Justice Kennedy Denies Request to Halt Gay Marriages in California

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has denied an emergency request by opponents of same-sex marriage to halt gay weddings in California.

The decision means same-sex marriages can resume in the state. Gay marriage foes had filed the motion Saturday asking the high court to step in, less than 24 hours after the state started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling earlier in the week.

That ruling, on California’s Proposition 8 gay marriage ban, was expected to clear the way for the state to resume issuing gay marriage licenses.

But in their filing, attorneys with the Arizona-based group Alliance Defending Freedom argued that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals acted prematurely and unfairly on Friday when it allowed gay marriage to resume by lifting a hold it had placed on same-sex unions amid the lawsuit.

“The Ninth Circuit’s June 28, 2013 Order purporting to dissolve the stay … is the latest in a long line of judicial irregularities that have unfairly thwarted Petitioners’ defense of California’s marriage amendment,” the application states. “Failing to correct the appellate court’s actions threatens to undermine the public’s confidence in its legal system.”

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California Responders Suing Teen Hikers for Recovery Costs, Medical Bills

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Photo Credit: Horia Varlan

Photo Credit: Horia Varlan

Some of the participants in the rescue of two hikers lost during a trek into the southern California wilderness earlier this year are now suing the duo after authorities found methamphetamine in one of their cars.

The newspaper, OC Weekly, reports the Orange County Fire Authority, as well as Nick Papageorge, a 20-year-old volunteer, are trying to recover costs sustained in relation to the effort that made headlines this spring.

The OCFA, for its part, wants the $55,000 it spent to find Nicholas Cendoya, 19, and Kyndall Jack, 18, after the pair disappeared Easter Sunday in Tabuco Canyon.

And Papageorge, who fell off a 110-foot-high cliff during the rescue effort and later required the insertion of several screws into his back, is suing for $350,000 in incurred medical bills, OC Weekly reports.

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Nation’s Oldest Leftist Weekly Demands President’s Impeachment Over Mass Surveillance

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

In the pages of The Nation, the oldest continuously published weekly in the country and the self-described “flagship of the left,” a former member of the House of Representatives has called for the impeachment of the president over revelations of massive government surveillance of ordinary citizens.

Democrat Elizabeth Holtzman of New York, who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate era, powerfully yet dispassionately lays out the case for the immediate impeachment of the president.

“Nothing less is necessary to protect our constitutional system and preserve our democracy,” she declares.

The last straw for the retired Congresswoman was the revelation that the president “directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans” (a number that is likely conservative).

“As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment,” writes Holtzman in her bombshell treatise. “A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law — and repeatedly violates the law — thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office.”

[Editor’s Note: This piece is somewhat satirical. The Nation link above is directed to a 2006 article calling for Bush’s impeachment. Restoring Liberty contacted the author who stated the following: “go to the piece in The Nation. Each time you see Bush, insert Obama — particularly in the parts about mass surveillance. Does the case for impeachment still apply? If so, what does that say about the character and credibility of The Nation?”]

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After Being Deceived by Rubio on Amnesty, Conservatives Say it Won’t Happen Again

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Many conservatives gave Sen. Marco Rubio the benefit of the doubt when he said securing the border first was a top priority for the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform effort. Later, when those conservatives realized that Rubio’s plan would first legalize the country’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, and only then put new border security measures in place, they expressed deep disappointment and disillusionment.

Now the Gang bill has passed the Senate and immigration is the work of the House, where former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan is a leading reform advocate. Ryan favors the same legalization-first sequence for immigration reform that Rubio and the Gang did. The difference is that now, more conservatives are aware of the basics of reform proposals. And that means Ryan might be in for a rougher ride with the conservative base than Rubio experienced.

That, at least, is one conclusion to take from Ryan’s appearance last Wednesday on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. Hannity interviewed Rubio several times during the Gang of Eight deliberations. In later interviews, Hannity became more skeptical and questioning, and in the last such interview expressed surprise that Rubio had declared legalization would come before border security. With Ryan in the interview chair, the first thing Hannity wanted to know was when securing the border would come in the sequence of immigration reform.

“I’m sure you are aware, a lot of conservatives including myself are angry,” Hannity told Ryan. “No border security first. How do you feel about it?”

Ryan stressed that the House would not take up the Senate Gang of Eight bill. “We want to have real triggers on the border, real triggers on what we call the E-Verify,” Ryan said. But Hannity wanted to know if that meant border security would come first: “Is securing the border first a top priority for you?” he asked.

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Chair of the RNC Pushes Amnesty Bill as “Human Rights Issue”

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Photo Credit: Chris Usher

Photo Credit: Chris Usher

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Saturday pitched a gathering of Hispanic public officials on the GOP’s support for immigration reform, characterizing the call for tougher border control as a human rights issue.

“We need a solution that strengthens families. We need a solution that expands economic opportunity. And one of the reasons we need improved border security — that is not mentioned enough — is to further prevent violence and drug trafficking… and the brutal human trafficking and exploitation of women and girls,” he said at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference.

Priebus added that it’s “important that Republicans are taking a lead in this policy discussion.”

The Senate on Wednesday passed an immigration reform bill, 68-32, with every Democrat and 14 Republicans voting in favor.

