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Danvers-based CyPhy Works, a maker of flying robots led by iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner, said today that it was awarded a contract by the U. S. Air Force for a new miniature drone that could help improve search-and-rescue operations. Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed. Funded under the Department of Defense's Rapid Innovation Fund, CyPhy Works' Extreme Access Pocket Flyer — which can fit into the cargo pants of a military member and weighs 2.3 ounces — will focus on the remote inspection of small passageways and tunnels that are often blocked by debris and rubble. The drone...

Baltimore County Sheriff candidate says “white people should just shut the [expletive] up” and “Jews can get away with anything.” Defund.com reported, via Moonbattery: A man running for Baltimore County sheriff on an “anti-police brutality platform” raised some eyebrows with his recent comments, saying, “white people should just shut the [expletive] up” because they’re “the most violent people on the planet.” The comments were made while he ranted about the Ray Rice case, arguing that the running back’s wife was the one at fault. “Women want equality, she got some of it,” Wiggins wrote. “There are only white Jew women...

Mark Blum served his country for eight years in the Air Force. When he left the military, he had high hopes the skills he learned as a logistical advisor would help him land a new career in civilian life. Instead, he says, he was taken in by an elaborate online employment scheme that has financially ruined him. Blum posted his profile on LinkedIn, which led to an email from a woman identifying herself as Betty Blake from Blue Line Network. “The very first contact with me was, 'We’re looking to hire ex-military people because of their attention to detail,”' Blum...

Using the word “sham,” a Michigan Appeals Court panel gave plaintiffs hope in their case against the Kent County treasurer and the Kent County Land Bank for bypassing the public auction process on tax foreclosed property. The case is on appeal after Kent County Circuit Judge George Buth ruled in favor of the defendants, saying he doubted plaintiffs had legal standing. The plaintiffs involve a coalition of private investors and real estate groups who say they were denied access to the property when the county treasurer sold foreclosed property to the land bank for an amount no higher than the...

To the great delight of those who value and cherish American freedoms, Barack Obama has once again failed to put the power to destroy our Constitution in the hands of Debo Adegbile. Monday this warrior of destruction was forced to withdraw his name from consideration as Obama’s attack dog at the Department of Justice. He would have been the chief Civil Rights lawyer for Eric Holder, another enemy of our freedoms. The magnitude of this victory cannot be overstated. What we have avoided is the placement of a yet another man who is essentially a foreigner being placed in a...

Let the media and the politicians tell these business owners, who lost everything, that the police were too "militarized." The so-called “militarization” of police is a theme that has been repeated ad nauseam by the media. Politicians have jumped on the bandwagon, and they quickly held a September 8th hearing through the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs to examine this alleged problem. What they got was testimony—mostly ignored by the media—about how military-style equipment in the hands of the police can actually save lives. At issue is the Congressionally-authorized 1033 program, which provides surplus equipment from the...

A classical definition of “public health” describes it as the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical and mental health, sanitation, personal hygiene, control of infection, and organization of health services. The practice of public health derives from dim antiquity, at least with respect to sanitation and personal hygiene, which was often done for religious purposes. The Greeks—including Hippocrates—in the 4th and 5th centuries BC, are considered the first to have applied logic and right reason to the causation of disease. The Middle Ages would see various plagues, and an organized response to control further outbreaks....

Our tax code is byzantine, our businesses are over-taxed, and our economy is continuing to suffer. We can do better. We have done better. We deserve better. The Tax Foundation released its first global stat called the “International Tax Competitiveness Index”. This index aims to measure two criteria, competitiveness and neutrality, by examining “the extent to which a country’s tax system adheres to”, these “two important principles of tax policy”. The index accounted for more than 40 tax positions and policies. In their analysis, two of the most damning reasons for ranking the United States near the very bottom of...

Freedom for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) president Greg Lukianoff “Freedom From Speech,” a 61-page broadside written by Freedom for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) president Greg Lukianoff, deftly illustrates the evolving assault on free speech. “The public’s appetite for punishing attempts at candor gone wrong, drunken rants, or even private statements made in anger or frustration seems to be growing at an alarming rate,” Lukianoff warns. The author cites a range of incidents to make his initial point, covering a large and diverse cast of characters. They include former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson,...

