ballistic missile capability, the report said.

It is also continuing to refine its atomic weapons capability, including with a nuclear detonation in February, and is capable of conducting “additional nuclear tests at any time,”the report said.

“These advances in ballistic-missile delivery systems, coupled with developments in nuclear technology … are in line with North Korea’s stated objective of being able to strike the US homeland,” the report said.

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Lawyer: Drone Strikes Literally Being Used as an Alternative to Guantanamo

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Photo Credit: Yahya Arhab/EPAThe lawyer who first drew up White House policy on lethal drone strikes has accused the Obama administration of overusing them because of its reluctance to capture prisoners that would otherwise have to be sent to Guantánamo Bay.

John Bellinger, who was responsible for drafting the legal framework for targeted drone killings while working for George W Bush after 9/11, said he believed their use had increased since because President Obama was unwilling to deal with the consequences of jailing suspected al-Qaida members.

“This government has decided that instead of detaining members of al-Qaida [at Guantánamo] they are going to kill them,” he told a conference at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Obama this week pledged to renew efforts to shut down the jail but has previously struggled to overcome congressional opposition, in part due to US disagreements over how to handle suspected terrorists and insurgents captured abroad.

An estimated 4,700 people have now been killed by some 300 US drone attacks in four countries, and the question of the programme’s status under international and domestic law remains highly controversial.

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Obamacare Nightmare Begins: Younger Americans’ Health Insurance Premiums to Go Up a Mind-Boggling 169%!

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At his press conference Tuesday, President Obama assured Americans that, “To the 85-90 percent of Americans who already have health insurance: They’re already experiencing most of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act even if they don’t know it.”

Those benefits apparently include higher premiums. According to the Wall Street Journal, insurers are warning that premiums in the individual and small-group markets could double in the next few years. Already, they are well on their way. For example, California health insurers are proposing increases for some customers of 20 percent or more: 26 percent by Blue Cross, 22 percent by Aetna, and 20 percent by Blue Shield. In Maryland, Care First, the state’s largest insurer, has proposed a 25 percent increase for next year.

Younger and healthier Americans can expect to pay even more. According to a survey by the American Action Forum, healthy young people in the individual or small-group insurance markets can look forward to rate increases averaging as much as 169 percent.

While it is always difficult to pin down the exact reason for premium increases, a large portion is traceable to the new health care law. According to a recent study by the American Society of Actuaries, Obamacare will increase health insurance claims costs by 32 percent because of increased adverse selection in the insurance pool. That is, the law’s prohibition on medical underwriting will bring more older and sicker people into the insurance pool, while higher premiums will encourage the young and healthy to forgo insurance until they get sick. (The penalty under Obamacare’s individual mandate is low enough so that it will generally be cheaper for healthy people to “pay,” rather than “play.”)

In addition, Obamacare requires all health insurance plans to provide more benefits and have lower deductibles and co-payments than they do today…

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New California Law Forces Gun Owners to Fund Gun Seizure Program

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Photo Credit: APGov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed legislation aimed at taking handguns and assault rifles away from 20,000 Californians who acquired them legally but have since been disqualified from ownership because of a criminal conviction or serious mental illness.

The measure, the first of several gun-related bills to reach the governor, allocates $24 million in surplus funds to hire dozens of additional special agents to tackle a backlog of 40,000 weapons in the hands of people not allowed to possess firearms.

“This bipartisan bill makes our communities safer by giving law enforcement the resources they need to get guns out of the hands of potentially dangerous individuals,” said Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the governor.

The state operates a database that cross-references a list of gun owners with those disqualified later from owning guns. But, budget cuts have prevented the state Department of Justice from keeping up with the growing number of people on the list.

State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced SB 140, which takes the money from fees paid when people buy guns and allocates it to a three-year campaign to take guns from those ineligible to have them.

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Greg Laurie to Homosexual Activists: ‘I Won’t Back Down’

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Photo Credit: Harvest MinistriesA California megachurch pastor involved in the National Day of Prayer who has recently come under fire for his views on homosexuality has declared that he will not be intimidated.

At a prayer event held Wednesday morning at the Washington, D.C., office of the Family Research Council, Pastor Greg Laurie told those gathered, “I won’t back down.”

“They do not want me to pray. They describe me as ‘homophobic’ and so forth. How can you deal with such a situation? We’re in a time in our country now where I’m attacked because I believe what the Bible teaches,” said Laurie, ahead of Thursday’s National Day of Prayer.

“If people want to make it all about that I’m not going to back down. In the immortal words of the great theologian Tom Petty, ‘I won’t back down,’ I won’t. I’m not going to apologize.”

Laurie paralleled the efforts of gay rights activists to that of the palace officials who sought to stop Daniel (in the Old Testament) from praying and passed a law that resulted in him being thrown into the Lion’s Den.

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In One Day, 20 Shot in Chicago; Officials Blame the Weather, We Blame the Officials

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Photo Credit: Irish Central According to the Chicago Tribune’s May 1 edition:

“At least three people were killed and 17 wounded in shootings across Chicago overnight as the city saw its warmest weather in seven months.” See article.

In the past, Chicago’s Chief of Police Garry McCarty, has blamed warm weather for his city’s gun violence, along with pointing the finger of blame at Sarah Palin and “government sponsored racism.”

By using this metric, if the weather keeps heating up we can expect more gun violence to erupt on the streets of Chicago. Where’s Al Gore?

