Texas to Become an Open Carry State?

Credit - AP

Credit – AP

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Long depicted as the rootin’-tootin’ capital of American gun culture, Texas is one of the few states with an outright ban on the open carry of handguns.

That could change in 2015, with the Republican-dominated Legislature and Gov.-elect Greg Abbott expected to push for expanded gun rights.

“If open carry is good enough for Massachusetts, it’s good enough for the state of Texas,” Abbott said the day after his election last month.

And if Texas, which allows concealed handguns, embraces open carry — rolling back a 140-year ban — it would be the largest state to have done so.

Open carry drew wide support in the 2014 statewide election, and at least six bills have already been filed for the upcoming session, which starts in January. Abbott has already pledged to sign one into law if sent to his desk.

Read more from this story HERE.

Senate Approves Obama's Anti-Gun Surgeon General Nominee

Credit - Newsy

Credit – Newsy

The Senate on Monday approved President Obama’s nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy to serve as U.S. surgeon general, despite opposition from Republicans and some Democrats over his support for gun control and past statements that gun violence is a public health issue.

Murthy, 37, a physician at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School, won confirmation on a vote of 51-43. He’s a co-founder of Doctors for America, a group that has pushed for affordable health care and supports Obama’s health care law.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said most of Murthy’s career has been spent as an activist focused on gun control and other political issues, rather than on treating patients. “Americans don’t want a surgeon general who might use this position of trust to promote his own personal campaign against the Second Amendment of the Constitution,” Barrasso said.

Supporters said Murthy is well-qualified and noted his promise not to use the position as a bully pulpit for gun control.

The nation has been without a Senate-confirmed surgeon general since July 2013. The surgeon general does not set policy but is an advocate for the people’s health.

Here is the Roll Call.

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Rand Paul Introduces Bill to Undo Executive Amnesty

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has filed a bill seeking to repeal President Obama’s executive order that delays deportation of five million immigrants, the Courier Journal reported Saturday.

Paul’s bill, “Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act,” is companion legislation to a House bill passed last week from Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.)

The Kentucky Republican’s proposal, posted on his website Friday, prohibits the president from using discretion when determining who to deport.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Senator Paul Introduces Legislation to Prevent President Obama’s Executive Amnesty

Senator Rand Paul today introduced the Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act. This is companion legislation to Congressman Ted Yoho’s bill (H.R. 5759) that passed the House of Representatives on December 4, 2014 on a 219-197 vote.

This legislation would end President Obama’s executive action on immigration and restore the Congress’ constitutional role as the body to craft legislation. Article I of the Constitution places the legislative powers in Congress. The President does not have the power under the Constitution to rewrite immigration laws to exempt classes of people from a law that was passed by Congress and signed into law.

“I believe that the Constitution is clear that the legislative power resides in Congress. The President is not a king and he does not have the power to enact laws then execute his own laws. Our Constitution is being violated by this executive order and other actions by the Obama Administration to govern by executive fiat,” Sen. Paul stated.

A copy of the legislation can be found HERE.

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Cromnibus Passes Senate – Here's the Roll Call

Credit - Daily Signal

Credit – Daily Signal

The Senate tonight passed a $1.1 trillion bill to fund most of the federal government through the current fiscal year, averting another partial shutdown amid sharp disagreements on regulating immigration, financial institutions and election campaigns.

The Senate’s bipartisan 56-40 vote, coming after an unusual Saturday session, cleared the way for President Obama to sign the spending bill, which he has said he will do.

Senate conservatives, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, had tried to slow passage of the bill — forcing senators to work the weekend rather than return Monday. They objected that it did not “defund” Obama’s executive actions to grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.

The upper chamber’s action follows a 219-206 vote by the House of Representatives less than three hours before a midnight deadline Thursday night. As in the House, both liberals and conservatives were unhappy with aspects of the spending bill.

When the final vote came just before 10, more Senate Democrats (21) voted against the bill than did Republicans (18), signaling the odd alliances created by the funding measure. One independent, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, also rejected the measure. (Here is the roll call.)

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Controversial New Obama Admin College Rating System Taking Heat

Credit - Fox News

Credit – Fox News

WASHINGTON – A controversial Obama administration rating system for colleges and universities already is being scrutinized ahead of its late-December rollout by educators who claim the government’s goal of more transparency could come at the expense of schools that don’t happen to fit the ivory tower model.