"If they show their ugly head in our area, we'll send them to Hell." President Obama promises to “degrade” ISIS, whatever that means. They cut off people’s heads. We respond by “degrading” them (and never with boots on the ground, unless we do, or something). I would feel better if we heard the sort of seriousness from Obama that we hear from Sheriff Gary Painter of Midland, Texas:

Meanwhile, Ebola is far more frightening and deadly than ISIS decapitation. Just ask Barack Obama. While he patently ignores dread diseases being brought into America over an unprotected southern border, waiting it out until midterm elections are over before delivery of government-stamped amnesty, who can really believe that President Barack Obama will deliver the world from Ebola? So immersed is Obama in reinventing himself as ‘World Savior from Ebola’, he came up with first-time-in-six-years kudos for America yesterday: In thanking “everybody here at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for welcoming him, Obama said:

In Time for November Elections: More ultra BAD news out of the fortress in Washington, DC, once known as the ‘seat of power’ for America but lately called “Ohhhhhh Migawd Central Command for Socialized Communists” AKA the Oval Office. This hurtful message comes from our would-be Dictator and Doomsayer, Barack Obama by way of Leo Hohmann at Patriots For America in an online editorial titled, “U. N. To Dump Flood Of Muslim Refugees On U.S.” Of course you will note the headline for Hohmann’s article includes the nefarious and utterly corrupt United Nations as being one of the lead actors...

Is Adrian Peterson a child abuser?  He says he’s not. I am not a perfect son. I am not a perfect husband. I am not a perfect parent, but I am, without a doubt, not a child abuser. I am someone that disciplined his child and did not intend to cause him any injury. No one can understand the hurt that I feel for my son and for the harm I caused him. My goal is always to teach my son right from wrong and that’s what I tried to do that day. What did Peterson do?  He told his four...

Last week on Facebook I was chastised by a fellow Christian for being politically active. She accused me of blasphemy, idolatry, apostasy and scripture twisting for my defense of Christians being engaged in the public battle for the soul of our nation. She is apparently one of the “pacifist” Christians who believes that we are never to speak out against the evils done by civil government, because God ordains all authority. Our conversation thread was on a press release I posted from Senator Ted Cruz announcing his proposed legislation to strip the U.S. citizenship of any American who joins...

 Mayor Hodges of Minneapolis is all wet. I recently wrote about Mayor Sly James of Kansas City saying that "Too much violence is committed by guns".   I was skeptical that he had actually said that, because the Mayor is a well educated man, and served on active duty as a Marine.   It is a nonsensical statement to say that violence is committed "by" guns.   It transfers volition and responsibility to an inanimate object.  But, with another Mayor saying much the same thing, I begin to wonder. Minneapolis Mayor Betsey Hodges, at a "Gun Violence" conference in Milwaukee, used the...

The Washington Post is now predicting the Democrats have a 51% chance of retaining control of the Senate. Just a couple months ago the Republicans were 80% likely to win the Senate. From the GOP perspective, they’ve gone from a very likely win to at best a 50-50 race. The Washington Post decline in Republican fortunes mirrors other prediction services, all of which show a Republican drop off from a month or two ago. We’re less than seven weeks away from the November election. Campaigns are just getting heated up and people are just starting to think about paying attention....

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The U.S. Constitution, as its framers understood it, was a means to an end. It was crafted and adopted for the sake of achieving the natural-law principles referred to in the Declaration of Independence. The progressives understood this very clearly as well. The robust regulatory and redistributive aims of the progressive policy agenda were inevitably at odds with the natural-law theory of the founding. This basic fact makes understandable Woodrow Wilson’s admonition (in an address ostensibly honoring Thomas Jefferson) that, “if you want to understand the real Declaration of Independence, do not repeat the preface.” Do not, in other words,...

The US Constitution is much more important, and in much greater danger than most people realize. I will discuss both issues in this article. Some people believe, and I am one of them, that there is one short passage in our founding documents that encapsulates, enshrines, and defines what is so unique and important about the US Constitution, and the United States of America. Oddly enough it is not to be found in the Constitution at all – it is in “The Declaration of Independence.” I am talking about the preamble to the Declaration – specifically the first sentence. Without...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)A former Veterans Affairs supervisor has been sentenced for stealing up to $20,000 of government property, a recent Justice Department release announced. From 2010 to 2013, 48-year-old Venita Godfrey-Scott directed her employees to use materials and supplies intended for VA medical center upkeep on her own house. These taxpayer-funded home improvement projects included “a deck in her backyard, carpet installation, and various kitchen, bathroom and basement improvements.” She also instructed employees to buy other necessary materials with her government-issued credit card, and had them work on these projects during normal work hours, when they were being paid by the VA....