Police Militarization is Not Inevitable: 58 Percent Think It’s Already Going Too Far (+video)

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Photo Credit: Twitter

Photo Credit: Twitter

Americans, it seems, have had enough police militarization, with the latest Reason-Rupe poll finding a full 58 percent of respondents believing that the use of drones, military weapons, and armored vehicles by local police departments as already going “too far.” That includes a full 60 percent of both Democrats and Tea Partiers. Opposition is under 50 percent among non-Tea Party Republicans.

Policing in the United States has seen rapid militarization, fueled by the war-like mentality that comes with the “drug war,” as well as by the abundance of military surplus available to local police departments from the federal government, especially since 9/11. The military gear ends up at agencies across the country, from New York to Wyoming. Earlier this year, the Defense Department even sent “free” (original cost to taxpayers: $658,000 each) mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles to 500 local police departments; vehicles the Pentagon didn’t think the military needed are now being used by local police forces. Disturbingly, an ACLU FOIA request revealed one police department, that of Concord, New Hampshire, cited the presence of Free State Project and Occupy New Hampshire activists as domestic terror threats for which the military vehicles were necessary. Concord had spent some time trying to get the feds to cover the cost of a military vehicle, and ended up getting at least the one for “free.”

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Mystery Illness in Texas Kills Half of Those Infected (+video)

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Photo Credit: Thinkstock

Photo Credit: Thinkstock

Mystery illness claims 4 lives in Montgomery County

Officials with the Montgomery County Health Department are on a mission to find out more about a mystery flu-like illness.

So far, half of the people who have come down with it have died.

According to the health department, all of the patients have had flu-like and/or pneumonia like symptoms. However, all of them have tested negative for the flu.

There have been eight confirmed patients ranging in age from 41 to 68. Four of those patients have died.

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Mother says mystery illness transformed son into dying patient in days

The mother of the youngest of eight confirmed cases of a mystery illness in Montgomery County is sharing her son’s story.

Dathany Reed, 41, wasn’t feeling well on Thanksgiving. He called out sick from his job at the Golden Corral and went to see doctors at Conroe Regional Medical Center.

Odessa Reed says doctors sent her son home with several prescriptions.

She said her son was admitted to the hospital’s emergency room the next day and ended up on life support.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Odessa Reed. “How can you talk to a person one day, and they say, I’m not feeling good, and the next day, that person is on life support.”

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‘Tips for Jesus’ Mystery Man Strikes Again — for $5,000 (+video)

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Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

By Verena Dobnik The Associated Press.

The $111.05 New York restaurant receipt includes a $1,000 tip and the words “god bless!” scrawled across it.

The handle @tipsforjesus is stamped next to an illegible signature.

In recent weeks, similar tabs have popped up in restaurants from coast to coast and even in Mexico, with tips of as much as $10,000 — all charged to American Express.

On Sunday just after midnight, the mysterious man surfaced again — this time in Fairfield, Conn. He left a $5,000 gratuity on a $112 bill at the Seagrape, an eatery where college kids drop by for cheap beers by the beach.

Tips for Jesus — an Instagram account filled with photos documenting the tips — has more than 54,000 followers. The account displays photos of smiling servers holding receipts with outlandish gratuities on bills also tallied in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Phoenix and Ann Arbor, Mich. On Twitter, Tips for Jesus has nearly 3,000 followers but no tweets.

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Report: “Tips for Jesus” tipper is former PayPal exec

By Kim Peterson.

Has the mysterious benefactor behind “Tips for Jesus” finally been outed?

Restaurants around the country have been receiving shockingly large tips to the tune of $5,000, $7,000 and even $10,000. The person giving the tips never gives away his or her identity; instead, the large tip is added to the bill right before the party of diners leaves.

The only clue left behind is the phrase @TipsforJesus written on the signature line of the bill. A “Tips for Jesus” Instagram page publishes photos of the dining checks but doesn’t say who is paying the amounts.

Silicon Valley gossip site ValleyWag reported last week that the person behind “Tips for Jesus” is Jack Selby, a former PayPal executive with “more money than the real son of God.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Generous Mystery Tipper Leaving ‘TipsforJesus’

By CBN.

