Montana Man Asks Feds to Reimburse $500 Eaten By Dog

Photo Credit: Eliza Wiley

The saga of Sundance, the $100-bill-eating dog, apparently appealed to a lot of people.

A Google search Wednesday turned up 34,600 results for Wayne Klinkel’s story of his dog Sundance, who ate five $100 bills last Christmas, and his tale of woe in trying to pick up the digested remnants to recoup some of his loss…

The gist of his story is that Klinkel and his wife traveled to Denver last Christmas to visit their daughter, and when they stopped for dinner they left Sundance in the car, along with five $100 bills and one $1 bill. When they returned, the $1 bill was untouched and the $500 was gone.

Klinkel immediately guessed that his chew-loving dog ate the bills, so while in Denver he donned rubber gloves and followed Sundance around the yard as he conducted his “business.” Klinkel retrieved quite a few fragments, but it wasn’t until his daughter visited Helena recently that she was able to give him enough remnants for him to piece together a large portion of all five bills.

He washed and bleached them, taped them back together and submitted them to the Federal Treasury, hoping to be reimbursed. That could take up to two years; a spokesperson said that if more than 51 percent of the bills are there, Klinkel may get at least some of his $500 back.

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Rep. Stockman: Senate's Gun Control Bill Unconstitutional, We'll Kill it in the House and Send You Packing in a U-Haul

Photo Credit: Stockman

Congressman Steve Stockman Wednesday reinforced his intentions to use a “blue slip” to kill any Senate anti-gun bill that contains expanded background checks.

Stockman will also deliver U-Haul gift cards to the offices of Mark Begich, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan and Max Baucus should they vote for the package, to help with move-out expenses after they are defeated by voters in 2014.

“A requirement to make citizens submit to a background check imposes a tax. Such legislation cannot originate in the Senate. The bill is automatically unconstitutional,” said Stockman.

“Constitutional rights don’t require permission slips. If you infringe upon the Second Amendment’s absolute protections, you will be removed from office,” said Stockman. “The language of the Second Amendment is perhaps the starkest and most absolute in the Constitution. ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ That means any obstacle whatsoever is strictly prohibited. The right to keep and bear arms cannot even be approached.”

“Criminals nationwide are applauding Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey,” said Stockman. “Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey want to give the federal government the name and address of everyone who buys a gun. They want to turn our entire country into Chicago.”

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Coulter Hammers Norquist Over Amnesty for Illegal Aliens

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

On CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report” on Friday night, conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter faced off against founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist over the issue of immigration reform.

Norquist supported the reported outline of the proposal that is being negotiated in secret by a group of senators dubbed the “Gang of Eight.” Norquist said the these efforts will bring substantial benefits for Americans…

Coulter, author of “Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama,” said the current bill shouldn’t be defined as pro- or anti-immigration, but instead shoudl be judged on the merits of the proposal.

“It isn’t pro-immigration or anti-immigration — it’s changing the current immigration policy,” Coulter said. “I think we ought to be trying to get immigrants who are better than us, not worse than us. And 85 percent of legal immigrants come from the Third World since [former Sen.] Teddy Kennedy changed immigration law in this country. Sixty-five percent of them need some sort of government assistance. I mean, when I hear that — you know, ‘Don’t worry, immigrants are only on welfare 15 percent higher than native Americans,’ it shouldn’t be any immigrants.”

“We ought to be getting — we can’t get the surgeons, the businessmen, the people who would be competing with everybody who is talking about immigration — it is the servant class that is coming in who taxpayers need to support,” she added. “And of course, the business community has always been for immigration. Some elements of the evangelicals always have, but the point is: Is it a good policy or bad policy? It is bad for America. It is good for people who want cheap labor, while the rest of us subsidize cheap labor.”

Watch video here:

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The Radical Transformation of America’s Classrooms

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Liberal education has been very successful in this country because nobody challenged the progressive educators and their agenda. We are waking up to the unraveling of our society caused by this liberal education and wondering, what happened. Could it be too late to reverse the damage?

Conservative news outlets are pointing out the obvious—our children have been indoctrinated into socialism for 33-40 years and this indoctrination is finally bearing fruit. We have bred a nation of young, entitled citizens who do not like to work, do not like to read or study anything too involved or complicated that exceeds Twitter’s 140 words, do not take responsibility for their actions, exhibit righteous indignation if their demands are not met, claim racism and hate speech if others disagree with them, and are afraid of their shadows.

Students no longer explore and discuss the history of America even in the History Department of the local college—it has long been replaced by courses that praise and promote sexual, “racial and ethnic differences,” instead of highlighting our common American heritage, what made America great and an exceptional nation that has contributed to the betterment of mankind. Socialist professors admire, teach, and laud the history of non-western cultures as superior to our own culture.

As the Blaze reported, Thomas Klingenstein commissioned a report on Bowdoin’s (a liberal arts college) academic and non-academic curriculum. The National Association of Scholars produced 355 pages of information describing in great detail what the college was teaching.