The federal government, with its long-awaited rating system, is trying to hold the country’s 7,000 colleges and universities accountable not only to taxpayers, but also to prospective students trying to weigh the pros and cons of different institutions.

But it has many in the education community on edge. Several colleges and education associations have launched a preemptive PR strike against the plan, though the details haven’t yet been released.

“I don’t know how they can complain about something that isn’t even out,” a source at the Department of Education told FoxNews.com on condition of anonymity.

The ratings system, rumored to be released on Dec. 19, is likely to re-ignite the debate on the federal government’s role in higher education. The Obama administration has had to balance its position as a cheerleader for innovation with its demands for colleges and universities to rein in tuition costs, while also pressing the institutions to produce more employable graduates.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ex-CIA Official: Pelosi, Dems 'Fully Aware' of CIA's Interrogation Methods

Fox News

Fox News

Screen Shot 2014-12-15 at 1.20.45 AMOn “Fox News Sunday,” Chris Wallace spoke to Jose Rodriguez, the former director of the National Clandestine Service of the CIA, who oversaw the agency’s interrogation program.

Bolling Blasts CIA Torture Report: ‘I Have Zero Sympathy for the Terrorists’

Rodriguez said that the CIA’s controversial enhanced interrogation techniques that appear the Senate Intelligence Committee’s “torture report” were both legal and approved by the Justice Department.

He added that thorough investigations of the CIA’s program were conducted and no prosecutable offenses were found.

“No one tortured anybody else,” Rodriguez said.

Judge Jeanine: ‘Your Ivory Tower, Liberal, Kumbaya Naiveté Is Dangerous’

As for the report’s conclusion that the CIA misled Congress, Rodriguez said that he very clearly remembers briefing Nancy Pelosi in September 2002.

Read more from this story HERE.

A Viable Alternative to ObamaCare

 Credit - Jim Ruymen/Newscom

Credit – Jim Ruymen/Newscom

In the wake of Republican mid-term electoral victories, and with support for the president’s health care law registering new lows in the Gallup survey, it is time to consider what a “repeal and replace” strategy for Obamacare might actually look like.

While it is true that the politics and timing remain fluid, it is still possible to outline substantive changes.

At the top of the list would be replacing the Obamacare premium tax credits for exchange coverage with a new health care tax credit design that is broader, fairer and simpler.

Obamacare provides substantial subsidies for buying health insurance but only to individuals who have incomes between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level, and only if they purchase coverage through a government-run exchange. Individuals with access to employer-sponsored coverage are ineligible for the new subsidies, and the law fines employers with 50 or more full-time workers if they do not offer coverage. Furthermore, even when someone qualifies for a premium tax credit, calculating the correct amount is absurdly complicated. The amount varies based not only on the recipient’s income but also according to the size of his family and the cost of the “reference plan” in the county of residence. There are more than 3,000 counties in the U.S.

The fairly obvious move would be to replace that complicated design with a uniform tax credit for health insurance available to all Americans. That way those with access to employer coverage could apply the credit to their employer’s plan, and all the employer would have to do is adjust the worker’s tax withholding to reflect the credit. Those who buy coverage on their own simply could authorize their insurer to collect the credit on their behalf and then bill them for the portion of the premium not covered by the credit.

Read more from this story HERE.

Why Abortion Rate Is Lowest It's Been Since 1973

Credit - Getty Images

Credit – Getty Images

The abortion rate keeps dropping. The latest numbers from the CDC, released last week, show that the abortion rate is the lowest it’s been since 1973, the year the Supreme Court manufactured a constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade.

This raises two important questions: What is the cause of the decline in abortion? And how can we build on this success to protect the right to life for the hundreds of thousands of unborn lives that still fall victim to abortion each year?

There’s No Irony Here

Writing at The Atlantic, David Frum suggests that the acceptance of unwed childbearing is the key to the drop in abortion: “Ironically, the socially conservative pro-life movement has made its peace with unwed parenthood as an alternative to abortion.” He renders the movement’s history to arrive at this conclusion in the following way:

This is the fascinating irony of the pro-life movement. The cause originated as a profoundly socially conservative movement. Yet as it grew, it became less sectarian. Women came to the fore as leaders. It found a new language of concern and compassion, rather than condemnation and control. Most radically and decisively, the movement made its peace with unwed parenthood as the inescapable real-world alternative to abortion.

