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--snip-- BANGKOK (AP) - A survey released Tuesday -- the first comprehensive one of its kind - says that only 10 killers of 908 environmental activists slain around the world over the past decade have been convicted. The report by the London-based Global Witness, a group that seeks to shed light on the links between environmental exploitation and human rights abuses, says murders of those protecting land rights and the environment have soared dramatically.

Here’s your history lesson of the day, and it’s a duzy. Do you all remember the department store chain Montgomery Ward? It was in the same class as JC Penney and Sears, and like Penney’s and Sears had a robust catalog business in the 20th century. The catalog ended in 1985 and the stores closed in 2000. The incident we are going to talk about happened during World War 2, in 1944. When I read this it initially put my jaw on the floor, but when I thought about it for a moment, I realized that it put all...

Texans like to talk all the time about how big Texas is, and how if you´re driving from the bottom of Texas to Canada, then you´re spending half of your time just getting through the state itself. So is that true? It´s pretty close. Texas really is gigantic. Redditor Armeleon put together a map that gives you a good idea of the massive size of Texas. Texas spans about 800 miles from north to south. Everything seen in red on the map is closer than 791 miles to Texas (the longest straight-line distance in Texas from north to south is

Parents across the country may hold the key to this year’s mid-term elections as they vent their anger over the implementation of a controversial education achievement measure called the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have adopted the initiative in a bid, they say, to improve education standards in Math and English, and give new life to what many view as a sagging education system. Indiana recently voted to back out of Common Core. But many parents see the initiative as a bid by the federal government to take over the education system. They...

Wyoming has spent $7.9 million on sage grouse conservation since 2005. That was the finding of a new report by the Western Governors Association, which inventoried the efforts of 11 western states to protect the bird and its habitat. The report comes in advance of an expected 2015 ruling by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over whether to add the species to the endangered species list. The sage grouse's listing could curtail energy development throughout the West. ... Utah, by comparison, spent $8.8 million on improvements to sage grouse habitat in 2013 alone.

Catch award-winning, acclaimed author, Trevor Loudon with Glenn Beck on TheBlaze TV March 26th at 5:00 PM EST KeyWiki.org Page: http://keywiki.org/index.php/Keith_Ellison Election Facts for 2014: • Party – Democrat • State – Minnesota • Location – Minnesota 5 • First Elected – 2006 • Candidates in 2014: Keith Ellison – D – Incumbent Undeclared No Declared Opposition Listed Keith Maurice Ellison is a Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 5th District of Minnesota. He is also a Co-Chair on the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and of the...

First Lady Michelle Obama received an unscheduled greeting today from the President of China at the end of her first full day in the country, a place which President Obama has said he wants to “rebalance” US foreign policy. But the first lady is not engaging in any formal talks on issues such as human rights or global politics. Her trip to China is purely for cultural reasons. President Xi Jinping welcomed the first lady and disclosed he had spoken to President Obama by phone a few days ago and confirmed the two presidents are scheduled to hold a bilateral...

If the United States wants to avoid falling like the Roman Empire, it must avoid “overconsumption” and distribute resources equally, according to a study funded by NASA. “The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent,” reads the NASA-funded report published in the Ecological Economics journal. “Two important features seem to appear across societies that have collapsed,” the study adds. “The stretching of resources...

Obama is not a dictator, but there is a danger in his aggregation of executive power. Recently, a bizarre scene unfolded on the floor of the House of Representatives that would have shocked the framers of the Constitution. In his State of the Union address, President Obama announced that he had decided to go it alone in areas where Congress refused to act to his satisfaction. In a system of shared powers, one would expect an outcry or at least stony silence when a president promised to circumvent the legislative branch. Instead, many senators and representatives erupted in rapturous applause;...

President Obama announced his fiscal 2015 budget on Tuesday morning at Powell Elementary in the District’s Petworth neighborhood, highlighting the school’s early childhood education program as a model for the nation.

