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U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason called case moot.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service restricted access to refuges nationwide during the 16-day shutdown last October. The state sued as Congress was poised to pass legislation to end the shutdown.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Now they have emerged from a last minute conference meeting vowing to “stay until we vote” and planning another meeting for tomorrow morning at 9:00 am, although it’s unclear what changes either to the legislative package or the support for the current one will occur in the meantime.
Inside the meeting, Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) vowed that if need be, he would miss his son’s upcoming wedding to stay in Washington to pass the bill.
But other lawmakers were punchy.
“Well, let’s see, I’ve been bitching about this for, what, 15 months? Democrats wants the votes and Republicans want cheap labor. They didn’t want to do anything with it, now they’re going to wait until the last minute? You know, I have a forum I’m supposed to be at, I can’t be, on this very subject,” Michigan Rep. Kerry Bentivolio said.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Ironically, the plan was spurred by concerns about not having enough resources to crack down on the illegal medical marijuana dealers springing up all over town.
So the city is now looking at legalizing the sellers, and using the proceeds to enforce the regulations.
It’s not quite “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” but like many municipalities in California today, San Bernardino is recognizing that it could be bringing millions of dollars into its foundering coffers each year if it opened its doors to regulated medical marijuana dispensaries. And it would be able to have a say in who operates these places, as well as how and where.
“This is a no-brainer,” said Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project in California. “More and more people are realizing that you’d really have to be in the Stone Age to oppose this.”
Read more from this story HERE.
By Fox News.
An Ohio sheriff on Tuesday sent an ‘Open Letter’ to Mexico’s president requesting $900,000 for “dealing with your criminals.”
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones sent the letter to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto requesting repayment for the 3,000 Mexican nationals arrested in his county over the past ten years. It was rough math, but he wants to charge Mexico for their jail time, which he figured was about five days, on average.
He indicated that the figure could be much higher when you take in the legal fees and social services afforded these criminals.
Read more from this story HERE.
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By Jana Winter.
A game warden hit in the head with a rock while trying to seize a raft. Police officers wounded in an hours-long standoff with a gang member wanted for murder. Criminals spewing obscenities and death threats at local cops before asking for – and receiving – medical treatment.
And that was just last week.
A weekly report distributed by a Texas state agency to senior law enforcement officials paints a grim picture of the Mexican border, where authorities regularly confront illegal immigrant gang members and draw automatic gunfire from across the Rio Grande, and where local, state and federal authorities fight a never-ending battle against drug smugglers.
The most recent Border Operations Sector Assessment report compiled by the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Border Security Operations Center, dated July 25 and obtained by FoxNews.com, details local and federal authorities encountering smugglers carrying millions of dollars’ worth of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine, some of which was found in vehicles filled with biblical passages and religious items; federal agents being assaulted and shot at; gang members brazenly approaching people in their homes; and ranch workers witnessing men crossing into the U.S. wearing camouflage and carrying long guns and automatic weapons.
“In recent weeks the traffic appears to have slowed slightly, yet assaults on law enforcement have increased. This is a disturbing trend that needs to be addressed,” Chris Cabrera, vice president of the National Border Patrol Union, Rio Grande Valley Sector, told FoxNews.com.
Read more from this story HERE.
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The House on Wednesday approved a highly contentious lawsuit against President Obama over his alleged abuse of executive power, teeing up an election-year legal battle sure to spill onto the midterm campaign trail.
The House backed the lawsuit resolution on a vote of 225-201, with all Democrats opposed.
Republicans say the lawsuit is necessary to keep the president in constitutional check, after he allegedly exceeded his authority with unilateral changes to the Affordable Care Act.
Democrats branded the effort a political charade aimed at stirring up GOP voters for this fall’s congressional elections. They also said it’s an effort by top Republicans to mollify conservatives who want Obama to be impeached — something House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he has no plans to do.
“We have no plans to impeach the president. We have no future plans. Listen, it’s all a scam, started by Democrats at the White House,” Boehner said Tuesday.
Following the vote, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden issued a statement saying, “President Obama swore an oath to uphold the Constitution—an oath he has not fully lived up to. Today, the House took an important step to defend the Constitution and hold the president accountable.”
Read more from this story HERE.
