Tea Party Favorite Taking on Cornyn in Texas-Sized Showdown

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SteveStockmanOne of Washington’s most reliably conservative lawmakers is breaking the news that he will challenge a mainstay of the Republican establishment – all because the incumbent GOP senator “undermined Sen. Ted Cruz’s fight to stop Obamacare.”

Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, told WND exclusively that he will run against against Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in the state’s primary race. Cornyn is running for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2014.

With his campaign little more than an hour old, Stockman had already picked up some major support.

Jenny Beth Martin, president and co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, told WND, “Congressman Stockman has proven himself to be a fighter for freedom who votes in the House of Representatives based on constitutional principles. We need more senators who will do the same.”

Martin added, “The campaign will be interesting to watch unfold over the next few months as Stockman campaigns on these values, reminding Texans why they value their freedom and independence and why they need to change Washington, D.C., where the government has grown too big and too powerful.”

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NBC, ABC News Press White House on Secret Sebelius Meetings (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

During Friday’s White House briefing, Jonathan Karl of ABC News and Peter Alexander of NBC News both pressed White House spokesman Jay Carney on a Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report that found President Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had met only once during the three and half years after the passage of ObamaCare.

After Alexander asked about the GAI report, Carney bizarrely suggested that Alexander should have called him to ask the question. Apparently, Carney would have preferred not to have to answer the question on camera — and for good reason; his answer only opened the door to more questions.

Alexander got to the heart of the matter by pointing out that President Obama’s calendar lists all kinds of meetings with other cabinet secretaries, including 277 with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And yet, although she is in charge of Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment, this calendar shows no meetings with Sebelius.

“That draws some questions about the president’s leadership skills as the chief executive,” Alexander said. “And I’m curious–” A visibly agitated Carney interrupted. “Peter, I wish you had called me beforehand,” Carney scolded. “Because I am in a very terrible charitable mood today, I won’t go too strong on this.”

Carney went on to claim that Sebelius met “often” with the president, but that those meetings were not recorded on the visitors logs or any public calendars. Carney didn’t know how many times the two had met, and did not bother to explain why these calendars record numerous other cabinet officials meeting dozens, and in some cases, hundreds of times with the president.

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Leading Authors: State Surveillance of Personal Data is Theft

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Photo Credit: The Guardian

Photo Credit: The Guardian

More than 500 of the world’s leading authors, including five Nobel prize winners, have condemned the scale of state surveillance revealed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden and warned that spy agencies are undermining democracy and must be curbed by a new international charter.

The signatories, who come from 81 different countries and include Margaret Atwood, Don DeLillo, Orhan Pamuk, Günter Grass and Arundhati Roy, say the capacity of intelligence agencies to spy on millions of people’s digital communications is turning everyone into potential suspects, with worrying implications for the way societies work.

They have urged the United Nations to create an international bill of digital rights that would enshrine the protection of civil rights in the internet age.

Their call comes a day after the heads of the world’s leading technology companies demanded sweeping changes to surveillance laws to help preserve the public’s trust in the internet – reflecting the growing global momentum for a proper review of mass snooping capabilities in countries such as the US and UK, which have been the pioneers in the field.

The open letter to the US president, Barack Obama, from firms including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook, will be followed by the petition, which has drawn together a remarkable list of the world’s most respected and widely-read authors, who have accused states of systematically abusing their powers by conducting intrusive mass surveillance.

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Levin: ‘If This Were 1776…Chris Matthews Would Be Siding With the Crown’ Like Arnold (+audio)

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Photo Credit: markn3tel/flickr

Photo Credit: markn3tel/flickr

On his program Friday, Mark Levin said that “if this were 1775-1776 the likes of Chris Matthews would be siding with the crown.”

“He’d ultimately be the Benedict Arnold. He and his ilk,” said Levin.

Levin was discussing an interview Matthews gave earlier in the day on MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner in which Matthews compared Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to the last South African Apartheid-era leader, F.W. de Klerk.

Matthews said: “To set it up that way, the juxtaposition, they were willing, the McConnell people on to the far right, were willing to destroy the country in order to destroy Obama, whereas to succeed in a country he loved, F.W. de Klerk was willing to see it transformed to black rule so that it could be done successfully so that he would have his country have a better future.

“Reverend [Al Sharpton], I just, I owe it to you. I think that is the key statement about what happened yesterday, the loss of Mandela, and what his history was about, and the key statement of why this has been so poisonous the last five years. We have real people in this country with real power and status who have used that status of power to hurt the country so they could hurt the president. That’s the most damning assessment I’ve heard and I think the truest.”

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Antarctica Sets Record of -135.8

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Photo Credit: 23am.com

Photo Credit: 23am.com

Feeling chilly? Here’s cold comfort: You could be in East Antarctica which new data says set a record for “soul-crushing” cold.

Try 135.8 degrees Fahrenheit below zero; that’s 93.2 degrees below zero Celsius, which sounds only slightly toastier. Better yet, don’t try it. That’s so cold scientists say it hurts to breathe.