President Obama vowed to use his executive authority to usher in a "year of action" even if Congress remains gridlocked, he said in his weekly address. "Where Congress isn’t acting, I’ll act on my own to put opportunity within reach for anyone who’s willing to work for it," the president said. Obama pointed to a recent trip to North Carolina to announce the formation of a new public-private manufacturing institute as evidence of how he could act alone to spur economic activity. "It’s a partnership between companies, colleges, and the federal government focused on making sure American businesses and American...

Beginning his address, the Holy Father reiterated his imagery of Baptism as an unbroken chain in the transmission of faith. Each baptized Christian, he said, is a link in that chain. “Such is the grace of God and so is our faith, that we should transmit to our children, because they, as adults, can transmit it to their children,” the Pope said. “Baptism makes us enter into this People of God that transmits the faith. This is very important. A People of God that walks and transmits faith.” Continuing his catechesis on the Sacrament of Baptism, Pope Francis reminded the...

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com 'Black Pledge' posted on school Web site Ellen Sorokin THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 1/28/2002      A public school district in Oklahoma City has been accused of espousing black separatist doctrine because a copy of the "Black Pledge of Allegiance" is posted on its Web site.      The pledge — which refers to the colors of the flag that represents the Black Liberation Movement — appeared on the site last spring after students attending Millwood public schools found the pledge while studying black and cultural pride. "We pledge allegiance of the red, black and greenOur flag, the symbol ...

John Dodson, the federal agent who blew the lid off the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal, claims the FBI had ties to the men who killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010 near Nogales, Ariz. In fact, Dodson says the Mexican bandits who gunned down Terry were working for FBI operatives and had been sent to the border to do a “drug rip-off” using intelligence gathered by the DEA. Dodson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said he doesn’t think the FBI was part of the rip-off crew, but the...

Those inside the Cowboys organization finally have caught up with those outside the Cowboys organization. Ed Werder of ESPN reports that the “current expectation” within the Cowboys organization is that coach Jason Garrett and his staff will be fired if the team doesn’t make it to the playoffs

Let me begin with a categorical statement that, given current events and recent political history, can be easily defended: Barack Hussein Obama is a willful, indoctrinated child of the Left with strong Islamic sympathies who is not fit to govern. Indeed, he would not be fit to govern Lower Slobovia, let alone the United States of America. Obama is a historic disaster of the first magnitude and, if not restrained, he will see to the irrevocable decline of the country which foolishly elected him, leaving the world on the brink of a conflict — or in the midst of one...

ByStephanie Condon CBS News December 13, 2013, 6: 31 PM Sebelius dodges question about whether she offered resignation Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Friday refused to say whether she's offered to resign in the wake of botched rollout of the new Obamacare marketplaces. "I'm not going to discuss what I talk about with the president," Sebelius said from Miami, where she was promoting the new marketplaces. Earlier this week at a congressional hearing, Sebelius acknowledged to lawmakers that the launch of HealthCare.gov, the Obamacare website, was "flawed and failed and frustrating." She hasaccepted responsibility for the failed...

Nelson Mandela, the revered statesman who emerged from prison after 27 years to lead South Africa out of decades of apartheid, has died, South African President Jacob Zuma announced late Thursday. Mandela was 95. "He is now resting. He is now at peace," Zuma said. "Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father." "What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human," the president said in his late-night address. "We saw in him what we seek in ourselves." Mandela will have a state funeral. Zuma ordered all flags in the nation to be...

As I was getting a tour of DreamWorks, I didn’t ask, but just looking at faces, I could tell there were some folks who are here not because they were born here, but because they want to be here and they bring extraordinary talents to the United States. And that’s part of what makes America special. And that’s part of what, by the way, makes California special, because it’s always been this magnet of dreamers and strivers.

