[VIDEO] OBAMA LEAVING FOR LAS VEGAS AS STOCK MARKET CRASHES

President Obama returned from his Martha’s Vineyard vacation to Washington D.C. last night, only to wake up to negative headlines about the stock market crashing, partially in reaction to financial troubles in China.

But the president won’t be in the White House to see the market close. Later this afternoon he will board Air Force One for a trip to Las Vegas where he is expected to make a speech at the National Clean Energy Summit to promote his stiff regulatory policy on power plant emissions.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 1,000 points after it opened this morning, suggesting another frightening close for markets at the end of the day.

Later this evening President Obama has scheduled a fundraiser for the Nevada State Democratic Party and Catherine Cortez Masto, the Democratic candidate hoping to replace retiring  Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

Via: Breitbart

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[VIDEO] Why Congress Could Face a Government Shutdown This Fall

The House and Senate are set to leave Washington, D.C., for a month-long summer break. But they are leaving behind unfinished business.

When lawmakers return in September, they will have little time to tackle legislative priorities like the Iran nuclear deal, transportation funding and the debt ceiling.

However, the major fight could be over Planned Parenthood’s federal funding—possibly leading to another government shutdown.

Watch the video above to learn more why these 11th-hour issues will test the ability of congressional leaders to avoid a government shutdown.

Via: Daily Signal

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D.C Metro Murder Undermines Liberal Talking Points

The brutal killing of Kevin Sutherland in the Washington, D.C., subway on July 4, does much to undermine popular leftist tropes, in this case, race, crime, guns and drugs, just as the murder of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco challenges liberal immigration policies.  Sutherland was beaten and stabbed to death on a Metro train by a drug addled African-American teenager in the middle of the day in front of about a dozen other stunned passengers. 

Sutherland’s killer, 18 year old Jasper Spires, shares many characteristics with more famous and lionized Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, except that while the latter two were shot to death by armed men in the midst of physical assaults, Spires took full advantage of his unarmed victim (and other passengers) to complete his crime and survive, and is now in custody.  The mainstream media and leftist politicians have mostly downplayed the incident, since Spires cannot be caricatured as a victim of white racism.  Indeed, the problem for the media is that in almost every respect, this encounter shows the utter inanity and hypocrisy of many of their favored talking points and positions. 

Of course, D.C.’s only major newspaper, the Washington Post, could hardly overlook the killing, but has done its level best to downplay things.  The Post first reported the murder in its local Metro section, though such a brutal public killing on Independence Day would probably been front-page news had circumstances been more to the news editors’ liking.  That article noted that Sutherland was a vibrant, well-liked recent transplant to the city, but did not include a picture or indicate that he was white and probably gay (it did suggest he was an LGBT activist), but it did show a photo of Spires.  A follow-up article made the front page, but the tone of reportage has been of the “that’s too bad” variety, not outrage.   The online version of that article shows photos of both the perp and victim.

The killing undercuts a half-dozen leftist talking points, and shows the hypocrisy redolent in the outrage expressed by politicians (like President Obama), race baiters like Al Sharpton, and countless media elites. 

Two days before murdering Sutherland, Spires was arrested by D.C. cops for violently attempting to rob another man, and assaulted police as they tried to take him in.  Had he been killed by police in that incident, the recent high school grad, who also briefly attended a private college in North Carolina, would no doubt been treated by the press and the President like Martin, Brown or Freddy Gray up the road in Baltimore, as a promising young man who became a tragic victim of the police war against young black men.  But Spires appears to have been uninjured by police despite his combativeness and small (5’5”) stature.  Local prosecutors then reduced charges and the police released him.  Spires stopped by a D.C. police station and picked up his personal belongings from that arrest shortly before killing Sutherland.  Not only does this demolish the idea that police are out to get guys like Spires, it demonstrates just how lax the justice system is about dealing with violent criminals, whatever their race. 

Via: American Thinker

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Gun Rights Groups Criticize Ban on Gun Carry on DC Metro in Wake of Murder

Gun rights groups are criticizing part of the Washington, D.C., gun carry law that bans firearms on public transit within the city after a man was stabbed to death on a Metro train on Saturday.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) expressed their opposition to the ban in the wake of a 4th of July murder on the Metro’s red line. As the train approached the NoMa-Gallaudet station, Jasper Spires stabbed Kevin Joseph Sutherland as many as 40 times, killing him.

