Photo Credit: YouTubeSenator Ted Cruz’s dad, Rafael Cruz, gave a rousing speech at the “Free the People” symposium this past weekend where he compared Obama to Fidel Castro.
Rafael spoke about how the same sort of “change” was promised by Fidel but, when that “change” actually came to fruition, it was horrendous. It drove Rafael from Cuba to the United States.
Seconds before Boeing 777 crash, passengers knew they were too low
By Holly Yan and Greg Botelho. Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was seconds away from landing when the passengers sensed something horribly amiss.
The plane was approaching San Francisco International Airport under a beautifully clear sky, but it was flying low. Dangerously low.
Benjamin Levy looked out the window from seat 30K and could see the water of the San Francisco Bay about 10 feet below.
“I don’t see any runway, I just see water,” Levy recalled.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Fatal crash-landing not mechanical error – airline
By ONE News/ Reuters. Asiana Airlines does not believe the fatal crash of one of its Boeing 777 planes in San Francisco was caused by mechanical failure, although it refused to be drawn on whether the fault lay with pilot error.
Two people were killed and more than 70 injured when the Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport.
“For now, we acknowledge that there were no problems caused by the 777-200 plane or (its) engines,” Yoon Young-doo, the president and CEO of the airline, told a media conference on Sunday at the company headquarters.
Asiana said the two people who died in the crash were female Chinese teenagers who had been seated at the back of the aircraft. Read more from this story HERE.
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Boeing 777 Records First Fatalities in Its 18 Year History
By Gillian Mohney. The Boeing 777, considered one of safest aircrafts in the sky, recorded the first fatalities since it was launched 18 years ago when the Asiana Airlines crashed at San Francisco Airport today.
“The triple-7 is one of the safest airplanes in use, it’s been a marvelous bird,” ABC News’ aviation analyst John Nance told ABC News Radio. “These airplanes are over the water, over the ocean all the time and Asiana has been running them many years very successfully.”
On Saturday an Asiana Airlines flight crash landed at San Francisco International Airport, catching fire, tearing off its tail and injuring at least 40.
The Boeing 777 — called the “Triple 7” within the industry — began flying in 1995. According to Boeing, the first Boeing 777 plane is still in service and has accumulated 5 million flights and accumulated more than 18 million flight hours. The plane that crashed today was seven years old. Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Fox NewsArizona Republican Sen. John McCain is calling on President Obama to suspend aid to Egypt after its military overthrew the country’s government.
McCain, a member of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, on Friday called for the United States to suspend its $1.5 billion in annual aid, based on long-standing federal law that prohibits the U.S. from giving aid to countries in which a military coup overthrows a democratically elected government.
“We cannot repeat the same mistakes that we made at other times in our history by supporting the removal of freely elected governments,” McCain said during a public event in Prescott, Ariz…
“The president was freely elected,” said McCain, who acknowledged that he thought “long and hard” about his request…
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Fox NewsA large swath of a town in eastern Quebec was destroyed Saturday after a train carrying crude oil derailed, sparking several explosions forcing the evacuation of up to 1,000 people, killing at least one.
Several people were reported missing and officials reported one death in the town of Lac-Megantic (Lack-MAH-Gan-Tic), about 155 miles east of Montreal.
The explosions ignited a blaze that sent flames shooting into the sky, and billowing smoke could be seen from several miles (kilometers) away hours after the derailment. Some of the train’s 73 cars exploded and the fire spread to a number of homes in the town of 6,000 people.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: YouTubeA brand-new ad campaign that’s sure to raise some eyebrows features a young Australian couple being informed their unborn baby is going to be a lesbian.
In the YouTube video, a pregnant woman and her mate are at an ultrasound examination, viewing their baby in the womb on an electronic screen.
“Well, everything seems to be coming along fine,” the ultrasound technician tells the couple. “Now, would you like to know what you’re having?”
“We would,” the woman says.
