Mia Love is generating buzz in Utah with a historical run for Congress that would make her the first black Republican female elected to the House of Representatives.
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EDINBURG, Texas — A cell phone call from a Spanish-speaking man who said he and others were locked in a house brought police to a dirt road on the outskirts of town. There they found three small homes used as “stash houses” to hide 117 illegal immigrants, including 10 children, who had just been smuggled across the Mexican border into the United States.
One of the homes had barred windows and a padlocked door. “Approximately 50 undocumented people were inside the residence,” said Edinburg Police Chief Rolando Castañeda. “There was no running water, very minimal food; it was pretty tough for them.”
Texas is responsible for regulating the care of thousands of unaccompanied children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The Department of Health and Human Services is concerned about the future of these children.
Of the 10 boys locked with the adults inside the house, officials said, nine were unaccompanied, meaning they were traveling without their parents or adult guardians.
“They were being treated like animals,” said Castañeda. “There was a lot of desperation, there was a lot of fear in their eyes.”
All the children were taken to a local hospital, apparently suffering from dehydration.
Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court’s four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.
Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy – believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law – led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.
“He was relentless,” one source said of Kennedy’s efforts. “He was very engaged in this.”
But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, “You’re on your own.”
The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said.
Instead, the four joined forces and crafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent. They deliberately ignored Roberts’ decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.
The inner-workings of the Supreme Court are almost impossible to penetrate. The Court’s private conferences, when the justices discuss cases and cast their initial votes, include only the nine members – no law clerks or secretaries are permitted. The justices are notoriously close-lipped, and their law clerks must agree to keep matters completely confidential.
But in this closely-watched case, word of Roberts’ unusual shift has spread widely within the Court, and is known among law clerks, chambers’ aides and secretaries. It also has stirred the ire of the conservative justices, who believed Roberts was standing with them.
Continue reading on the CBS News website…
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. for AAPS
The Supreme Court has ruled that Obamacare is constitutional and has upheld the law – a victory for those who want the Federal government to micromanage your life and medical care. This is a tragic defeat, however, for those who support our Founder’s vision of liberty and privacy and the right to control our private property, such as our medical records, and our medical decisions in the privacy of personal consultations without government intrusion.
So what happens now? What does it really mean for patients and their doctors and their privacy and their freedom to choose their medical care?
With Obamacare upheld, dangerous threats lie ahead for patients and their healthcare professionals, both from ObamaCare and from the “stimulus” bill passed in 2009.
This President’s campaign promises—no new taxes, lower insurance premiums, the ability to keep your doctor and your insurance if you liked it—were shredded in the secret back room deals of the single-party bill, which Congress did not read before its frantic midnight passage.
Now that people have read the law over the past two years, we see that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is neither protective of patients, nor affordable.
By Mary Grabar and Tina Trent
When most people think of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s education programs, they remember the gentle Mr. Rogers welcoming children to his home, or documentaries offering exciting encounters with whales and other exotic creatures.
These shows still exist. But CPB today produces lessons that glorify the Black Panthers and riots and protests of the 1960s, present rocker Patti Smith as a “patriot” for singing songs that condemn President George W. Bush, vilify Wal-Mart, and sanctify environmentalist Rachel Carson. Although their educational materials claim to be objective, the truth is that their unrelenting ideological slant that promotes the politics of protest and civil disobedience is aimed at re-educating children into becoming far-left activists.
But whenever there are attempts to cut federal funding to CPB, the corporation points to its “educational programming” as proof that the approximately $450 million it receives annually from federal taxpayers is being put to good use. Big Bird and other members of the cast of Sesame Street show up in Congress to tell members of the educational value of CPB-funded programs.
The same justification is offered by state affiliates. For example, in 2011, Georgia Public Broadcasting’s marketing vice president, Nancy Zintak, defended their executives’ salaries by explaining that “80,000 Georgia teachers have downloaded data more than 5 million times from GPB’s educational website.”[1] [1]
Georgia taxpayers directly fund half of GPB’s annual $29 million budget. Millions more are funneled through the state’s public university budgets.
Teachers across the nation do turn to Public Broadcasting for videos, classroom projects, and even entire course syllabi. National statistics are elusive, but those 80,000 Georgia teachers downloading Public Broadcasting educational materials represent 63% of all public and private K – 12 educators in the state. If Georgia’s teachers are typical of educators in other states, it is clear that most K – 12 schools rely on PBS to teach subjects ranging from arithmetic to World History.
By Katie Moisse
Tick Bite Blamed for Bizarre Meat Allergies; Researchers Hope to Prove Link
There’s a new weapon in the war on meat: a tiny tick, whose bite might be spreading meat allergies up the East Coast.
A bite from the lone star tick, so-called for the white spot on its back, looks innocent enough. But University of Virginia researchers say saliva that sneaks into the tiny wound may trigger an allergic reaction to meat — agonizing enough to convert lifelong carnivores into wary vegetarians.
“People will eat beef and then anywhere from three to six hours later start having a reaction; anything from hives to full-blown anaphylactic shock,” said Dr. Scott Commins, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. “And most people want to avoid having the reaction, so they try to stay away from the food that triggers it.”
Commins said cases of the bizarre allergy are popping up along the East Coast and into the Bible Belt, areas ripe with lone star ticks. He’s already seen 400 or so. And 90 percent of them have a history of tick bites, he said.
“It’s hard to prove,” he said of the link between lone star ticks and meat allergies. “We’re still searching for the mechanism.”
Allergies are immune reactions to foreign substances, from pet hair to peanuts. As antibodies attack the substance that caused the reaction, they trigger the release of histamine, a chemical that causes hives and, in severe cases, life-threatening anaphylaxis.
Continue reading on the ABC News website…
PHOTO CREDIT: Visuals Unilimited / Corbis
Via AAPSOnline and John Stossel’s Fox News program:
Orthopedic Surgeon and AAPS President Lee Hieb, MD explains to John Stossel why restoring a free market in U.S. medical care will increase access to care, lower costs and improve quality. Government involvement in health care hurts patients.