45% of Americans Want to Skip Christmas

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Photo Credit: Mike LichtDespite a whittling away of consumer debt that has been underway since the recession, many Americans are still entering the holiday season unprepared to cope with the expenses that crop up around this time of year.

Think Finance, a provider of payday loans and other financial services for consumers with limited or no access to banking services, recently surveyed 1,000 Americans across all income levels who use various forms of alternative financial services — including payday loans, prepaid debit cards and direct deposit advances.

Although many of these consumers are on better financial footing and optimistic about their economic future this year, the holidays are still a source of stress and strain on their precarious finances, Think Finance said in the poll.

Some 45 percent of those polled said the holiday season brings so much financial pressure, they would prefer to skip it altogether. Almost half said their level of stress related to holiday expenses is high or extremely high.

That’s probably because nearly the same amount — some 45 percent — say they do not expect to have enough money set aside to cover holiday expenses.

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Santa Monica forced to Cancel Christmas After Atheist Protest

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A California town has been forced to axe its Christmas decorations after an atheist protester objected to a 14-piece religious display in the town centre and set up his own booths mocking Christianity and preventing church groups from celebrating the holidays.

Officials in Santa Monica, California have snuffed the city’s holiday tradition this year rather than intervening in the religious fight – prompting churches which have set up a 14-scene Christian diorama every year for decades to sue over freedom of speech violations. Their attorney will ask a federal judge on Monday to allow them to reproduce the depiction of Jesus’ birth, while the city aims to have the case thrown out.

‘It’s a sad, sad commentary on the attitudes of the day that a nearly 60-year-old Christmas tradition is now having to hunt for a home, something like our savior had to hunt for a place to be born because the world was not interested,’ said Hunter Jameson, head of the nonprofit Santa Monica Nativity Scene Committee that is suing.

Missing from the courtroom drama will be Damon Vix and his fellow atheists, who are not parties to the case. Their role outside court highlights a tactical shift as atheists evolve into a vocal minority eager to get their non-beliefs into the public square as never before.

National atheist groups earlier this year took out full-page newspaper ads and hundreds of TV spots in response to Catholic bishops’ activism, around women’s health care issues and are gearing up to battle for their own space alongside public Christmas displays in small towns across America this season.

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Homeschooling Movement May Be the Future of Freedom

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After 23 years of service in Congress, over a 36-year period, Ron Paul gave his farewell address to Congress. In his address, Paul delivered a sobering message to the nation:

It is self-evident that our freedoms have been severely limited and the apparent prosperity we still have, is nothing more than leftover wealth from a previous time. This fictitious wealth based on debt and benefits from a false trust in our currency and credit, will play havoc with our society when the bills come due. This means that the full consequence of our lost liberties is yet to be felt.

But that illusion is now ending. Reversing a downward spiral depends on accepting a new approach.

But, what could be a “new approach?” After all the post-election despair, do constitutional Americans still have the power and the control to move the country toward freedom? Congressman Paul’s response:

Expect the rapidly expanding homeschooling movement to play a significant role in the revolutionary reforms needed to build a free society with Constitutional protections. We cannot expect a Federal government controlled school system to provide the intellectual ammunition to combat the dangerous growth of government that threatens our liberties.

Since 1999, the number of children who are being homeschooled in the United States has increased by 75%. Though only 4% of all children in the country are educated at home, the number of primary school children whose parents choose homeschooling is growing seven times faster than the number of students enrolling in K-12 every year.

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US Drug Shortage Crisis Harming Medical Care

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Paul Davis, the chief of a rural ambulance squad in southern Ohio, was down to his last vial of morphine earlier this fall when a woman with a broken leg needed a ride to the hospital.

The trip was 30 minutes, and the patient was in pain. But because of a nationwide shortage, his morphine supply had dwindled from four doses to just one, presenting Mr. Davis with a stark quandary. Should he treat the woman, who was clearly suffering? Or should he save it for a patient who might need it more?

In the end, he opted not to give her the morphine, a decision that haunts him still. “I just feel like I’m not doing my job,” said Mr. Davis, who is chief of the rescue squad in Vernon, Ohio. He has since refilled his supply. “I shouldn’t have to make those kinds of decisions.”

From rural ambulance squads to prestigious hospitals, health care workers are struggling to keep vital medicines in stock because of a drug shortage crisis that is proving to be stubbornly difficult to fix. Rationing is just one example of the extraordinary lengths being taken to address the shortage, which health care workers say has ceased to be a temporary emergency and is now a fact of life. In desperation, they are resorting to treating patients with less effective alternative medicines and using expired drugs. The Cleveland Clinic has hired a pharmacist whose only job is to track down hard-to-find drugs.

Caused largely by an array of manufacturing problems, the shortage has prompted Congressional hearings, a presidential order and pledges by generic drug makers to communicate better with federal regulators.

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Heroic Veterans Save Wives in Horrible Accident With Texas Train (+video)

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Police have identified the four servicemen who died in Midland, Texas when a freight train plowed into a parade float carrying wounded veterans and their spouses at a crossing, two of whom saved their wives by pushing them to safety before they died.

Army Sgt. Maj. Gary Stouffer, 37, and 47-year-old Army Sgt. Maj. Lawrence Boivin were pronounced dead at the scene, police said, after the float carrying wounded veterans and their families to an honorary banquet was struck by a Union Pacific train around 4:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon. The train struck as the parade was crossing the tracks, turning the honorary event into a scene of destruction.

Army Sgt. Joshua Michael, 34, and 43-year-old Army Sgt. Maj. William Lubbers were transported from the scene and later pronounced dead at Midland Memorial Hospital, according to the Midland Police.

