Photo Credit: NBCActor Liam Neeson appeared on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend to help Jay Pharoah’s Barack Obama issue a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin over his latest actions in Ukraine.
“Recently I got a very disturbing call,” Neeson said. “Crimea had been taken. I hate it when things are taken.”
The actor then issued a warning to the Russian president.
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YouTubeBy Seth McLaughlin and Stephen Dinan
Sen. Rand Paul demolished his competition in the 2014 Washington Times/CPAC presidential preference straw poll on Saturday, winning 31 percent of the vote — nearly three times the total of second-place Sen. Ted Cruz.
The poll also found a strong plurality of attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference believe marijuana should be fully legalized, with 41 percent saying it’s time to change the law and tax it. Another 21 percent said it should be legalized only for medicinal purposes, while just 31 percent said it should remain illegal in all cases.
In the presidential poll, Mr. Cruz’s 11 percent was a big improvement for the freshman senator, who won just 4 percent in last year’s straw poll. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson was third with 9 percent and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was fourth with 8 percent in results that signal growing discontent with the GOP establishment in Washington.
Indeed, CPAC voters now have an unfavorable view of Republicans in Congress, with 51 percent saying they disapprove of the job the GOP is doing on Capitol Hill. Just last year the GOP had a 54 percent approval rating, and in 2012 they held a 70 percent approval rating.
But a series of tough votes over the last few months that saw Republican leaders work with President Obama to boost spending and raised the government’s debt limit have deepened a rift between the GOP’s leadership on Capitol Hill and conservative activists around the country.
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Rand Paul: Obama is Shredding the Constitution
By Cathy Burke
Sen. Rand Paul gave full voice to his libertarian principles Friday, telling a cheering Conservative Political Action Conference crowd “our freedom is in our DNA and in our founding document,” and urging young “liberty lovers” to “stand and be heard.”
The Kentucky Republican’s speech focused on personal freedom, the Fourth Amendment, and constitutional rights that he charged were being “shredded” by the Obama administration.
“Imagine when the White House is again occupied by a friend of liberty,” he said.
“You may think I’m talking about electing Republicans. I’m not … It isn’t good enough to pick the lesser of two evils, we need men and women of principle, conviction and action.”
Paul declared there was “a battle for the future of the entire country,” reminding conservatives that the the Fourth Amendment — prohibiting searches and seizures without probable cause — is as important as the Second Amendment, guaranteeing the right to bear arms.
“Will you, America’s next generation of liberty lovers, will you stand and be heard?” he asked to applause and whistles.
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Photo Credit: BJÖRN WYLEZICH
By CBS News.
Foreign ministry officials in Rome and Vienna confirmed Saturday that names of two nationals listed on the manifest of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight match passports reported stolen in Thailand.
Also Saturday, Vietnamese air force planes spotted two large oil slicks close to where the Boeing 777 went missing earlier in the day, the first sign that the aircraft carrying 239 people had crashed.
Neither European was on the plane, which disappeared less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, officials said. The Italian was traveling in Thailand and the Austrian was located in his native country.
In Washington, CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports that U.S. officials were aware of reports about the stolen passports but so far haven’t determined any nexus to terrorism.
The officials said it’s still very early in the investigation and at this point they were not aware of any threat streams connected to the event, Orr reports.
Read more this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: CNNSearch intensifies for Malaysian airliner and 239 people, rescue ships head to sea
By Tom Watkins and Chelsea J. Carter.
Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared Saturday after air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane, the airline said.
“At the moment we have no idea where this aircraft is right now,” Malaysia Airlines Vice President of Operations Control Fuad Sharuji said on CNN’s “AC360.”
Subang Air Traffic Control lost contact with Flight MH370 at about 2:40 a.m. local time (1:40 p.m. ET Friday), Sharuji said.
“We tried to call this aircraft through various means,” he said. The airline checked reports that the jet had landed in several places, but determined that none of the reports was true, he said.
The Boeing 777-200 departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12:41 a.m. and was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m., a 2,300-mile (3,700 kilometer) trip. It was carrying 227 passengers, two of them infants, and 12 crew members, the airline said.
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“America” The MovieFilmmaker Dinesh D’Souza said he is innocent of campaign finance fraud charges — and criticized President Barack Obama’s leadership, during a dramatic appearance at Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.
“I’ve pleaded not guilty. And yes, I’m innocent,” D’Souza told Business Insider in an interview at CPAC where he made a keynote address.
Addressing an audience of 3,500, D’Souza tore into President Barack Obama.
He said the Democratic commander-in-chief was turning into the type of leader D’Souza warned of in his award-winning 2012 documentary, “2016: Obama’s America.”
Meanwhile, D’Souza unveiled a new trailer for his upcoming movie, “America,” which is based on the premise that the United States lost the Revolutionary War.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: James Alby / flickrThe U.S. Department of Justice has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the School District of Philadelphia, claiming a rule regulating the length of employees’ beards constitutes religious discrimination.