An anonymous diner has been leaving generous tips at restaurants across the country.

The mystery tipper has been taking a picture of each receipt and posting it on his Instagram account @TipsforJesus.

According to Instagram account, he’s “Doing the Lord’s work, one tip at a time.” One of his latest stops, Moondogs bar in Port Orchard, Wash.

“It’s very unique, it’s like a lightening strike,” bar owner Darryl Baldwin said.

The staff of Moondogs said the mystery diner rang up a $576 check after buying everyone a round. Then he left a $5,000 tip.

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GOP Senator’s Wife–a Former Software Consultant–Experiences ‘Fiasco’ Trying to Use Obamacare Website (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

When it comes to Obamacare, “many members of Congress are feeling the very same pain that the rest of America is feeling,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) told Americans in a radio address on Saturday.

Toomey said he, his wife, and three children are among those “forced” to buy government-mandated health insurance on one of the new exchanges, and last week, his wife tried to sign up the family on an Obamacare exchange website.

“Now, my wife is a very sharp woman. She’s a former computer software consultant,” Toomey said. After entering the family’s personal information, the website wouldn’t let her browse the various plans. “When she called someone and asked for help, she was told the system just wasn’t working right now and it was best to try again later.”

According to Toomey, “The fiasco my wife just faced with the health care website is being experienced by Americans across the country when they try to sign up for health insurance. If this were just a matter of a slow-moving computer glitch, well, then maybe that would be excusable, but it’s much more than that.

“It’s been reported that perhaps as many as one third of those who have been able to complete the online enrollment process might not actually have insurance coverage at all. Apparently, the enrollment information isn’t always being transmitted to the insurers…Can you imagine going to your doctor or to a hospital in January only to find out you’re not actually insured?”

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Rep. Trey Gowdy Rips Obama for Acting Like Tyrant (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A member of Congress is now warning that Obama’s imperial presidency – his arbitrary enforcement or non-enforcement of the nation’s laws – has gone too far. And so he’s endorsing a resolution in the U.S. House that would allow a lawsuit over Obama’s decisions to abrogate laws passed by Congress.

“Assume that a statute said you had to provide two forms of ID to vote. Can the president require three forms? Can the president require one form? Can you suspend all requirements? If not, why not?” said Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., in an interview on Fox News.

“If you can turn off certain categories of law, do you not also have the power to turn off all categories of law?”

He said Obama’s actions have reached “an unprecedented level, and we’ve got to do something about it.”

Gowdy cited Obama’s decisions to ignore certain immigration laws, even though Congress did not approve the changes. And Obama’s decisions to change the Obamacare law as he goes along. And his decision to make “recess appointments” even though the U.S. Senate was not in recess.

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MSNBC Panelist’s Charge of Tea Party Racism Elicits Strong Response: ‘I Will Not Sit Here and Allow You to Say That’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Newsbusters

Photo Credit: Newsbusters

Democratic strategist and former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Angela Rye picked the wrong panel Sunday to accuse the Tea Party of being “racial.”

When he heard this during his appearance on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry show, Republican strategist Ron Christie strongly objected saying, “Racial! I will not sit here and allow you to say that!” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

During a lengthy political discussion with Christie as the lone conservative against four extreme liberals (including the host, of course), Rye said, “I was just thinking, to me, in 2010, the Republican infighting took a particularly dangerous tone because it wasn’t just about infighting anymore. It was about taking our country back with the resurrection of the Tea Party. And it was very, very racial, whether any of them will admit it or not.”

Christie quickly refuted this saying, “Racial! I will not sit here and allow you to say that!”

“I said it, and I’ll say it again,” Rye responded.

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Gingrich Dismantles Robert Reich’s Rant on Income Inequality: ‘This is Baloney’ (+video)

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Newt Gingrich7232Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich heatedly disputed Robert Reich’s contention that the “War on Poverty’s” initial success was spoiled by decades of Republican “intransigence,” telling the former labor secretary his argument was “baloney.”