There’s nothing ironic here. From the beginning, the pro-life movement has been about assisting women in crisis pregnancies. The movement that launched crisis-pregnancy centers, the Sisters of Life, and so many other organizations to help house, feed, clothe, and care for expecting mothers has always viewed unwed motherhood as vastly superior to abortion.

Read more from this story HERE.

NASA Reveals New Images of Saturn, Mars History

Credit - CassiniSaturn

Credit – CassiniSaturn

It’s been an amazing week in space exploration.

The Curiosity rover on Mars has uncovered further evidence that “The Red Planet” may have once had a great lake. Plus, NASA has released incredible new photos of Saturn that give a never-before-seen view of the sixth planet from the Sun.

Bill Nye said on “America’s New Headquarters” today that we are learning that the moons of Saturn are changing over the years. A joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency discovered that the surface of the moons have changed noticeably, just in the past decade.

“The more we learn about these other places in the Solar System, the more we learn about the Solar System, and we work our way to answering these deep questions: Where did we come from? How did we all get here? Are we alone in the universe?” Nye said.

Read more from this story HERE.

House GOP Leaders Trick 216 Republicans into Accidentally Supporting O's Executive Amnesty

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Matthew Boyle.

In a lengthy interview on Friday afternoon, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) exposed how House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise strengthened President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty with procedural trickery former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber would envy—and they did it all in the name of pushing a bill that they told Republicans would block Obama’s executive amnesty.

What’s more is that a series of interviews and recent developments indicate that Boehner’s gambit here is placing several of his top lieutenants—including at least two committee chairmen—at political risk of serious primary challenges just a few months after newly elected Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) beat now former House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) in a Republican primary.

Gohmert said most members had no idea what they were actually voting for when 219 members—216 of which were Republicans—approved a measure, H.R. 5759, first put forward by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL), but subsequently dramatically altered by leadership officials in the Rules Committee process.

“I was a cosponsor of the original Yoho bill. I thought it was a very decent bill, it was very short—it was only about a page and a half—and it basically said that anything the president did in violation of current law including what he’s done with ordering work permits for people who are illegally here, it’s illegal,” Gohmert said.

It’s outside the constitutional bounds. If you came through the Speaker’s lobby on the way to the House floor as so many people do, there’s tables there in the Speaker’s lobby that have copies of all the official bills we are taking up that day. There was official copies of H.R. 5759 out there—and they were the short page and a half bill that Representative Yoho had originally filed. But the night before there was an amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 5759—what that means is that it’s a new bill. It’s different but it’s going to substitute in its entirety the original bill. It had some of Yoho’s original language in it but they eliminated from the title the word “amnesty” and replaced it with “executive overreach.” Then they had a bunch of ‘findings’ that sounded tough that make it clear the president is not authorized to do what he did. Section One is the short title of the bill. Section Two is the findings that got added, which sounded tough. Section Three is the operative section though.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Biden Boasts End of Caucasian Majority in U.S.

By Steve Peacock.

U.S. taxpayers shelled out nearly a quarter-million dollars in November, so Vice President Joe Biden could trumpet “diversity” to world business leaders in Morocco and boast that in 2017, “for the first time, Caucasians of European descent like me will be in an absolute minority in the United States of America.”

“I’ve … come here to an ancient Muslim nation at the crossroads of Africa, the Arab world and Europe to talk about what it takes for all nations to succeed in the 21st century” the vice president told the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, explaining that educational opportunities, the rule of law and freedom are the key factors to successful entrepreneurship.

Where those factors are absent, Biden said, people flee to where they are present, like the U.S.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in 2017, the United States for the first time, Caucasians of European descent like me will be in an absolute minority in the United States of America,” Biden continued. “The secret that people don’t know is our diversity is the reason for our incredible strength.”

According to documents WND obtained via routine database research, the estimated cost of housing Biden and his staff while accommodating his one night visit to the five-star Hotel Kenzi Farah was somewhere between $160,000 and $240,000.

Read more from this story HERE.