Professor Bans Fox News, Claiming It Makes Her Cringe

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Back in the day, teachers often scoffed at using encyclopedias as serious academic references. These days, they reserve their scorn for Wikipedia and — at one public university in West Virginia — Fox News.

A syllabus for a political science course at West Liberty University instructs students that they must filter out two potential research sources, reports WTOV, a nearby NBC affiliate.

According to Fox News, ironically enough, the syllabus says (with grammatical errors preserved for posterity):

DO NOT use

1) The Onion — this is not news this is literally a parody

2) Fox News — The tagline “Fox News” makes me cringe. Please do not subject me to this biased news station. I would almost rather you print off an article from the Onion

No other media or research sources — such as, say, MSNBC — appear to be prohibited.

Stephanie Wolfe, the visiting assistant professor behind the ban, has a one-year contract with the university in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle. She is replacing another instructor who is on leave.

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Health Care Exchanges And The Two Americas

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Photo Credit: Reuters In the Obamacare era, there are two Americas. Half the states have refused to set up the health insurance exchanges, ignoring a Friday deadline for states to take on core requirements of the law. They’ll hand over the keys to the Obama administration, which will play an outsize and risky role in driving critical health insurance decisions that are typically the province of state governments.

Barring any surprise last minute Friday announcements, in those 25 states — nearly all led by Republican governors — the feds must set up health insurance exchanges. Enrollment starts in October, and on Jan. 1 those online marketplaces are supposed to provide affordable health coverage for millions of Americans.

Republicans who voted against the law and still clamor to repeal Obamacare believe the feds are heading for a nationwide failure.

“I have a hard time understanding how the administration expects to have exchanges up and running by Oct. 1, ” Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said Thursday.

For the administration, it’s a dangerous endeavor: the text of President Barack Obama’s health law didn’t envision widespread abdication by the states. There’s not much of a playbook for federal health officials to follow. And if it goes horribly awry, not only will the Obama administration be blamed, the entire health care law could be in trouble.

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Obama Made No Phone Calls On Night Of Benghazi Attack, White House Says

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President Obama didn’t make any phone calls the night of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday. “During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who had held up Mr. Obama’s defense secretary nominee to force the information to be released.

Mr. Graham said that if Mr. Obama had picked up the phone, at least two of the Americans killed in the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi might still be alive because he might have been able to push U.S. aid to get to the scene faster.

The White House has said Mr. Obama was kept up to date on the attack by his staff, though after being alerted to the attack in a pre-scheduled afternoon meeting he never spoke again with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin E. Dempsey or then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. Panetta told Congress last week that he knew immediately the attacks were a terrorist assault, though the White House downplayed that notion in the first five days after the attack.

Republican senators said they will still push for more information on who changed the talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who went on the Sunday talk shows after the attacks and blamed protests against an anti-Islam video.

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U.S. Funded Idle Time at Battery Factory

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Photo Credit: Wall Street JournalThe Obama administration’s electric car efforts took another hit on Wednesday after a federal inspection found a South Korean advanced battery maker never scaled up U.S. production despite receiving $142 million in federal grants.

A Holland, Mich., factory owned by LG Chem Ltd., part of LG Corp., was half-funded by a government grant and estimated to add some 440 jobs building battery cells for General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Volt and other vehicles.

When demand for the plant’s batteries didn’t meet expectations, the company filled orders with cells made at a factory in South Korea, leaving the Michigan plant largely idle, according to the report by the Department of Energy’s Inspector General, Gregory Friedman.

LG Chem said in a statement that production delays at the Michigan facility were “market-driven,” adding that it is “developing specific plans for the start of production.” The company said it regretted that it applied for reimbursement for “employment costs that were not allowed” under its U.S. grant.

The inspector general said that to avoid layoffs at the factory LG Chem paid idle workers $1.6 million in the third quarter of last year, about half of which was covered by its U.S. grant, even though there was nothing for them to do. The workers played board games, watched movies, and volunteered at local animal shelters during regular work hours, Mr. Friedman said. LG Chem has since paid back the government’s share of those charges.

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Obama Continues Radical Social Engineering of the Military

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Photo Credit: frontpagemag.comThe progressive revamping of the military has gotten another boost. Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has offered an array of new benefits to the same-sex partners of service members, both active and retired, whether they are married or not. They include child care services, member-designated hospital visits, and the issuance of military ID cards to same-sex partners, granting them access to on-base commissaries, movie theaters and gyms. “Taking care of our service members and honoring the sacrifices of all military families are two core values of this nation. Extending these benefits is an appropriate next step under current law to ensure that all service members receive equal support for what they do to protect this nation,” said Panetta in a statement announcing the development. Yet all service members are not receiving equal support: unmarried heterosexual partners and their families are not getting these benefits.

All the new benefits were previously denied by the Pentagon. The federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) mostly prohibits more than 85 other benefits now granted to heterosexual military spouses and their children from being given to same-sex partners. These include medical care, housing allowances, death benefits and burial at Arlington National Cemetery. They will remain prohibited because making such changes “presents complex legal and policy challenges due to their nexus to statutorily-prohibited benefits and due to ongoing reviews about how best to provide scarce resources,” Panetta explained.

Such policy challenges are reflected by the reality that same-sex couples are not legally prohibited from qualifying for on-base housing. But Pentagon officials were concerned that following the “spirit of the law” outlined in DOMA required further review. Those concerns centered around fairness and the reaction of other military members, including married couples who could be bumped from housing lists by same-sex couples.

In a statement issued Monday decrying this development, the Center for Military Readiness (CMR) noted that by “equating same-sex domestic partnerships with natural marriage, the lame-duck Secretary of Defense has created a new inequity. Unmarried same-sex couples signing Secretary Panetta’s on-paper-only ‘Declaration of Domestic Partnership’ will have special rights, status, and benefits that are denied to opposite-sex domestic partners and their dependents.”