The NRA warned that the incident was likely to be repeated until D.C. removes the ban.

“With so many threats in the nation’s capital, the fact that the District of Columbia government continues to deny residents and visitors the right to protect themselves is a travesty,” NRA spokesman Lars Dalseide said. “We’ll continue to hear stories like this until the District of Columbia affords every law-abiding citizen their constitutional right to self protection.”

When asked if the city was reviewing its ban, a Metro Police Department spokesman referred the Free Beacon to D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D.).

Mendelson told the Free Beacon that the Council has no plans to change the law, and appeared to place the burden for that decision on the Metro system, known officially as the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).

“There are no amendments to the law being considered at this time,” said Mendelson in an email. “The law, as revised last fall, gives property owners the right to prohibit carrying on their premises. WMATA contacted the Council prior to our action on the legislation last fall to ask that their premises be off-limits to carrying. WMATA (busses, rail, etc.) was then added to the list. If we were to act to remove WMATA from the list, the effect would be unaffected.”

Mendelson did not respond immediately to a request for clarification about how removing Metro from the list of officially prohibited locations in D.C. law would leave the legal status quo unaffected, as his e-mail seemed to suggest.

The Second Amendment Foundation, which brought the case that forced D.C. to allow gun carry, said the Metro ban is a symptom of a larger problem.

“Gun free zones like the District of Columbia’s public transit system are really victim disarmament zones and a magnet for violent criminals to prey on unarmed people who have no means of protecting themselves,” SAF founder Alan Gottlieb said.

The Virginia Citizen Defense League, a leading gun rights group with a number of members that commute into the city for work, said bans such as this one encourage killings.

“Anytime a law-abiding citizen is denied the right to self defense, as D.C. has done in this case, it creates an environment ripe for such tragedies, as well as encouraging future mass killings,” VCDL president Philip Van Cleave said. “Gun-free zones are never gun-free for the criminals, who respect no laws, but only for the good, decent people, who are then setup to become victims.”

Via: WFB

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Washington fears losing Greece to Moscow

©Reuters

Throughout the prolonged showdown between Greece and its creditors, the Obama administration has largely sat on the sidelines, issuing the occasional warning about the potential economic impact of a default.

But with Greece now on the verge of bankruptcy, the US is also beginning to worry about the political fallout from a deeper crisis and the potential for Russia to gain increased influence over a Nato member.

As Washington tries to maintain a united western front in support of sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, a Greek default could provide Moscow an opportunity to sow new divisions among America’s European allies.

“You can easily see how geopolitically this would be a gift to Russia,” says Sebastian Mallaby at the Council on Foreign Relations. “You do not want Europe to have to deal with a Greece that is a member of Nato but which all of a sudden hates the west and is cosying up to Russia.”

Greece was regarded as a frontline state against the advance of Soviet-backed communism during the cold war. Its EU accession in 1981 is one factor that cemented its identity as a western democracy, something that was deepened 20 years later with the adoption of the euro.

For some months, the administration of President Barack Obama has been quietly urging Germany and other EU members to try to find a way to resolve the stand-off with Greece. While economic considerations have been at the forefront, diplomats say the EU’s position on Ukraine has also been part of the conversation.

The visit by Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras to St Petersburg late last week served as a reminder of the current Greek government’s political ties to President Vladimir Putin’s Russia and showed its willingness to look towards Moscow at moments when the dispute with international creditors is at its most intense.

Via: Financial Times

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OBAMA DEFENDS PRESIDENCY: ‘I DIDN’T SAY YES I CAN … I SAID YES WE CAN’

During a fundraiser in Santa Monica last night, President Obama defended his presidency, explaining to supporters why he hadn’t fixed the broken politics of Washington.

He referred to a letter from one of his critics complaining that he had failed to bring both political parties together and end partisan gridlock in Washington, as he had promised to do during his campaigns.

“I had to tell him, you’re right. I am frustrated, and you have every right to be frustrated, because Congress doesn’t work the way it should,” Obama said, asserting that many political leaders were “more interested in scoring political points than getting things done.”

Obama admitted his critics were right, that Washington D.C. was still broken, and he hadn’t been able to fix it.