According to the Tribune article, “warm weather” is behind the outbreak of gun violence, not the lack of enforcement of some of the toughest anti gun laws in the United States.

Checking statistics in different countries known for their warm weather and violence, the following stats were observed:

In Afghanistan for the entire month of April a total of 17 coalition force personnel were killed, see report.

In a recent 5 day period in all of Iraq, a total of 25 civilians and police were killed, see report.

Chicago, one of our nation’s biggest cities outpaced the violence in 2 war torn countries.

Instead of pointing the finger of blame at outside forces, perhaps it’s time for the people of Chicago to point the finger of blame at their leaders.

Not long ago, NRA’s President Wayne LaPierre noted Chicago had the nation’s toughest gun laws, yet was failing to enforce them. He noted that if federal gun laws already on the books were enforced, instead of putting even more restrictions on gun legal ownership, it could help solve the city’s violence problems. See story.

La Pierre had also called on federal officials to bring in forces to patrol Chicago’s streets in order to restore order: “We need a federal task force, if it takes 500 agents; if it takes a thousand agents, go into Chicago.”

The law abiding citizens of Chicago deserve to have safer streets and adding more laws to the over 9,000 gun laws already on the books isn’t going to make any difference.

Chicago’s violence is not due to the weather, the NRA or Sarah Palin, it’s due to the lack of will by city officials to enforce the law.

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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.

Your Tax Dollars Fund Ethnic Cleansing of Christians

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On April 22, two Orthodox bishops of Aleppo, Syria, were kidnapped by U.S.-supported Islamist fighters. Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim and Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Boulos Yaziji were kidnapped as they were returning from an attempt to obtain the release of two priests previously kidnapped. The priests, Father Michel Kayyal, an Armenian Catholic, and Father Maher Mahfouz, a Greek Orthodox, were kidnapped in February and still remain in the hands of the Islamist fighters the Western media refer to as “rebels.”

In a Huffington Post article, Orthodox priest Peter-Michael Preble said of the two kidnapped bishops: “They were on a mission of peace, to bring aid and comfort, and they were taken hostage as part of the systematic extermination of the Christian population in Syria.”

As an eyewitness to Capitol Hill, I can say without hesitation that the Republican Party leadership is allowing the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Syria in order to obtain some minor political gain over President Obama. A momentary “we got you” win against Obama is more important to the Republican leadership than the lives of millions of Christians and the destruction of the ancient churches founded by Peter, Paul, John and the other early Saints. Rather than Speaker John Boehner using the power of his office to stop Obama’s support of the jihadist fighters in Syria, he is pushing for our overburdened and over-deployed Armed Forces to get directly involved.

On the Senate side, it is John McCain, who is the principal Republican promoter of the destruction of the Syrian church. McCain seems totally blind to the human suffering of war and has no regard for Christians suffering at the hands of the jihadists in Syria. As McCain sees it, Iran is currently our main enemy and eliminating one of its power bases – its alliance with Syria – is worth the human suffering and ethnic cleansing of the Christian population. McCain is actually pushing Obama to do even more damage in Syria. McCain has demanded that our Air Force face one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world, the Russian SA-22 Pantsir S1, so that we can assist jihadist fighters.

It is very true that Iran is a threat to the peace of the Middle East and to Israel, but arming jihadists associated with al-Qaida and allowing them to murder Christians and destroy churches in Syria does not seem to me as the optimal way to limit the power of Iran. Indeed, the harsh persecution of Christians by jihadist fighters supported in Syria by Barack Obama is no different than the persecution of Christians in Iran. At least in Iran the Christians get a phony show trial before they are jailed and tortured. In Syria, Christians are tortured and murdered with no trial at all and using American tax dollars given to jihadists by Barack Obama.

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The Lies Go Deeper Than You Ever Imagined

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If you read the newspapers and listen to the perpetual happy talk out of D.C., you might become convinced that the economy is improving. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is supposed to tell us the unemployment rate; and currently, it says the rate is 7.6%. But in reality, we’re being misled.

It’s understandable… we all want to believe the best. And most likely, you feel a little better off than you did four years ago. You can probably look around your neighborhood and see some people doing just fine. But the sinister truth is that we’re being lied to. The government is sponsoring a campaign of misinformation, and we’re all the victims of a mass hypnosis. It leads us to think – falsely – that all’s well in the U.S. of A.

A Stark Contrast

I just spent four days on the beautiful Island of Coronado. I was at a board meeting at a 125-year-old resort, the Hotel Del Coronado. All seemed like a fairy tale. I drove into the city of San Diego and had dinner at a lovely Zagat-rated restaurant. I met a group of friends in a skybox, complete with a buffet line, to watch the Padres beat up on one of their rivals. But that’s where the fairy tale ends.

I also took the time to visit the community of El Centro, California. It’s down Interstate 8 from San Diego. In that town, headline unemployment is nearly 23%. Coming upon a church, I saw a line, winding around the block, of people simply wanting a hot meal.

This is the part of America the media is hiding. They don’t want to blemish President Obama. He feels people’s pain, so he can’t be responsible… right? But the reality is that every Coronado, America has at least one El Centro.

If you dig deeper and calculate unemployment, adding those people standing in the food line who are unemployed, discouraged, and dropping out of the job search, the unemployment rate is 14.3%.

Read more from this story HERE.