Several of these Richmond Liberty Movement posts are replicated on the Mr. Raub’s personal Facebook page. On the personal page, Mr. Raub increasingly uses the word “Revolution” in his postings:
Mr. Raub even expressly states that he is “starting a revolution” because “the government has gone to [sic] far.”
He also challenges the nation’s leadership, claiming a conspiracy to enslave the American people:
Mr. Raub’s Facebook apparently became active in the fall of 2011, about the time his mother said he left the Marines. His initial posting dealt with fairly conventional topics like the national debt:
He was also apparently supportive of Ron Paul and made a number of postings throughout 2011 and 2012 like the following:
Mr. Raub apparently started something called the Richmond Liberty Movement that advocated for “Personal Freedoms, Respect for the Rule of Law and the Constitution, and Sound Money” and noted, “Let the Revolution begin”:
The most recent posting on the Facebook page for Richmond Liberty Movement was November 11, 2011, and the content on it is not too different than what might be found on other Liberty-oriented pages:
On Thursday, Marine veteran Brandon Raub was apparently taken into custody by local law enforcement in conjunction with several federal agencies. Mr. Raub’s mother maintains that her son was arrested because of his “patriotic Facebook postings.”
As of the writing of this column, the agencies responsible for his arrest have still not publicized a charging document explaining why Mr. Raub was arrested. Consequently, much of what we know about this case is from a radio interview with Mr. Raub’s mother as well as an apparent video taken of the actual arrest itself.
So what exactly happened with Mr. Raub? Because the FBI and Secret Service were allegedly involved in his arrest, it’s my guess that the feds will allege that he (1) threatened the President and/or Vice-President, and/or (2) advocated the overthrow of the U.S. government.
The two federal laws at issue include 18 United States Code Section 871 and 18 United States Code Section 2385. The first, 18 USC 871, criminalizes “any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect.” So, in layman’s terms, if you threaten to hurt the President or his successor, you may get to spend some time in the federal pen.
The second, 18 USC 2385, makes a federal felon out of anyone who advocates the “propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government.” In other words, never threaten to overthrow the government through any violent act. Using a ballot box revolution, however, is perfectly acceptable.
Did the Marine vet cross the line with respect to these laws? Let’s take a look at the only information currently available outside of his mother’s interview and video, Brandon Raub’s Facebook page. Continue to Part II, Raub Facebook posts HERE.Written by Joe Miller
Photo credit: Leader Nancy Pelosi
Documents and a whistle-blower affidavit obtained by The Daily Caller charge that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., and Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., participated in an unethical — and possibly illegal — effort to force 76 employees of an Illinois state agency to engage in political activity on the taxpayers’ dime.
According to the whistle-blower, Rev. Jackson also encouraged the government employees to load first-generation and low-income college students up with student loan debt — because Democrats in Congress, he allegedly promised, would eventually pass laws to forgive that debt later. “[T]hose people will continue to vote Democratic,” Jackson Sr. said, according to the whistle-blower.
On March 3, Pelosi flew to Chicago to endorse Rep. Jackson Jr., 17 days ahead of a heated March 20 Democratic primary he later won. Pelosi was scheduled to make the endorsement at a press conference later in the day, after she participated in an hour-long “forum” hosted by the elder Jackson at the headquarters of his progressive Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Pelosi politicized that forum, jumping the gun and endorsing Jackson Jr. earlier than planned.
“One of the reasons I am here, and I will do this following this wonderful meeting, is to publicly state my endorsement of Jesse Jackson Jr. for re-election,” Pelosi said at the Rainbow PUSH forum. “I do so with great pride. I remember when he came to the Congress with a great name and a great tradition of his parents. But he came and he made his own mark in the Congress from his own generation.”
Read more from this story HERE.
Yesterday, WND posted a story involving Fox News “America Live” anchor Megyn Kelly that incorrectly attributed to her the view that the Bible prohibits mix-race marriage.
On further examination, it’s clear that Ms. Kelly wasn’t representing such views as being her own, but was summarizing the views of others – including a Virginia judge – who in the past have cited the Bible in their attempts to justify slavery, the subjugation of women and the prohibition of interracial marriage.
Read more from this story HERE.
Publisher’s Note: We join WND’s apology to Ms. Kelly. Here’s the original video that we posted earlier today and linked to the WND’s original story. The comments that were the subject of the original posting start at 3:45:
If you’re a US citizen, there’s a one-in-three chance that you’re also obese. Now after failed attempt after failed attempt at slimming down citizens, a federal panel is pushing to force overweight Americans into counseling.
The US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) introduced their latest plans to help push down the obesity rate in America this week, and their newest effort calls for more than just urging people to exercise. The federal panel of medical experts is asking primary care physicians to put obese Americans into intensive counseling programs in order to combat the epidemic.