“I told him, you’re right. It still is broken,” he said. “But I reminded him that when I ran in 2008, I, in fact, did not say I would fix it; I said we could fix it. I didn’t say, yes, I can; I said … ‘Yes We Can.’”

He encouraged all of his wealthy supporters to get involved in their communities to promote his policies and push for policy goals that they wanted to see — such as gun control and climate change.

“I hope what you leave with is that sense that the unfinished business we’ve got does not just depend on me, does not just depend on the next President we elect, does not just depend on any particular member of Congress — it depends on you,” he concluded.

Via: Breitbart

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Police ID suspect in quadruple murder through pizza DNA

Police in Washington, D.C., issued an arrest warrant late Wednesday for a suspect in the murder of a corporate executive, his wife, their 10-year-old son, and a family housekeeper in their home last week. 

The suspect is named as 34-year-old Daron Dylon Wint. He is charged with first-degree murder while armed. Police told the Washington Post that they did not know his whereabouts.

WTTG reported late Wednesday that police were seen outside a home in Lanham, Md., where they believe Wint lives with his father. The station reported that Wint has an extensive criminal history that includes traffic violations and charges for domestic violence, burglary and assault.

Savvas Savopoulos, 46; Amy Savopoulos, 47; their son, Philip; and housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa, 57, were found dead on the second floor of their burning home in northwest Washington May 14. The home is located in an upscale area just north of Vice President Joe Biden's official residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory. 

The Post reported, citing three law enforcement officials close to the investigation, that police linked Wint to the murder scene by analyzing DNA from the crust of a Domino's pizza that had been ordered to the house on the night of May 13. The delivery man told WTTG that he delivered two pizzas to the house and was paid with cash left in an envelope outside the front door. 

Via: Fox News

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Jumping the (Real Estate) Gun? Clinton Confidante Buys Condo In DC

Is someone optimistic that Hillary Clinton is going to be spending a lot more time in Washington, D.C., in the years ahead? Donna Shalala, the longtime Clinton family confidante who was announced as the head of the New York-based Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation in March, closed that same month on a Georgetown condo in an upscale building with waterfront views. According to real estate records, Shalala purchased for $862,500 the one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit on Water Street NW under a trust account in her name; at just 924 square feet, that’s quite the pricey pied a terre.

Sources say Shalala will likely spend most of her time in New York for her foundation job, which would make the Georgetown property a secondary home—the type of place you’d use frequently if your boss, for instance, was the First Husband and your other boss was the President. Shalala has gotten used to cushy digs. As president of the University of Miami, where she has been since leaving the Clinton administration as secretary of health and human services in 2001, she lived at the school’s massive Coral Gables presidential house until it was sold for $9 million in 2012. Since then she’s been bunking at a new, 9,000-square-foot, two-story home, complete with an elevator, dubbed “Ibis House,” in Pinecrest, an expensive gated community. Shalala is slated to depart University of Miami in early May, at the end of the academic year.

Via: Politico

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We’re not gonna take it! Americans use 1st Amendment to storm shutdown barriers

Taking their lead from the veterans who first pushed through the barricades to visit the World War II Memorial, Americans nationwide are defying the federal government shutdown, tossing aside traffic cones and toppling wooden fences to get to national parks and other federal lands that the administration has deemed out of bounds.

As the shutdown hits the middle of its second week, civil disobedience has become a sensation. Some proudly post online photos of themselves overcoming the government’s obstacles, and others use more subtle ways to make their point.

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PHOTOS: Civil disobedience: Angry Americans flout shutdown rules

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In Arizona, one road-stop inn is quietly giving visitors directions on how to use Forest Service roads to get a glimpse of the Grand Canyon, a national park that has been shut down.

In Washington, D.C., a South Carolina man said he has spent the past week picking up trash around the shuttered Lincoln Memorial, taking the place of National Park Service employees who have been furloughed.

In Massachusetts, Minuteman National Park is closed, but that hasn’t stopped the leaf-peepers from crossing the barricades to watch as autumn blooms in the Northeast.

Via: Washington Times

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1 Million Truckers To Protest Obama By Shutting America Down

One week after nearly a million patriotic bikers converged on Washington, D.C. for the 12th anniversary of 9/11, a large group of truckers has announced its plans to halt commerce across the nation for next month. The strike is planned as a response to D.C. “corruption that is destroying America,” according to the movement’s Facebook page.

