“Do I regret doing it? Hell no!” Marine who urinated on Taliban dead says he’d do it again (+video)

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Photo Credit: AnonymousA Marine who was fined and demoted for urinating on Taliban corpses in Afghanistan in 2011 says he would do it again.

“I regret maybe any repercussions it might have had on the Marines. But do I regret doing it? Hell no,” Sgt. Joseph Chamblin told WSOC-TV in Charlotte, N.C., adding that he would do it again.

The infamous incident was videotaped and uploaded to YouTube last year, becoming international news and raising fears of retaliation by Afghan troops against their coalition trainers.

“These were the same guys that were killing our family, killing our brothers,” said Sgt. Chamblin, who was on a mission to stop Taliban insurgents from making roadside bombs.

One of his sniper team members, Sgt. Mark Bradley, was killed by a buried bomb days before the incident.

Read more from this story HERE.

More Evidence Zimmerman Trial Really Was About Second Amendment (+video)

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Attorney General Eric Holder took aim at Stand Your Ground laws Tuesday, saying the measures increase the chance for violence.

“These laws try to fix something that was never broken,” Holder said in a previously-scheduled speech to the NAACP convention in Orlando that marked the Obama administration’s first new policy announcement since neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman was acquitted last weekend in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

“By allowing and perhaps encouraging violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety,” he said.

More than 30 states have passed Stand Your Ground laws, which eliminate the duty to retreat before using deadly force in self defense.

The doctrine has long been recognized across the country with respect to home invasions. But the new laws expand the concept — doing away with the duty to retreat in a variety of other venues. The Florida law authorizes an individual to use deadly force as self defense “in any…place he or she has a right to be.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Dr. Ben Carson: This Is the Beginning of the Collapse of Obamacare (+video)

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Photo Credit: APBy Greg Richter. Delaying implementation of key parts of the healthcare law and losing the support of labor unions are just the beginning of trouble for Obamacare, says Dr. Ben Carson.

“It’s gonna be a lot worse than this. This is the beginning of the collapse,” the retired Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon said on Fox News Channel’s “Your World” on Tuesday.

“Usually when you roll out a big program, you roll it out bit by bit. You determine what’s working. You can change things,” Carson said. “But to try to roll out something this massive without really knowing what the intricacies are is quite foolish.” Read more from this story HERE.

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photo credit: azrainmanGOP-controlled House to vote Wednesday on delaying key parts of ObamaCare

By Fox News. The Republican-controlled House will vote Wednesday on delaying key parts of ObamaCare, the party’s latest effort to dismantle the law amid distress signals from inside the administration.

The lawmakers will vote on bills to delay the start of the law’s separate employer and individual mandates, which respectively require smaller businesses and Americans to purchase insurance next year or face penalties.

The Obama administration earlier this month delayed the start of the employer mandate, saying the decision was in response to business owners expressing concerns about the law’s complex reporting requirements.

Late Tuesday, the White House issued a threat to veto the Republican bills, saying their passage would help “further efforts to repeal a law that is already helping millions of Americans stay on their parents’ plans until age 26, millions more who are getting free preventive care that catches illness early on, and thousands of children with pre-existing conditions who are now covered.”

Political analysts said that delaying the start until 2015 was an attempt to slow Republicans during next year’s elections from pinning ObamaCare problems on Democratic candidates — particularly those in Congress who supported the 2010 law and are seeking re-election. Read more from this story HERE.

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74% of small businesses will fire workers, cut hours under Obamacare

By Paul Bedard. Despite the administration’s controversial decision to delay forcing companies to join Obamacare for a year, three-quarters of small businesses are still making plans to duck the costly law by firing workers, reducing hours of full-time staff, or shift many to part-time, according to a sobering survey released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Small businesses expect the requirement to negatively impact their employees. Twenty-seven percent say they will cut hours to reduce full time employees, 24 percent will reduce hiring, and 23 percent plan to replace full time employees with part-time workers to avoid triggering the mandate,” said the Chamber business survey provided to Secrets.

Under Obamacare, just 30 hours — not the nationally recognized 40 hours — is considered full-time. Companies with 50 full-time workers or more are required to provide health care, or pay a fine.

The administration recently decided to wait a year before businesses had to comply, but many are trying to get ready anyway. The president did not delay the mandate that Americans must have health insurance or pay a fine, however.

The Chamber’s second quarter small business survey found that just 30 percent are ready for the law and even understand what is required. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APLooking to keep GOP out of health care decisions, Obama threatens to veto bill backing his own delay

By Tom Howell Jr. President Obama has threatened to veto a House bill that would put into law a decision he made two weeks ago.

