Alaska GOP Coup a Bad Sign for National Party’s Future

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The Republican Party of Alaska has become a perfect microcosm for everything that is wrong with the Republican Party today. It has all the problems that have cropped up in other state GOP organizations gathered together in one state and taken to their worst extreme.

Abuse of power, disenfranchisement of grassroots members, misappropriation of funds, purges of members, negation of the electoral process and what amounts to a full-scale coup have all been used to keep an established party elite in power against the will of the people.

A backlash against these tactics is inevitable.

The Alaska GOP refused to properly seat elected Chairman Russ Millette and subsequently attempted to remove Vice Chair Debbie Brown when she assumed the Chairmanship. This past week, the takeover of the party was confirmed when the Central Committee rejected appeals from Millette and Brown, reaffirming the unelected installation of establishment favorite Peter Goldberg as the new party Chairman. Goldberg will be the fourth Chairman the party has had in a year, a very unhealthy sign for any organization.

In the interim, they also carried out purges of party members from other leadership positions, including declaring the entire elected membership of their District 12 Executive Committee to essentially not exist. From the lowest Precinct Committeeman to the District Chairman, the entire District was unseated with no due process, not even a hearing, at the whim of party leaders who didn’t like having an entire District in disagreement with their actions.

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Medical Marijuana Laws Have Led to Substantial Increase in Use, Hospitalization of Kids

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Photo Credit: APIncreased use of medical marijuana may lead to more young children getting sick from accidentally eating food made with the drug, a Colorado study suggests.

Medical marijuana items include yummy-looking gummy candies, cookies and other treats that may entice young children. Fourteen children were treated at Colorado Children’s Hospital in the two years after a 2009 federal policy change led to a surge in medical marijuana use, the study found. That’s when federal authorities said they would not prosecute legal users…

Unusual drowsiness and unsteady walking were among the symptoms. One child, a 5-year-old boy, had trouble breathing. Eight children were hospitalized, two in the intensive care unit, though all recovered within a few days, Wang said. By contrast, in four years preceding the policy change, the Denver-area hospital had no such cases.

Some children came in laughing, glassy-eyed or “acting a little goofy and `off,”‘ Wang said. Many had eaten medical marijuana food items, although nonmedical marijuana was involved in at least three cases. The children were younger than 12 and included an 8-month-old boy.

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Christie Continues Tight Political Embrace of Obama

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Photo Credit: Getty Images A post-Hurricane Sandy tour of the New Jersey coast line on Tuesday, gives the president a chance for a three-point play that can move him ahead of the recent controversies that have dogged the White House. With New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Chris Christie at Obama’s side, effective government, bipartisanship and economic opportunity will be the unmistakable message in the face of the coastal recovery.

For Obama, the tour helps him continue redirecting the political conversation after two weeks of dealing with the fallout over the administration’s response to terror attacks last September in Benghazi, Libya, the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department’s review of journalist phone records as part of a leak investigation.

The visit occurs as Congress is away for a Memorial Day holiday break, a week-long recess that likely will silence the daily attention lawmakers, particularly Republicans, had been paying to the three political upheavals. It also comes just days after Obama started seeking to change the subject in Washington with a speech defending his controversial program of strikes by unmanned drones and renewing his push to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility.

On Sunday Obama traveled to Oklahoma to view damage from the recent tornado and console victims of the deadly storm.

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Shoelaces Used to Restrain Unruly Airline Passenger on Alaska Air

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Photo Credit: InSapphoWeTrustA passenger on a commercial flight from Alaska to Oregon was arrested Monday after he reportedly tried to open the emergency exit door while the plane was preparing to land.

Passengers and crew aboard the Alaska Airlines flight from Anchorage to Portland told authorities that 23-year-old Alexander Michael Herrera made “unusual statements” before trying to open the exit door, FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said.

Mr. Herrera set off an alarm by pulling the door handle. “I put him in a choke hold and brought him down to the ground,” witness Henry Pignataro told KGW-TV.

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Hezbollah Should Change Name to ‘Party of Satan,’ Turkish Deputy PM Says

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Photo Credit: Hussein MallaTurkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Sunday that Hezbollah, or “Party of God” in Arabic, should change its name to Party of Satan, blaming the terrorist organization for killing thousands of civilians in Syria.

“Those who stand by the Assad regime and kill their own Muslim brothers and indiscriminately kill women and children in the battlefield should not appeal to Islam and the Quran to legitimize their actions,” Bozdag said, according to Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman…

“The pharaoh gave orders for the killing of innocent children and their mothers to maintain power. What is the difference between what the Pharaoh did and Assad is doing?” he asked.

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Despite Objections, Prayer Goes on at High School Graduation (+video)

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Photo Credit: Nancy LeedyDespite the opposition of at least six students, Lincoln County High School kept to its tradition of student-led prayer during its graduation ceremony Friday.