Via: Western Journalism

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RAND: GOP DOESN'T NEED 'INVERTEBRATE CAUCUS'

On Tuesday at the "Exempt America" rally for defunding Obamacare in Washington, D.C., Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said Republicans did not need the "invertebrate caucus" to confront and fight Democrats and their policies like Obamacare. 

"If he is going to exempt his friends, why won't he exempt all of us?" Paul said of Obama and his signature healthcare legislation. "This fight is about some backbone. We need some backbone. We need some help."

Paul added, "We don't need to be the invertebrate caucus." He said conservatives needed to be the caucus with the spine, heart, and will to defund Obamacare. 

Paul said conservatives may not win the ultimate battle to fully defund Obamacare but they will never know unless they actually fight.

He also noted that the poor Americans Obama said Obamacare would help are losing insurance in addition to their jobs because of the healthcare law. 

The "Exempt America" rally was a culmination of a multi-state tour organized by Tea Party Patriots and ForAmerica.

Via: Breitbart

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NBC/WSJ poll: NRA more popular than entertainment industry

As Washington prepares for a political battle over the Obama White House's proposals to curb gun violence after the Newtown, Conn., shootings, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the National Rifle Association is more popular than the entertainment industry.

Forty-one percent of adults see the NRA -- the nation's top gun lobby -- in a positive light, while 34 percent view it in a negative light.

By comparison, just 24 percent have positive feelings about the entertainment industry, and 39 percent have negative ones.

The NRA's fav/unfav score is virtually unchanged from its 41 percent-to-29 percent rating in the Jan. 2011 NBC/WSJ poll, nearly two years before the Newtown shootings.

"That seems to me to be a pretty remarkably stable figure," says GOP pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted this survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart.

But it's a substantial improvement from the 1990s, when the NRA's negative ratings outweighed its positive ones in the NBC/WSJ survey.

The current poll also shows a sharp divide between attitudes among gun owners and non-gun owners.

Among those who own a gun, 62 percent view the NRA favorably. But that percentage drops to just 25 percent among those who don't.

The full poll -- which was conducted Jan. 12-15 of 1,000 adults (including 300 cell phone-only respondents), and which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points -- will be released at 6:30 pm ET.

Via: First Read

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Obama Twice Uses MSNBC Slogan ‘Lean Forward’ While Addressing Disaster Relief

President Obama on Tuesday twice used MSNBC’s slogan “lean forward” while addressing Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C., about relief for Sandy victims.

First he said this (video follows with transcript and commentary):

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We are going to continue to push as hard as we can to make sure that power is up throughout the region and obviously this is mostly a local responsibility and the private utilities are going to have to lean forward. But we are doing everything we can to provide them additional resources so that we can expedite getting power up and running in many of these communities. There are places like Newark, New Jersey, for example, where you have 80 percent, 90 percent of the people without power.

Later in his remarks he said this: 

OBAMA: We can't have a situation where that lasts for days on end. And so my instructions to the federal agency has been do not figure out why we can't do something. I want you to figure out how we do something. I want you to cut through red tape, cut through bureaucracy. There is no excuse for inaction at this point. I want every agency to lean forwardand to make sure we are getting the resources where they need -- where they're need as quickly as possible. I want to repeat, my message to the federal government, no bureaucracy, no red tape, get resources where they're needed as fast as possible, as hard as possible.

Via: Newsbusters

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Biden: Tranny Discrimination “Civil Rights Issue Of Our Time”…

Vice President Joe Biden, leaving an Obama campaign office in Sarasota, singled one woman out because she had beautiful eyes, the pool reporter noted:

 She said something ...at first inaudible to pool, to which VP responded was the "civil rights issue of our time"

Pool later asked the woman, Linda Carragher Bourne of Sarasota about the exchange. She said her daughter was Miss Trans New England and asked if he would help them.

"A lot of my friends are being killed, and they don't have the civil rights yet. These guys are gonna make it happen," she told the pool.

Biden has long been a vocal advocate for LGBT rights -- most memorably getting out "a little bit over his skies," as President Obama put it -- when Biden endorsed same sex marriage before the president did earlier this year.

The vice president met with LGBT leaders at his Washington, D.C., home last month, including transgender advocates, according to the Easton Patch. The Obama-Biden administration was the first to send a representative to a trans-gender conference.

