Amnesty Bill Passes Senate; Here are the RINO’s Who Voted for It (+video)

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty

Photo Credit: AFP/Getty

By David Espo and Erica Werner. With a solemnity reserved for momentous occasions, the Senate passed historic legislation Thursday offering the priceless hope of citizenship to millions of immigrants living illegally in America’s shadows. The bill also promises a military-style effort to secure the long-porous border with Mexico.

The bipartisan vote was 68-32 on a measure that sits atop President Barack Obama’s second-term domestic agenda. But the bill’s prospects are highly uncertain in the Republican-controlled House, where party leaders are jockeying for position in advance of expected action next month.

Spectators in galleries that overlook the Senate floor watched expectantly as senators voted one by one from their desks. Some onlookers erupted in chants of “Yes, we can” after Vice President Joe Biden announced the vote result.

After three weeks of debate, there was no doubt about the outcome. Fourteen Republicans joined all 52 Democrats and two independents to support the bill.

In a written statement, Obama coupled praise for the Senate’s action with a plea for resolve by supporters as the House works on the issue. “Now is the time when opponents will try their hardest to pull this bipartisan effort apart so they can stop commonsense reform from becoming a reality. We cannot let that happen,” said the president, who was traveling in Africa. Read more from this story HERE.

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Senate passes massive immigration bill – Here are the 14 Republicans who voted for it

By Jason Howerton. The Senate has passed massive immigration legislation that will offer a pathway to citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants, while promising border security in the future.

The vote was 68-32, far more than the majority needed to send the measure to the House. Prospects there are not nearly as good and many conservatives are opposed.

Vice President Joe Biden presided, and senators cast their votes from their desks, both steps reserved for momentous votes.

The bill, a priority for President Barack Obama, would amount to the most sweeping changes in decades to the nation’s immigration laws. After three weeks of debate, there was no doubt about the outcome. Fourteen Republicans joined all 52 Democrats and two independents to support the bill.

Here are the 14 GOP senators who voted for the legislation:

Marco Rubio (Fla.)

Lamar Alexander (Tenn.)

Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)

Kelly Ayotte (N.H.)

Jeffrey Chiesa (N.J.)

Susan Collins (Maine)

Bob Corker (Tenn.)

Jeff Flake (Ariz.)

Lindsey Graham (S.C.)

Orrin Hatch (Utah)

Dean Heller (Nev.)

John Hoeven (N.D.)

Mark Kirk (Ill.)

John McCain (Ariz.)

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Call for Tolerance of Homosexuality Publicly Rebuked by President of Senegal

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Dave Boyer. A day after the Supreme Court granted victories to same-sex couples in the U.S., President Obama’s visit to Africa got off to a rough start when his call for tolerance of gays on the continent was rebuffed publicly by the president of Senegal, where homosexuality is a crime.

“People should be treated equally,” Mr. Obama said Thursday at a news conference in Dakar, Senegal, on the first full day of his three-nation tour of the continent.

He said that although Africans have a variety of religions and customs and “we have to respect the diversity of views” of people who personally oppose gay rights, the laws of African nations must grant all people equal protection, regardless of sexual orientation.

“I want the African people just to hear what I believe … when it comes to how the state treats people, how the law treats people, I believe that everybody has to be treated equally,” Mr. Obama said.

That view was promptly rejected by Senegal’s President Macky Sall, who was sharing the stage with Mr. Obama. Read more from this story HERE.

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Nancy Pelosi: ‘Thank God’ for gay ‘marriage’ rulings

By Ben Johnson. Among those celebrating the two Supreme Court’s rulings handed down yesterday that favor the homosexual political agenda is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who told Politico her first reaction was, “Thank God.”

Pelosi, who regularly identifies herself as a “devout” practicing Catholic, said the Deo gratias poured out of her heart the moment she heard that the High Court effectively overturned her home state’s Proposition 8 and invalidated a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by a 5-4 margin in two cases.

“I was thinking when we were walking over here, ‘I’ll be devastated if it’s anything other than that’ for two reasons,” she said. “For what it means for the lives of people first and foremost, but secondly it’s clearly unconstitutional. I’m glad to hear that the court agrees.”

