The Great Sequester Panic

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Photo Credit: Reuters Prepare for the end of food safety as we have known it. For a breakdown in public order. For little children languishing in ignorance. If only Edward Gibbon were here to chronicle the devastation. On March 1, the fabric of our civilization begins to unwind.

That’s when the economy begins to stall and we turn our back on our values, all because the federal government will have to begin to cut a few tens of billions of dollars from the largest budget the world has ever known.

This is the lurid fairy tale spun by President Barack Obama. In the fight over the sequester, he is resorting to the tried-and-true (and tiresome) strategy of every official confronted with budget cuts he doesn’t want to implement, from the commander in chief to a lowly bureaucrat toiling at some school district: maximize the scare-mongering and pain.

In Hans Christian Andersen terms, Obama is the princess and the sequester is the pea. Over the next 10 years, the sequester amounts to a $1.16 trillion cut, or roughly 3 cents on every federal dollar. If we can’t squeeze a couple of pennies out of every dollar, we might as well begin our great national bankruptcy proceedings right now.

This year we are supposed to cut $85 billion from a $3.5 trillion budget. And it won’t even be that much. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government won’t be able to cut the full $85 billion. It will manage to cut only about half that in 2013.

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Tebow Cancels Church Appearance After Media Firestorm

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Photo Credit: Jeffrey BeallTim Tebow announced on Twitter that he will no longer appear at First Baptist Church of Dallas after it caused a national uproar among journalists and gay marriage supporters. The announcement blindsided church officials and led some Christian leaders to wonder if Tebow was appeasing those who don’t support the biblical definition of marriage.

“While I was looking forward to sharing a message of hope and Christ’s unconditional love with the faithful members of the historic First Baptist Church of Dallas in April, due to new information that has been brought to my attention, I have decided to cancel my upcoming appearance,” Tebow wrote in a series of tweets Thursday morning. “I will continue to use the platform God has blessed me with to bring Faith, Hope and love to all those needing a brighter day. Thank you for all of your love and support. God Bless!”

Tebow did not elaborate on what that “new information” might have been. But sources close to First Baptist Church tell Fox News the NFL quarterback cancelled his appearance in part over the uproar surrounding the church’s position on traditional marriage.

Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church, has been an outspoken leader in the nation’s culture wars – affirming from the pulpit traditional marriage and salvation through Jesus Christ.

The national media labeled Jeffress as anti-gay and anti-Semitic – charges that were vehemently denied by the pastor, the church and many national religious leaders. Tebow’s decision has been met with praise among the nation’s gay and lesbian community.

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Mother Sues Planned Parenthood Over Forced, Botched Abortion

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Photo Credit: mobeansWhen Ayanna Byer scheduled an appointment at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to take an abortion pill to end her pregnancy, there was no way for her to foresee the horrors ahead of her. Earlier this month, Byer, through the assistance of the attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, brought a lawsuit to hold Planned Parenthood liable for the botched abortion that she did not consent to.

According to that complaint, when Byer arrived at the Planned Parenthood clinic, it was determined that her pregnancy was too far along to be terminated through the use of a pill, therefore a surgical abortion was recommended. Ms. Byer agreed upon the condition that she would receive IV anesthesia, for which she would be charged extra. Although the employees could not get the IV started, the doctor came to start the procedure anyway.

The complaint states:

At this time, Plaintiff immediately told the Planned Parenthood Doctor to stop and that she did not want to go through with the abortion procedure because she had not received any anesthetic. Plaintiff also informed Planned Parenthood Doctor and agents or employees of Planned Parenthood Defendants that she believed this to be a sign she should not go through with the abortion. The Planned Parenthood Doctor did not stop despite Plaintiff’s request, and assured Plaintiff the I.V. would be administered and the procedure would only take a few minutes.

At this time, the Planned Parenthood Doctor turned on the vacuum machines and told Plaintiff it was too late to stop.

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Toddler In Wheelchair Heading To Disney Cries During Run-In With TSA Agents (+video)

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Photo Credit: GMAA family’s run-in with Transportation Security Administration screeners at Missouri’s Lambert-St. Louis International Airport as they were heading to Orlando on vacation was caught on camera, and is raising questions about airport security rules.

Annie Schulte said it all started when TSA agents asked to pat down her 3-year-old daughter, Lucy, who is disabled and in a wheelchair. The agents also wanted to screen Lucy’s wheelchair.

Schulte recorded the incident on her cellphone. In the video, Lucy begins to cry and says, “I don’t want to go to Disney World.”

What made the toddler so distraught, her parents said, was the run-in with the agents. Agent: “It’s illegal to do that.” Schulte: “You can’t touch my daughter, unless I can record it.” Schulte said she asked to record the incident.

“To me, it was pretty offensive because I was really tuned in. When she said that, immediately I’m like, ‘OK, hold on, something doesn’t seem right.’ So, I did tell her I was going to wait because I was going to grab my phone,” said Schulte.

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Israel: Iran Closer Than Ever To Nuclear Bomb

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Photo Credit: France24Iran is “closer than ever” to the ability to build a nuclear bomb, Israel said on Thursday, as a new UN report said Tehran has begun installing next-generation equipment at one of its main nuclear plants.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s report said Iran started installing new and advanced centrifuges at Natanz, which would enable it to speed up the enrichment of uranium.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the report was “severe,” and “proves Iran is continuing to rapidly advance to the red line that the prime minister drew at his speech in the United Nations.”

“Iran is closer than ever today to obtaining enriched material for a nuclear bomb,” the statement read.

