Muslim Man Becomes Christian after Recovering From Brain Aneurysm

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A Syrian-born Alabama man says he was a Muslim when a brain aneurysm left him in a prolonged coma, but when he surprised doctors with his recovery, it started him on a path to Christianity.

Karim Shamsi-Basha was raised in Syria with parents he says were tolerant of all faiths. His family practiced Islam mostly culturally, but Shamsi-Basha says he was “very serious” about his religion as a teenager. “I prayed five times a day. I walked to the mosque before sunrise. I fasted the month of Ramadan,” Shamsi-Basha told the Christian Post.

Weary of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, Shamsi-Basha immigrated to the U.S. when he was 18, to attend the University of Tennessee. After that, he married, had his first son, and moved to Birmingham, Ala. In 1992, he suffered a brain aneurysm that left him in a coma for almost a month.

When he awoke from the coma, his rare, almost total recovery amazed his neurosurgeon, who told Shamsi-Basha he was extremely fortunate and needed to find out why he survived.

That question started Shamsi-Basha on a 20-year journey that he says led him to Jesus Christ…

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Showdown on Meet the Press and Ted Cruz Doesn’t Back Down (+video)

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Screen shot 2013-09-30 at 12.41.00 AMNBC’s David Gregory repeatedly pressed Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz Sunday, over his strategy aimed at defunding President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law.

The showdown came on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” with Gregory taking issue with Cruz’s characterization that the Democrats in Congress and the president won’t compromise over their stance on Obamacare.

“There are not protests in the streets arguing to do away with this law in the way that you’d like. Again 56% in one poll said let’s uphold the law,” Gregory continued. “I’m focusing on results. Where have you moved anything?”

Cruz responded, noting even unions are asking for exemptions to the law, but that answer did not satisfy Gregory who continued to grill the Texas firebrand.

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Who’ll Blink? Dems, GOP in Shutdown Stare Down

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

With the government teetering on the brink of partial shutdown, congressional Republicans vowed Sunday to keep using an otherwise routine federal funding bill to try to attack the president’s health care law.

Congress was closed for the day after a post-midnight vote in the GOP-run House to delay by a year key parts of the new health care law and repeal a tax on medical devices, in exchange for avoiding a shutdown. The Senate was to convene Monday afternoon, just hours before the shutdown deadline, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had already promised that majority Democrats would kill the House’s latest volley.

Since the last government shutdown 17 years ago, temporary funding bills known as continuing resolutions have been noncontroversial, with neither party willing to chance a shutdown to achieve legislative goals it couldn’t otherwise win. But with health insurance exchanges set to open on Tuesday, tea-party Republicans are willing to take the risk in their drive to kill the health care law.

Action in Washington was limited mainly to the Sunday talk shows and a barrage of press releases as Democrats and Republicans rehearsed arguments for blaming each other if the government in fact closes its doors at midnight Monday.

“You’re going to shut down the government if you can’t prevent millions of Americans from getting affordable care,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

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Boehner Slams Senate Dems’ ‘Arrogance’

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boehner_budgetSenate Democrats must meet Sunday to vote on legislation funding the government, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, calling their failure to do so “an act of breathtaking arrogance.”

House Republicans voted early Sunday on a spending bill that delays ObamaCare by a year. Senate Democrats say they’ll vote in down when they convene Monday, all but ensuring a government shutdown come Tuesday.

“The House worked late into the night Saturday to prevent a government shutdown, and the Senate now must move quickly, today, to do the same,” Boehner said in a statement.

“If the Senate stalls until Monday afternoon instead of working today, it would be an act of breathtaking arrogance by the Senate Democratic leadership.”

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Justice Department to Challenge North Carolina Voter ID Law

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Justice Department will file suit against North Carolina on Monday, charging that the Tar Heel State’s new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls violates the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against African Americans, according to a person familiar with the planned litigation.

Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce the lawsuit at 11 a.m. Monday at Justice Department headquarters, flanked by the three U.S. Attorneys from North Carolina.

The suit, set to be filed in Greensboro, N.C., will ask that the state be barred from enforcing the new voter ID law, the source said. However, the case will also go further, demanding that the entire state of North Carolina be placed under a requirement to have all changes to voting laws, procedures and polling places “precleared” by either the Justice Department or a federal court, the source added.

Until this year, 40 North Carolina counties were under such a requirement. However, in June, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the formula Congress used to subject parts or all of 15 states to preclearance in recent decades.