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‘Stop Hatin’ All the Time’ : Obama Slams GOP Lawsuit Vote
By Carrie Dann / NBC.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday continued to slam Republicans for moving to sue him over his use of executive actions, calling the move a “political stunt” and urging Congress to “stop hatin’ all the time.”
“They have announced that they are going to sue me for taking executive actions to help people,” he said during an event in Kansas City. “They’re mad because I’m doing my job.”
Calling the vote a waste of valuable taxpayer dollars, Obama said Republicans are also taking time away from important legislation they should be addressing.
“Stop being mad all the time,” he said of Republicans, chuckling. “Stop just hatin’ all the time. Let’s get some work done.”
Read more from this story HERE.
The Environmental Protection Agency is getting tired of the boring dregs of ‘protecting endangered darter snails’ and is finally spreading its wings.
The “new-look” EPA is complete with a heavily armed SWAT team that conducts commando-style raids on Alaskan spas and even has a DHS task force that seizes unauthorized land rovers for violating emissions standards. Umm, awesome?
Read more from this story HERE.
By Guy Benson.
Lois Lerner — faithful, impartial public servant:
That screen grab comes from an email exchange between retired IRS official Lois Lerner and a colleague just after the 2012 election. Ms. Lerner describes overhearing some women discussing the state of the nation in dire terms, prompting her correspondent to blast “whacko” and “scary” right-wing radio shows. Lerner posits that America may be “through” if “that many a–holes” exist, later adding that the US shouldn’t worry about foreign terrorists because “our own crazies” will “take us down.” Granted, certain quarters of the conservative radio universe are too conspiratorial and apocalyptic for many people’s taste. But the same holds true at the other end of the ideological spectrum. Lerner and her friend weren’t talking about the Left, though. They were hand-wringing over, and insulting, conservatives — whom Lerner clearly despises…
Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst
By Chuck Ross.
New emails released by the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday provide more evidence that ex-IRS official Lois Lerner is not fond of conservatives.
“So we don’t need to worry about teRroists [sic]. It’s our own crazies that will take us down,” Lerner wrote in a Nov. 9, 2012 email exchange with an IRS colleague.
Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp revealed the emails in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
Lerner’s disdain for the right is central to an investigation into whether she targeted conservative groups who were seeking tax-exempt status. Republicans have accused the former director of the IRS’s exempt organizations division of possible criminal wrongdoing in targeting the groups.
“This email shows that Ms. Lerner’s mistreatment of conservative groups was driven by her personal hostility toward conservatives,” Camp wrote.
Read more from this story HERE.
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“Shame on Drudge,” Mr. Rivera tweeted Wednesday morning. “His authoritative website has gone hysterical on issue of immigrant children. 14 stories like ‘Could Ebola sneak across?’”
Mediaite reports that the top 15 stories linked Wednesday morning on DrudgeReport.com were about U.S. immigration policy, while another eight were dedicated to Ebola.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Charlie Riedel / AP
The president once said he was going to focus on the economy like a laser beam. Then, he started pushing things like free health care for everyone, and amnesty for all illegal aliens (along with a wide-open border anyone can just walk across). He made the LGBT issue huge (an important issue — to the less than 5 percent of people who are LGBT).
All of a sudden, though, he’s talking about God, faith, the economy, job training, community college, and most important of all, he’s begging his sycophantic followers to vote on Election Day.
Just yesterday, the president twice figured out a way to work God and faith into his campaign-style speech in Kansas City.
Just after he began, a woman in the balcony stood and called out to the president. “Jesus is the God of Israel. He is fully God,” she said.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: The Blaze
On the sixth day of deliberations, the federal jury decided that the 2012 best-selling book defamed Ventura in its description of a bar fight in California in 2006. Kyle wrote that he decked a man whom he later identified as Ventura after the man allegedly said the Navy SEALs “deserve to lose a few.”
Ventura testified that Kyle fabricated the passage about punching him. Kyle said in testimony videotaped before his death last year that his story was accurate.
Legal experts had said Ventura had to clear a high legal bar to win, since as a public figure he had to prove “actual malice.” According to the jury instructions, Ventura had to prove with “clear and convincing evidence” that Kyle either knew or believed what he wrote was untrue, or that he harbored serious doubts about its truth. The jury sent the judge a note Monday saying they didn’t think they could reach a unanimous verdict. He told them to keep trying.
Read more from this story HERE.