CMR was equally upset with the incrementalist nature of the move, and where it will inevitably lead. “Eventual correction of this inequity in the name of ‘consistency,’ and eventual extension of medical, housing and other costly benefits on an incremental basis, will rob even more funds from limited defense budget accounts that are devoted to traditional family support.”

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New Jersey ‘Muslim’ Man Accused Of Cutting Off Victims’ Heads And Hands In Grisly Murder Case (+video)

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Photo Credit: The Blaze Authorities found two beheaded men buried in Buena Vista, N.J., last week after being notified about suspicious activity at a local home. According to police, Yusuf Ibrahim, a 27-year-old man from Jersey City, allegedly killed the two Egyptian foreign nationals by shooting them in the chest; then, he reportedly cut off their heads and hands, burying the bodies and parts in a wooded area behind the house.

An investigation was launched last Thursday, using cadaver dogs to locate soil that had recently been dug up. Under it, the two corpses were found. Later, at a nearby location, police also discovered the accompanying heads and hands, WNBC-TV reports.

The bizarre details extend well beyond the murder, though. The accused was allegedly spotted last week driving a white Mercedes Benz that belonged to one of the victims. Later, he purportedly attempted to set the car ablaze in Philadelphia and subsequently abandoned it. Police suspect that the killings might have unfolded inside of this vehicle.

According to sources, the three men lived near one another, although their associations are not entirely clear. Sources did say that the victims were roommates. In a press release, New Jersey State Police announced that they were ages 25 and 27, but their identities have been held, as authorities have reportedly had difficulty notifying their relatives.

“These were grisly murders in which the defendant allegedly shot both victims in the chest at close range,” said New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa. “We allege that the defendant was ruthless and calculating in the manner in which he carried out the killings and attempted to prevent identification of the victims by cutting off their heads and hands before burying their bodies.”

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Rubio Introduces Bill to Stop Secret Abortions on Teenagers

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Photo Credit: Life NewsSenator Marco Rubio is introducing a a major pro-life bill, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, today that would stop secret abortions on teenagers.

The bill would require an abortion practitioner to notify a parent before performing an abortion on a minor who resides in a different state. It would also make it a crime for a non-parent to transport a minor across state lines to evade a parental notification law.

National Right to Life originally helped develop the bill in 2005 and the House of Representatives approved it 2005 and again in 2006, but died in the Senate when most Democratic senators supported a filibuster.

In a February 12 letter urging senators to co-sponsor the new bill, NRLC said, “Parental notification or parental consent laws, consistent with existing Supreme Court case law, are in effect in more than half the states. However, these laws are often circumvented — activity that is actively encouraged by abortion clinics’ out-of-state advertising in non-notification states, highlighting the avoidance of parental notification as a selling point. Only Congress has the authority to deal with this interstate activity, and the CIANA would do so.”

In the House of Representatives, the CIANA will be re-introduced by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, also a Florida Republican. During the 2011-2012 Congress, her bill gathered 172 cosponsors in the House.

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Illegal Immigrant, Conservative Congressman Get In Heated Exchange

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A conservative congressman got into a heated exchange over immigration last week with one of his constituents who is living in the country illegally.

Two very different accounts have emerged from the Feb. 6 meeting between Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and an 18-year-old college student. But both sides say the discussion escalated into shouting that cut the meeting short, left the student in tears and stunned some staffers in Rohrabacher’s office.

The clash took place as President Obama and lawmakers are trying to pass legislation on immigration reform, one of the most divisive issues facing the 113th Congress.

Jessica Bravo, a freshman at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, Calif., claims Rohrabacher initiated the hostility upon learning she is an “undocumented” immigrant. She said the congressman raised his voice, waved his finger in her face, claimed to “hate illegals” and made a veiled threat to deport her and her family.

“The moment I said that word [undocumented], it just completely changed the mood of the room,” Bravo said in a telephone interview. “He kept interrupting me and he was just, like, ‘Oh, you know, I love Mexicans, but I hate illegals.’ He was just yelling at us and pointing his fingers. I couldn’t even talk anymore because I was crying.”

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Embattled Sen. Menendez Still Welcome At Obama White House

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Photo Credit: Mark WilsonWhile Democratic leaders have softened the tone of their allegiance to embattled New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the White House remains publicly unconcerned about working closely with the powerful Democrat.

Menendez is one of four senators meeting with President Barack Obama Wednesday afternoon at the White House to discuss immigration reform, according to Fox News’ Chad Pergram.

A White House official announced the meeting in a statement to reporters.

“Later this afternoon, the [p]resident will meet with Senate Democrats leading the effort to pass bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform. The meeting is part of the ongoing effort to continue to make progress towards bipartisan reform, which the [a]dministration believes should happen as quickly as possible,” the official wrote.

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Surge Of Sheriff Groups Opposed To Obama Gun Control Rises To 10

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Photo Credit: Mike SaechangIn less than four weeks since President Obama proposed sweeping new gun control laws and a ban on assault-style weapons, the backlash from law enforcement groups that strongly support the Second Amendment has surged and now there are 10 state sheriffs associations opposed to the president.

The Illinois Sheriffs Association became the last to join the growing crowd of police opposed to Obama, arguing this week that the president should instead be focused on mental health, not gun hardware.

“Sheriffs from across the state of Illinois believe that it is their responsibility and duty to uphold the Constitution including the Second Amendment. Rational law abiding citizens are not the cause of random acts of horrific violence in our communities. The focus should be primarily on the lack of mental health services in our country,” the group just announced.

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