The justices’ 5-4 ruling outraged civil rights advocates, but did not disturb a rarely-used “bail in” provision in the law that allows judges to put states or localities under the preclearance requirement. Civil rights groups and the Justice Department have since seized on that provision to try to recreate part of the regime that existed prior to the Supreme Court decision.

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Obama, Holder to Place Good Guys with Guns in Schools

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obama-hugs-kids-wh-photoCNN reports that President Obama is “putting millions of dollars into funding armed police officers in schools around the country, an idea not far removed from a National Rifle Association proposal.”

According to CNN, on September 27 the DOJ announced $45 million in funding meant to “create 356 new school resource officer positions.”

The $45 million will be distributed in the form of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants. One of the earliest grants will be to Newtown, Connecticut, to create two new officers for Newtown schools.

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In U.S., Political Trust in “American People” at New Low

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pictures - Gallup trust in people lowPRINCETON, NJ — Americans’ trust in “the American people” to make judgments about political issues facing the country has declined each year since 2009 and, at 61%, is down nearly 20 percentage points from its recent peak in 2005. Still, that exceeds the 46% of Americans who trust the “men and women … who either hold or are running for public office,” which is one point above the historical low from 2011.

The results are based on Gallup’s annual Governance survey, conducted Sept. 5-8. The same poll found that Americans’ trust in the federal government to handle domestic and international problems, their trust in the news media, and their trust in the three branches of the federal government, and in state and local governments are all at or near historical lows.

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FBI’s Rogue L.A. Field Office has Muslim Mole

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

The FBI field office that defied clear and direct orders from Washington headquarters to “cease contact” with a terrorist front group at the same time allowed a Muslim agent investigated for compromising a major terrorism case to remain on the squad, WND has learned.

After the FBI banned the Council on American-Islamic Relations from its counterterror outreach programs in response to evidence the group fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian terrorist branch Hamas, the FBI’s Los Angeles field office liaisoned with CAIR in violation of official policy, according to a just-released report by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

Several directives sent from FBI headquarters required all of the bureau’s field offices to “cease contact with CAIR as an organization,” yet the L.A. office refused to comply with the command and even sent out an internal email advising personnel to ignore it.

GOP Rep. Frank Wolf, whose House judiciary subcommittee oversees the FBI’s budget, wants officials there fired.

“This is insubordinate behavior,” Wolf wrote the FBI director. “The findings in this report suggest the FBI may have a systemic problem.”

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Ex-Soldier ‘Rambo’ Charged in Plot to Kill Federal Agent

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Photo Credit: Chaiwat Subprasom/Reuters

Photo Credit: Chaiwat Subprasom/Reuters

A former US solder nicknamed Rambo pleaded not guilty Saturday to charges he plotted with phony Colombian drug traffickers to kill a federal agent for $800,000.

Joseph Hunter, stocky and wearing a wrinkled gray prison jumpsuit, was held after the brief appearance in federal court in Manhattan. His lawyer declined to comment.

An indictment unsealed Friday described the 48-year-old Hunter as a contract killer and leader of a trio of former soldiers who were trained snipers. Hunter, a resident of Thailand, was flown Friday evening to New York after he was expelled from Thailand, US Attorney Preet Bharara said.

Hunter was charged with conspiracy, attempting to import cocaine and plotting to kill a law enforcement agent. When asked by US Magistrate Judge Frank Haas about his plea, Hunter responded: “Not guilty, sir.”

According to the indictment, Hunter served in the US Army from 1983 to 2004 before becoming a contract killer who successfully arranged several slayings outside the United States. Authorities didn’t give details.

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Sheriff Gunned Down in his Cruiser as He Ate Lunch Raped his Killer Says Suspect’s Family

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A sheriff who was murdered earlier this year was allegedly shot dead by a male gunman that he raped as a teenager.

Eugene Crum, 59, was shot dead in his police cruiser as he sat eating lunch in April, three months after taking up his post in Mingo County, Virginia.

Tennis Maynard, 37, is suspected of killing the sheriff. However his family have claimed that the shooting was motivated by the fact that Maynard was raped by Crum when he was a teenager.

Court documents also revealed that another rape allegation was brought against the late sheriff.

It is alleged that Crum raped a 19-year-old woman in 2002 in the back of a police cruiser while two officers sat in the front, turning up the radio to cover up the attack.

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