America’s Cousins on Cusp of ‘Gay’ Marriage

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Photo Credit: WNDWhile the U.S. awaits two Supreme Court decisions on the issue, both Australia and the United Kingdom look increasingly likely to follow as the next nations to permit same-sex “marriage.”

And just like in the U.S., the subject is creating deep divisions between segments of the population promoting homosexuality – and vowing to stay true to the Judeo-Christian values that have guided civilizations for millennia.

In Britain, a bill already has passed the lower House of Commons and now moves on to the upper House of Lords, and could be enacted as soon as May 2014.

Similarly, in Australia, the Greens (far left) party’s deputy leader has indicated he will seek to have his Marriage Equality Amendment Bill brought on for a vote in the House of Representatives on June 6. The amendment, if passed, would make same-sex marriage lawful in Australia, following 14 other countries and several American states that have moved on the issue.

The rapid emergence of “gay marriage” as a matter of prominence has stunned many in both nations, in line with America’s surprise when Maine, Maryland and Washington State endorsed moves to allow gay marriage in last year’s election.

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge Rules Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Office Racially Profiles Latinos

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Photo Credit: Ross D. FranklinA federal judge has ruled that the office of America’s self-proclaimed toughest sheriff systematically singled out Latinos in its trademark immigration patrols, marking the first finding by a court that the agency racially profiles people.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Murray Snow in Phoenix backs up years of allegations from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s critics who say his officers violate the constitutional rights of Latinos in relying on race in their immigration enforcement.

Snow, whose ruling Friday came more than eight months after a seven-day, non-jury trial, also ruled Arpaio’s deputies unreasonably prolonged the detentions of people who were pulled over.

The ruling marks a thorough repudiation of the immigration patrols that made Arpaio a national political figure, and it represents a victory for those who pushed the lawsuit.

“For too long the sheriff has been victimizing the people he’s meant to serve with his discriminatory policy,” said Cecillia D. Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Right Project. “Today we’re seeing justice for everyone in the county.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio to appeal ruling in racial profiling case

By Fox News. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio will appeal a federal judge’s ruling that his agency systematically singled out Latinos in its trademark immigration patrols, marking the first finding by a court that the agency racially profiles people.

Tim Casey, the lead attorney representing America’s self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in the case, said an appeal of the finding that the agency racially profiles people was planned in the next 30 days.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Murray Snow in Phoenix backs up years of allegations from Arpaio’s critics who say his officers violate the constitutional rights of Latinos in relying on race in their immigration enforcement.

Snow, whose ruling came more than eight months after a seven-day, non-jury trial, also ruled Arpaio’s deputies unreasonably prolonged the detentions of people who were pulled over.

The ruling marks a thorough repudiation of the immigration patrols that made Arpaio a national political figure, and it represents a victory for those who pushed the lawsuit. Read more from this story HERE.

The Irish Should be Remembered by America this Memorial Day for their Great Military Service

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Photo Credit: Irish Central When the Romans first visited Ireland, they called it Hibernia, the sleeping land…See Hibernia. But soon, to their dismay, they found the people were not at all a sleeping group.

In the early 1st century, Roman and Greek knowledge of Ireland was thin, but the geographers Strabo and Pomponius Mela describe “a cold land populated by extremely fierce inhabitants.” In lore of combat between Romans and native Irish, the Romans feared the Irish and their woman warriors most for the fierceness of their attacks and utter lack of fear.

Invasions by warlike foreigners left their mark on Ireland and mixed their blood with the Irish. In the late 700’s the Vikings attacked and tried to establish permanent settlements See history of Vikings invading Ireland. The Vikings were eventually defeated, but many of them stayed and intermarried with the native population. Later the Normans came and went and then the British appeared.

The unique blend of the Irish and their invaders created a hybrid of warrior that has filled the ranks of many armies around the world.

Many Irish immigrated to the “new lands” of the American continent to find the opportunity and freedom that they couldn’t find in their native land. They took up arms to defend their adopted countries and to fight for what they believed to be battles for freedom and justice.

The influence Irish had in Latin America over the past 200 + years is historic. The Irish fought alongside their brothers and sisters in their new homelands. They shed their blood in many wars to help free millions from the tyranny of colonialism. See Irish in Latin America

But when the Irish found their way to North America, their presence was felt immediately in the armed forces battling for freedom in every step of the way.

