Hagel to Take Pay Cut in Solidarity with DoD Furloughed Workers

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Photo Credit: Secretary of Defense

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will take the same pay cut as the 750,000 civilian Pentagon employees slated for furloughs in the coming months.

Hagel and Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter plan to voluntarily hand over 14 days of pay back to the Treasury Department, as a sign of solidarity with the Pentagon employees who are being forced to take the same cut via furloughs.

Both Hagel and Carter are exempt from the furlough plan, since both officials are Senate-confirmed White House appointees, Defense Department (DOD) press secretary George Little told reporters on Tuesday.

“My understanding is … that there is a legal way to actually write a check, if you will, back to the U.S. Treasury,” Little said, regarding how both senior DOD officials would be able to adapt their pay scales to furlough levels.

Carter informed Congress he would be willing to take a pay cut, commiserate with proposed furloughs, during testimony on the department’s fiscal situation under sequestration earlier this year.

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US Corporations Get Cold Feet About Reducing Tax Rates

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Photo Credit: AP

Washington is finally starting to get serious about corporate tax reform — and now businesses are getting cold feet.

At first, it seemed like an idea the White House, Congress and corporate America could all agree on. Every company would play by the same tax rules: They would give up their special tax breaks in exchange for lowering the basic tax rate from 35 percent to as little as 25 percent.

But with Congress starting to dig into the details, many captains of industry are backpedaling — and fast.

The corporations aren’t keen on giving up the special tax breaks that have let many of them pay Uncle Sam less than advertised for years.

And they’ve gone on the offense to protect their favorite loopholes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Another RINO Embraces Gay Marriage

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Photo Credit: AP

Sen. Mark Kirk bucked most of his fellow Republicans on Tuesday, becoming the second GOP senator to publicly endorse same-sex marriages…

“When I climbed the Capitol steps in January, I promised myself that I would return to the Senate with an open mind and greater respect for others,” The Illinois senator said in a statement. “Same-sex couples should have the right to civil marriage…”

Read more from this story HERE.

Read about Alaska’s Senator Murkowski’s “evolving” homosexual marriage views HERE.

Activist Head of US Goddard Space Institute Quits So He Can Sue Government Over Global Warming

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Photo Credit: ALICE OLLSTEIN

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!

NASA’s James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a controversial and highly vocal voice of alarm about the planet’s changing climate, will retire as the director of the space institute, NASA announced Tuesday — and plans to immediately sue his former employer.

Hansen will step down from his $180,000 a year position to join a number of lawsuits challenging the federal and state governments for their failure to police industry over man’s effect on the climate, the New York Times reported.
Hansen was clearly aware of the irony.

“As a government employee, you can’t testify against the government,” he told the Times. Hansen is a central figure in the battle against climate change; on Feb. 13, he was arrested alongside of actress Daryl Hannah, activist Bill McKibben and a small group of activists protesting the planned Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

That was at least the fourth arrest for the climate scientist — and his high profile was raising eyebrows at NASA headquarters.
“It was becoming clear that there were people in NASA who would be much happier if the ‘sideshow’ would exit,” Hansen told the Times.

Read more from this story HERE.

Son Fatally Shoots Dad During Easter Service, Yells Killing Was ‘Will Of Allah’

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Photo Credit: NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images

Witnesses say the 25-year-old man accused of walking into an Ohio church and fatally shooting his father after an Easter service Sunday was yelling about God and Allah after the killing.

Police say Reshad Riddle walked into the Hiawatha Church of God in Christ in Ashtabula and killed his father, 52-year-old Richard Riddle, with a single shot from a handgun Sunday afternoon.

Associate Pastor Sean Adams told The (Ashtabula) Star Beacon newspaper that worshippers started screaming, ducking down and calling 911 on cellphones after the shooting.

“It was terrifying,” Adams told the newspaper. “The children were screaming and people were dialing 911. We were afraid to breathe.”

Adams said Reshad Riddle then continued into the church, still holding the gun, and yelled that the killing was “the will of Allah. This is the will of God.”

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Refuses To Denounce Easter Sunday Attack On Conservatives

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Photo Credit: CNN via nomorcocktails

By Joe Newby. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney refused to denounce an attack made against conservatives during Sunday’s service at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., Breitbart.com reported Monday.

“It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back … for blacks to be back in the back of the bus … for women to be back in the kitchen … for immigrants to be back on their side of the border,” Dr. Luis Leon said at the Easter service attended by the Obamas.

But when asked about the remarks during Monday’s press briefing, Carney refused to repudiate the comments, saying that Leon is not a politician or an elected official.

