Hundreds of millions of girls have been killed worldwide through abortion and infanticide. Watch this powerful trailer of “It’s a Girl,” including a brief interview with an Indian mother who strangled eight of her newborn baby girls because they weren’t boys:
Please read this related story HERE.
Making reference for the first time to the Democrats’ about-face on having the word “God” in their party’s platform, Mitt Romney said here today that if he is elected, God will not be removed from the Republican platform.
“I will not take God out of the name of our platform,” said Romney to thunderous applause. “I will not take God off our coins and I will not take God out of my heart. We’re a nation that’s bestowed by God.”
It was Romney’s first reference to last week’s awkward proceedings during the Democratic National Convention, in which after one day the platform was amended to include the word “God” and name Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reportedly under the instruction of President Obama.
Romney debuted a new stump speech here today, one that hinged on the candidate leading the crowd of thousands in the Pledge of Allegiance.
“I remember as a boy, I was in the fourth grade, somehow in my mind I remember being there in the fourth grade in front of the blackboard, we had an American flag that was pinned in front of the blackboard. And every day we stood, lined up in front of that blackboard and we recited the pledge of allegiance. Do you remember?” asked Romney, launching into the pledge.
Read more from this story HERE.
In this wide-ranging video with Brietbart TV, presidential candidate Gary Johnson discusses a number of issues about his candidacy. In one of his more surprising comments, Johnson admits that he smoked marijuana for three years, ending as recently as 2008. See the video here.
Obama Widens Lead
By Alina Selyukh. President Barack Obama, picking up support following the Democratic National Convention, widened his narrow lead over Republican U.S. presidential challenger Mitt Romney in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Saturday.
The latest daily tracking poll showed Obama, a Democrat, with a lead of 4 percentage points over Romney. Forty-seven percent of 1,457 likely voters surveyed online over the previous four days said they would vote for Obama if the November 6 elections were held today, compared with 43 percent for Romney.
“The bump is actually happening. I know there was some debate whether it would happen… but it’s here,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark, referring to the “bounce” in support that many presidential candidates enjoy after nominating conventions.
Obama had leapfrogged Romney in the daily tracking poll on Friday with a lead of 46 percent to 44 percent.
The president’s lead comes despite a mixed reaction to his convention speech on Thursday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Friday’s government data showing that jobs growth slowed sharply last month. [Read more from this story HERE].
48% Give Obama Good or Excellent Marks
By Rasmussen Reports. President Obama continues to earn positive marks for leadership from nearly half the nation’s voters, but there’s a wide partisan difference of opinion on this question.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters rate the president’s leadership as good or excellent. [Read more from this story HERE].
Photo credit: Moyan Brenn
But some tourists accept the pamphlets and glossy cards that advertise all-but-nude exotic dancers. Then, more often than not, they toss the material in the trash. Or if a trash can isn’t nearby, onto the sidewalk — creating an endless X-rated litter problem that Las Vegas officials are now trying to clean up.
A new ordinance requires handbillers to pick up litter within a 25-foot radius on the sidewalk. But there’s a hitch: The law might run afoul of the First Amendment.
“If someone takes some material, regardless of what it is, and then walks down the street and decides to drop it, that’s the person who is littering. That’s the person that is responsible, not the person who gave it to them originally,” said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the Nevada American Civil Liberties Union.
Las Vegas police aren’t enforcing the ordinance yet. The ACLU has been meeting regularly with the exotic dancer businesses and police to talk about how that will happen, as well as encourage handbillers to help keep the Strip clean. The group has not yet challenged the law in court.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: NASA Goddard Photo & Video
Food security “is one of the most acute problems of our time,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in convening Sunday’s second and final “informal retreat” of the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum in this far eastern Russian seaport.
“Without ensuring food security, we cannot achieve our goal of enhancing the quality of life for our people,” he said before the closed door session got under way.
The explicit focus on food security by the leaders of the 21-member APEC reflects abiding concern over the potential for food prices to surge to politically volatile levels.
Current prices are high, though they remained flat in August and are below the levels that triggered rioting and unrest in parts of the developing world in 2007-2008. Another food crisis, in 2010-2011, also caused hardships for poorer consumers, especially in countries heavily dependent on food imports.
Read more from this story HERE.
Obama has one of the worst egos of any American president in history. Here’s a video summary that should convince the worst of skeptics:
With the debates around the corner and the presidential race in full swing, the Obama administration is quietly planning a second term, Politico reported, as it assesses staff and crafts legislative plans.
What might seem as overconfidence, however, has some precedent in previous administrations. Still, a host of liberal groups also are quietly planning renewed lobbying efforts to pressure what would be a “lame-duck” president to push through some big-ticket projects, Politico reports.