According to the suit filed Wednesday, the district in October 2010 instituted a new grooming policy preventing school police officers and security guards from having beards longer than a quarter of an inch.
School police officer Siddiq Abu-Bakr maintained an untrimmed beard for the 27 years he worked at the district, the suit states. Abu-Bakr is a member of the Islamic faith, which he says requires that he not cut his beard.
When Abu-Bakr notified his supervisor his religious beliefs precluded him from complying with the new policy, he was allegedly issued a written reprimand cautioning that continued violation of the rule would result in “further disciplinary action.”
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Photo Credit: APWhen Republican Mitt Romney said in one of the 2012 presidential debates that Russia was America’s greatest “geopolitical adversary,” he was right, said Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate.
Interviewed Tuesday night by Fox News’s Martha McCallum, Ryan said, “You know, there are moments, Martha, when I just look down, shake my head, and say I can’t believe we lost to these guys. This is one of those moments. Mitt was right.
“I think the President was incredibly naive on his Russia policy. His reset has been total failure. I think this is what happens when a superpower projects weakness in its form in defense policy. Aggression fills that vacuum. And I think that’s what happening right now.”
Ryan said he thinks President Obama doesn’t support the traditional view of the United States as a superpower.
“I believe he’s taken on the whole notion of exceptionalism. I believe we are an exceptional country for lots of reasons. And I’m not sure that he’s going to be leading like he ought to be in this situation. Look, Russia’s violated the sovereignty of Ukraine. I think there are a lot of things we need to be doing to address this, LNG export, other kinds of sanctions, but I think the lack of a coherent foreign policy, the fact that the president is proposing a budget to highlight our defenses projects weakness.”
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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesFormer Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday compared recent actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine to those implemented by Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s.
Putin’s desire to protect minority Russians in Ukraine is reminiscent of Hitler’s actions to protect ethnic Germans outside Germany, she said.
Putin has been on a campaign to give Russian passports to anyone who has Russian connections, Clinton said.
The Russian leader has recently done so in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which, Clinton said, is similar to what happened in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. Hitler resettled tens of thousands of ethnic Germans who were living in parts of Europe to Nazi Germany.
Clinton made her comments at a private event benefiting the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach.
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Photo Credit: Jeff ChiuThree third-grade students at a Sonora elementary school were busted for smoking pot in the school’s bathroom last week.
Two 8-year-olds and a 9-year-old were caught by another student, who immediately informed school administrators. Those officials then alerted local police.
The students were questioned by officers, and later released to their parents on February 27th.
Read more this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll CallBy Jason Howerton.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Tuesday took a strong stance against President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, calling the nomination “insulting to law enforcement officers everywhere.”
Cruz’s opposition to Debo Adegbile’s nomination stems from the man’s time with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. During that time, Adegbile volunteered to advocate for Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. As Townhall’s Katie Pavlich notes, attorneys with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund were able to get Abu-Jamal’s death sentence overturned.
“Mr. President, this is insulting to law enforcement officers everywhere. I stand with the Fraternal Order of Police in opposition to Debo Adegbile,” Cruz said from the Senate floor Tuesday.
Read more this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: Breitbart Ted Cruz slams Obama for nominating cop killer’s advocate to DOJ Leadership
By Kristin Tate.
President Obama recently nominated Debo Adegbile to be head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. Texas Senator Ted Cruz today spoke out against the nomination and criticized Adegbile, who previously held a leadership position at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF). During his time with the black activist group, Adegbile volunteered to defend Mumia Abu-Jamal, the criminal who murdered Philadelphia cop Daniel Faulkner in 1981. Thanks to Adegbile and his colleagues, Abu-Jamal ultimately avoided the death penalty.
Despite heavy scrutiny, LDF attorneys said it was a great “honor” to represent the convicted cop killer.
On the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon, Cruz said, “Mr. President, this is insulting to law enforcement officers everywhere. I stand with the Fraternal Order of Police in opposition to Debo Adegbile.”
He stressed the fact that Adegbile took pride in defending Abu-Jamal simply because of his skin color. The LDF’s defense had nothing to do with proving innocence or guilt, Cruz argued.
Read more this story HERE.
Photo Credit: APDoing his part to ensure that devotion towards Big Brother is continuous, the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid took to the floor to contribute his two minutes of hate towards Charles and David Koch.
Reid lambasted Republicans for “defending” the right of the two libertarian billionaires to participate in our democracy. It should be noted that the Koch brothers rank #59 in political donations (behind the left-wing Act Blue and a whole bunch of unions.)
“Republican Senators have come to the floor to defend the Koch brothers’ attempt to buy our democracy,” Dingy Harry wheezed reading from his script. “Not only have Senate Republicans come to the floor to defend the Koch brothers personally, they have again and again defended the Koch brother’s radical agenda.”
Dingy emphasized that the Koch brothers are radical, “from a middle class perspective” but neglected to name the radical, anti-middle class actions they were engaging in.
Read more this story HERE.