Attacks on the Affordable Care Act have stepped up over the last week or so. You'd think that the healthcare reform known as Obamacare is leading to the wholesale loss of affordable insurance by huge sectors of the American public, many of whom will be impoverished by being forced into low-quality health plans at exorbitant prices. You'd think the entire reform is on "life support," as the usually judicious National Journal put it today, speculating that Democrats may soon start calling for its repeal. Don't buy the hype. The numbers tell an entirely different story. What they also demonstrate is...

Will those of us who see no difference between the failed Green Energy Socialist ideological experiment of the Solyndra Bankruptcy, and the failed Socialized Medical Insurance Tax Socialist ideological experiment of the Obamacare Bankruptcy vote in large enough numbers in the 2014 National Congressional Election to REPEAL and ABOLISH Obamacare, Boehnercare or another Federal "replacement" to Universal Socialized Medical Insurance?

Toni McCall Townes-Whitley, the former Princeton classmate of Michelle Obama whose company won the no-bid contract to build the HealthCare.gov website, was a student radical whose efforts included bringing a famous black communist to campus. According to the archives of the student newspaper, Toni McCall Townes-Whitley, Princeton ’85, was chairwoman of the Organization of Black Unity and was the black representative for the Third World Center (TWC) alongside the future first lady. Townes-Whitley, née McCall, was a well known black activist at Princeton at the time. She authored a college thesis titled “The Question of Diversity,” calling for more racial...

Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 4:37 AM Not that any of us are surprised but Barack Obama’s mouthpiece, The New York Times, praised the Marxist redistribution of wealth enforced by Obamacare. And the author savors the fact that Obama is deliberately undoing “what historians have called the age of Reagan.” For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago. Over most of that...

If this Republic can once again remember what American leadership looks like, our greatest days are indeed ahead. Let us never again become enraptured by a cult of personality promoting empty rhetoric that is anathema to our fundamental principles and beliefs. As de Tocqueville stated, “America is great because America is good, when America ceases to be good it will no longer be great.” Leaders inspire people to dream great dreams and bring them to fruition, not sell us products. Watch this video — less than a minute. It will make you cry.

That line in a speech during the annual Education Minnesota conference last week put Megan Olivia Hall, the state’s teacher of the year, in the line of fire. Hall, a grade 7-12 science teacher at Open World Learning Community in St. Paul said: I think about all of the teachers in the St. Paul Public Schools who gave up our cost of living raise in 2010 in an effort to limit class size in our district. Teachers are persistent and responsible and generous because we believe every child in America, regardless of circumstances of birth, deserves a decent chance at...

The White House has invited all House Republicans to a meeting on Thursday but Boehner limited the group to 18 Republicans who hold leadership positions. "President Obama is disappointed that Speaker Boehner is preventing his members from coming to the White House," White House spokesman Jay Carney. "The president thought it was important to talk directly with the members who forced this economic crisis on the country about how the shutdown and a failure to pay the country's bills could devastate the economy," he said.

Just announced on Fox.

Skeptics and deniers can make all the noise they want, but a landmark new report is unequivocal: There is a 95 percent chance that human-generated emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are changing the climate in ways that court disaster. Atmospheric science is difficult because there are so many variables involved. But, the infamous "hockey stick" graph showing global temperatures rising over time, first slowly and then sharply, remains valid. Sea levels will continue to rise because of warming — water expands as it heats — and because of glacial melting. "A large fraction of anthropogenic climate change...

<p>WASHINGTON — California Sen. Barbara Boxer’s Capitol Hill office was locked, with a sign reading, "Office closed due to government shutdown."</p> <p>Much of her staff has been furloughed. The number of staffers answering calls has been scaled back. Casework has been suspended.</p>

It's hard to keep up with the mind-numbing flood of putrid malfeasance gushing from Barack Obama (or whatever his name is), the communist Democrats and the detestable "RINO" Republicans in Congress. And while we try to monitor the constant barrage of lies, anti-Americanism and criminal behavior of these people, it's easy to lose sight of what's going on at the state and local levels. Who has time to chronicle everything? So, it's no surprise that living down here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I missed news of the June mayoral election up in our state capital, Jackson. While I can...

