Gay-rights Groups Push Obama for Executive Order Banning ‘Discrimination’

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photo credit: mark fowlerGay rights advocates plan to push President Obama to go big on their agenda in his second term.

Buoyed by the approval of same-sex marriage in several states on Election Day, lobbyists for gay rights groups plan to prod the president to sign an executive order that would ban discrimination by federal contractors against gay and transgendered people.

The White House shelved the executive order earlier this year, but it remains a top priority for gay rights groups. They argue that if Obama signs the order it could encourage Capitol Hill to pass broader legislation that would extend a similar ban to employers.

Allison Herwitt, legislative director for the Human Rights Campaign, said gay rights supporters want to see movement from the president soon.

“The push is to have them do it sooner instead of later,” Herwitt said. “I do think it helps pave the way for a fully inclusive [Employment Non-Discrimination Act]. … It is the way that the government puts its imprimatur on what’s important and makes a difference in people’s lives. The president would be saying it’s important not to discriminate.”

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Israel Fires First Shot at Syrian Military Since 1973 Yom Kippur War

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IDF ground forces fired a warning shot at the Syrian military on Sunday for the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

They shot the guided missile after a stray Syrian shell from civil strife in that country exploded on the Golan Heights for the second time in recent days.

The shell hit as Israel suffered a barrage of missiles from Gaza, putting the IDF in the position of monitoring enemy fire along both the northern and southern borders.

“In the midst of Syrian infighting, a mortar shell fired by the Syrian Army struck near an [IDF] outpost at Tel Azeka,” IDF spokesman Brig.- Gen. Yoav Mordechai said.

The shell failed to cause injuries or damage. It was one of a series that hit Israeli territory.

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Mysterious Explosion Kills Residents, Destroys Homes in Indiana

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photo credit: APA massive explosion sparked a huge fire and killed two people in an Indianapolis neighborhood, authorities said Sunday. The powerful nighttime blast shattered windows, crumpled walls and could be felt at least three miles away. Officials say as many as 31 homes were damaged so badly they may need to be demolished.

Seven people were taken to a hospital with injuries after the explosion and fire, Deputy Fire Chief Kenny Bacon said.

Bacon also told reporters Sunday investigators haven’t ruled out any possible causes of the late-night blast that was heard miles away.

But a congressman who represents the Indianapolis neighborhood says investigators have ruled out a bomb or a meth lab.

U.S. Rep. Andre Carson said he had received that report from Homeland Security officials during a tour of the devastated middle-class subdivision.

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Amnesty Would Only Make Republican Woes More Dire

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Mitt Romney lost Latino votes Tuesday by a 44-point margin, a number that has caused some very principled conservative thinkers to panic unnecessarily.

Premiere Radio host Sean Hannity broke first, telling listeners Thursday: “We’ve gotta get rid of the immigration issue altogether. It’s simple for me to fix it. I think you control the border first, you create a pathway for those people that are here, you don’t say, ‘You gotta go home.’ And that is a position that I’ve evolved on. Because you know what — it just — it’s gotta be resolved.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer quickly followed suit, writing: “For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement. … The other party thinks it owns the demographic future — counter that in one stroke by fixing the Latino problem.”

Hannity and Krauthammer are tremendous talents who have done much good promoting conservative values and ideas. But on immigration and amnesty they appear to have a very short memory.

In 1984, President Reagan won re-election despite losing Hispanics 2-to-1. In 1986, Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which both tightened immigration enforcement at the border and granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants. In 1988, Hispanics rewarded the Republican party by voting … even more heavily Democratic. President Bush lost Hispanics by 40 points, 70 percent to 30 percent. So much for amnesty as the “single policy change” capable of “fixing the Latino problem.”

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Media Ignore New Emails Detailing Obama Energy Dept. Corruption

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One week before the presidential election, a Congressional committee released Obama administration emails that showed a pattern of political pressure from President Barack Obama and others in his administration. The emails indicate favoritism toward Democrat politicians and donors in the awarding of federal energy loans.

The mainstream media chose not to report on the emails, even though just days before their release, Obama had flatly stated in an interview that politics played no part in awarding the loans.

In the old days of hard-nosed journalism, i.e., before the Age of Obama, if the president was caught lying about his involvement in a government payola scandal, it would have been front page news and led the evening newscasts of the broadcast networks.

Not anymore. Even with the release of an email in which an official says what, in a different media era, would become a catch phrase for administration corruption: “What’s a billion, anyhow?”

Even with the release of emails showing President Obama personally involved in awarding loans.

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‘Unleashing the Monster’ of Climate Change, or a New Energy Source? You Won’t Believe What Researchers Are Doing With Alaskan ‘Ice’

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(TheBlaze/AP) — A half mile below the ground at Prudhoe Bay, above the vast oil field that helped trigger construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline, a drill rig has tapped what researchers think could be the next big energy source.

