National Young Republican Vice Chair: Tea Party ‘Senile,’ Full of ‘Bullies’

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Photo Credit: Breitbart An animated discussion over the proper role of the Tea Party in the greater conservative movement erupted on Twitter Tuesday night when Southern Regional Vice Chair Luke Niles of the Young Republican National Federation (YRNF) labeled grassroots activists as “senile.” He further labeled them “bullies” and prone to “temper tantrum[s].”

Niles engaged with a number of individuals taking issue with his claims, including Breitbart Texas’ Managing Director Brandon Darby.

The dialogue took a rather ironic trajectory when Niles categorically labeled grassroots activists in the Tea Party as “senile angry people mad at everything.”

Read more this story HERE.

Witnesses Warn House Panel: US Is in a ‘Constitutional Crisis’

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photo credit: ‘caveman chuck’ cokerMultiple witnesses told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that Congress is in danger of ceding all of its power to the presidency if it continues on the path it is on.

“We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis with sweeping implications for our system of government, constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley told the committee. “For Congress not to act borders on self-loathing.”

“If you want to stay relevant as an institution, I would suggest that you not stand idly by and let the president take your power away,” testified Elizabeth Price Foley, a law professor at Florida International University.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, heads the committee and told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, “It didn’t start with Obama.”

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Chain Cites ‘Copyright Law’ in Refusing to Print Images of Bible Verses, Woman Says

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Photo Credit: Kelly TaylorA Mississippi woman says she waged a nearly three-week battle to get pictures of Bible Scripture printed, after the photo department at a national chain store insisted that her images of Gospel inspiration violated copyright laws.

Kelly Taylor, 46, of Gulfport, told FoxNews.com her local Walgreens refused to process two prints of Scripture verses she had ordered online, first blaming it on a “technical issue,” then explaining it was due to copyright law — which has never applied to the Good Book.

“I was in total shock; it just dumbfounded me the whole day,” she said. “I feel this is an attack on Christians.”

After a clerk told her the order had been deep-sixed, Taylor got an explanation by way of an automated email.

“Hello Kelly! Due to a technical issue we were unable to process your print order at this time,” the email read. “For more details, contact a photo team associate — they’re happy to help! Just have your order number handy.”

Read more this story HERE.

Obama Tells Pentagon: Plan for Full Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan

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Photo Credit: NATONATO defense ministers began two days of talks in Brussels on Wednesday, frustrated by yet another unmet target date for Afghan President Hamid Karzai to sign a bilateral security agreement pivotal to any ongoing foreign troop presence in the country beyond year’s end.

Signing of the BSA is a prerequisite for the concluding of a separate status of forces agreement between Afghanistan and NATO. Its member states had hoped for clarity before this week’s Brussels meeting, but the ministers will now discuss “the way forward in Afghanistan” without knowing whether the Alliance will in fact have a future role there.

On the eve of the meeting, President Obama, in a phone conversation with Karzai, effectively conceded that the mercurial Afghan leader will not sign the BSA before he leaves office after April elections; advised him that the U.S. was now preparing for a full troop withdrawal by the end of 2014; but also left open the possibility of signing the document “later this year” – that is, with Karzai’s successor – thereby allowing a proposed post-2014 counter-terror and training mission to proceed.

“However, the longer we go without a BSA, the more challenging it will be to plan and execute any U.S. mission,” the White House said in a summary of the phone call. “Furthermore, the longer we go without a BSA, the more likely it will be that any post-2014 U.S. mission will be smaller in scale and ambition.”

The BSA, designed to govern the presence of any U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond the Dec. 31 end of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force mission, was drawn up over many months of often difficult negotiations, and approved by a gathering of tribal elders last November.

Read more this story HERE.

WH Celebrates 4 Million Enrollees in Program that Forces Everyone to Join

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Photo Credit: Reuters By Rick Moran.

As I’ve written previously, the “news” that so many million Americans have signed up for Obamacare is meaningless. It’s the law. If you don’t sign up, you pay a fine. Why this is considered a big deal – 4 million Obamacare enrollees – is a function of politics, not reality.

The Hill:

Approximately 4 million people have purchased insurance through the ObamaCare exchanges, President Obama told volunteers at an Organizing for Action summit in Washington on Tuesday.

“We now have more than 4 million Americans who have signed up for quality, affordably health insurance,” Obama said. “Four million. That’s on top of the 3 million young people who have been able to get covered staying on their parents plan… you’ve already made sure people all across America are getting better coverage.”

The announcement, which came with just five weeks left in the early enrollment period, means some 700,000 have enrolled in ObamaCare so far in February. Earlier this month, the Obama administration said just under 3.3 million people had selected coverage through the end of January.

But the number of people who have actually purchased coverage is likely significantly lower. Analysts estimate that as many as 20 percent of enrollees haven’t paid their first month’s premium, meaning roughly 800,000 of that 4 million do not actually have insurance coverage.

Read more this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin LamarquePoll: Uninsured opposition to Obamacare reaches all-time high

By Sarah Hurtubise.

Americans without health insurance have never seen Obamacare is such a negative light.