A new look at NASA satellite data revealed that Earth set a new record for coldest temperature recorded. It happened in August 2010 when it hit -135.8 degrees. Then on July 31 of this year, it came close again: -135.3 degrees.

The old record had been -128.6 degrees, which is -89.2 degrees Celsius.

Ice scientist Ted Scambos at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said the new record is “50 degrees colder than anything that has ever been seen in Alaska or Siberia or certainly North Dakota.”

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Another Challenge To The Contraception Mandate Brought in Federal Court

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Another challenge to the Health and Human Services contraception mandate landed in federal court Monday in a case brought by the group Priests for Life, along with some individual plaintiffs.

They argue that being forced to provide no-cost access to all forms of contraception, including those they believe actually induce abortions, would violate their religious freedom.

After Monday’s hearing, Father Frank Pavone, National Director of PFL, said, “What we just saw in that courtroom is of Biblical proportions.”

The Obama administration doesn’t see it that way. Government attorneys have argued that there are exemptions for entities that are truly operating as religious organizations and can prove it.

However, the plaintiff’s attorneys argue that even if they are able to qualify, they are still under an unacceptable burden: facilitating employee access to the contraception via a third-party vendor.

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Cruz Releases Report Slamming President’s ‘Lawless Acts’ in Implementation of ObamaCare

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U.S. Senator Cruz speaks during the fifth annual Washington Ideas Forum at the Newseum in WashingtonTed Cruz may no longer be the solicitor general of Texas, but the Republican senator has penned a legal memo about the White House’s “lawless acts on Obamacare.”

The Daily Caller was provided an early look at the memo, set for release Monday. This is the second time Cruz has released a report for his “The Legal Limit: The Obama Administration’s Attempts to Expand Federal Power” series.

Senator Cruz on Obamacare

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Just a PR Problem? ObamaCare Architect Claims ‘Big PR Campaign’ Needed

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The federal health care overhaul was central to President Obama’s two campaigns for the White House, and has been the defining achievement — for better or worse — of his presidency.

But one of the architects of ObamaCare, in a heated interview on “Fox News Sunday,” argued that the reason young people are not signing up in droves for coverage under the law is the administration hasn’t promoted it.

Ezekiel Emanuel, a former health adviser to the president (and the brother of former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel), argued the administration has been too caught up with fixing HealthCare.gov to give the law the proper promotional push.

“No one has launched a big PR campaign to get these people signed up because of the problems with the federal website,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “We are about to launch a big PR campaign, and that, I think, is going to persuade a lot of people to sign up.”

He noted the administration still has “four more months to go until the end of March,” when penalties kick in for those who haven’t gotten coverage.

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5 Days Left: Congress Races Against Deadlines as Doc Cuts, Price Spikes Loom

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Payments to doctors, the price of milk, long-term jobless benefits and more are all on the line this week as lawmakers scramble to beat several end-of-year deadlines — and all by Friday.

Though Dec. 31 is still a few weeks away, congressional sources say the House plans to adjourn at the end of this week. With the Senate returning from its latest recess on Monday, that leaves just five days when both chambers are in session.

The chances for resolving any or all of these issues is unclear. After a year in which little was accomplished even by congressional standards, the deadlines are piling up — and lawmakers are also facing a Jan. 15 deadline to pass a budget or risk another partial government shutdown. On top of that, several lawmakers, and President Obama, are rearranging their schedules to attend memorial services this coming week for the late South African leader Nelson Mandela.

Ahead of a very busy week, congressional leaders got to work trading blame for the lack of progress to date.

Republicans have “made good faith, serious efforts to Senate Democrats” to resolve differences on year-end issues, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said. “When will they learn to say `yes’ to common ground?”

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Satanists Seek Spot Next to Ten Commandments Monument on Steps of Oklahoma’s Statehouse

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

In their zeal to tout their faith in the public square, conservatives in Oklahoma may have unwittingly opened the door to a wide range of religious groups, including satanists who are seeking to put their own statue next to a Ten Commandments monument on the Statehouse steps.

The Republican-controlled Legislature in this state known as the buckle of the Bible Belt authorized the privately funded Ten Commandments monument in 2009, and it was placed on the Capitol grounds last year despite criticism from legal experts who questioned its constitutionality. The Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking its removal.

But the New York-based Satanic Temple saw an opportunity. It notified the state’s Capitol Preservation Commission that it wants to donate a monument and plans to submit one of several possible designs this month, said Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the temple.

“We believe that all monuments should be in good taste and consistent with community standards,” Greaves wrote in letter to state officials. “Our proposed monument, as an homage to the historic/literary Satan, will certainly abide by these guidelines.”

Greaves said one potential design involves a pentagram, a satanic symbol, while another is meant to be an interactive display for children. He said he expects the monument, if approved by Oklahoma officials, would cost about $20,000.

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