Oklahoma Militia Members Join Fight Against Feds

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Photo Credit: Natural News

Photo Credit: Natural News

By Andrew Donley.

A land dispute in Nevada between rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal government began decades ago.

The Bureau of Land Management says Bundy was allowing his cattle to graze illegally which triggered a round-up of about 400 head of cattle last week…

Organizers with the Oklahoma Militia say they have members in Nevada who claim Bundy’s cattle were unlawfully herded by the bureau.

The Oklahoma Militia says it is made up of nearly 50,000 volunteers.

Members say they are taking Bundy’s side and fear this practice could spread to the Sooner State.

Read more from this story HERE.

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BLM eyes 90,000 acres of Texas land

By Bob Price.

After the recent Bundy Ranch episode by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Texans are becoming more concerned about the BLM’s focus on 90,000 acres along a 116 mile stretch of the Texas/Oklahoma boundary. The BLM is reviewing the possible federal takeover and ownership of privately-held lands which have been deeded property for generations of Texas landowners.

Sid Miller, former Texas State Representative and Republican candidate for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, has since made the matter a campaign issue to Breitbart Texas.

“In Texas,” Miller says, “the BLM is attempting a repeat of an action taken over 30 years ago along the Red River when Tommy Henderson lost a federal lawsuit. The Bureau of Land Management took 140 acres of his property and didn’t pay him one cent.”

Miller referred to a 1986 case where the BLM attempted to seize some of Henderson’s land. Henderson sued the BLM and lost 140 acres that had been in his family for generations. Now the BLM is looking at using the prior case as a precedent to claim an additional 90,000 acres.

Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) represents the ranchers in this region of north Texas. According to Thornberry’s legislative analysts, the issue of the ownership of this land dates back to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. When the BLM made the claim on Henderson’s land, their position was that Texas never had the authority to deed the land to private parties and therefore it would fall under federal control.

Read more from this story HERE.

Supreme Court Limits Damages to Victims of Child Porn

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Supreme Court on Wednesday limited the amount of damages that those who possess child pornography must pay victims, throwing out a $3.4 million award that went to a woman whose childhood rape has been widely seen on the Internet.

The court voted 5 to 4 that those convicted of possessing child pornography must pay restitution to victims. But it said the amount of damages paid must be proximate to the harm that a specific offender has caused.

The case before the court involves a a Texas man, Doyle Randall Paroline, who pleaded guilty to possessing 300 images of child pornography, including two of a girl identified in court documents as “Amy Unknown” when she was eight or nine years old. An appeals court had said Paroline was liable for all of the $3.4 million in damages that Amy, now an adult, was owed for psychological damage and lost income after she discovered the images.

All nine Supreme Court justices indicated that the law Congress passed requiring restitution to victims of child pornography was flawed and several called for a rewrite that would provide more precision and guidance.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, noted that his approach “is not without difficulties.”

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Fire Harry Reid’ Becomes GOP Rallying Cry Heading Into 2014 Elections

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Hoping to galvanize their base further, Republicans are casting the midterm elections as a golden opportunity to fire Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who has served as lead blocker for President Obama’s liberal agenda on Capitol Hill and chief opponent of GOP legislation.

The attacks are being espoused inside and outside the Capital Beltway and could become staples of the Republican message as the party looks to pick up the six seats needed to take the Senate gavel out of Mr. Reid’s hands.

On Wednesday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus described Mr. Reid as “dirty” and “unethical.”

The RNC circulated a memo that played up a Federal Election Commission inquiry into campaign cash that Mr. Reid reimbursed after using the money to purchase gifts for his granddaughter.

“We’re going to continue engaging voters who want nothing more than to stop Obama’s big government overreach and fire Harry Reid from his post as Senate majority leader after Senate Democrats paved the way for ObamaCare and stalled dozens of jobs bills sent over from the Republican House,” Mr. Priebus said.

Read more from this story HERE.

BLM to Spend $10M on Contraception for Wild Horses, Burros

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Photo Credit: AP / Pat Sullivan

Photo Credit: AP / Pat Sullivan

The Bureau of Land Management announced it is planning to award 10 grants of up to $1 million each for wild horse and burro contraception and sterilization for up to five years.

“The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Program protects, manages, and controls wild horses and burros under the authority of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 to ensure that healthy herds thrive on healthy rangelands,” the grant announcement said.

“Development of effective population growth suppression methods for wild horses and burros is vital to effectively managing herd population growth rates as an alternative to gathering and removing animals from BLM lands,” it added.

“Any sterilization or contraceptive method applicable to male or female horses or burros, including surgical, chemical, pharmaceutical, or mechanical (such as Intrauterine Devices) approaches, will be considered (with the exception of surgical castration),” the grant solicitation said.

In 1971, when Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, these animals were found roaming across 53.8 million acres known as Herd Areas, of which 42.4 million acres were under the BLM’s jurisdiction.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hawaii College Sued for Stopping Students from Handing out Constitution

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Photo Credit: ARCHIVES.GOV

Photo Credit: ARCHIVES.GOV

Two students at the University of Hawaii at Hilo are suing the school over alleged First Amendment violations after they were told by a campus official that they couldn’t approach fellow students to hand out copies of the Constitution.