In a September address to the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu called for a “clear red line” to stop Iran getting a nuclear bomb.

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Obama Campaign Caught In Major NC Vote Fraud Scheme

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Photo Credit: osipovvaFebruary 19, 2013 North Carolina’s Civitas Institute has revealed that the North Carolina State Board of Elections and the Obama campaign conspired to register at least 11,000 people via the internet in violation of state law. This has been confirmed through records requests filed with all of North Carolina’s 100 counties. The counting is not yet complete.

North Carolina does not allow online voting, but according to Civitas, SBE staff authorized an Obama campaign website, Gottaregister.com, to use a web-based registration program. The SBE’s chief lawyer responded to the charge with a plainly disingenuous 1984-newspeak answer:

Wright repeatedly denied that the SBE allowed online voter registration, insisting that it was “web-based voter registration”[ii] instead, as if there could be a “web-based” process that wasn’t online.

The technology from Allpoint Voter Services uses remote-control pens to transmit “signatures” over the Internet, according to techpresident.com[iii]. After entering voter information in an online form, the citizen “signs” it with a stylus or a finger. The Allpoint technology records the signature and then transmits it to one of two autopens – one in California, the other in Nevada[iv]. One of the pens transcribes the signature on to a paper voter registration form. Allpoint then mails the documents to local election boards – or is supposed to, a point we’ll come back to.

To say this is not “online” registration but “web-based” is like saying a certain vehicle is not a car, it’s an automobile. The point of having a “wet signature” – one in ink – is to provide a universally accepted way proving that a prospective voter is affirming in person all the facts on the form. To have an auto pen inserted at one point in this long computerized process is a far different thing. Even the Obama campaign called it online voter registration. Because, no matter how you twist words around, that’s what it is.

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Comcast Bans Gun Ads as Cable Giant Takes Control at NBC

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Photo Credit: simonovComcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, no longer accepts advertisements from businesses selling guns.

The policy change was quietly instituted on Feb. 8 after Comcast acquired a controlling interest in NBC Universal, which already had a policy of not accepting ads relating to firearms.

The ban came to light when John Kupiec, president of the advertising agency Canadian American Corp., attempted to purchase an ad for Michigan-based gun store Williams Gun Sight Inc. but was denied, according to CBS News’ Detroit affiliate.

“Comcast Spotlight has decided it will not accept new advertising for firearms or weapons moving forward,” the cable provider said in a statement to CBS. “This policy aligns us with the guidelines in place at many media organizations.”

Executives at Williams Gun Sight called the policy anti-constitutional.

“We’re a perfectly legal company selling a perfectly legal product and they have chosen us out of all the industries out there to make a stand on what’s right or wrong,” Williams’ Chief Operating Officer Dan Compeau told CBS.

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Hagel Has Enough Support For Defense Secretary

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Photo Credit: Susan Walsh/APBarring any new, damaging information, Chuck Hagel has secured the necessary votes for the Senate to confirm him to be the nation’s next defense secretary. A vote ending the bitter fight over President Barack Obama’s choice for his revamped second-term, national security team is expected next week.

Hagel cleared the threshold when five-term Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama said he would vote for the former GOP senator from Nebraska after joining other Republicans last week in an unprecedented filibuster of the Pentagon nominee.

“He’s probably as good as we’re going to get,” Shelby told the Decatur (Ala.) Daily.

Although a Republican, Hagel has faced strong GOP opposition, with many of his former colleagues voting last week to stall the nomination. Republicans have questioned Hagel’s support for Israel, tolerance of Iran and willingness to cut the nuclear arsenal. His opposition to the Iraq war after his initial vote for the conflict angered his onetime friend, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

GOP lawmakers demanded more time to review the nomination that a divided Armed Services Committee had approved on a party-line vote.

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Report: Prosecutors to Pursue Felony Charges Against Ex-Soldier for Possessing High-Capacity Magazine

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New York prosecutors will pursue felony criminal charges against retired special forces soldier Nathan Haddad, who was arrested in LeRay, New York in January for allegedly possessing five 30-round AR-15 magazines, according to conservative law blog Legal Insurrection.

Prosecutors had reportedly offered Haddad a plea bargain that would spare him jail time if he admitted to five misdemeanors, according to Legal Insurrection. But Haddad’s attorney told the blog that Haddad, who currently works at the Department of Defense, will not accept the deal.

It is unclear how Haddad was arrested or discovered with the magazines.

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Gaps Found In U.S. Nuclear Smuggling Defenses (+video)

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Photo Credit: WNDThe Department of Homeland Security has serious gaps in screening for radiation at 22 ports through which the largest volume of container cargo enters the United States, a new report reveals, because monitors which are “utilized infrequently or not utilized at all.”

DHS “component agencies do not fully coordinate or certainly manage the radiation portal monitor program to insure effective and efficient operations,” according to a report from the DHS Office of the Inspector General.

A component of DHS, the Customs and Border Protection, isn’t using all of the monitors and isn’t evaluating “changes in the screening environment at seaports to relocate radiation portal monitors as necessary,” the report said.

The report also revealed a serious lack of coordination of two agencies within DHS which are involved in radiation detection. Their lack of coordination also may be a symptom of a lack of monitoring of cargo containers at the vital entry ports.

In this regard, the OIG report said that the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and the CBP do not “accurately track and monitor their inventory of radiation portal monitors. Given the radiation portal monitors’ limited life and the lack of funding for new monitors, CBP and DNDO should better coordinate to fully utilize, promptly relocate and properly maintain inventory to best use resources and to continue screening of all containerized cargo entering U.S. seaports.”

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