In a statement, the White House said the Obama administration “strongly opposes” a pair of Republican-led bills to delay the employer mandate and individual mandate within the president’s signature health care law.

The administration quietly announced July 2 in a pair of blog posts that it would delay by one year, to 2015, penalties tied to a mandate requiring firms with the equivalent of 50 or more full-time workers to provide insurance or pay fines, citing the business community’s concerns about complex reporting requirements.

Eyeing an opportunity to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans cued up votes for Wednesday on bills to codify the White House’s delay and match it with a delay of the provision requiring most Americans to obtain some form of health insurance.

The votes will force Democrats to align with the president or distance themselves from the overhaul in the wake of its recent stumbles. Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul Putting Hold on FBI Director Until FBI Answers Questions About Domestic Drones (+video)

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday afternoon he will put a hold on James Comey’s nomination as FBI director until the agency answers questions about the use of drones for domestic surveillance.

“I’m placing a hold on it, not because I have the intention of ultimately defeating him, but I’m going to slow it down enough to see if the administration will respond to my questions,” Paul said, speaking to Eric Bolling on Fox News.

Earlier this month, Paul said he would block Comey’s nomination until the FBI answered questions he sent to them over the government’s use of drones to monitor Americans on U.S. soil. He said Tuesday afternoon he has yet to receive a response and will move forward with the formal hold.

Paul also alluded to holding another marathon filibuster, a potential replay of his 13-hour talking filibuster in March, though he didn’t confirm if he planned to do so.

“[A hold] is like the beginning of a filibuster. Should they bring [the hold] to the floor, and I choose to speak like I did on the drone subject earlier, then as long as I can speak I can stop the debate,” Paul said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Controversial Statements from Obama’s Choice for UN Ambassador (+video)

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty ImagesAs the Senate prepares for confirmation hearings Wednesday to decide whether Samantha Power will be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, there are some controversial criticisms of America from her past that may be called into question.

Power, a former journalist turned political activist, once connected some of the tactics in the U.S. war on terror to French military support for the Hutu militia, which killed 800,000 people in the Rwandan genocide. She also has called Americans “stingy on foreign aid,” declared that the U.S. should apologize for slavery, and even made indirect references comparing U.S. involvement in the world to that of Nazi Germany.

At a 2002 discussion of her book at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Power questioned the U.S. cooperation with other countries in the war on terror, saying “we’re about to partner with regimes that if they’re not committing genocide they are certainly committing systematic atrocities against their people.”

Power has already come under fire for a New Republic article in which she called for Americans to follow the lead of German leaders post-Holocaust and apologize for their war crimes:

“U.S. foreign policy has to be rethought. It needs not tweaking but overhauling. We need: a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the United States. This would entail restoring FOIA to its pre- Bush stature, opening the files, and acknowledging the force of a mantra we have spent the last decade promoting in Guatemala, South Africa, and Yugoslavia: A country has to look back before it can move forward. Instituting a doctrine of the mea culpa would enhance our credibility by showing that American decision-makers do not endorse the sins of their predecessors. When Willie Brandt went down on one knee in the Warsaw ghetto, his gesture was gratifying to World War II survivors, but it was also ennobling and cathartic for Germany.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Hypocritical Nancy Grace Makes ‘Racist’ Claim that Zimmerman is Back to ‘Driving Through Taco Bell and Having a Churro’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Newsbusters Just when it seemed that the racial tensions couldn’t get any worse after George Zimmerman’s “not guilty” verdict regarding the charge of the second-degree murder of black teenager Trayvon Martin, along comes Nancy Grace, the host of a weeknight news/interview program on the HLN cable news network, who did her best to fan the flames even higher.

Responding to lead defense attorney Mark O’Mara’s closing argument on Friday night asking the jury to give Zimmerman his life back, the acerbic host growled: “Give Zimmerman back his life? He’s out on bond driving through Taco Bell every night, having a churro”…

Since then, Grace has been accused of using “a very poor choice of words” herself, with some even going so far as to call her a racist for the language she used.

Read more from this story HERE.

PBS’s Tavis Smiley: Our Babies are being Shot Dead in the Street, What’s the Use of having a Black President? (+video)

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Tavis Smiley is furious that President Obama has not done more to combat racism in America, and that anger was on full display Monday night. On his self-titled PBS program, Smiley unleashed a pair of long-winded leftist rants barely disguised as questions to his guest, Dr. Tricia Rose from Brown University.

Rose, who directs Brown’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, had suggested that Obama was incapable of ending structural racism in America by himself. Hearing that, Smiley erupted: “[I]f you’re right about this, then what the heck is the value of us celebrating a black president?”