Merritt Burch and Anthony Vizzone, members of the campus chapter of Young Americans for Liberty, filed the lawsuit Thursday in federal court, alleging that administrators violated their constitutional rights by stopping group members from passing out copies of the document during an outdoor event in January where student organizations had set up tables to distribute literature.

The students are being represented by Davis Wright Tremaine, the law firm that recently helped a student who was blocked last year from handing out copies of the Constitution win a $50,000 settlement against Modesto Junior College in California.

“So far this academic year, students have twice been prohibited from distributing the Constitution on a public campus, less than four months apart. That is absolutely unacceptable,” said Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which is assisting with the lawsuit.

Read more from this story HERE.

No Wonder Americans Don’t Know Life Begins at Conception, They Don’t Know Basic Science

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

Earlier this week, pollsters released the results of a AP/GfK survey on scientific knowledge. Just over 1,000 American adults were presented with various scientific statements and asked to state how confident they were that the statement was correct: extremely confident, very confident, somewhat confident, not too confident, or not at all confident.

Most news outlets that covered the story focused on the large percentage of Americans rejecting climate change, evolution, and the Big Bang—and while I do find those numbers disheartening, they’ve been reported frequently, and I’ve become somewhat desensitized to them.

This, however, floored me:

“Inside our cells, there is a complex genetic code that helps determine who we are.”

Extremely confident: 38%
Very confident: 30%
Somewhat confident: 22%
Not too confident: 8%
Not at all confident: 1%

Read more from this story HERE.

Disappointing: Holder to Remain U.S. Attorney General Through November Elections At Least

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder plans to stay on through November’s mid-term elections and has no timeline for an exit after that, a Justice Department official told Reuters on Friday.

“The Attorney General does not plan to leave before the mid-terms. That does not mean that he is definitely leaving after the mid-terms, just that he is at least staying through that time,” the official said.

There has been speculation over when Holder, 63, might step down from the post he has held since shortly after President Barack Obama took office in 2009…

Read more from this story HERE.

Median Income of Women Dropped 4%–In First 3 Years of Recovery

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The real median income of American women dropped a little more than four percent in the first three full years after the end of the last recession, according to data published by the Census Bureau.

The last recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2007, according to the Census Bureau, American women 15 and older had a median income of $23,169 in constant 2012 dollars. That is the highest median income American women have ever achieved.

REAL MEDIAN INCOME OF WOMEN DOWN 4 PERCENT-PHOTO

By 2009, the year the recession ended, the median income of American women (in constant 2012 dollars) had dropped to $22,434—a decline of $735, or about 3.2 percent, from 2007.

As of 2012, the most recent year for Census Bureau income data, the median income of American women was $21,520 in constant 2012 dollars. That was down $914 dollars—or about 4.1 percent—from 2009.

The median income of American women has not recovered in the current recovery. It has continued to decline from its pre-recession high.

Read more from this story HERE.

NRA’s LaPierre: Country ‘Slipping Away,’ Gun Owners ‘Willing to Fight’ for Control

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Photo Credit: Screenshot

Photo Credit: Screenshot

National Rifle Association executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre said Friday that the country is on edge like he’s never seen it before, and that it’s up to attendees at the group’s annual meeting and like-minded individuals to fight for its future.

“NRA, this organization, is about giving a voice to all the people like all of us in this room today and everyone else in the country that feels like we do,” he told the crowd at an opening event at the group’s annual meetings.

“I love it because corporations can’t control it, politicians can’t control it, the media can’t control it,” he said. “By gosh, there is an organization … that says ‘this is what we stand for, and we’re willing to fight for it.’ And that’s what I love about it. And that’s what it’s about.

Read more from this story HERE.

A Legal Way To Kill?

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Photo Credit: Townhall

Photo Credit: Townhall

When President Obama decided sometime during his first term that he wanted to be able to use unmanned aerial drones in foreign lands to kill people — including Americans — he instructed Attorney General Eric Holder to find a way to make it legal — despite the absolute prohibition on governmental extra-judicial killing in federal and state laws and in the Constitution itself.

“Judicial killing” connotes a lawful execution after an indictment, a jury trial, an appeal and all of the due process protections that the Constitution guarantees defendants. “Extra-judicial killing” is a targeted killing of a victim by someone in the executive branch without due process. The president wanted the latter, and he wanted it in secret.

He must have hoped his killing would never come to light, because the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution could not be more direct: “No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

Due process has a few prongs. The first is substantive, meaning the outcome must be fair. In a capital murder case, for example, the defendant must not only be found guilty by a jury, but he also must truly be guilty.

The second prong of due process is procedural. Thus, the defendant must be charged with a crime and tried before a neutral jury. He is entitled to a lawyer, to confront the witnesses against him and to remain silent. The trial must be presided over by a neutral judge, and in the case of a conviction, the defendant is entitled to an appeal before a panel of three neutral judges.

Read more from this story HERE.