Another prominent figure who expressed gratitude that DOMA was repealed is the same president that turned the federal marriage bill into settled law for 17 years. President Bill Clinton, who signed DOMA without fanfare or a photo op in a late night ceremony in 1996, said, “By overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, the Court recognized that discrimination towards any group holds us all back in our efforts to form a more perfect union. ”

His wife, former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, joined his statement. During her tenure as Secretary of State, Hilary put the promotion of homosexuality at the heart of U.S. foreign policy, a tactic continued by her successor, John Kerry. Read more from this story HERE.

Polygamists Hope Supreme Court Rulings Will Pave Way to Decriminalization

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Polygamists nationwide are cheering the Supreme Court’s rulings on Wednesday, which paved the way for gay marriage in California and federal recognition for married same-sex couples.

“I was very glad,” polygamist Anne Wilde told Buzzfeed on Wednesday. “The nuclear family, with a dad and a mom and two or three kids, is not the majority anymore. Now it’s grandparents taking care of kids, single parents, gay parents. I think people are more and more understanding that as consenting adults, we should be able to raise a family however we choose.”

Joe Darger, a Utah-based polygamist who has three wives, told Buzzfeed that the court “has taken a step in correcting some inequality, and that’s certainly something that’s going to trickle down and impact us.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Watchdog Knocks Down Dem Claim That Liberal Groups Were Targeted by IRS

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The government watchdog that exposed IRS targeting of conservative groups gave a blunt response to Democrats’ claims that the agency also targeted liberals: It never happened.

“We found no indication in any of these other materials that ‘Progressives’ was a term used to refer cases for scrutiny for political campaign intervention,” IRS Inspector General J. Russell George wrote in a letter to Democrats.

Democrats have since turned on the IG’s office, claiming it is only telling half the story.

But Republicans used the letter, and a House hearing on Thursday, to counter that narrative — getting the current IRS chief to confirm that, in fact, there’s no evidence to date that progressives were targeted.

“So far, the evidence only shows conservatives being systematically targeted by the IRS,” Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Judicial Watch: Obama Admin Collecting Financial Data From Private Citizens Without Warrants

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Photo Credit: ezola

Photo Credit: ezola

Well, we almost made it through a whole week without a new Obama Regime scandal, but the good folks at Judicial Watch never rest, and they announced today that they’ve obtained records from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) exposing that millions of dollars have been spent by the agency on the warrantless collection and analysis of Americans’ financial transactions.

The full extent of the CFPB personal financial data collection program is revealed in a document obtained by Judicial Watch entitled “INDEFINITE-DELIVERY INDEFINITY-QUANTITY (IDIQ) STATEMENT OF WORK.” According to the IDIQ document’s stated Objective: “The CFPB seeks to acquire and maintain a nationally representative panel of credit information on consumers for use in a wide range of policy research projects… The panel shall be a random sample of consumer credit files obtains from a national database of credit files.”

To accomplish this objective, the CFPB describes the scope of the program accordingly:

The panel shall include 5 million consumers, and joint borrowers, co-signers, and authorized users [emphasis added]. The initial panel shall contain 10 years of historical data on a quarterly basis [emphasis added]…

Read more from this story HERE.

Yes, You Will Be Made to Care

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Photo Credit: au.ibtimes

Photo Credit: au.ibtimes

You will be made to care about gay marriage. You may think it does not affect you or will not affect you or you can support it and leave well enough alone, but you cannot. The secular left and aggressive gay rights activists will not allow you to.

You must either fully embrace it or be shunned. You may think it does not affect your marriage, your life, or anything else, but you will be made to care — you will not be allowed to accept that others can disagree on the issue due to their orthodox faith. The slow march toward the destruction of the marital institution now picks up pace with Anthony Kennedy’s decision in Windsor. What is, at its heart, a tax case, became a vehicle for Kennedy to declare malicious intent on the preservation of marriage.

That’s clear from the decision. In the 90′s, the Defense of Marriage Act was enacted to preserve and recognize the traditional marital structure that the United States had had since its founding. But Anthony Kennedy declared that the purpose was ill will toward gays — ignoring that activists were seeking to upend the order of things as they had been.

This decision will be used to advance on the states. A muddled equal protection message will be used to force accommodations some are not willing to make and some cannot make because of their religion.

Luckily, we have been given time to erect firewalls. The Court’s decision leaves in place the portion of DOMA that allows states to refuse recognition to gay marriages performed in other states. That will fall in the next few years. Once that happens, there will be an even messier culture war designed to treat traditionalism as a noxious notion of a bygone era — the equivalent of Jim Crow.