In its current form, however, the bill has little chance of passing the House, as Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said he won’t bring a package to the floor that doesn’t have the support of a majority of Republicans in the lower chamber.

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82% of Americans Agree Founding Fathers Would be Unhappy With Feds

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Photo Credit: cliff1066™

Photo Credit: cliff1066™

As Independence Day approaches, most Americans think the Founding Fathers would have had a sad celebration this year.

A Fox News poll asks voters what the Founding Fathers would think of Washington these days: Fully 82 percent think they would be unhappy with how things are going there.

That includes 96 percent of those who identify with the Tea Party movement, 95 percent of Republicans, 88 percent of independents and 68 percent of Democrats.

Democrats (23 percent) are about six times as likely as Republicans (4 percent) to think the Founding Fathers would be pleased.

Meanwhile, more than three-quarters of voters (77 percent) believe the United States would be a better country if we followed the ideas of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution more closely.

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Edward Snowden May Be the Last of the Human Spies

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Photo Credit: Colin Anderson

Photo Credit: Colin Anderson

Kurt Vonnegut once opined: “Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power.” That power corrupts is hardly debatable. For that reason, the evolution of espionage has run in parallel with the development of organised tribes of human beings that we now refer to as countries.

Human nature makes it predictable that organisations such as the NSA would be cataloguing phone calls and other electronic interactions between humans. But Edward Snowden’s revelations also tell us how far electronic snooping has yet to go. While the din of outrage still resonates, we should be thankful that Snowden – a human being – actually exists. In the future, the world may never be alerted to such breaches of privacy because there will be no humans involved in spying at all. Just as algorithms have conquered our stock markets and our musical tastes, so too will they conquer surveillance. Even the most human of tasks, snooping, will become the province of the bots.

While it’s true that the surveillance Snowden spotlighted is of a new and digital variety, it still required human levers to give it any meaning. The NSA, for example, using its call log data, would take an interest in people who repeatedly dialled the phone numbers of known troublemakers. Human agents would query the call-logging database and find out who a prime target in Yemen might be speaking with inside the US. The data is collected passively and electronically, but much of the intelligence and the methods to derive it come straight from human minds. But what will happen when a machine makes the rules?

In the late 1940s, Vonnegut observed how General Electric was replacing human machinists with computer-operated milling machines to cut rotors for jet engines. This passing of duties from humans to bots led Vonnegut to imagine a world where human chores of all manners would cease being the labour of men and become strictly the work of machines. Power and income, then, would be concentrated among the few who controlled the machines. Snowden and the teams of analysts at the NSA, CIA and GCHQ who sit in front of our stores of electronic intelligence will hardly be necessary in 15 years. Algorithms will have replaced them, leaving only a few humans, like General Keith Alexander of the NSA, left to watch the house.

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School District Receives Grant for Students to Indoctrinate Parents About Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Heartland

Photo Credit: Heartland

The Los Angeles Unified School District will use a state grant to train teens to promote ObamaCare to family members. Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange, announced grants of $37 million on May 14 to promote the nationally unpopular law.

LAUSD will receive $990,000. The district listed as a primary outcome for its project, “Teens trained to be messengers to family members.”

Covered California spokeswoman Sarah Soto-Taylor said staff have not questioned this goal.

“We have confidence that the model LA Unified brought to the table will be successful in reaching our target population, which includes family members of students,” she said.

LAUSD will also use tax-paid staff to promote ObamaCare through phone calls to students’ homes, in-class presentations, and meetings with employees eligible for ObamaCare’s taxpayer-covered healthcare, the grant award says.

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Ann Coulter Flips, Turns on Chris Christie Over Amnesty Bill

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Conservative firebrand and best-selling author Ann Coulter has changed her tune and flip-flopped on her support for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

In a Thursday tweet, she wrote: “@GovChristie’s dead to me.”

The tweet came on the heels of Republican Sen. Jeffrey Chiesa’s vote to end debate on the immigration reform bill. Mr. Chiesa was appointed to the seat by Mr. Christie after Sen. Frank Lautenberg died.

At the tail of her tweet, Ms. Coulter also added: “Jeffrey S. Chiesa R NJ votes ‘Aye’ on Amnesty bill.”

The denouncement is a major turn for Ms. Coulter, who pushed hard for Mr. Christie to run for president against Barack Obama in 2011. In February of 2011, she told Fox News: “I don’t care if [Chris Christie] wants to run, his country needs him, it appears.”

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Tea Party Called ‘Top Terror Threat’ in U.S.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

One in four likely voters who support President Obama believe the tea party is the biggest terror threat to the United States, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll.

The survey, conducted over the past weekend. polled 1,000 likely voters. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points, with a 95 percent level of confidence.

It asks a number of questions about America’s security on topics including nuclear weapons, an anti-missile defense shield – and just exactly who is the nation’s top terror threat.

Twenty-six percent of Obama’s supporters say that would be the tea party – the grass-roots political effort to limit the size of government, get bureaucrats out of the average family’s life and crack down on corruption and graft.

“Among those who Strongly Approve of the president more fear the tea party than radical Muslims,” the survey report said.

Read more from this story HERE.