October 12, 2017

NEWSMAX — The NRA said Thursday it opposes two pieces of legislation that would ban devices that turn semi-automatic firearms into weapons that work more like automatic ones.... (more)

October 12, 2017

ALICIA POWE — Thwarted over and over in his effort to repeal and replace Obamacare by a unified Democratic Party and a handful of Republicans, President Trump Thursday used his executive power to at least partially fulfill his major campaign promise. The president dismantled part of his predecessor's signature health-care legislation -- the Affordable Care Act -- with the "power of the pen," providing "millions of Americans with Obamacare relief."... (more)

October 12, 2017

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — President Trump intends to end insurance subsidies under Obamacare, a move that would likely result in lawsuits and put pressure on Congress to act. According to a statement Thursday evening from the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, the Trump administration is making the move based on guidance from the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services, which have concluded that there is no appropriation for cost-sharing reduction payments to insurance companies under Obamacare.... (more)

October 12, 2017

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — The total number of laid-off workers receiving unemployment benefits fell to 1.89 million at the end of September, the Department of Labor reported Thursday, the lowest such mark in nearly 44 years. And new claims for unemployment benefits dropped 15,000 to 243,000 in the first full week of October, according to the agency, as the job market bounces back from hurricane damage even faster than forecasters expected.... (more)

October 12, 2017

ABC NEWS — Massive wildfires sweeping through California have killed at least 31 people and damaged thousands of homes, businesses and other buildings, authorities said. More than half of the deaths occurred in Sonoma County alone, officials said. Taken together, the death toll from this week's fires exceeds the number of fatalities in the 1933 Griffith Park Fire in Los Angeles, the deadliest wildfire in California history.... (more)

October 12, 2017

BOB UNRUH — The United States is dropping out of the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization only months after the international organization went "delusional" by declaring the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron a "Palestinian heritage site."... (more)

October 12, 2017

WASHINGTON TIMES — President Trump introduced his new Homeland Security secretary nominee Thursday, saying former Bush administration official and current deputy White House Chief of Staff Kirstjen Nielsen is the right person to carry out his campaign promises.... (more)

October 12, 2017

WASHINGTON TIMES — Lost in the uproar over the NFL sideline protests against police brutality are newly released statistics showing that the threat to black men is skyrocketing -- not from trigger-happy or racist cops, but from crime. More than any other demographic group, black men are paying the price with their lives with a surging violent crime rate over the past two years, including a 20 percent jump in the overall homicide rate, even as the number of blacks killed by police declines.... (more)

October 12, 2017

FRANCE 24 — Pope Francis called Wednesday for categoric opposition to capital punishment to be written into an update of the most important guide to Catholic teaching. His comments, which will be controversial with many fundamentalist Christians and some Catholics, came in a speech to clerics attending a conference in Rome to mark the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The catechism is a question and answer guide to what Catholics should think about a wide range of moral and social issues.... (more)

October 12, 2017

WASHINGTON TIMES — A jury Thursday recommended the death penalty for an Oklahoma man convicted of beheading a co-worker in 2014. Jurors convicted Alton Nolen, 33, on Sept. 29 of killing 54-year-old Colleen Hufford and trying to kill another co-worker at a food processing plant in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City.... (more)

October 12, 2017

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — The Boy Scouts announced Wednesday they will let girls into the Cub Scouts in a bid to "evolve how our programs meet the needs of families interested in positive and lifelong experiences for their children." As benign as this may seem – after all, it's just camping and knife skills, right? – few things demonstrate societal goals more than the choices we make regarding our youngest generation: from education and child care to parenting and community, what we show and teach our young people reflect societal values at large.... (more)

October 12, 2017

TIMOTHY P. CARNEY — It was supposed to illustrate how the shooting was inexplicable; how nothing in this man's life could explain why he would lose his mind and become a mass murderer.... (more)

October 12, 2017

New revelations blow apart previous narrative

LEO HOHMANN — The fallout continued Wednesday from police altering the timeline of the Oct. 1 massacre at a concert outside the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, and now a hotel worker has emerged saying he warned the hotel staff that a shooter was on the 32nd floor before he unloaded a hail fire of bullets down onto the crowd below.... (more)