“You’re having a lesbian,” the technician tells the couple.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Fox NewsBy Fox News. The mothers of both Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman testified Friday it was their own son’s voice calling for help on a taped 911 call in a dramatic day of testimony that saw the prosecution rest and the defense begin its case in Zimmerman’s murder trial.
After Judge Debra Nelson ruled against a defense motion for acquittal late Friday afternoon, the prosecution announced it was resting and the defense began by calling Zimmerman’s mother, Gladys.
She testified the voice heard screaming for help on the 911 call was her son’s and she knew it was him “because he’s my son.” The recording was made during a fight between Zimmerman and Martin minutes before the neighborhood watch volunteer shot the teen.
Zimmerman’s uncle, Jorge Meza, a deputy with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, then testified that he overheard the 911 screams while watching television and, ” It was Jorge screaming for his life.”
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Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: APME Admits Changing Opinion on Martin’s Death
By MIKE SCHNEIDER and KYLE HIGHTOWER. After the mother and brother testified, the doctor who performed an autopsy on Martin took the witness stand. Associate Medical Examiner Shiping Bao started describing Martin as being in pain and suffering after he was shot, but defense attorneys objected. The judge sustained the objection, and Bao was directed away from that line of questioning.
He later estimated that Martin lived from one to 10 minutes after he was shot, and the bullet went from the front to the back of the teen’s chest, piercing his heart.
“There was no chance he could survive,” Bao said.
Under cross examination, defense attorney Don West questioned why Martin’s hands weren’t covered in order to preserve evidence on his fingers and why it took three hours to remove the body from the scene. West and Bao talked over each other at several points, requiring the judge to tell everyone to speak one at a time.
With jurors out of the courtroom, Bao acknowledge he had changed his opinion in recent weeks on two matters related to the teen’s death — how long Martin was alive after being shot and the effect of marijuana detected in Martin’s body at the time of his death. Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: YouTube As seen in a video posted earlier this week, the pro-abortion heckling at the Texas state capitol has grown much worse since the second special session was called by Governor Perry.
One of the harassing tactics opponents to the session used was a chant of “Hail Satan,” apparently designed to interrupt and discourage pro-lifers. Even though this chanting was heard all day, the earlier video suggested that pro-lifers had only managed to get one recording of it.
Turns out, another, clearer recording of the sick Satan chants has been found.
In this new video, the pro-abortion “Hail Satan” chanting is very obvious and ominous. It is especially pronounced at about 5:15 of the recording:
Photo Credit: YouTubeTwo street preachers were brutally beaten — punched and kicked — by a crowd at a gay pride festival in Seattle and the entire melee was captured on video.
The preachers were holding signs reading “Repent or Else” and “Jesus Saves From Sin.” The video shows a group of people initially screaming and threatening the men during Pridefest at the Seattle Space Needle.
Television station KOMO reported that some of the attackers belonged to a group called NOH8.
A group of women tried to steal their signs but were unsuccessful. The video then shows a group of men grabbing onto one of the preacher’s signs and dragging him to the ground. At some point he was punched in the back of the head a number of times while others can be seen kicking the man.
Another preacher was sucker punched in the back of the head.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Fox NewsRepublicans launch probe into ObamaCare mandate delay
By Fox News. House Republicans are investigating the Obama administration’s move to delay a key part of the health care overhaul, claiming the announcement was “completely at odds” with prior claims that ObamaCare was running on schedule and questioning what provisions might be delayed next.
“It’s clear we have no idea the full scope of delays and disarray that may be coming. The American public deserves answers,” Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement.
Republicans on Upton’s committee fired off a pair of letters on Wednesday to both the Treasury Department and Department of Health and Human Services. They demanded records detailing deliberations regarding the recently announced delay and ongoing talks about other “elements” of the law that some groups want “changed, delayed or repealed.” Read more from this story HERE.
