Kerry: Extremism Exploits a ‘Beautiful Religion’

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Photo Credit: AP / Carolyn Kaster, PoolThe response to Islamist extremism, which “exploits a legitimate and beautiful religion,” must include offering alternatives to young people who lack opportunities and “feel oppressed,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday.

“The challenge of our generation is going to be to deal with religious radical extremism, which exploits a legitimate and beautiful religion that is being totally distorted, has nothing to do with what they purport to be pursuing, and nevertheless captures the minds of some of our young people – even in America,” Kerry told staff at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa.

He noted that more than 100 Americans have traveled to the region to fight with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL), while more had done so from European countries, Australia and elsewhere.

“And so we have to push back. We’re not going to win this exclusively through our efforts on the ground in this coalition with kinetic efforts,” he said, referring to the U.S.-led coalition’s military operations against the jihadist group. “We’re going to win this with ideas.”

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Photo Credit: AP / KUNAUS Envoy: To Defeat ISIS, We Must Highlight ‘Our Profound Respect’ for Islam

A global effort to counter claims by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) that it is acting in the name of Islam must include a counter-narrative that highlights “our profound respect” for the religion, the administration’s point man in the anti-ISIS coalition said this week.

Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Allen was speaking in Kuwait, where representatives of more than a dozen Islamic and Western met to discuss using public communications to combat ISIS (also known as Da’esh – an acronym for the Arabic rendering of the group’s name, ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah fil-Iraq wa ash-Sham).

“As we seek to expose Da’esh’s true nature,” Allen told the gathering on Monday, “we must also tell a positive story, one that highlights our respect – our profound respect for Islam’s proud traditions, its rich history, and celebration of scholarship and family and community.”

“We must work with clerics and scholars and teachers and parents to tell the story of how we celebrate Islam, even as we show that Da’esh perverts it.”

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Armored Vehicle Helps Collect Civil Judgment in Small Town

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Photo Credit: Ryan ListerWhen officials in the tiny Town of Stettin in Marathon County went to collect a civil judgment from 75-year-old Roger Hoeppner this month, they sent 24 armed officers.

And an armored military vehicle.

Among other issues, the recent unrest in Ferguson, Mo., focused attention on the growing militarization of local law enforcement, particularly the use by even very small police departments of surplus armored military vehicles.

Marathon County sheriff’s officials aren’t apologizing for their tactics. Sheriff’s Capt. Greg Bean said officials expected to have to seize and remove tractors and wooden pallets to pay the judgment — hence the cadre of deputies. He also said what while Hoeppner was never considered dangerous, he was known to be argumentative.

Hoeppner said when he noticed deputies outside his house, he called his attorney, Ryan Lister of Wausau. Lister said he quickly left for Hoeppner’s house but was stopped by a roadblock that was kept up until after his client had been taken away in handcuffs. “Rather than provide Mr. Hoeppner or his counsel notice…and attempt to collect without spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on the military-style maneuvers, the town unilaterally decided to enforce its civil judgment” with a show of force, Lister said.

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Dad Banned From School After Complaints About Daughter’s Islam Homework

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Photo Credit: ShutterstockA Maryland father and former Marine finds himself under a no-trespass order for asking that his daughter be excused from Islam homework in her world history class.

Kevin Wood, the eight year Marine veteran, was upset because he did not want his high-school junior daughter to participate in instruction on Islam.

He called La Plata High School in Maryland, hoping to get his daughter excused.

Wood spoke first to an administrative assistant and then to Vice Principal Shannon Morris.

A school-district spokeswoman, Katie O’Malley Simpson, claimed that Wood threatened to cause problems at the school in his conversation with Morris.

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Grayson’s Wife, Kids Now On Government Assistance

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Photo Credit: APBarely a week after being named the 17th richest member of Congress, liberal firebrand and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson is refusing to support his estranged wife and their kids, and his wife has turned to government food stamps to support her family, WFTV 9 Orlando reports.

Grayson’s marriage of 29 years dissolved earlier this year when his wife, Lolita Grayson, filed for divorce. A week later, Rep. Grayson asked a court to annul the marriage on the basis of bigamy.

Mr. Grayson is refusing to support his family because he is claiming that she was never divorced from her first husband and therefore their marriage was never legitimate.

Mrs. Grayson told WFTV 9 Orlando she never thought she would be on food stamps or have her kids on the school lunch, because her husband was “the sole provider,” she said. “I don’t have any money at all. He’s been holding all our money for years and years.”

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After-Birth Abortions: College Students Increasingly Support Infanticide (+video)

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsAbortion proponents like to paint pro-lifers as extremists who go to great lengths to take away the rights of women. However, many of these abortion activists have views that are legitimately extreme and quite frankly, horrifying. Take, for example, the position that abortion should be legal in cases where the parents conceive a girl but they wanted a boy. Some activists would say women should have the right to an abortion because they shouldn’t be forced to have a child they don’t want.