The aborted Capitol Hill debate on military action against Syria put President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner in a rare place — on the same side. But each found himself sharply at odds with lawmakers of his own party. As Washington turns its attention to critical domestic issues this week, the turbulent political environment facing the nation’s leaders was put in sharp relief. With declining public support, the president must fend off GOP attacks on his signature health-care law, the Affordable Care Act, as his administration prepares to launch a centerpiece of the effort, online insurance marketplaces, in just...

Michelle Obama, who has for years been suggesting "Let's Move," Wednesday added a new directive in her campaign against obesity: "Drink up." The president's wife called on Americans to drink at least one extra glass of water daily. "That's it - it's really that simple. Drink just one more glass of water a day and you can make a real difference for your health, your energy, and the way you feel. So Drink Up and see for yourself," she said.

Reuters) - The Obama administration has delayed a step crucial to the launch of the new healthcare law, the signing of final agreements with insurance plans to be sold on federal health insurance exchanges starting October 1. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notified insurance companies on Tuesday that it would not sign final agreements with the plans between September 5 and 9, as originally anticipated, but would wait until mid-September instead, according to insurance industry sources. Nevertheless, Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for HHS, said the department remains "on track to open" the marketplaces on time on...

“I think that Dr. King would be amazed in many ways about the progress that we’ve made,” he said. “What he would also say, though, is that the March on Washington was about jobs and justice,” he added. “And that when it comes to the economy, when it comes to inequality, when it comes to wealth, when it comes to the challenges that inner cities experience, he would say that we have not made as much progress as the civil and social progress that we’ve made, and that it’s not enough just to have a black president.

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama sought a progress report from state officials on Wednesday on the rollout of his signature health care law, stepping up his profile on the issue as the launch of a key provision of the law nears on October 1. Obama spoke by videoconference with the officials responsible for setting up new online health insurance exchanges that are at the heart of the program. These markets will offer private coverage at federally subsidized rates to individuals and families with low-to-moderate incomes. With the launch date less than five weeks away, the administration faces a daunting challenge...

The Republican Party is spending its summer engaged in traditional, old-timey fun, like this massive tug-of-war between congressional leadership and conservative members and activists over Obamacare. The leadership is diligently trying to pull the party toward an intricate legislative solution to the dispute, while the base is organizing all of its friends over to yank everyone off a cliff. That's a little strong, but perhaps not too much. There's a to-hell-with-it feel to the Republican base's opposition to Obamacare. If Democrats in the Senate or the White House won't vote to kill the program, a program central to conservative critique...

Cue up the indignant reactions: President Barack Obama and his family are about to go on an eight-day vacation on the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard, an elite playground for the East Coast wealthy set. Often the criticism of a president's vacation is partisan in nature, which is why White House spokesman Jay Carney dismissed a question about it when asked whether Obama's vacation was too extravagant. "I would just check what they said six years ago," he said, referring to a period when a Republican president, George W. Bush, was in office. Bush, who vacationed at his Texas ranch...

Unlike Clinton who actually knew how to govern and be a strong leader (even though often in the wrong direction), Obama is a worthless punk from the streets of Chicago who can't cope with the fact that he is neither white nor black, but a sad mixture of sleazy parents. But he and his leftist advisors are smart enough to create distractive news items that the lap dog press will happily trumpet to cover up all of his stupid mistakes that are now becoming blooming scandals.

Obama hailed hard-core communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh today as a pretty open guy who was actually inspired by the Founders...

Touting his government efficiency programs, President Obama today directed his cabinet to craft a management agenda that allows the federal government to be “smarter, quicker and more responsive to the needs of the American people.” “Taxpayers deserve the biggest bang for their buck, especially at a time when budgets are tight and we’ve got to do a lot more with less,” he said. ”I’m going to keep on doing what we can administratively, but we sure could use Congress’ help.” “Particularly at a time when Congress is saying they want more efficient government, they give a lot of lip service...