Apparently Smiley had rather high hopes when President Obama was elected. He continued:

“But all of this hoopla about his being the first black president, if it doesn’t redound to you in some meaningful way when your back is to the wall and your babies are being shot dead in the streets, if it doesn’t redound to you in some meaningful way at that point… what is the value of having a black president?”

Read more from this story HERE.

Sen. Harry Reid Morphs Into a Constitution-Loving Patriot in Describing Why the Filibuster Must Go (+video)

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Photo Credit: J. Scott ApplewhiteBy Stephen Dinan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that the men who wrote the Constitution intended for the president’s nominees to be subject to only a majority vote, and said filibusters of nominees were never envisioned.

The Senate’s leading Democrat, who led repeated filibusters of President George W. Bush’s nominations when Republicans held the majority, said he’s changed his mind since then, and he accused the GOP of forcing his hand by slow-walking so many of President Obama’s nominees.

Mr. Reid, of Nevada, said the Constitution only requires supermajority votes for specific circumstances: treaties, impeachments, constitutional amendments and overrides of presidential vetoes. He said everything else should be subject to a majority vote. Read more from this story HERE.


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Senators: No Deal Yet on ‘Nuclear Option’

By Newsmax, Reuters and The Associated Press. U.S. senators said on Monday that no agreement had yet been reached to avert a showdown over President Barack Obama’s executive-branch nominees and threats by Democrats to strip Republicans of their filibuster power to block such nominations.

As the talks entered their fourth hour, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said a deal was unlikely on Monday, but Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss said the chamber’s two leaders, Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Mitch McConnell, were urged to keep trying to find common ground.

Votes are set for Tuesday on seven of Obama’s nominees.

Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester indicated progress, telling reporters: “The two sides aren’t off by far.”

All but three senators returned to Washington Monday night for the unusual joint-caucus meeting behind closed doors to hammer out a deal. Read more from this story HERE.

Teamsters, Other Unions Now Protest the Obamacare Nightmare They Helped Create (+video)

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Photo Credit: WNDBy Drew Zahn. Some of America’s top labor unions – including the influential Teamsters – have suddenly realized Obamacare is bad deal, and they’re suffering some serious buyer’s remorse.

“In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure [the Obamacare] vision,” wrote three leading labor unions in an open letter to Congressional Democrats last week. “Now this vision has come back to haunt us.”

The letter, signed by James Hoffa of the Teamsters, as well as the presidents of the UFCW and UNITE-HERE, demands Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., “fix” the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – also known as “Obamacare” – before it “destroy[s] the very health and well-being of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.”

“When you and the president sought our support for the Affordable Care Act, you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat,” the unions wrote to Reid and Pelosi. “Unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”

According to the letter, Obamacare is laced with “perverse incentives” that create “unintended consequences” and “nightmare scenarios.” Read more from this story HERE.

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‘Unintended consequences’ causing ‘nightmare scenarios’

By Avik Roy. The union leaders are concerned that Obamacare’s employer mandate incentivizes smaller companies to shift their workers to part-time status, because employers are not required to provide health coverage to part-time workers. “We have a problem,” they write, and “you need to fix it.”

“The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe,” they continue. “Perverse incentives are causing nightmare scenarios. First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.”

What surprises me about this is that union leaders are pretty strategic when it comes to employee benefits. It was obvious in 2009 that Obamacare’s employer mandate would incentivize this shift. Why didn’t labor unions fight it back then? Read more from this story HERE.

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Obamacare Delay Has Serious Implications

Avik Roy appeared before the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee to testify on the White House’s one-year delay in implementing the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”), which requires firms to offer health coverage to their full-time workers:

Doctor Gives and Defends Diagnosis of “Ghetto Booty” for Back Pain (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeA Mid-South woman has filed a complaint with the Tennessee Department of Health after she said the doctor she went to see for back pain gave her an insulting diagnosis.

“He said ‘I know what the problem is. It’s ghetto booty,’” said 55-year-old Terry Ragland about what she was told by Dr. Timothy Sweo in April.

“I think I blacked out after he said ghetto booty. I think my mind was just stuck on the phrase because I couldn’t believe he said that,” said Ragland.

Ragland said this was not her first time at this doctor’s office. She had been there several times before and said her experiences were good. But this is the first time she had seen Dr. Sweo.

“It’s one of those things where my hip seems to slip, like it’s slipping out of place a little bit. It’s painful when you get up to go walk it kind of slips, you know,” said Ragland about her lower back pain.

Read more from this story HERE.