Sen. Rand Paul Filing Class Action Lawsuit Against NSA

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rand-paul-internalSen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is suing the Obama administration over the National Security Agency’s spying practices in an effort to “protect the Fourth Amendment,” he told host Eric Bolling Friday on “Hannity.”

“The question here is whether or not, constitutionally, you can have a single warrant apply to millions of people,” Paul said. “So we thought, what better way to illustrate the point than having hundreds of thousands of Americans sign up for a class action suit.”

Paul said he began collecting signatures about six months ago, and says it’s “kind of an unusual class-action suit” because everyone in America who has a cell phone is eligible to join in the legal action, he said…

Ultimately, the freshman senator says he wants President Obama to follow the constitution.

“We want them to protect the fourth amendment. We want them to protect the right to privacy,” he said. “We think we can have security, that we can defend against terrorism, but that doesn’t mean that every single American has to give up their privacy.”

Read more about Rand Paul filing a class action lawsuit against the NSA HERE.

Detroit Police Chief: Concealed Weapons Permits Save Lives

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Photo Credit: Charles V. Tines / The Detroit News

Photo Credit: Charles V. Tines / The Detroit News

Detroit— If more citizens were armed, criminals would think twice about attacking them, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said Thursday.

Urban police chiefs are typically in favor of gun control or reluctant to discuss the issue, but Craig on Thursday was candid about how he’s changed his mind.

“When we look at the good community members who have concealed weapons permits, the likelihood they’ll shoot is based on a lack of confidence in this Police Department,” Craig said at a press conference at police headquarters, adding that he thinks more Detroit citizens feel safer, thanks in part to a 7 percent drop in violent crime in 2013.

Craig said he started believing that legal gun owners can deter crime when he became police chief in Portland, Maine, in 2009.

“Coming from California (Craig was on the Los Angeles police force for 28 years), where it takes an act of Congress to get a concealed weapon permit, I got to Maine, where they give out lots of CCWs (carrying concealed weapon permits), and I had a stack of CCW permits I was denying; that was my orientation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Gun Control Efforts Start Again: New Executive Actions on Gun Background Checks Proposed

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The Obama administration on Friday proposed two new executive actions to make it easier for states to provide mental health information to the national background check system, wading back into the gun control debate after a months-long hiatus.

Vice President Biden’s office announced the proposals Friday afternoon. Both pertain to the ability of states to provide information about the mentally ill and those seeking mental health treatment to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

One proposal would formally give permission to states to submit “the limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands,” without having to worry about the privacy provisions in a law known as HIPAA.

“The proposed rule will not change the fact that seeking help for mental health problems or getting treatment does not make someone legally prohibited from having a firearm,” the statement said. “Furthermore, nothing in the proposed rule would require reporting on general mental health visits or other routine mental health care, or would exempt providers solely performing these treatment services from existing privacy rules.”

The other proposal would clarify that those who are involuntarily committed to a mental institution — both inpatient and outpatient — count under the law as “committed to a mental institution.” According to the administration, this change will help clarify for states what information to provide to the background check system, as well as who is barred from having guns.

Read more from this story HERE.

Uncle Sam’s New Year’s Eve Borrowing Binge: $1,088 Per Household in 1 Day

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Photo Credit: KAZVorpal/flickr

Photo Credit: KAZVorpal/flickr

Uncle Sam—AKA the federal government—went on a New Year’s Eve binge, adding a net of $125,202,709,546.99 to its total debt in just the one day of Dec. 31, 2013, according to the U.S. Treasury.

That equals approximately $1,088.60 for each of the 115,013,000 households the Census Bureau currently estimates there are in the United States.

Overall, in the first quarter of fiscal 2014, which ended on Dec. 31, the total debt of the federal government jumped $613,787,258,252.83

That equals $5,336 for each household in the country.

At the close of business on Dec. 30, 2013, the total debt of the federal government was 17,226,768,075,403.16. By the close of business on the next day—New Year’s Eve—the debt had risen to 17,351,970,784,950.15—a one-day jump of $125,202,709,546.99.

Read more about the United States New Year’s Eve borrowing binge HERE.

Midwest, Northeast Braces for ‘Life Threatening’ Arctic Blast

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

As much of the country digs out from a powerful winter storm that buried parts of the Northeast, forecasters are predicting an arctic-air blast over the northern tier of the country that will likely deliver the coldest air of the year.

The National Weather Service said the unusually cold air is expected to arrive by the weekend and will send wind chill temperatures in areas in North Dakota and Minnesota to minus 50 degrees by Saturday night.

Those states are notorious for their cold winters, but states in the Mid-Atlantic and New England can also expect wind chill temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees.