“Obesity is a very serious health problem in the United States, and in the past 30 years, obesity rates have dramatically increased,” Task Force member Dr. David Grossman, a pediatrician at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, says in the USPSTF press release put out on Monday. “The good news is that is that even modest weight loss can reduce health risks for people who are obese. And, there is strong scientific evidence that shows that intensive programs with 12 to 26 sessions in the first year can help people manage their weight.”
While experts have long argued for urging obese Americans into specialized programs to push healthier habits on them, the USPSTF is asking physicians to place any patient with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more into counseling. Currently more than one-third of adults meet that criterion, with non-Hispanic black adults more than 44 percent likely to be considered obese.
According to a report compiled earlier this year by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42 percent of the US population will be obese within the next two decades. At the time of that publishing, the Institute of Medicine’s Shiriki Kumanyika told Reuters that “People have heard the advice to eat less and move more for years, and during that time a large number of Americans have become obese.” Advice, many argue, hasn’t been enough, though.
After several months of bad ratings news for CNN, official quarterly numbers confirm that the cable news network has hit 21-year lows in both viewers and adults 25-to-54.
The primetime lineup of Anderson Cooper 360 and Piers Morgan, specifically, saw big drops during the prime 8-10 p.m. hours that have averages down to 446,000 total viewers and a mere 129,000 with adults 25-54. Those numbers mark 35 and 41 percent drops from the second quarter in 2011.
Daily ratings stumbled to their lowest in more than a decade (2001), with 319,000 the average total viewers and 129,000 adults 25-54 — 35 and 45 percent drops, respectively.
In individual primetime broadcasts, Anderson Cooper’s 8 p.m. outing was down 23 percent in the demo. Piers Morgan took a steeper drop of 33 percent in adults 25-54.
Read more at the Hollywood Reporter HERE.
A 14-year-old boy shot and nearly killed an intruder who broke into his Phoenix home and pulled a gun on him while he was watching his three younger siblings, police said Saturday.
The teen and his siblings, ages 8, 10 and 12, were at home alone when a woman rang the doorbell Friday afternoon, Phoenix police Officer James Holmes said.
The teen didn’t open the door because he didn’t recognize the woman. Soon after, the teen heard a loud bang on the door, rushed his siblings upstairs and got a handgun from his parent’s bedroom. When he got to the top of the stairs, he saw a man break through the front door and point a gun at him.
The boy shot the 37-year-old man, who was taken to a hospital in extremely critical condition and underwent surgery. The man was upgraded to critical condition and is expected to survive and be booked into jail within the week on counts of aggravated assault and burglary, Holmes said.
Read more at CBS Las Vegas HERE.
The Supreme Court will hand down its verdict on Obamacare this week, making it a timely occasion for Americans to show their support for religious freedom—only one of many freedoms steamrolled by the health care law.
This spring, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged she did not even enlist the legal advice of the Department of Justice on whether it is constitutional to force religious employers to provide coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization against their moral or religious beliefs. She admitted in congressional testimony that she neglected to obtain an adequate legal analysis of the HHS anti-conscience mandate before promulgating the Obamacare rule that tramples on religious liberty.
That disrespect for constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom has led Americans to participate in the Fortnight for Freedom, a nationwide demonstration. Launched June 21, the Fortnight for Freedom runs through July 4—a two-week opportunity for citizens to celebrate our rich heritage of religious liberty and call for greater defense of this precious right.
Often called the “first freedom,” religious liberty is the cornerstone of American freedoms. The ability to freely worship and act in accordance with a particular faith without fear of government reprisal is essential to civil society.
As Heritage’s Jennifer Marshall has explained:
Far from privatizing religion, the American model of religious liberty assumes that religious believers and institutions will take active roles in society…In fact, the American Founders considered religious engagement in shaping the public morality essential to ordered liberty and the success of their experiment in self government.
Read more at Heritage.org HERE.
The Pentagon has revoked permission for a Christian ministry to produce Bibles for different branches of the military, marked with those insignias, after an anti-Christian group called them a threat to national security.
In 2003, B&H Publishing, a division of LifeWay Christian Resources, was given authorization to use the official seals of the U.S. military branches on a line of Bibles. No government funds were used in the production of the Bibles, which contained devotional material unique to each service branch in much the same way they are tailored to other groups such as teens or children.
As part of the features, the Bibles featured the Pledge of Allegiance, the first and fourth verses of the Star Spangled Banner, Patton’s famous Christmas prayer card from 1944 as well as testimonials from the Officers’ Christian Fellowship.
Nowhere in the Bibles did they state that they were endorsed by any government entity or military branch.
Despite this, last year the Military Religious Freedom Foundation sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta demanding the military rescind its authorization to use the service emblems, saying it was a violation of church and state separation.
Read more at WND HERE.