Short on critical thinking skills, the college, instead of concentrating on scientists, men of letters, philosophers and orators who contributed to western thought and civilization, chose courses such as Queer Gardens, Beyond Pocahontas: Native American Stereotypes, Sexual Life of Colonialism, and Modern Western Prostitutes.

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North Korea Produces Video Depicting Nuke Attack on US, While China "Commits" to Help Defuse Situation

Photo Credit: Washington Post

By Elizabeth Weise. A video released by Saturday by North Korea shows nuclear launches against the United States reaching four sites, including Washington, D.C., California, Hawaii and what the announcer describes as Colorado Springs, but which looks like Arkansas. U.S. officials were clear they did not believe the belligerent nation has missiles capable of reaching the United States.

The video was released Saturday on Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean government web site. It has also been posted on YouTube.

In it, each of the U.S. targets explodes into a ball of flames as the missiles strike on the map. The Colorado Springs attack is presumably because the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is located near there, as well as the U.S. Air Force Academy. However based on the map the North Koreans posted, the attack site is actually in either southern Arkansas or northern Louisiana.

The video, typical of North Korean propaganda, is introduced by a male voiceover while a female news anchor in the traditional Korean hanbok dress reads from news headlines. The images are accompanied by synthesizer music and sounds of thunder. Further in, jarring montages of missile launches and military equipment are accompanied by what sound like 1970s power rock guitar solos. The video had more than 225,000 hits on YouTube by Saturday afternoon. Read more from this story HERE.

Kerry assured: China committed to getting N. Korea to abandon nuclear weapons

By Guy Taylor. After a day of diplomatic talks with Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Saturday, Chinese authorities claimed they are committed to working “peacefully” toward the goal of getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons.

“We maintain that the issue should be handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue and consultation,” China’s State Councilor Yang Jiechi said on Saturday evening in Beijing while sitting beside Mr. Kerry at a restaurant in the Chinese Capitol.

“To promptly address the Korean nuclear issue serves the common interests of all parties,” said Mr. Yang. “It is also the shared responsibility of all parties.”

The remarks created the appearance of fresh unity between Beijing and Washington, where the Obama administration hoped that Mr. Kerry would be able to convince Chinese leaders to take a more active role in encouraging North Korea to tone down its recent nuclear threats.

Mr. Yang, however, took care to avoid making any specific commitments with regard to actions China is willing to take to pressure the North Korean military or the nation’s 28-year-old leader Kim Jong-un to give up the nation’s nuclear arsenal and back away from the recent wave of antagonistic posturing. Read more from this story HERE.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offers many faces, many threats

By Ernesto Londoño. When Kim Jong Un first appeared in Pyongyang’s carefully stage-managed public spotlight in the fall of 2010, North Korea watchers began scouring for clues to learn whether the pudgy heir apparent would be a reformist or simply the newest face of a despotic regime.

Nearly 16 months after taking the reins of the hermit state following the death of his stoic father, North Korea’s 30-year-old leader appears to be careening toward the latter — at least on the surface.

Having disavowed his country’s armistice with South Korea and threatened to fire his increasingly capable missiles toward the United States, Kim has put the Korean Peninsula and Washington on a war footing. His behavior follows the playbook of his predecessors, with one notable and potentially dangerous departure that appears to have him backed into a corner.

“His father and his grandfather always figured into their provocation cycle an off-ramp of how to get out of it,” Adm. Samuel Locklear III, the commander of U.S. troops in the Pacific, told Congress this past week. “It’s not clear to me that he has thought through how to get out of it. This is what makes this scenario, I think, particularly challenging.”

Making sense of the Kims has been more of an art than a science. A cadre of North Korea scholars has spent decades piecing together a portrait of the eccentric, secretive family by poring through mounds of propaganda, defector accounts and the limited, sporadic contact the regime has had with the West. While acknowledging that Kim Jong Un remains an enigma, experts in the intricacies of Pyongyang say a careful study suggests his recent bout of bellicose rhetoric probably represents a desperate cry for legitimacy rather than a genuine appetite for combat.Read more from this story HERE.

Bird Flu Widens Reach in China, Worrying Public Health Officials Worldwide

Photo Credit: Yahoo

Officials in Beijing confirmed today that a 7-year-old girl is infected with H7N9 avian influenza, widening the geographic spread of the virus that’s already killed 11 people.

The girl, whose parents sell live poultry, was admitted to the hospital Thursday with pneumonia and is the first case reported outside eastern China, where the virus was first reported in late March.

Government officials said the total number of new bird flu infections across the country rose to 47 today as the eastern province of Jiangsu reported two fresh cases and shanghai reported one, The Associated Press reported.

What is concerning about this latest report is the distance between Shanghai and Beijing. The virus was able to travel more than 750 miles without leaving a trail of dead birds.

Unlike the H5N1 bird flu that raised concerns starting in 2003, H7N9 does not seem to make birds very sick or sick at all. This makes tracking the movement of the virus and containing it to limited flocks of birds next to impossible.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Growth-Busting Budget: Republicans Must Not Get Suckered

By Larry Kudlow. No matter how you slice the Obama budget pie, the inescapable fact is that the president wants to get rid of the roughly $1 trillion budget-cutting sequester and substitute in a $1 trillion-plus tax hike. In other words, more spending, more taxing. Growth-busting. The GOP should just say no.