The U.S. Department of Energy and industry partners over two winters drilled into a reservoir of methane hydrate, which looks like ice but burns like a candle if a match warms its molecules.

The nearly $29 million science experiment on the North Slope produced 1 million cubic feet of methane, according to the Associated Press. Now, researchers have begun the complex task of analyzing how the reservoir responded to extraction.

“If you wait until you need it, and then you have 20 years of research to do, that’s not a good plan,” Ray Boswell, technology manager for methane hydrates within the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, remarked.

Much is unknown but interest has accelerated over the last decade, Tim Collett, a research geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, added.

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FBI Whistle-Blower Told Eric Cantor About Petraeus Affair in October

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An FBI whistleblower told House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in late October that ex-CIA Director David Petraeus had been involved in an extramarital affair and was potentially putting national security at risk, the New York Times reported Saturday.

Cantor reportedly knew about the affair for at least a week and a half before Petraeus resigned Friday.

“I was contacted by an F.B.I. employee concerned that sensitive, classified information may have been compromised and made certain Director Mueller was aware of these serious allegations and the potential risk to our national security,” Cantor said in a statement to the Times.

According to the Times, Cantor learned through Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) “that a whistle-blower wanted to speak to someone in the Congressional leadership about a national security concern.” Cantor’s chief of staff called the FBI afterward on Oct. 31 to inform them about what Cantor had learned.

A Cantor spokesman confirmed the report to CNN on Sunday.

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Double Life of Top Federal Child Porn Enforcer Who Was a Pornographer Himself

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South Florida’s former chief of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has been sentenced to almost six years in prison on a child pornography charge.

Anthony Mangione, 52, offered sorrow but no explanation of his behavior when speaking to U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra. ‘I’m pretty much a broken guy,’ he told him. ‘I feel like I’m in a hole eight feet deep with six feet of dirt on top.’

Mangione cut a plea deal in October to provide evidence against other child porn collectors he met online. Mangione ran ICE’s South Florida office from 2007 to 2011, a job that included numerous child porn investigations and oversaw 450 federal employees.

He even spoke out against child pornographers. ‘ICE relentlessly pursues predators who sexually abuse children, whether that abuse is physical or whether it is accomplished by exploiting their images,’ he said after the 2009 sentencing of a Wellington man for enticing boys online to take off their clothes.

He was a respected, 27-year veteran of law enforcement when he retired shortly after April 2011, when investigators searched his home and office computers. Up to 150 images of child porn, some depicting ‘extreme abuse of children’, were found in his position, according to federal prosecutors.

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How Do You Kill Obamacare Now?

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WASHINGTON – Things are looking bleak for Republicans and conservatives around the country after the 2012 election.

But there is a Plan B, says Joseph Farah, founder, editor and chief executive officer of WND, who says House Republicans alone have it in their power to kill Obamacare, cut $1 trillion in borrowing and spending and start the nation’s return to constitutionally limited government with one vote.

That vote, he says, is a rejection of raising the debt limit – thereby denying Obama the funds he needs for Obamacare and “a thousand other programs that are wasteful, unconstitutional, immoral and about to take the country off the fiscal cliff.”

Is there a chance Republicans will do it?

“It will happen only if Americans rise up in big numbers and demand it of them,” he says. “Republicans have it in their power. They only need an injection of courage.”

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Veteran’s Day Tribute: The Amazing Story of the Rescue of Pilot Roger Locher

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Brig. Gen Steve Ritchie tells the amazing story of the rescue of downed pilot Roger Locher in Vietnam in 1972.

In that same year Ritchie volunteered for his second tour in Southeast Asia and was assigned to the 432nd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing at Udorn, Thailand. Flying an F-4D with the famous 555th (“Triple Nickel”) Tactical Fighter Squadron, he became the only Air Force jet ace by downing a MiG-21 on May 10, another on May 31, two on July 8 and his last on Aug. 28.

After completing 339 combat missions totaling more than 800 flying hours, Ritchie returned as one of the most highly decorated pilots of the war, having received the Air Force Cross, four Silver Stars, 10 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 25 Air Medals.

His combat expertise brought him the 1972 “Mackay Trophy” for the most significant Air Force mission of the year (along with Capts. Jeff Feinstein and Charles DeBellevue), the Air Force Academy’s 1972 Colonel James Jabara Award for Airmanship, and the 1972 Armed Forces Award, presented by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. In 1973 he was selected as one of the “Outstanding Young Men of America,” and in 1974 he received the Eugene Zuckert Award from the Civil Air Patrol.