Rep. Paul Ryan: House Budget Will Assume the Repeal Of ObamaCare

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Sunday said he will not back down from the battle to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act even though some Republicans think the party should move on.

Ryan dismissed criticism that House Republicans have virtually no chance of dismantling the signature legislative accomplishment of Obama’s first term and their efforts might be better expended elsewhere.

He said his budget assumes the repeal of the healthcare law, in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

When host Chris Wallace challenged him on that assumption, Ryan said he would not give up the fight.
“That’s not going to happen,” said Wallace.

“We believe it should,” Ryan shot back. “That’s the point. This is what budgeting is all about. It’s about making tough choices to fix our country’s problems. We believe ‘ObamaCare’ is a program that will not work.

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On The Anniversary Of The Nazi Invasion, This Is What Austrians Are Saying About Hitler

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Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Seventy-five years after the Nazi invasion and occupation of Austria, a newspaper in country has asked citizens about their opinion of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi annexation during World War II. Jewish leaders who have been raising the alarm about anti-Semitism in Austria say the results were not surprising.

Forty-two percent said life was not all bad under Hitler, while 61 percent said they would be interested in a strong-armed leader who did not have to deal with democratic challenges like political opponents and elections. The survey, published this weekend, is getting prominent play in the media in Israel, which is home to some 250,000 Holocaust survivors. That’s half the number of survivors who arrived in the country since Israel was founded in 1948.

Reuters reports:

Timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary next week of Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany, the Market Institut poll for newspaper Der Standard found 61 per cent of respondents, mostly the elderly, liked the idea of a strong man as leader.

Many Austrians wanted a union, or Anschluss , with Germany in 1938. A few Austrians put up resistance that grew over time. In the latest poll, 53 per cent thought the Anschluss was voluntary and 46 per cent saw Austria as a victim. Forty-two per cent said “not everything was bad under Hitler” while 57 per cent saw no good aspects to the Hitler era.

Additionally, 54 percent said they believed neo-Nazi groups would succeed in Austrian elections this September if they were not banned there.

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Afghan President Alleges US Conspiracy with Taliban to Keep International Forces in Afghanistan

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Photo Credit: AP

A series of security problems and fractured relations with Afghan leaders plagued Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s first trip here as Pentagon chief, including the Afghan president’s accusations that the U.S. and the Taliban are working in concert to show that violence in the country will worsen if most coalition troops leave.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Joseph Dunford, quickly rejected the charges President Hamid Karzai made Sunday as “categorically false.” But the accusations were just the latest in a series of disputes that have frayed relations between the two nations as the U.S. works to wind down the war and turn the country’s security over to the Afghans.

Speaking to reporters shortly after Karzai made the comments, Dunford said the Afghan leader has never expressed such views to him but said it was understandable that tensions would arise as the coalition balances the need to complete its mission with the Afghans’ move to exercise more sovereignty.

“We have fought too hard over the past 12 years, we have shed too much blood over the past 12 years, we have done too much to help the Afghan security forces grow over the last 12 years to ever think that violence or instability would be to our advantage,” said Dunford.

Dunford’s comments came, however, soon after U.S. officials cancelled a news conference with Hagel and Karzai because of a security threat – just a day after a suicide bomber on a bicycle struck outside the Afghan Defense Ministry, killing nine Afghan civilians and wounding 14 others. Hagel heard the explosion from the safe location where he was meeting with Afghan officials but was never in danger.

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Mark Kelly Gave Gun Control Testimony Day Before Buying Assault Rifle (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Mark Kelly and his wife, former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, testified at the Colorado state capitol in support of more gun control for that state on March 4…

Ironically, on March 5 – the day after giving his pro-gun control testimony in Colorado – Kelly purchased a 1911-style semi-automatic pistol and an “assault rifle” at Diamondback Police Supply in Tucson, AZ.

Witnesses in the store claim he also bought “high capacity” magazines.

Watch Kelly’s testimony here:

https://youtu.be/Y9V35DHCvBA

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Army Suspending Tuition Assistance Program

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Photo Credit: Robert Burns

The Army is suspending the Tuition Assistance program for active duty and reserve soldiers beginning Friday, according to an email obtained by the Washington Times.

The move will suspend financial assistance for soldiers who take classes in their off-duty time after work and on the weekends. “This suspension is necessary given the significant budget execution challenges caused by the combined effects of a possible year-long continuing resolution and sequestration,” said an official Army statement Friday.

Classes that are already approved will be funded, but not new requests for assistance, according to the memo.

The Army is facing a more than $18 billion shortfall over the next seven months of the fiscal year, due to a continuing resolution funding the Army at 2012 levels, and by large automatic defense cuts known as sequestration that went into effect March 1st.

Since then, lawmakers have begun looking at legislation that would pass a 2013 defense appropriations bill instead of extending the continuing resolution that expires March 27. Meanwhile, the president and other lawmakers are attempting to find a long-term solution to the cuts of $500 billion to the defense department over the next 10 years.

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Background Checks Won’t Make US Safer

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Photo Credit: Ross Catrow

In April of 2007, a mentally disturbed student showed up at the campus of his school, Virginia Tech, brandishing two semi-automatic pistols, murdered 32 students, teachers and school employees and wounded 17 others. Then he took his own life.