Exclusive!!! NSA Leaks Journalist Glenn Greenwald, Addressed a Marxist-Leninist Conference Trevor Loudon June 12, 2013 Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who helped Edward Snowden launch the NSA leaks scandal, addressed a radical Marxist-Leninist conference in 2011. Get the details!http://www.trevorloudon.com/2013/06/exclusive-nsa-leaks-journalist-glenn-greenwald-addressed-a-marxist-leninist-conference/

South African riot police clashed with protesters in Soweto on Saturday shortly before a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama. Armed police fired stun grenades to disperse the crowd of several hundred protesters, who had gathered outside the Soweto campus of the University of Johannesburg, where Obama was due to address a town hall meeting with students.

PRETORIA, South Africa - Nelson Mandela "opened his eyes" and smiled after being told of President Barack Obama's imminent visit to South Africa, his daughter said Tuesday, adding to speculation that the two men might meet. The 94-year-old remains in a critical condition, South Africa’s government said Tuesday as relatives gathered at his home for a family meeting that local media reports described as “urgent.” The anti-apartheid campaigner and democracy icon has been in hospital with a lung infection since June 8. His condition was downgraded over the weekend from "serious but stable" to “critical.” Obama is due to leave...

At first blush, it seems crazy. The perpetually destitute Los Angeles Unified School District will spend $30 million to purchase thousands of iPad tablets to give away to students at 47 LAUSD campuses. At second blush, it seems crazier. This purchase all but commits the nation's second largest school district to hundreds of million of dollars of additional spending with Apple over the next two years. That's right, two years, hundreds of millions. At third blush, it seems like a rip-off. The LAUSD will pay $678 per iPad, even though you can belly up to the Genius Bar at the...

President Barack Obama will attempt to kick-start a global climate agenda on Tuesday with proposals including a plan to limit carbon emissions from existing U.S. power plants that is sure to face opposition from the coal industry, many business groups and Republican lawmakers. None of the president's proposals, including plans to reduce emissions from heavy duty trucks after 2018, require congressional approval. The White House plan includes measures to tackle HFCs as well as emissions from methane, another potent greenhouse gas.

Yup. His daddy was a communist. His mommy was a communist. His mentor was a communist. He admitted in his book before running for the presidency that he himself was a Marxist. And that may be part of the misunderstanding and confusion. It may be that many people do not understand what a Marxist is. "Marxist" is just a fancy word for a communist. And Obama is a self-admitted, constitution-hating, spread-the-wealth-around Marxist/communist. And no one can deny that. It's a self-evident, self-admitted fact. And he wants to transform America. Transform it to what? Transform it from a free country to...

The Guardian has done it once again, this time presenting two July 2009 documents signed by none other than Eric Holder which lay out under what conditions the NSA is allowed to make use of information "inadvertently" collected from domestic US communications without a warrant. The documents detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target "non-US persons" under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance. "The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign...

With the revelations of another new and potentially serious scandal, Obama's presidency becomes more Grant than Lincoln each day. I mean Ulysses S. Grant's scandal-plagued presidency, which was replete with clumsy denials, regretful dismissals, base enticements and desperate political ploys. The shocking scandals of the mid-1870s – from the Whiskey Ring's tax evasion and bribery of administrative officials to secretary of War William Belknap and his wife's patronage kickbacks – consumed Grant's second term. Avoiding this kind of diminished legacy means that Obama must do what Grant could not. He needs to face the seriousness of the allegations which stretch...

Might as well, I guess.

A Republican congressman says pursuing the impeachment of President Obama for his mishandling of the response to the terror attack at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, is still an option, and he vows to continue digging at the “lies of highest magnitude” from the White House.....