Jay Carney refuses to repudiate attack on conservatives during Easter Sunday sermon. Initially, Carney brushed off the question by Fox News’ Ed Henry by saying that he wasn’t at the service and had not spoken to the president about it.

But Henry pushed the issue. Read more from this story HERE.

Pastor at Obama’s Easter Church Service: ‘Captains of the religious right’ want ‘blacks in the back of the bus’, women ‘back in the kitchen’

By Madeleine Morgenstern. The pastor at the Washington, D.C. church where the Obama family celebrated Easter on Sunday said members of the religious right want blacks “in the back of the bus,” women “back in the kitchen” and immigrants “back on their side of the border.”

“It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back…for blacks to be back in the back of the bus…for women to be back in the kitchen…for immigrants to be back on their side of the border,” Rev. Dr. Luis Leon said in his sermon, according to the White House press pool report.

Reuters reporter Jeff Mason tweeted that Leon also said the religious right wants gays in the closet. Read more from this story HERE.

Lady Gaga Turned Down $1 Million To Perform During RNC

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Not even a million dollars could convince Lady Gaga to perform during last summer’s Republican National Convention.

The snub by the pop star is included in a lawsuit filed by a powerful Republican nonprofit fundraising organization, American Action Network, against a vendor whose job was to stage entertainment just outside the doors to the GOP’s convention in August.

Documents filed with the lawsuit show that other entertainers also said “no thanks” to appearing at the GOP convention including Dolly Parton and the rapper Pitbull, who Republicans hoped to feature at an event for the Hispanic Leadership Network.

Many entertainers, including Journey and Lynyrd Skynyrd, agreed to perform at the convention, but Lady Gaga’s offer was the most lucrative, according to an email sent last summer by AAN’s director of development, Pete Meachum.

“See what it would take to get Gaga instead of Dolly,” Meachum requests of Rob Jennings, who heads Cater America LLC, an event production company based in Wyoming.

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge: California City's Bankruptcy Given the Green Light

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Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan

A federal judge ruled Monday that Stockton is eligible for bankruptcy protection, over the objection of creditors who argued the city could come up with more money.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein said Stockton can move forward with a plan to reorganize debt. He twice stated that the creditors had acted in bad faith and had refused to pay their share of the costs for negotiations.

“The creditors got a big black eye today,” said Karol Denniston, an attorney who helped draft the legislation that guided Stockton’s mandated mediation before filing for bankruptcy protection. “Now the stage is set for the real dogfight.”

In late June, Stockton became the nation’s largest city to fail financially. At that time, all eyes were on the port city of 300,000 as experts warned the action could set off a string of similar filings among cash-strapped municipalities. Since then, a half-dozen cities have filed for Chapter 9 protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, including the city of San Bernardino.

During the 90-day mediation period, Stockton’s creditors refused to negotiate unless the city cut payments to the state pension plan, CalPERS.

Read more from this story HERE.

Court Okays Adult Teacher-Student Sex In Arkansas

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

The Arkansas Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a high school history teacher who had sex with an 18-year-old student, invalidating the state’s existing prohibition against teacher-student sex.

A guilty verdict could have landed David Paschal, the 38-year-old teacher, a 30-year prison sentence.

But because the student was over the age of consent, the relationship was not criminal, the court said in its 4-3 ruling.

“Regardless of how we feel about Paschal’s conduct, which could correctly referred to as reprehensible, we cannot abandon our duty to uphold the rule of law when a case presents distasteful facts,” wrote Chief Justice Jim Hannah, according to The Huffington Post.

In dissent, Justice Robert Brown warned that the majority opinion would cause chaos in schools.

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Teachers Who Stomped American Flag, Jesus Are Officially No Longer Teaching

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Photo Credit: public domain/government produced

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger. And, as two educators have recently learned, it’s also generally good advice to avoid stomping on Jesus and the American flag in public schools.

The Florida Atlantic University instructor who asked students to step on the word “Jesus” has been placed on administrative leave on the same day that the high school teacher in South Carolina who stomped on an American flag in front of his students way back in December finally resigned.

The incident in South Carolina first flared up when Scott Compton, an honors English teacher at Chapin High School in Chapin, S.C., was placed on long-term administrative leave after he threw an American flag on the floor and stomped on it in front of his students.

Compton allegedly repeated the unpatriotic deed three times in one day. His goal, apparently, was to teach students that the flag is merely a symbolic piece of cloth.

Compton was already fired, reports The State, a regional newspaper. However, he had been fighting his termination until Friday, when he formally agreed to resign.

Read more from this story HERE.