Via: Politico

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Dingy Reid: “Karl Rove And 17 Angry Old White Men Are Trying To Buy The Election”…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a former boxer, isn't one to let a few bruised ribs take the fight out of him.

Still feeling the after-effects of a recent car accident, Reid sat down with the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review Journal and explained that one of his biggest worries about the upcoming election was the power of the moneyed interests supporting GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

"My concern is that Karl Rove and 17 angry old white men are trying to buy the election. And that's the truth," Reid told the Review Journal. "You have [Las Vegas Sands casino billionaire Sheldon] Adelson, the Koch brothers [billionaires David and Charles]. You have [billionaire Harold] Simmons of Texas. They are literally trying to buy the election. Think about this. The day after the election, Karl Rove sits down and talks to …the 17 angry old white guys and says, 'Hey, listen guys, we just bought America. And we're still rich.' That's the concern that we all have."

The men Reid listed are all top contributors to super PACs that support Romney's campaign.

Thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, individuals, corporations and unions can spend unlimited money on attempts to influence elections. And spend they have, to the tune of more than $650 million this cycle.

Pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future announced earlier this month that it raised $20 million in the first half of October, half of it from Adelson alone.

Reid has been a tireless Romney detractor throughout the general election. Earlier this month, Reid described himself as a "one-man wrecking crew" set on getting Romney to release additional years of tax documents. Romney, Reid charged, was a “plastic man" who "changes his position every chance he gets."

Via: Huffington Post

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Sandy’s Coup de Gras for Obama

Remember how Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath was blamed on President Bush? Remember his words to then-FEMA director, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”?

No doubt FEMA is all geared up for the damage Hurricane Sandy will do throughout the Northeast and wide swatches to the West. And no doubt it will be the States and local communities and utilities that will do the heavy lifting as FEMA tries to give the appearance of doing anything useful.

All of which is bad news—actually more bad news—for President Obama who, insanely campaigning, flew to Orlando, Florida on Sunday and then immediately flew back to Washington, DC, without leaving the airport. Just how much did that little round-trip cost the taxpayers? How stupid and indifferent does one have to be to leave Washington as a major hurricane is bearing down on the Northeast’s coasts?

Via: Canada Free Press

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D.C. Considering Restricting Sizes Of Sodas

AP

Some on D.C. Council favor restricting sugary drinks

Mark Segraves

WASHINGTON - Several members of the D.C. Council have come out in favor of restricting the sizes of sugary sodas sold in the District - a ban similar to one in New York City.

At a recent debate between candidates for the at-large council seats, current Councilmembers Michael Brown and Vincent Orange said without hesitation they would vote to ban the sale of large drinks.

That news was music to Councilmember Mary Cheh's ears.

"I'm very excited by that," said Cheh (D-Ward 3), who fell one vote short of passing a tax on sodas and other sugary drinks.

Cheh authored the Healthy Schools Act and says she thinks the New York City ban is a good idea she'd like to bring to the nation's capital.

"If I could get the votes to do it I would certainly try to put that in place," Cheh tells WTOP.

"I would consider legislation to do that, I would like to see that done," she added.

While Cheh, Orange and Brown are the only three elected officials to come out in support of the ban, several others say they are open to a ban, including Mayor Vincent Gray.

"I think there probably are some good health reasons to support something like that," Gray said. "We'll be happy to look at it, we haven't taken a position on that one way or another."

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson agreed it's an idea worthy of consideration.

"The issue of nutrition is of critical importance to public health. We need to look at different strategies so people understand what the effect is of the large volume of soft drinks they're drinking," Mendelson said.

Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) also was open to considering a ban.

"I am open to anything that will help young people be healthier," Wells said.

Via: WTOP

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White House reportedly preps strike team to take out terrorists tied to Libya attack

WASHINGTON –  The White House has put special operations strike forces on standby and moved drones into the skies above Africa, ready to strike militant targets from Libya to Mali — if investigators can find the Al Qaeda-linked group responsible for the death of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya.

But officials say the administration, with weeks until the presidential election, is weighing whether the short-term payoff of exacting retribution on Al Qaeda is worth the risk that such strikes could elevate the group's profile in the region, alienate governments the U.S. needs to fight it in the future and do little to slow the growing terror threat in North Africa.

