Bankrupt California City Eyes Marijuana for Revenue

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The bankrupt California city of San Bernardino has a new idea for raising revenue – legalize medical marijuana, and tax the pot.

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.

Ohio Sheriff Sends Mexico $900,000 Bill for Jailing Illegals

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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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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Report Reveals ‘Disturbing Trend’ of Brazen Attacks Against Border Security by Gangs, Drug and Human Traffickers

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.

House Approves Lawsuit Against Obama Over Alleged Abuse Of Executive Power

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

By Fox News.

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.

Knock, Knock. Who’s There? Heavily Armed Agents Here to Seize Your Car. Who Are You With? The EPA.

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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.

Lerner Emails: Conservative 'Crazies' and 'A–holes' will 'Take Down' America

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By Guy Benson.

Lois Lerner — faithful, impartial public servant:

BtzUmO-IgAAsW1H

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

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst

Lois Lerner Called Conservatives ‘A–holes,’ Fantasized About Working At Obama Group

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.

Geraldo Rivera: Matt Drudge ‘Doing His Best to Stir Up a Civil War’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Fox News host Geraldo Rivera has accused conservative blogger Matt Drudge of trying to inflame conservatives and “stir up a civil war,” due to his website’s aggressive coverage of the border crisis.

“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.

Come Election Time, Obama Suddenly Talks Jobs — and God

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Photo Credit: Charlie Riedel / AP

Photo Credit: Charlie Riedel / AP

You can always tell when it’s election time: President Obama suddenly starts talking about the economy, and, weirdly, God.

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.

Jury Awards Ventura $1.8M in Defamation Case

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Photo Credit: The Blaze

Photo Credit: The Blaze

A jury awarded former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura $1.8 million Tuesday in his lawsuit against the estate of “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle.

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.

House Border Bill Is a ‘Surrender To a Lawless President’

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Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

By Joel Gehrke.

The Obama Administration has openly declared its plan to implement a unilateral executive amnesty for 5–6 million more illegal immigrants. This unlawful amnesty—urged on by congressional Democrats—would include work permits, taking jobs directly from millions of struggling American citizens.

Any action Congress might consider to address the current border crisis would be futile should the President go forward with these lawless actions. Congress must speak out and fight against them. It must use its spending power to stop the President’s executive amnesty.

That the House leaders’ border package includes no language on executive actions is surrender to a lawless President. And it is a submission to the subordination of congressional power.

After years of falling wages and rising joblessness, American workers are pleading for someone to hear them. How can it be that our President is brazenly advertising that he will nullify and strip away American workers’ immigration protections, and their own elected leaders will not rise to their defense? Or to the defense of our laws and our Constitutional order?

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Rep. Van Hollen: Legalizing Illegals Will ‘Reduce the Deficit’

By Abigail Wilkinson.

When asked whether legalizing illegal immigrants would help unemployed Americans, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D.-Md.) responded by pointing to testimony from the director of the Congressional Budget Office that Van Hollen said indicated enactment of the Senate immigration bill (which gave illegal aliens a “path to citizenship’) would “reduce the deficit and increase long-term economic growth.”

CNSNews.com asked: “Do you think that allowing illegal aliens to stay in the United States and putting them on a path to citizenship will help unemployed Americans?”

Van Hollen responded: “I think what we need to do is pass comprehensive immigration reform, and I just came from a hearing with the non-partisan director of the Congressional Budget Office, who testified that if you passed the Senate bipartisan bill, you will reduce the deficit and increase long-term economic growth in the United States,” Van Hollen replied.

Read more from this story HERE.

Head of Benghazi Probe says No Witnesses Off Limits, Including Clinton

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

The Republican head of the Benghazi Select Committee warned Tuesday that no witnesses would be off limits in its upcoming probe and that he would consider going to court, if necessary, to compel testimony.

“I can’t skip over a witness that I think we ought to talk to simply because there is an assertion of either privilege or immunity,”Chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina told Fox News in an exclusive interview.

He said that while he has received good cooperation to date, and the issue had not yet arisen, “if you mean to say that ‘not only can they not talk, they don’t have to come,’ you have to litigate that.”

Gowdy said the investigation will be driven by facts, characterizing as strongly bi-partisan his work with the committee’s ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, to review documents and identify witnesses.

He also said he anticipates the first public hearing will be held in September and will focus on the State Department investigation into the 2012 attack and whether its recommendations have been implemented.

Read more from this story HERE.