The Irish played an integral part in the Revolutionary war, when a fledgling country had to win its freedom by force from British rule. Names like John Barry, the founder of our navy, Jeremiah O’Brien, Timothy Murphy, Molly Pitcher, John Sullivan and thousands of other Irish, who fought and died to form the new country of the United States.

The Irish stepped forward again, when the English returned and tried to re-conquer our young country in the war of 1812 and threw them back at the Battle of New Orleans.

Tragically when our country was torn apart by its civil war, Irish Americans fought on both sides to play key roles in the major battles that finally saw a divided country, unite again. One of the most famous units in all of American military history was a brigade known during the American Civil War as simply “The Irish Brigade.” See Irish Brigade; Heroes of the Civil War.

When the United States stepped into the 1st World War, the Irish Americans distinguished themselves in many memorable battles and astonished the Germans with their fierceness and valor. Especially noteworthy when they fought and brawled hand to hand with German crack troops as members of the famed “Lost Battalion.”

World War II saw another generation of Irish Americans push their way forward to defend their country against one of the greatest axis of evils the world had seen. Irish Americans were over represented in the awarding of Medals of Honor in the field of battle, with Audie Murphy becoming one of the most decorated soldiers in American history.

Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, Afghanistan…Wherever and whenever the country needs to be defended and fought for, Irish Americans have a long history of being right there at the tip of the spear, where the greatest fighting occurs.

In war as well as peace, our country has benefited from the valor of its warriors of Irish descent. It is good to remember our “fighting” Irish American warriors on this Memorial Day weekend.

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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.

Female Suicide Bomber Injures 11 in Russia

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A female suicide bomber identified as a widow of two killed Islamists blew herself up in the southern Russian region of Dagestan on Saturday injuring at least 12, including two children and five police officers, police said.

The bomber detonated an explosives-laden belt in the central square in the provincial capital, Makhachkala, Dagestan’s police spokesman Vyacheslav Gasanov said.

The bomber was identified as Madina Alieva, who married an Islamist who was killed in 2009 and then wedded another Islamic radical who was gunned down last year, police spokeswoman Fatina Ubaidatova said.

Since 2000, at least two dozen women, most of them from the Caucasus, have carried out suicide bombings in Russian cities and aboard trains and planes. All were linked to an Islamic insurgency that spread throughout Dagestan and the predominantly Muslim Caucasus region after two separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya.

The bombers are often called “black widows” in Russia because many are the widows, or other relatives, of militants killed by security forces. Islamic militants are believed to convince “black widows” that a suicide bombing will reunite them with their dead relatives beyond the grave.

Read more from this story HERE.

French Police Search for Man Who Stabbed Soldier

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Photo Credit: APFrench anti-terrorism investigators were searching Sunday for a man who stabbed a soldier in the throat in the commercial district of La Defense outside Paris.

The 23-year-old soldier, Cedric Cordier, was in uniform patrolling the busy underground corridors where shops and crowded public transport lines converge beneath the famous Arch of La Defense.

Saturday’s stabbing came days after a British soldier was hacked to death on a London street in broad daylight in a suspected terrorist attack that has raised fears of potential copycat strikes. However, there was no immediate confirmation of any link between the two attacks.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obamacare Will Bring Drug Industry $35 Billion In Profits

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Despite expiring patents on blockbuster drugs and a wave of new regulation from the Affordable Care Act that will cost drug makers, the pharmaceutical industry will reap between “$10 billion and $35 billion in additional profits over the next decade,” a new analysis shows.

The health law, which will bring millions of uninsured Americans health benefits beginning in January 2014, will be a critical boon to pharmaceutical industry balance sheets, increasing revenue by one-third by the end of the decade, according to a new report from research and consulting firm GlobalData of London. That means the U.S. pharmaceutical industry’s market value will mushroom by 33 percent to $476 billion in 2020 from $359 billion last year…

“The (Affordable Care Act) represents a dramatic transformation in the fortunes of pharmaceutical companies in what is the world’s largest market for prescription drugs,” said Joshua Owide, head of GlobalData’s industry dynamics team in a statement to Forbes. “This reform was inevitable in the US, and while a number of the changes will negatively impact pharma’s fortunes, the overall balance could be positive, thanks to an additional 32 million formerly uninsured citizens becoming potential customers, resulting in up to $115 billion of new business over a period of 10 years.”

Read more from this story HERE.