Among the moves anticipated:
•The liberal Alliance for Justice, Leadership Conference of Civil Rights and the People for the American Way, among others, are focused on trying to make the process move faster to place more liberal federal judges on the bench.
•Heads of the major environmental groups held a two-day retreat in July at the Wye Plantation in Talbot County, Md., to consider ways to push big cap-and-trade programs in a second term.
•Environmental, gay-rights and immigration groups mindful of Obama’s own tight window for action are also working on how to get their ideas wrapped in various bills.
•Obama told Time Magazine that because of his policy contrasts with Romney, he’d interpret a win as giving him a mandate to end the Bush-era tax cuts for people earning more than $250,000.
Read more from this story HERE.
Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan says the federal government shouldn’t interfere with states that have legalized medical marijuana.
The Wisconsin congressman tells KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs that he personally doesn’t approve of medical marijuana laws. But he says that states should have the right to choose whether to legalize the drug for medical purposes.
In response to a reporter’s question, Ryan said: “It’s up to Coloradans to decide.”
The interview was taped while Ryan campaigned this week in Colorado Springs and aired Friday.
Colorado is one of 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, that allow medical marijuana.
The Obama administration at first signaled that it wouldn’t interfere with state-sanctioned marijuana distribution.
Read more from this story HERE.
Alaska’s Human Rights Commission (HRC), a government agency established to enforce the state’s human rights laws, recently heard a case involving Paul Kopf, the owner of Goldstream General Store in Fairbanks. A former employee, Lynn Dowler, alleged that she was forced to quit because she found the owner’s religious talk too offensive to handle. The HRC determined that Mr. Kopf had discriminated against his employee by speaking openly about his religious views and imposed a $75,000 fine against him.
When I first heard about this ruling several days ago, I was upset. So I sought out Mr. Kopf’s attorney in Fairbanks, Tom Wickwire. After talking to Mr. Wickwire yesterday, I became incensed.
Here’s what Mr. Wickwire told me really happened in the case:
Paul Kopf [also] hired employee Lynn Dowler’s daughter, knowing she was a lesbian. While the daughter worked for Kopf, she went through a very unhappy and stressful break-up of a relationship. It affected her job performance and absenteeism so much that Lynn Dowler recommended, or suggested that Kopf fire her daughter. He didn’t. Instead he kept her on, allowing her time to work through her emotional crisis. This showed compassion and sympathy for an employee with a lifestyle that many do not accept. Kopf also had several other employees who, I will say, lived on the fringes, if not outside of, mainstream society.
This “tolerance” made one of Ms. Dowler’s other allegations, that Mr. Kopf was vehemently intolerant of Catholics, even less believable. Mr. Wickwire continued:
While Dowler was in the hearing trying her best to convince the Admin law Judge that she had reached the point of not being able to take Kopf’s religious talk any longer, it became clear that she had never complained to Kopf that some of his talk was offensive, in fact had never told him she was Catholic. But in the hearing, [she] complained that Kopf was harshly critical of Catholics.
There is clearly established law in other areas that an employee who feels subjected to a hostile work environment has a duty to tell the boss what she finds offensive, so the boss knows and has a chance to stop before getting sued. I briefed this law to the Human Rights Commission and they apparently ignored it.
To make matters worse, after Ms. Dowler quit, she later submitted a list of grievances to Mr. Kopf. This list contained no complaint about religious talk. But the grievance list that was later submitted to the HRC was apparently altered to include a religious discrimination claim. Why? Mr. Wickwire stated that, “for Dowler to have a winnable case, she had to prove she quit because of religious discrimination.” He believes that she added the religious allegation “to the list when she learned, probably from talking to the Human Rights Commission after she quit , that this was the only way they would take her case on.”
Mr. Wickwire concludes:
It was disappointing that the Human Rights Commission did not realize that the First Amendment is what protects the right of a private business owner on his own property in speaking his mind. This right, and its limits, seems particularly important when our nation has embarked on a debate about Mormonism and what would it mean to have a Mormon President. We should not punish people for expressing their religious beliefs, including doubts or criticisms of other religions. The US Supreme Court has said in many First Amendment decisions that free, open vigorous debate of conflicting viewpoints is the surest and safest way to expose unworthy ideas and have the best ones gain acceptance. This case, and the HRC’s handling of it has set us back.
What was accomplished here?
Kopf is broke. His belief in America as a country that values differing religions and encourage lively religious debate is much shaken. If the HRC is right, it has taught Kopf that he can think what he wants but had better not talk about his faith.
An employer who had shown himself willing to hire people who were otherwise not likely to get decent paying jobs, is run out of business.
The Right of individuals to speak about their faith on their own property freely, without fear of persecution is now in question, at least in Alaska.