Kaiser Family Foundation’s monthly health tracking poll found that in February, 56 percent of the uninsured view the Affordable Care Act unfavorably.

The percentage of uninsured with a positive view reached its lowest point since Kaiser began tracking reactions in March 2010 when Obamacare was passed into law. Just 22 percent of uninsured Americans have a generally favorable opinion about the law.

This pessimistic outlook isn’t all that surprising. Health industry experts have found that exchanges are more often than not selling coverage to those that were previously insured. According to reports, majority of exchange customers either had their previous coverage cancelled due to Obamacare regulations or switched over willingly to access premium subsidies.

Read more this story HERE.

Convicted Terrorist Worked as Obamacare Navigator in Illinois

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Photo Credit: National Review A terrorist from Jordan briefly worked as an Obamacare navigator in Illinois while authorities remained unaware of her conviction for involvement in a deadly grocery store bombing and two other attacks.

Rasmieh Yousef Odeh was convicted in Israel for her role in several bombings, including the 1969 attack on an upscale Shufersol grocery store, which killed two Hebrew University students who had stopped in to buy groceries for a hiking trip in the Jerusalem hills. Leon Kanner and Eddie Joffe were killed by a bomb hidden in a candy box tucked on a shelf, which also injured nine or 10 others, according to a website maintained by the Israeli government to commemorate terror victims.

The Illinois Department of Insurance quietly revoked Odeh’s certification as a Navigator In-Person Counselor on November 24, explaining in a disciplinary report that the decision was “based on an investigation which revealed that she had been convicted in Israel for her role in the bombings of a supermarket and the British Consulate in Jerusalem and failed to reveal the conviction on her application.”

The Illinois DOI conducts background checks on navigators. National Review Online obtained the comprehensive Federal Bureau of Investigation background report for Odeh, which does not note any past criminal offenses.

According to the director of insurance’s Oct. 25, 2013, revocation letter, the Department of Insurance found out about Odeh’s history after the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Michigan, notified the public about her prior convictions.

Read more this story HERE.

Court Orders Anti-Muslim Film to Be Pulled From YouTube

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Photo credit: tinou baoAn appeals court on Wednesday ordered Google to remove from its YouTube video-sharing website an anti-Islamic film that had sparked protests across the Muslim world.

By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Google’s assertion that the removal of the film “Innocence of Muslims” amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violated the Constitution.

The plaintiff, Cindy Lee Garcia, had objected to the film after learning that it incorporated a clip she had made for a different movie, which had been partially dubbed and in which she appeared to be asking: “Is your Mohammed a child molester?”

In a statement, Google said: “We strongly disagree with this ruling and will fight it.”

Cris Armenta, a lawyer for Garcia, said she is delighted with the decision.

Read more this story HERE.

Inspector General: EPA Officials Actively Obstructed that Crazy Fraud Investigation

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Photo Credit: dantekgeekWhat’s worse than a high-ranking Environmental Protection Agency official defrauding the agency over the course of twelve years by taking lengthy unexplained absences, doing very little actual work, stealing nearly one million dollars in the form of pay, bonuses, and airfare he didn’t deserve, and getting away with it all by cultivating an enigmatic reputation and telling his superiors (including now-EPA chief Gina McCarthy) that he was performing joint government work for the CIA vaguely related to climate change?

Other EPA officials actively obstructing the investigation into the whole mess, that’s what. The WFB reports on a letter from the EPA inspector general to Sen. David Vitter released on Wednesday, wherein the IG describes how several agency employees tried to get in the way of getting to the bottom of the ordeal:

EPA employees threatened Inspector General investigators, refused to cooperate, and handed out non-disclosure agreements to other employees to keep them from being interviewed, EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins Jr. wrote in response to a request for information by Vitter on the case.

Read more this story HERE.

IRS Warns: Obamacare Tax –“Shared Responsibility Payment”–Must Be Made with Tax Return

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Photo Credit: APAgency employs Orwellian term “Shared Responsibility Payment” to describe Obamacare individual mandate tax.

President Obama’s Internal Revenue Service today quietly released a series of Obamacare “Health Care Tax Tips” warning Americans that they must obtain “qualifying” health insurance – as defined by the federal government – or face a “shared responsibility payment” when filing their tax returns in 2015. The term “shared responsibility payment” refers to the Obamacare individual mandate tax, one of at least seven tax hikes in the healthcare law that directly hit families making less than $250,000 per year.

In “Four Tax Facts about the Health Care Law for Individuals” the agency writes:

Your 2014 tax return will ask if you had insurance coverage or qualified for an exemption. If not, you may owe a shared responsibility payment when you file in 2015.

Read more this story HERE.

Poll: Overwhelming Majority Believe News Monitoring Not the Government’s Job

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Photo Credit: TownHallBy now you’ve heard about the FCC “study” that would have put government bureaucrats into newsrooms all over the country in order to monitor how news is gathered. Luckily, that study was killed thanks to the work of conservative media and FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who exposed and spoke out against it.

Now, a new Rasmussen Report shows an overwhelming majority of Americans do not believe it is the government’s job to monitor news content.

Read more this story HERE.