A Tale of Two Cities: Named Philadelphia

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Photo Credit: Town HallCharles Dickens’ novel called A Tale of Two Cities (1859) depicted the plight of French peasants’ civil conflict with its aristocracy in the years leading up to the French Revolution. Despite their linguistic differences, Dickens showed many parallels with the social atmosphere of London and Paris during that time period.

In contrast to Dickens’ work, my commentary today explores the dramatic difference in the value of human life (versus the value of animal life) in privileged versus impoverished communities in the same city – Philadelphia. I am concerned that Philadelphians seem more committed to protecting the lives of animals than they seem to be committed to saving the innocent lives of unborn children and their young mothers. Let me explain.

Last month, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick was forced to cancel a planned book tour because of credible threats on his life. According to his publisher, “protests escalated into threats of violence.” Threats were made to harm Vick himself and the employees of bookstores and other venues planning to host the athlete as he promoted his new book, Finally Free. Everyone concerned decided it was safer to keep the athlete out of the public eye for the off season. The anger against Vick stems no doubt from his role in the death of between six and eight dogs in a dog fighting and gambling operation he owned. Vick pled guilty to felony charges in 2007 and has since been released from prison.

In contrast; two years ago, another Philadelphia man was indicted for the murder of seven human babies and one adult woman. Kermit Gosnell ran a late term abortion facility in Philadelphia and had been sued at least 15 times for malpractice before the FBI discovered the squalid conditions in his clinic during a prescription drug raid in February of 2010. Yet the same media that excoriated Vick— has been eerily silent on the murder of poor mothers and the murder of fetuses.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Speech to ‘Kiss and Make Up’ with His Base

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What do you do when your base is angry about Guantanamo? I guess that you promise to close it again. You also blame Congress for not giving you the money to do it. The problem is that it was a Congress controlled by Democrats that did not provide the funding.

What about drones? You promise that we will “drone” more carefully from now on. Let’s hope that the terrorists will cooperate by keeping children away from them.

What about tapping reporters phones? You say that it was about national security and because that “darn Congress” didn’t pass the media shield law.

By the way, does anyone remember President Obama persuading members of Congress to pass the media shield law? I don’t!

Overall, I rate this as a speech trying to win back the left. I did not hear much more than that. My guess is that it will be largely forgotten when the next IRS official comes to Congress and says “I don’t know.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Time for Congress to Stop Painful Abortions on Unborn Babies

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Photo Credit: Life NewsDr. Anthony Levatino understands plenty about post-abortion grief. When the Ob/Gyn lost his little girl in a car accident, the man who had performed as many as 1,200 abortions said he couldn’t finish another one without getting sick.

“For the first time after all those years… I didn’t see her wonderful right to choose; I didn’t see what a great doctor I was helping her with her problem. All I could see was somebody’s son or daughter,” he said quietly.

Today, Dr. Levantino brings that passion and emotion to the debate over abortion–most recently in his testimony this morning for Rep. Trent Franks’s (R-Ariz.) fetal pain bill. In a roomful of people, the longtime doctor explained with stomach-turning clarity the reality of abortion.

“Imagine,” he said, “if you can, that you are a pro-choice obstetrician/gynecologist like I once was… and [your patient] is asleep on an operating room table.”

In graphic detail, he described the instruments he would use on women who, at 24 weeks, had already felt their babies kicking. Dr. Levatino talked about a specialized clamp, whose wide jaws and rows of sharp metal teeth were for “grasping and crushing tissue.” “When it gets a hold of something,” Dr. Anthony Levatino warns, “it does not let go.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Albany High School Student Accused of Planning ‘Columbine-Style’ Attack (+video)

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Photo Credit: KPTVA West Albany High School student is accused of planning a “Columbine-style” attack on his classmates.

Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson announced that 17-year-old Grant Acord will be charged as an adult on Saturday. He will face a charge of attempted aggravated murder. Prosecutors said he had a well thought out plan that included at date.

Haroldson said Acord had, “plans checklists, diagrams, inspirations, sources and a focus on recreating the model of Columbine, with adjustments that would make it more successful.”

According to Haroldson, police found at least six homemade bombs and bomb making materials hidden in a secret compartment in Acord’s bedroom at his mother’s house. The home is located on Northwest Raymond Court in Albany.

“The types of bombs include pipe bombs, a napalm bomb, Draino bombs and Molotov cocktails,” said Haroldson.

Read more from this story HERE.