Read more from this story HERE.

How to Curb Obesity: Tax Calories, Study Says

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calorie taxThere may be an economic cure for the nation’s obesity: Hike the price of food.

Raising the price of a calorie for home consumption by 10 percent might lower the percentage of body fat in youths about 8 or 9 percent, according to new research from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“An increase in the price of a calorie regardless of its source would improve obesity outcomes,” according to a working paper that three researchers prepared for the private, nonprofit bureau.

As the nation confronts an epidemic of flab, many experts have pointed a finger at low food prices as a cause, leading to proposals for taxes on sugary drinks, fast-food and junk food, as well as reductions in government farm subsidies.

The new research, which focused on youths, reinforces the idea that prices affect obesity and that raising fast-food prices would help, although pushing up the prices of healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, might hurt.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hollywood: Hey, This Obamacare Thing is Going to be Pretty Costly and Complicated For Us

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Photo Credit: AtomicPope

Photo Credit: AtomicPope

Not even the kind of cash Hollywood donated to President Obama can protect them from unintended consequences.

Three letters have been giving the payroll-services industry fits for several months now: ACA. That’s the semi-acronym for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, and it’s up to the payroll industry — which cuts checks to production workers and offers related financial services to TV and film studios — to help educate its clients on the rules before a good portion of the law kicks in Jan. 1.

“It’s a morass of regulations and requirements, and everyone’s trying to figure out what their exposure is,” says Eric Belcher, president and CEO of Cast & Crew Entertainment Services. Adds Mark Goldstein, CEO of Entertainment Partners, which has held 16 seminars to help studios understand ACA: “It’s going to be a very big deal.”

Determining the exact nature of the new laws has been difficult, given that many ACA terms have yet to be worked out. Hollywood productions, for instance, might find it irksome simply trying to categorize employees as full- or part-time, seasonal or variable, and it’s important that they get the classifications right lest they face hefty fines. “ACA is thousands of pages, and it wasn’t written with this industry in mind,” says Belcher.

In fairness, who could have possibly guessed that a top-down solution from Washington and thousands of pages of regulations would cause problems for businesses with unorthodox work schedules, scads of part-time, contract, union and non-union employees from different fields, and the need for flexibility?

Read more from this story HERE.

Iranian Official Signals No Scaling Back in Nuclear Activity

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Iran will press ahead with its uranium enrichment program, its nuclear energy chief said on Friday, signaling no change of course despite the victory of a relative moderate in the June 14 presidential election.

Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the Islamic Republic’s Atomic Energy Organization, said production of nuclear fuel would “continue in line with our declared goals. The enrichment linked to fuel production will also not change.”

Speaking through an interpreter to reporters at a nuclear energy conference in St Petersburg, Russia, he said work at Iran’s underground Fordow plant – which the West wants Iran to close – would also continue. Iran refines uranium at Fordow that is a relatively close technical step away from weapons-grade.

Iran says it is enriching uranium to fuel a planned network of nuclear energy power plants, and also for medical purposes.

But enriched uranium can also provide the fissile material for nuclear bombs if processed further, which the West fears may be Tehran’s ultimate goal.

Read more from this story HERE.

License-Plate Readers Let Police Collect Millions of Records on Drivers

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Photo Credit: Michael Katz-Lacabe

Photo Credit: Michael Katz-Lacabe

When the city of San Leandro, Calif., purchased a license-plate reader for its police department in 2008, computer security consultant Michael Katz-Lacabe asked the city for a record of every time the scanners had photographed his car.

The results shocked him.

The paperback-size device, installed on the outside of police cars, can log thousands of license plates in an eight-hour patrol shift. Katz-Lacabe said it had photographed his two cars on 112 occasions, including one image from 2009 that shows him and his daughters stepping out of his Toyota Prius in their driveway.

That photograph, Katz-Lacabe said, made him “frightened and concerned about the magnitude of police surveillance and data collection.” The single patrol car in San Leandro equipped with a plate reader had logged his car once a week on average, photographing his license plate and documenting the time and location.

At a rapid pace, and mostly hidden from the public, police agencies throughout California have been collecting millions of records on drivers and feeding them to intelligence fusion centers operated by local, state and federal law enforcement.

With heightened concern over secret intelligence operations at the National Security Agency, the localized effort to track drivers highlights the extent to which the government has committed to collecting large amounts of data on people who have done nothing wrong.

Read more from this story HERE.