It was the one of deadliest mass-shooting incidents in American history. The nation was in shock, as it is now following the December mass murder at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

The press and public outcry was the same then as now. How can we stop horrors like this from occurring? We’ve got to stop criminals and nut cases from getting their hands on guns. The tragedy spurred passage of the first major piece of federal gun-control legislation since the assault weapon ban was passed in 1994.

The new law, signed by President George W. Bush in January of 2008, appropriated $1.3 billion for states to get the names of those deemed mentally ill into the FBI national data base used for gun-purchase screening. This supposedly would solve the problem of lax state compliance and make the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) more effective.

If only this had been the law of the land a year earlier, commentators opined, the Virginia Tech tragedy might not have happened.

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Conservative Icon Blasts GOP As Cowards

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A veteran in the conservative movement for nearly five decades says Republicans voted for the Violence Against Women Act this week because they are cowards who are afraid of radical feminists and that fear overcame any concerns they may have had about the content of the bill.

“We call it feminist pork, this bill was dreamed up by radical feminists to promote their agenda,” said Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum and the main force behind stopping the Equal Rights Amendment. “The Republicans voted for this horrible bill for one basic reason. They are afraid of the feminist lobby and would rather vote for it than stand up for principles.”

The renewal of the Violence Against Women Act sounds noble enough based on the title of the bill. However an actual reading of the bill reveals its truth.

For instance, the bill calls upon states to legalize child prostitution under the guise of protecting children. In the section on combating child sex trafficking, the bill lists “model state criminal law protection” for children engaged in sex trafficking: It recommends states simply pass laws preventing the prosecution of persons under 18 years of age.

The bill says states should “treat an individual under 18 years of age who has been arrested for engaging in, or attempting to engage in, a sexual act with another person in exchange for monetary compensation as a victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons,” and “prohibit the charging or prosecution” of the individual.

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Palin To Conservatives: Influence, Culture, Sports; Cling To God, Guns, Constitution

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

At a leadership forum at Southeastern University in Lakeland Florida on Friday, Sarah Palin told conservatives to influence the culture by impacting sports and continue to cling to God, guns, and the Constitution.

Sports has often always been upstream from culture and, as Andrew Breitbart always said, culture has been upstream from politics.
According to NewsChief.com, Palin encouraged conservatives to “infiltrate” the culture and study journalism while going into Hollywood and the sports world.

“Get out there and influence culture,” she said. “The future of the country depends on what you do.” She also asked the next generation to help change the country’s moral fiber because “our foundation will crumble if we choose to ignore it,”

“Cling to your God, your guns, your Constitution!” Palin said. “God deserves so much better than what we give him … What has happened when we can’t say his name in public?”

She hammered the crony capitalism in Washington D.C., referring to Washington as a “hotbed of cronyism” and calling the federal government “bloated, corrupt, and out-of-control.” Palin injected “crony capitalism” into the political bloodstream with her speech in Indianola, Iowa in 2011 and at her maiden appearance at CPAC in 2012.

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Al Gore Calls The NRA ‘A Complete Fraud’, But Al-Jazeera Is ‘High-Quality, Honest-To-Goodness News’

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Photo Credit: SXSW.com

Austin, Texas is playing host to stars in the worlds of film, music, technology and politics as the annual South By Southwest Conferences (SXSW) kicked off this weekend. Saturday’s keynote speech featured former Vice President Al Gore and Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. The official title of the event was “Al Gore on The Future.” Coincidentally, “The Future” is also the title of Gore’s latest book. (currently ranked #326 on Amazon.com).

In the well attended session, Gore actually stayed true to his recycling mantra and actually revisited a theme from 2012′s keynote session with Sean Parker. In that session, Gore was talking about the risks to American democracy and told Parker and the crowd, “Our democracy has been hijacked.”

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon, March 8, 2013. Gore and Mossberg on the stage in front of a full house at the Austin Convention Center. Mr. Gore told the crowd, “Our country is in very serious trouble. But that does not mean I am optimistic.” Then the former Vice President shifted focused to the topic of money and politics and trotted out last year’s catchphrase, “Our democracy has been hijacked.”

Watch video here:

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Afghan Leader Accuses US, Taliban of Collusion

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KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday accused the Taliban and the U.S. of working in concert to convince Afghans that violence will worsen if most foreign troops leave as planned by the end of next year.

Karzai said two suicide bombings that killed 19 people on Saturday — one outside the Afghan Defense Ministry and the other near a police checkpoint in eastern Khost province — show the insurgent group is conducting attacks to help show that international forces will still be needed to keep the peace after their current combat mission ends in 2014.

“The explosions in Kabul and Khost yesterday showed that they are at the service of America and at the service of this phrase: 2014. They are trying to frighten us into thinking that if the foreigners are not in Afghanistan, we would be facing these sorts of incidents,” he said during a nationally televised speech about the state of Afghan women.

There was no immediate response from the U.S.-led military coalition, which is gradually handing over responsibility for securing the country to Afghan forces.

Karzai is known for making incendiary comments in his public speeches, a move that is often attributed to him trying to appeal to those who sympathize with the Taliban or as a way to gain leverage when he feels his international allies are ignoring his country’s sovereignty. In previous speeches he has threatened to join the Taliban and called his NATO allies occupiers who want to plunder Afghanistan’s resources.

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