Details on the administration's position and on its search for a possible target were provided by three current and one former administration official, as well as an analyst who was approached by the White House for help. All four spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the high-level debates publicly.

The dilemma shows the tension of the White House's need to demonstrate it is responding forcefully to Al Qaeda, balanced against its long-term plans to develop relationships and trust with local governments and build a permanent U.S. counterterrorist network in the region.

Vice President Joe Biden pledged in his debate last week with Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan to find those responsible for the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others.

"We will find and bring to justice the men who did this," Biden said in response to a question about whether intelligence failures led to lax security around Stevens and the consulate. Referring back to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden last year, Biden said American counterterror policy should be, "if you do harm to America, we will track you to the gates of hell if need be."

The White House declined to comment on the debate over how best to respond to the Benghazi attack.

Via: Fox News

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ORGS FILING SUIT AGAINST HHS MANDATE DEBUNK BIDEN'S DEBATE DEFENSE

In a statement released on Friday, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced that some of the leading Catholic institutions in the United States are filing a brief in support of the Becket Fund’s appeal to the D.C. Circuit on behalf of Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College as they challenge the HHS mandate.

The Becket Fund represents many of the religious institutions and Catholic organizations currently suing the Obama administration over the mandate that requires all employers, including religious institutions, to provide free contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients to all their employees through their health insurance plans. In its press release, the Fund indicates that The Catholic University of America, the Catholic Archbishop of Washington, D.C., and Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. have all urged the courts, in their brief, to address the violation of religious liberty as presented in the HHS mandate.

According to the Becket Fund, the brief filed by these Catholic institutions “comes less than one day after the Vice President of the United States stated” during his debate with Congressman Paul Ryan:

[L]et me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer for contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.

“But the facts are exactly the reverse,” asserted Kyle Duncan, General Counsel of the Becket Fund. “Under the mandate, nearly every Catholic hospital, charity, university, and diocese in the United States—along with millions of institutions of other faiths—must refer for, must pay for, and must act as a vehicle for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. If they do not, they face millions in fines. That is a fact.”

In addition to the Catholic institutions, thirteen states, The Cato Institute, the American Civil Rights Union, The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Center for Law and Justice, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, among others, have also filed on Friday on behalf of Wheaton and Belmont Abbey colleges.

Currently, there are now over 35 separate lawsuits that challenge the HHS mandate.

Via: Breitbart

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Ryan’s Impossible Debate Challenge

In a rational world, Paul Ryan should have a fairly easy time in the upcoming debate against Vice President Joe Biden. Ryan is a man who has mastered the intricacies of legislation and the federal budget while Biden has shown scant interest in anything in his senatorial career other than the AMTRAK schedule from Washington, DC to Delaware.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a rational world. We live in one where Barack Obama is president AND Joe Biden is vice president. To win a debate against Joe Biden one must be prepared to engage with a man who has hardly more than a nodding acquaintance with the truth.

Most of us are familiar with Biden’s ill-starred run for the Demcocrat nomination in 1988 as part of the Seven Dwarfs. He was forced out when it was revealed that he’d not only plagiarized a speech by British Labor Party leader Neal Kinnock, he’s actually gone so far as to steal Kinnock’s biography, claiming to be the son of an impoverished coal miner. (Though to his credit, when Gary Hart was dropped out due to his marital infidelities Biden remarked, “We’ve lost Horny.”) To this day, Biden claims he was “raised in Scranton (PA)” though he left when he was 10 years old.

This should be a danger sign.

The fact is that when Biden gets put in a tough position he will simply make stuff up. For instance,Jonah Goldberg relates this tale:

The most notorious comes from Biden’s 1988 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. He had been hounded about his law-school record and plagiarism problems (among other things, he copied five pages from a law journal for a 15-page paper and then claimed it was a footnoting error), and he was asked a question about his academic record by a resident of New Hampshire.

He responded: “I think I have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect.” He went on:

I went to law school on a full academic scholarship, the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship. In the first year in the law, I decided I didn’t want to be in law school and ended up in the bottom two-thirds of my class and then decided I wanted to stay, went back to law school, and, in fact, ended up in the top half of my class. I won the international moot-court competition. I was the outstanding student in the political-science department at the end of my year. I graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school and 165 credits — only needed 123 credits. And I would be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours.

Most of these statements were outright lies.

Via: Red State

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