Seventeen people in all were transported to the hospital and 10 were treated and released. Four people were in stable condition and one is in critical condition as of this morning.

Michael was killed in the crash but was able to save his wife, his mother-in-law told the Amarillo Globe-News. Read more from this story HERE.

Meghan McCain Wants GOP to Go Left or She’ll Leave

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Meghan McCain wants Republicans to wake up or else she just might leave the party.

The Republican daughter of Sen John McCain, who famously blogged from her father’s presidential campaign bus about fashion on the campaign trail, is saying the GOP’s positions on social issues are outdated and irrelevant.’I don’t fit into the traditional Republican box that the ‘wingnuts who have hijacked my party think all Republicans should,’ she wrote in an opinion piece.

In an opinion piece penned for the Daily Beast, McCain notes that if the Republican Party does not adapt and start showing signs of social tolerance the GOP will not survive and that if she does not see signs of moderation on social issues she ‘will consider registering as an Independent in 2016.’ The realization hit her election night as she was choking back tears over the Mitt Romney’s campaign loss to President Barack Obama.

‘It’s not like he’s a close friend,’ she wrote. ‘Looking back to last week, I think that I was mourning something else. For the last four years, writing on this website, I’ve been calling for the Republican Party to come to terms with reality and modernize. Last Tuesday, Mitt Romney lost—and he lost big. As Republicans, we lost again. I felt sad, exhausted, beaten down, and heartbroken. It was the first time that I considered that the Republican Party, which I love so much, might die.’

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Hispanic Female GOP Governor Says Romney “Set Us Back as a Party”

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After two days of meetings at the Republican Governors Association conference this week, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez heard a lot about the party’s need to reach new constituencies–particularly women and ethnic minorities–but few specifics about how.

As a Republican governor of Mexican descent who won all but four counties in a Democratic state, Martinez has ideas for how the party can reach voters who traditionally support Democrats. But it’s going to take some work–and a touch of humility–from her colleagues.

“Republicans need to stop making assumptions, and they need to start talking to younger people, people of color, and ask them–not talk to them–ask them, What is it that we can do better? How do we earn your vote? How do we earn the ability for you to see that we can be the party that will make your life better and that of your children?” Martinez said in an interview after the conference here. “But we can’t be the ones that come and tell them how things are going to be and how we have all the solutions.”

President Barack Obama in 2012 expanded his lead among Hispanics, black voters, Asians and women, according to exit polling, leaving many Republicans wondering what they need do to adapt to the nation’s rapidly shifting demographics.

The topic has dominated much of the party’s post-election soul searching. Some have placed part of the blame on the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, who wrote off nearly half the electorate as inevitable Obama voters when he told donors at a closed-door fundraiser last spring that 47 percent of the population would support Obama “no matter what.” Martinez criticized Romney’s comments when they were reported in September, and on Wednesday reiterated that she found them “ridiculous.”

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Holocaust Survivor Returns US Flag to Family of Soldier Who Rescued Him

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A Holocaust survivor returned an American flag to the family of a soldier who had given him the gift, the sole memento from his war-torn childhood that he kept for 67 years.

Stephan Ross, now 81, was found by U.S. serviceman Steve Sattler, emaciated and terrified at Dachau concentration camp in Germany. After handing over his rations to the boy during the 1945 liberation, Sattler then gave him his handkerchief decorated with the Stars and Stripes.

On Veteran’s Day this Sunday, Mr Ross had the opportunity for the first time to thank the family of the man who rescued him.

He hugged the children and grandchildren of Mr Sattler during the emotional meeting at the State House in Boston. Mr Ross wore a striped jacket and hat, like the camp uniform, along with his identification number.

The 81-year-old gave Mr Sattler’s family a boxed flag, saying: ‘God Bless, America’.

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Petraeus’s Mistress Paula Broadwell’s Driver’s License Found in Capital Park (+video update)

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A Maryland National Capital Park Police spokesman confirmed that a jogger found a North Carolina license in Rock Creek Park belonging to Paula Broadwell. Park Police planned to hold it for 90 days, per policy, and then send it back to the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

The Park Police also alerted the FBI, says Bill Kellogg, a spokesman for the Park Police. The FBI did not initially return calls for comment on the report.

Broadwell’s attorney, Robert F. Muse, confirmed that Broadwell, a North Carolina resident, lost her driver’s license in the park…Muse did not immediately return calls regarding Broadwell’s current whereabouts. Read more from this story HERE.

Fox News Anchor Suspended for Calling Rachel Maddow an “Angry Young Man”

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A Fox News anchor in Cincinnati, Ohio has returned to work after a two-day absence from her nightly newscast and an apology for calling MSNBC host Rachel Maddow an ‘angry young man.’

Tricia Macke of WXIX-TV was off the air Sunday and Monday, several days after she issued an apology for referring to the openly gay Maddow as ‘such an angry young man’ on her Facebook page. Maddow is an author, liberal commentator and host of the 9 p.m. nightly ‘Rachel Maddow Show’ on MSNBC. When a viewer reprimanded Macke for her remarks about Maddow, Macke initially didn’t back down.

‘I am sorry. I should have said antagonistic,’ she wrote. When another viewer criticized her, Macke again stood by her statements. ‘I knew what I was saying,’ she responded. Macke is a star anchor for Cincinnati’s Fox 19 News who hosts the 6:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. nightly newscasts. She has been with the station since 1993.

Fox 19 did not address Macke’s remarks, which she made in mid-October, until last week, as the station was facing mounting pressure from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a national advocacy group.

‘Referring to Maddow as a “man” because she is a gay woman is completely unacceptable for someone in the business of journalism,’ said Aaron McQuade, a spokesman for GLAAD.

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