And let me provide some counsel to my Republican friends in Washington, in particular in the House. Balanced budgets don’t create growth. This mantra is wrong. It’s growth that creates balanced budgets.

Cut spending? That’s a pro-growth measure. Lower tax rates? Another pro-growth measure. The combination of limited government and true tax reform will balance the budget soon enough, with government coming in at a smaller share of gross domestic product while sufficient investment and work incentives get growth moving toward the 4 or 5 percent range.

That kind of growth would make up for the lost ground of the past 15 years. And if you add in deregulation and a sound King Dollar, you’d have a growth budget that would propel America back into prosperity.

Indeed, with some tweaking of eligibility requirements, a true economic-growth budget would lower food stamp enrollment, unemployment compensation, disability benefits and other forms of welfare-dependency spending that plague the country. Medicare is a more complex issue, but Social Security would be solved by a long-run growth spurt. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama budget ‘compromise?’ No way, says the GOP

By Brad Knickerbocker. The budget President Obama delivered to Congress this week was presented as a compromise package, a path to some sort of “grand bargain” involving taxes and spending.

“I don’t believe that all these ideas are optimal,” the president acknowledged. “But I’m willing to accept them as part of a compromise if and only if they contain protections for the most vulnerable Americans.”

Indeed, his budget did draw immediate sniping from Obama’s liberal base as well as from Republican lawmakers. A particular affront to the left is the tweaking envisioned for Medicare, revealed Friday in congressional testimony by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The Obama budget also would change the way inflation is figured for Social Security recipients, and it raises taxes on higher-income households. But “compromise?” No way, the GOP charged in its Saturday radio/Internet address.

Speaking on behalf of her party, freshman Rep. Jackie Walorski (R) of Indiana called it “a blank check for more spending and more debt.” “Even when the president’s budget offers signs of common ground – like modest entitlement reforms – he says he won’t follow through unless he can impose more tax increases,” Rep. Walorski said. “Worst of all, the White House says the president’s budget never balances – ever, failing to meet the most basic principle of budgeting for every family and small business.” Read more from this story HERE.

New York Parents Sue After County uses Son's Remains to Train Dogs

Photo Credit: Clotee Pridgen Allochuku

The parents of a western New York man killed in a car crash are suing county officials after the coroner there took a piece of their son’s body for use in a dog-training exercise.

Roger Dunn, 32, died April 13, 2012, in an auto wreck in Cambria.

After his death, Niagara County Coroner Russell Jackman gave some tissue from the crash scene to a volunteer fire chief who was training a dog to sniff out human remains.

Both men later resigned and pleaded guilty to misdemeanors over their conduct. They also apologized.

Each was fined $1,000 and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and write letters of apology to the Dunns.

Read more from this story HERE.

Union Boss Confronts AFL-CIO on Amnesty

Photo Credit: The Washington TImes

The chief of the labor union that represents immigration agents on Friday accused the AFL-CIO, his parent organization, of “threatening” those who oppose legalizing illegal immigrants.

Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, which represents ICE agents and which is part of the AFL-CIO, said he was worried about threats of “union retribution” against lawmakers who vote against legalization this year.

His criticism underscores a fascinating split within the labor community as Congress prepares to debate immigration. Most labor unions back the push to grant legal status and citizenship rights to illegal immigrants, but the unions representing immigration law enforcement are generally opposed to that policy.

Read more from this story HERE.

Paul: Immigration Reform Starts with a Secure Border

Photo Credit: AP

Congress is getting very close to debating comprehensive immigration reform. I am firmly committed to being part of reforming our nation’s immigration laws. Conservatives and liberals agree that our complex immigration system is broken and in need of repair. Although the two sides disagree on solutions, I have three important ideas that should be part of the debate and that should please most Americans.

My “Trust but Verify” plan has three elements: secure the border, secure the vote and secure the taxpayer’s dollar. If these three elements are met, I think, Congress can move forward on a comprehensive plan to reform immigration law.

Securing the border is my first priority. Under my plan, national and border security will move as the first element of any reform and would require annual votes of Congress to establish that the border is truly secure. No other reform can go forward until this happens. In addition to increased border security, our nation needs to modernize our visa system. We need to know who comes and goes on travel, student and other temporary visas. There must be a workable system to ensure that visitors don’t use travel visas as a way to enter the country, then disappear. This will address the problem of visa overstayers.

National security has to be a cornerstone to any border-security and visa-reform initiative. Our nation needs to look back at the 9/11 Commission report and study the recommendations with regard to terrorists’ use of visas to commit acts of violence against America. The Sept. 11 hijackers used visas to enter the country and to stay here while planning their attacks.

Strong border security includes using cutting-edge technology. Satellites, physical barriers, screening to bar criminals and terrorists from entry, increased patrols on the border and yes, surveillance drones all should be part of a comprehensive plan to physically protect the border. My idea is to take specific measures at the border and then have the office of inspector general for the Government Accountability Office produce a report to Congress on the progress of border security.

Read more from this story HERE.