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Republicans “Stunned” Over Delay, Trying to Figure Out What to Do
By Byron York. The move stunned Republicans in Congress, who immediately asked: Whose feedback? What businesses were meeting with the White House? What deals did they make?
“These communications and the decision-making process related to the delay… have not been disclosed publicly,” wrote House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Fred Upton in a letter to the Treasury Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. Along with 13 other Republican committee members, Upton demanded the administration reveal which businesses and which government officials were involved in the decision.
But the bigger question for Republicans is how to handle the administration’s surprise retreat. Should they focus on secretiveness, as Upton & Co. are doing? Should they push the White House to explain how Obamacare can still work when large employers don’t have to pay fines for not covering workers and, perhaps more importantly, don’t have to report their employees’ health care information to the giant new Obamacare bureaucracy, so the bureaucracy can determine whether those employees are eligible to buy coverage on the exchanges? Or should Republicans just keep pressing for repeal of the whole thing?
“I think we’ll almost certainly be sticking to a full repeal message all the way,” says one GOP Senate aide. “The question here is for the administration – not us – and it’s basically this: At what point will they realize that this law is unworkable?”
Probably never. When key Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett wrote, after the delay announcement, that, “We are full steam ahead for the marketplaces opening on Oct. 1,” she was reflecting the administration’s determination to get the health care exchanges up and running no matter what. Delay the employer mandate? OK. Waive this or that rule? Fine. Just make sure the exchanges get going. Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: M.Scott MahaskeyWhite House greases squeaky wheels on Obamacare
By David Nather. The delay of Obamacare’s employer coverage rules is giving the critics plenty of new ammunition — but that doesn’t mean the sudden movement is out of character for the administration at all.
It’s just the latest example of a pattern with the implementation of Obamacare: The Obama administration almost always listens to the squeaky wheel.
First more than 1,200 employers and health plans got waivers from early coverage rules. Next, many states that couldn’t decide whether to build a health insurance exchange or let the feds do it for them were given repeated extensions. And then, when Republican governors were holding out on expanding Medicaid, they were finally told there’s no deadline at all.
So when the Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would delay the Affordable Care Act’s insurance mandate for employers for a year, it was just one more piece of evidence that the administration is perfectly willing to bend the rules for some powerful interests — a a welcome invitation for other players to raise their hands in the coming months as the law heads into overdrive.
Already, other groups are grumbling at the decision. Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner Liberals blame GOP, Fox, Drudge in Obamacare fiasco
By Paul Bedard. The pro-Obama media watchdog Media Matters Wednesday, defending the administration’s surprise move to cancel implementation of major elements of Obamacare, said that Republicans were to blame and accused conservative media leaders like Fox News and the Drudge Report for ignoring the GOP’s role.
In a release, the liberal group said that Fox and Drudge instead charged that the one-year delay was political with the goal of pushing off the expected initial implementation disaster until after the 2014 elections.
“Fox News and the Drudge Report are ignoring years of Republicans obstructing the implementation of health care reform to accuse the Obama administration of delaying the law for political gain, in the process dismissing the fact that businesses are praising the administration’s move,” said Media Matters. Read more from this story HERE.
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Realities Force President to Scale Back Vision for Obamacare
By Todd Beamon. Six years ago, presidential candidate Barack Obama stood before Iowa voters and introduced a plan designed to extend healthcare to all Americans.
“We can do this,” he said with confidence. “The time has come for universal, affordable healthcare in America.”
Three years ago, President Obama signed into law a plan designed to extend coverage to more than 30 million uninsured people.
“This is what change looks like,” he exulted.
But it has become clear that Obama’s vision for universal health care is dramatically different than it was that day in Iowa. The president been forced to cut, reshape and compromise on his signature Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because of economic — and political — realities. Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: APWall Street Journal Apologizes for Not Fighting Hard Enough Against Obamacare
By Wall Street Journal. These columns fought the Affordable Care Act from start to passage, and we’d now like to apologize to our readers. It turns out we weren’t nearly critical enough. The law’s implementation is turning into a fiasco for the ages, and this week’s version is the lawless White House decision to delay the law’s insurance mandate for businesses, though not for individuals.