Gingrich and Reich appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” to discuss TIME magazine’s choice of Pope Francis as Person of the Year. Reich, a well-known proponent of wide-scale income redistribution, changed the topic to inequality in the United States today. ABC News host Jonathann Karl asked Gingrinch whether the Republican Party should be worried about poverty in America.

“Absolutely,” he responded. “How can you justify the level of wealth in those big towers in New York City and the level of poverty in those alleys? And without talking about government, surely a society that cared, that believed every person was endowed by their Creator with the right to pursue happiness, would come up with a better solution than 22,000 children that are homeless.

“I think that the Republican Party has an obligation to rethink some of its indifference to the very poor,” he continued, “and I think the Democrats have an obligation to ask themselves after 50 years of the ‘War on Poverty,’ isn’t it clear that government isn’t a very good –”

https://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=90046&sitesection=dailycaller&VID=25447180

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SNL Mocks Obama Selfie, Fake Mandela Interpreter (+video)

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Photo Credit: Screen grab via NBC

Photo Credit: Screen grab via NBC

By Oliver Darcy.

President Barack Obama’s appearance at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service this week was subject to a “Saturday Night Live” skit that targeted the stage’s fake interpreter and the president’s now infamous selfie.

The skit opened with an actor playing Obama delivering an address on the “series of unfortunate events” that occurred at the Mandela memorial.

“First, I got roped into taking a selfie with the blonde female Danish prime minister,” the Obama actor said. “Some people said Michelle was angry at me for that. But, I talked to her afterwards and I can assure you, she was furious.”

“Some people said Michelle was angry at me for that….she was furious.”

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images

How the West was lost by the selfie president

By Michael Goodwin.

My bookshelves sag with encyclopedic volumes arguing that America and the West are in decline. But proving that a picture is worth a thousand books, the “selfie” seen ’round the world ends the argument.

It’s official — the government of the United States of Obama consists of boobs and bores and is led by a narcissist. It is no consolation that Great Britain joins us in racing to the bottom.

President Obama’s flirting with Denmark’s prime minister would be shameful on any occasion. That it happened at the memorial for Nelson Mandela only adds to the embarrassment.

But the “selfie” episode also symbolizes the greater global calamity of Western decline. With British prime minister David Cameron playing the role of Obama’s giggling wingman, the “look at me” moment confirms we have unserious leaders in a dangerously serious time.

Iran marches toward nuclear weapons and already there is talk in military circles that a nuclear-armed Iran could mean mushroom clouds in the Mideast within five years.

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Google’s Robots Give Amazon’s Drones a Run For their Money (+video)

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Photo Credit: David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Photo Credit: David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google has snapped up the creator of the world’s fastest running robot and other eerily realistic animal-like machines supplied to the U.S. military.

The internet company’s acquisition of Boston Dynamics is latest in a string of robotics acquisitions in a mysterious initiative led by former Android chief Andy Rubin.

As Amazon readies a fleet of delivery drones, Boston Dynamics is Google’s biggest prize yet in the robot wars.

Among the creations to crawl, jump and gallop from its labs are Big Dog, a four-legged robot that can clamber over uneven terrain such as snowy forests, even when assailed by kicks from its makers, and Cheetah, which claims to hold the record for the fastest legged robot in the world, running at more than 29 miles per hour.

Many of Boston Dynamics’ robots have been developed with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense’s research unit, Darpa, making Google a military contractor, at least for now.

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Reports: ObamaCare Exchange Mistakenly Debiting Bank Accounts (+video)

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Photo Credit: Alamy

Photo Credit: Alamy

For the second week in a row, the Washington Healthplanfinder website is down, and it’s causing problems for people who are dealing with billing issues. Some of them say the website is mistakenly debiting their accounts.

Shannon Bruner of Indianola logged on to her checking account Monday morning, and found she was almost 800 dollars in the negative.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘I got screwed,’” she said.

The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the Washington Healthplanfinder website, last October. They say they selected the bill pay date to be December 24th. Instead the Washington Healthplanfinder drafted the 835 dollar premium Monday.

Josh Bruner started his own business this year as an engineering recruiter. They said it’s forced them to pay a lot of attention to their bills and their bank accounts.

Read more from this story HERE.