But, unfortunately, supporting sex-selection abortion isn’t the worst of their extremist views; there are “pro-choicers” who support killing babies after their born. And according to Thomas Aquinas student, Mairead Mcardle, more college students are supporting post-birth abortion.

She writes in The College Fix, “Anecdotal evidence by leaders of pro-life groups such as Created Equal and Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust said in interviews that not only do they see more college students willing to say they support post-birth abortion, but some students even suggest children up to 4 or 5-years-old can also be killed, because they are not yet “self aware.”

She cites the testimony of Mark Harrington, the director of Created Equal. Harrington said, “We encounter people who think it is morally acceptable to kill babies after birth on a regular basis at almost every campus we visit. While this viewpoint is still seen as shocking by most people, it is becoming increasingly popular.”

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Democrats Accused Of Posing As Republican Election Judges In Colorado

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Photo Credit: Reuters The Colorado secretary of state is investigating allegations that some Boulder County Republican election judges are actually Democrats in disguise.

Boulder County GOP Chairwoman Ellyn Hilliard initially raised the alarm when visiting polling locations where she didn’t recognize some of the GOP judges who are tasked with comparing voter signatures on mail ballots to protect against vote fraud.

She became alarmed when she noticed some ballots whose signatures clearly didn’t match those on file for the voter being accepted.

Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert began investigating and confirmed to the Daily Camera that she found “some troubling inconsistencies with some election judges.”

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GOP Senate Candidate Called 'Uncle Tom' at Hillary/Hagan Rally in N.C.

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Photo Credit: REUTERSRepublican Senate candidate Thom Tillis was called “Uncle Tom” at a recent Senator Kay Hagan rally in North Carolina. Hillary Clinton was also on hand to help rally Democrats in support of Hagan–and the possible presidential candidate specifically praised the speaker who made the questionable comments.

The remarks were from Alma Adams, who is running for Congress from North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District. Here’s audio:

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92% of Marine Casualties in Afghan War Occurred Under Obama

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Photo Credit: AP / Steve RuarkAs U.S. Marines withdraw from Operation Enduring Freedom (the Afghanistan war), CNSNews.com’s database on casualties shows that 418 Marines gave their lives in the conflict and that 92% of those casualties, 385 deaths, occurred since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.

“U.S. Marines and service members from the United Kingdom left Regional Command Southwest in Afghanistan’s Helmand province today, turning their facilities over to the Afghan security forces,” reported the Department of Defense on Oct. 27.

“We lift off confident in the Afghans’ ability to secure the region,” said Army Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson, commander of the ISAF Joint Command. “The mission has been complex, difficult and dangerous. Everyone has made tremendous sacrifices, but those sacrifices have not been in vain.”

In the more than 12 years that have passed since U.S. troops first entered Afghanistan with the aim of removing al Qaeda from its sanctuary there, 2,226 U.S. service personnel have given their lives in and around Afghanistan in support of U.S. military activities in that country. Among those, 418 soldiers, or 18.8 percent of those service personnel were U.S. Marines.

From January 20, 2009 to the end of 2009, 68 Marines died in Operation Enduring Freedom. The next year, 2010, accounted for most of the Marine casualties: 165 Marines lost their lives. In 2011, 78 Marines died; in 2012, 58 Marines died; in 2013 8 Marines died and another 8 in 2014.

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Mom Beheaded by Son Was Beloved Professor

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Photo Credit: Wayne CarringtonThe woman who was beheaded Tuesday night at her Long Island apartment complex was a beloved professor at Farmingdale State College who was killed by her psychologically disturbed son, police sources said on Wednesday.

Patricia Ward, 66 — a 28-year veteran faculty member who taught language arts at the college — was decapitated by Derek Ward, 35, who lived with her, police sources said.

Derek Ward , who has a criminal record including gun charges, allegedly hacked her head off with a knife and kicked it across the street before throwing himself in front of a LIRR train, said Detective Lieutenant John Azzata of Nassau homicide.

“Mr. Ward has a psychiatric history dating back approximately 10 years. It exacerbated itself within the last year … It just seemed to be he was acting out,” Azzata said.

A knife believed to be the murder weapon was recovered at the scene, Azzata said.

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Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson: 'Elect Godly Men, for Crying Out Loud' (+video)

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Photo Credit: APThe patriarch of the famous and influential Duck Dynasty empire is urging voters “to elect Godly men for crying out loud, or we are going to get more of the same.”

In a YouTube video cut for the evangelical group American Renewal Project, Phil Robertson urged voters in Louisiana, home to his family’s operation, to get to the polls: “Better move before it’s too late.”

Filmed in the woods and with Robertson in his trademark camo, the sometimes controversial businessman said, “We are in a republic. We are supposed to vote for the ones that run our country.”

He adds, “We need to elect Godly men for crying out loud, or we are going to get more of the same.”

Robertson concluded, “Just remember this. Vote Godly. We want Godly men making political decisions like George Washington, like John Adams, like Thomas Jefferson, like James Madison. We need Godly men like the ones who founded our country.”

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