Class of 2013 President Jonathan Hardwick received a standing ovation after he prayed for about one minute during Friday’s commencement ceremony at the school. Many audience members echoed his closing of “Amen.”

A video of Hardwick’s prayer quickly hit social media websites such as YouTube and Topix, with most online comments supporting Hardwick’s decision.

Part of the class president’s prayer was the following, “Thank you for helping us get here safely today, Lord, and thank you for the many blessings you have given us.”

In an interview with The Advocate-Messenger earlier this month, Principal Tim Godbey acknowledged that six students — including at least one atheist — had pleaded with him not to allow student-led prayer to be a part of the school’s graduation ceremony. Godbey, a self-professed Christian who says he prays for each of his students daily, said under separation of church and state laws, faculty members have never been able to pray publicly on school grounds or during school-sponsored functions. However, he noted that the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit students from doing so as long as they are not otherwise disruptive.

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Charlie Daniels Unloads on Obama’s ‘Cowardice’

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Photo Credit: WNDCountry-music legend Charlie Daniels isn’t buying the White House line that President Obama simply “didn’t know” about the scandalous actions plaguing his administration.

From the gun-running “Fast & Furious” debacle of 2011 to recent revelations the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting tea-party groups, Obama has denied knowledge of his underlings’ actions, even stating he only discovered the improprieties after the evening news reported them.

But in an exclusive interview with WND, the ever-outspoken Daniels blasted the president’s “excuses.”

“If I had a drunk bus driver, for instance, and I told everybody, ‘Don’t tell me about that, I don’t want to know about it,’ and that way if we get sued I can say, ‘I didn’t know it,’ basically that’s got to be what’s happened,” Daniels said. “[But] when you hide behind plausible deniability, that is not leadership. That is cowardice. You’re not leading the country, you’re misleading the country.”

Daniels further charged the blame-shifting is “pervasive” throughout the Obama administration.

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Student Tweets that School Should Enact Budget Cuts, Starting With Principal’s Job, Gets Suspended

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Photo Credit: WNDA high-school student in upstate New York has been suspended and accused of trying to incite “a social media riot” after he suggested budget cuts for his public school – beginning with elimination of his principal’s job.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that students have a right to self-expression, as long as that expression doesn’t disrupt classwork or school activities or invade the rights of others.

And that’s where the conflict about the student’s action lies, because the Syracuse Post-Standard reports the superintendent of Cicero-North Syracuse High School accused senior Patrick Brown of using Twitter to incite “a social media riot.”

Whether the purported “social media riot” was disruptive to classwork or school activities remains unclear.

Brown was suspended for three days Thursday after starting a Twitter hashtag, #s–tCNSshouldcut, that solicited ideas for district budget cuts for next year after voters rejected a $144.7 million budget plan. The hashtag quickly became popular, and students posted ideas during the school day.

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In Time of Sequesters, Federal Government Posts 27,000 Job Openings

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Photo Credit: Charles DharapakThe budget cuts known as sequestration were supposed to wreak havoc, forcing the shrinking of critical workforces including airport security officers and food inspectors. But since sequestration kicked in March 4, the government has posted openings for 4,300 federal job titles to hire some 10,300 people. The median position has a salary topping out at $76,000, and one-fourth of positions pay $113,000 or more, according to an analysis by The Washington Times of federal job listings.

Altogether, the jobs will pay up to $792 million per year. Including job postings that have been open since before sequestration, the government is in the market for 27,000 employees who will make up to $1.8 billion a year.

The jobs posted since sequestration include 2,800 positions at the Department of Veterans Affairs, 519 at the Indian Health Service and 50 at the Smithsonian Institution.

They also include service jobs seemingly designed to ensure that existing government employees live well.

The Defense Department is recruiting 71 bartenders and 123 waiters. If they worked full-time, these employees would earn more than $3.4 million a year. Nearly half of these positions were first posted after sequestration kicked in.


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Cold War? Russia Seeks to Replace U.S.

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Photo Credit: WNDRussia has been exerting pressure on Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to cancel weapons deals with the U.S. and instead sign with Moscow at cheaper prices, according to an informed Egyptian security official.

The official said Russia is also attempting to exert its influence at the expense of the U.S. throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Western Asia, including in Turkey.

Currently, Russia is urging Egypt to sign a deal for the creation of a 155-mm guided shell for U.S.-provided M-109 howitzers, which are being used on tanks sold to the Egyptian army by the U.S.

Moscow officials told Egyptian leaders that Russia is interested in replacing the U.S. as the Middle Eastern country’s main weapons dealer, the Egyptian official said.

Similar messages were sent to Turkey, Yemen, Algeria, Tunisia and other countries, the official said.

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