October 12, 2017

CBS NEWS — A maintenance worker said Wednesday he told hotel dispatchers to call police and report a gunman had opened fire with a rifle inside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino hotel before the shooter began firing from his high-rise suite into a crowd at a nearby musical performance.... (more)

October 12, 2017

CHICAGO TRIBUNE — Fueled by the return of strong winds, the wildfires tearing through California wine country exploded in size and number Wednesday as authorities ordered new evacuations and the death toll climbed to 23 -- a figure expected to rise. Three days after the fires began, firefighters were still unable to gain control of the blazes that had turned entire Northern California neighborhoods to ash and destroyed at least 3,500 homes and businesses.... (more)

October 12, 2017

WASHINGTON TIMES — A federal court ruled Wednesday that Congress can continue to open its sessions each day with a prayer, and upheld the House's ability to pick and choose who's allowed to lead the prayer. U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer, a Bush appointee who sits in Washington, D.C., rejected a challenge by Daniel Barker, co-president of Freedom From Religion Foundation, who said he was not permitted to give an opening invocation, even though other guest chaplains have been permitted.... (more)

October 12, 2017

BOB UNRUH — Chiefs of several key conservative organizations Wednesday released a copy of a letter to the leadership in the U.S. Senate, telling Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others they need to resign from those posts because they are not capable of providing the leadership the nation needs.... (more)

October 12, 2017

NBC NEWS — The Boy Scouts of America announced on Wednesday that girls will soon be allowed to become Cub Scouts and to earn the coveted rank of Eagle Scout, the organization's highest honor. "We believe it is critical to evolve how our programs meet the needs of families interested in positive and lifelong experiences for their children," said Michael Surbaugh, chief executive of the Boy Scouts.... (more)

October 12, 2017

NEWSMAX — They waited years to speak, but two of Hollywood's most powerful women might have helped seal the fate of Harvey Weinstein. Both Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie added their first-person accounts of uncomfortable experiences with Weinstein to the ever-growing list of accusations against the movie mogul from women alleging decades of systematic sexual harassment and assault. The accusers have come from everywhere -- actresses you've heard of, actresses you haven't, models, assistants, employees, a reporter and young women who found themselves in the orbit of the powerful executive.... (more)

October 12, 2017

BOB UNRUH — So Harvey Weinstein now reportedly is to be fleeing to Europe for therapy for his alleged habit of sexually harassing and assaulting young women, and the A-listers who profited from his movie business are left to say they are shocked, yes, shocked, at his unacceptable behavior. But is that really the truth? Likely not for all.... (more)

October 9, 2017

ALAN KEYES — U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly concerned with the possibility that President Trump "could try to pardon people in his circle even before prosecutors charge anyone with a crime."... (more)

October 9, 2017

JUDI CALER — In the novel "1984," George Orwell's unsettling prophecy of a totalitarian society, Newspeak was the official language of Oceania. It was devised to limit freedom of thought. New words were invented, undesirable words eliminated, and the remaining words redefined or limited in scope to further the Party's ideology. If something can't be said, it can't be thought, making a diverging thought unthinkable.... (more)

October 9, 2017

JOAN SWIRSKY — From the founding of America 241 years ago, those opposed to the Founding Fathers' noble aspirations of freedom for all, and a government in which citizens – and not kings or dictators – decide who will represent them, have waged fierce resistance.... (more)

October 9, 2017

CLIFF KINCAID — A book by an associate of Barack Hussein Obama predicted a "permanent progressive governing coalition" would be solidified by the presidential election of 2016. But the prediction in the book Brown is the New White ran into the reality of a Donald J. Trump victory.... (more)

October 9, 2017

CLIFF KINCAID — Why is there no motive for the Vegas massacre? Why did Stephen Paddock have a secret life? It is terrible to contemplate, but the possibility that Stephen Paddock was an undercover federal operative or informant cannot be ruled out. He may have been set up or used by ISIS and/or a federal agency in a scheme that backfired.... (more)