The cold air will be the result of the polar vortex dropping from Central Canada, NOAA reported. To put the drastic temperature in perspective, Ken Simosko, a meteorologist from Bismarck, said it would take all of five minutes to get frostbite in minus 50 degree condition.

“We usually don’t call something ‘life threatening,'” he told FoxNews.com. “But yes, we want people to know that this is very much a life-threatening event.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Residents Leap from Windows to Escape Minneapolis Apartment Fire

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Photo Credit: McKenna Ewen / Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Photo Credit: McKenna Ewen / Minneapolis Star-Tribune

By Matt Pearce.

Fourteen people were hurt, at least three critically, when an explosion and fire rocked a three-story apartment building in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning, forcing residents to jump from windows and flee into subzero temperatures.

The explosion in the largely Somali American neighborhood was first reported at 8:16 a.m. By the time firefighters arrived, smoke and 20-foot flames were pouring out of the second and third stories of the building, officials said.

“People are jumping out of the windows now,” one fire official radioed. Another added, “We’ve got injured civilians out in the street.”

Minneapolis Fire Department officials said in a statement that they were “unable to determine [whether] everyone made it out of the building and is accounted for.”

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Everyone accounted for after Minneapolis fire, officials say

By Allie Shah and Matt McKinney.

There was a loud boom, and suddenly the walls of Abdi Qobey’s apartment flew apart as he sat watching television on New Year’s Day.

He ran through what used to be his front door to find the hall filled with flames. He could hear someone shouting for help.

Wearing just a jacket, jeans and a pair of shoes, Qobey went to the blown-out window of his second-story apartment.

“I did not hesitate,” he recalled Friday. “Outside is life. I jumped.”

From his hospital bed at Hennepin County Medical Center, Qobey, 59, described what happened at 8:16 a.m. Wednesday as an explosion and fire destroyed a Somali grocery and 10-unit apartment building in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

Read more from this story HERE.

Judicial Watch: Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians of 2013

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Not only are eight members of the Obama Administration named, starting with Obama himself, but also GOP Speaker of the House John Boehner and GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss.

As the release states, “President Barack Obama actually tops this ‘Top Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians’ list for 2013 as the driving force behind so many of the misdeeds… He is a master at catch-me-if-you-can, corrupt politics.”

Judicial Watch notes Obama’s penchant for ignoring Congress and rewriting federal law himself, including rewriting the Obamacare law 14 times by executive fiat; his “continual lies” that Americans could keep their own health care under Obamacare, despite his knowledge that “more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them;” and his disavowal of responsibility for targeting the Tea Party and other conservative groups by the IRS, though he had made remarks warning about the dangers of conservative groups since 2010.

Moreover, Judicial Watch referred to the latest Obama deceit:

The latest Obama fix came on December 20, when he suddenly moved to allow hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their insurance due to Obamacare to sign up for bare-bone “catastrophic” plans. As National Review observed, “Of course, like every other exemption from Obamacare the latest fix is supposed to last only a year, raising the prospect that people will be kicked off their catastrophic coverage as soon as the 2014 election is safely in the political rear-view mirror.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: NSA Developing Computer to Break Encryption Programs

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Photo Credit: Reuters/NSA

Photo Credit: Reuters/NSA

The U.S. National Security Agency is trying to develop a computer that could ultimately break most encryption programs, whether they are used to protect other nations’ spying programs or consumers’ bank accounts, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The report, which the newspaper said was based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, comes amid continuing controversy over the spy agency’s program to collect the phone records Internet communications of private citizens.

In its report on Thursday, The Washington Post said that the NSA is trying to develop a so-called “quantum computer” that could be used to break encryption codes used to cloak sensitive information.

Read more from this story HERE.

7 Out of 10 Feel Safer In Town With More Guns

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Photo Credit: Free Patriot

Photo Credit: Free Patriot

The poll for the New Year is in. Despite the agenda to take guns from the American people, the fact remains that 7 out of 10 of everyone polled say they feel safer in a town with more guns.

The latest in the Rasmussen Polls to attempt to get favor for gun control revealed something astounding that should ring in the ears of our legislators. An overwhelming 7 out of 10 people would prefer living in a town where they mandate having a gun, as opposed to 3 out of 10 that want a new gun ban. This pretty much proves the “call for comprehensive gun control” that Senator Dianne Feinstein and others are calling for is fading.

Read more from this story HERE.

Dr. Carson: Americans Need to Talk about Ramifications of Legal Marijuana

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Dr. Ben Carson told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado should be concerning for Americans, as it is a gateway drug to more dangerous substances.

Carson said on “On the Record” Thursday though there are some benefits to medical marijuana, he worries about the effect legal pot sales would have on American society as a whole.

“It tends to be a starter drug for people who move onto heavier duty drugs – sometimes legal, sometimes illegal – I don’t think this is something that we really want for our society,” he said…

Read more from this story HERE.