The employer mandate is central to ObamaCare’s claim of providing universal coverage. Companies with 50 or more “employee equivalents” must pay a $2,000 penalty per full-time employee if they don’t provide government-approved health insurance. The provision was supposed to start in January, and delaying it is like Ford saying its electric car is ready to go, except the electric battery doesn’t work.
But all of a sudden on Tuesday evening Mark Mazur—you know him as the deputy assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy—published a blog post canceling the insurance reporting rules and tax enforcement until 2015 as Washington began to evacuate for the long Independence Day weekend. Enjoy the holiday, mate.
White House fixer Valerie Jarrett tried to contain the fallout with a separate blog post promising that ObamaCare is otherwise “staying the course.” That’s true only if she’s referring to the carelessness and improvisation that have defined the law so far. Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: APBolivian President: US ‘Imperialism’ Caused Flight From Russia To Be Diverted
By CBSDC/AP. Bolivian President Evo Morales blames the United States for his plane from Moscow being diverted to Vienna, Austria, Wednesday for a 14-hour layover after suspicions arose he was harboring National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
Returning home to a hero’s welcome, Morales called it an “open provocation” to the South American continent after France, Spain and Portugal refused to let his plane pass through their airspace.
The United States and European allies “use the agent of North American imperialism to scare us and intimidate us,” Morales said.
Morales added: “I regret this, but I want to say that some European countries should free themselves from North American imperialism.”
The United States declined to comment on whether it was involved in any decision to close European airspace for Morales’ plane. Read more from this story HERE.
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French official lashes out at US at July 4 party, in latest clash over Snowden leaks
By Fox News. As NSA leaker Ed Snowden struggles to find a country that will take him, the case continues to cause diplomatic headaches for the U.S. government.
In the latest flare-up, France’s top security official on Thursday publicly dressed down the U.S. at the American ambassador’s July 4 garden party.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who was a guest of honor at the event hosted by Ambassador Charles Rivkin, denounced alleged U.S. “espionage” of France and other countries, while the European Parliament voted to open an investigation.
In a speech before hundreds of guests, he said that “in the name of our friendship, we owe each other honesty. We must say things clearly, directly, frankly.” He said the alleged spy tactics, “if proven, do not have their place between allies and partners.”
The European suspicion is the product of yet another news story presumably based on material leaked by Snowden, who continues to evade arrest by staying in the transit zone of the Moscow airport. Read more from this story HERE.
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Do we care about our privacy anymore?
By Bill Press. Every Fourth of July, somebody reminds us there’s more to this national holiday than hotdogs and fireworks. Take time over the weekend, we are piously admonished, to remember what it’s all about. Annoying advice, perhaps, but important. And, this year, more so than ever because one of our most basic rights is under attack.
In powerful words that still stir our hearts, our Founding Fathers laid forth the foundation on which America is built: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And those rights are so sacred “that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”
Clearly, the founders were telling us they wouldn’t tolerate any wholesale attempt to undermine our basic rights — and we shouldn’t, either. So where’s the outrage today over the massive invasion of our privacy by the National Security Agency? Have we forgotten how to fight?
All we’ve been talking about for the last two weeks is Edward Snowden. Where is he? Will he ever get out of the Moscow airport? Will he be granted asylum anywhere? Who cares? The real issue is not Snowden’s fate. It’s what Snowden revealed about the NSA’s collection of data, which we now know to be even more widespread than previously believed.
Under a broad interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, and with the full blessing of the court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, NSA’s amassing and storing a record of every phone call – every single phone call! – made in the United States: from what number, to what number and how long it lasted: what Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has called “a massive invasion of Americans’ privacy.” The NSA has also capturing records of every email sent outside the United States. Read more from this story HERE.
