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The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead 32 injured. The Army said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty.

entire Wabasha bridge this morning downtown St.Paul(both sides) Wonder hoe much the public works spent putting all these nice, new rainbow flags up? might explain your property tax rates, St.Paulites...

The federal government is spending $152,000 to study “voice therapy” for transgenders, saying it is incumbent to being “accepted as one's preferred gender.” “This study will illuminate the capabilities of the human larynx and inform the relationship between voice production and perception,” states a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant, awarded to George Washington University. “The long term goal of this research is to inform and provide new directions for Transgender (TG) voice care, thereby improving the lives of TG people who feel their voice is a great obstacle to living as their preferred gender.” “Incomplete gender presentation can negatively...

I’ll say it once again, when you tax something, you get less of it.When you subsidize something, you get more of it.This is a fairly commonly known economic belief. So why are these politicians so surprised the government’s free phone program has grown out of control: What started out as an effort by President Reagan to help poor people in rural areas have a phone in cases of emergency has mushroomed into what critics suspect is a new welfare program.“The cost has gone from $143 million a few years ago to $2.2 billion today,� Republican Louisiana Sen. David Vitter said,...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Twenty-four current and former Internal Revenue Service employees have been charged with stealing government benefits, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. The IRS employees were indicted on charges that they illegally received more than $250,000 in benefits including unemployment insurance payments, food stamps, welfare, and housing vouchers, the U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis said in a news release. Prosecutors say 13 of the IRS employees face federal charges of lying about being unemployed while applying for or recertifying their government benefits. They each face up to five years in prison if convicted of making false statements to receive...

“What’s the matter with Kansas?” syndrome of young people voting against their economic interests. Thus follows the constant courting of the hip and cool Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Lena Dunham, Occupy Wall Streeters, and others who blend pop culture, sex, youth, energy, and fad — almost anything to avoid the truth that today’s teenagers are starting out each owing a lifetime share of the national debt amounting to more than three-quarters of a million dollars. Those who ran up the debt enjoyed the borrowing, but won’t be around to pay back their proverbial fair share.

Leave it to my state of California to head off in radical and expensive directions. Legislation has been filed that would require group insurance to cover gay and lesbian infertility treatments just as they do heterosexual. But, as I note elsewhere, AB 460 isn’t limited to a finding of actual infertility. Nor does it require that gays and lesbians have tried to conceive or sire a child using heterosexual means, natural or artificial. Rather–as with heterosexual couples–merely the inability to get pregnant for a year while having active sexual relations is sufficient to demonstrate need for treatment, meaning if the...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has responded to a letter dated November 13, 2012 from Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) regarding the agency's ammunition purchases. Sen. Coburn published the response on the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs website yesterday, April 1, 2013. The response, dated February 4, 2013, says that DHS buys ammunition in bulk to "significantly lower costs."

Liberals who demand church-state separation would pitch a fit if a public school decided to perform a play that reverently told stories of the Old Testament, whether it was the story of creation, the story of Noah, or Moses or Joseph and his brothers. But somehow, if a public school decides to put on a play mocking God and the Old Testament, that is not a church-state violation. The separation police don't want religious (or atheist) minorities to face religious indoctrination in a public school. But anti-religious indoctrination mocking the Judeo-Christian majority is a glorious festival of free speech. Take,...

This video image from an Internal Revenue Service video shows an IRS employee portraying Mr. Spock. William Shatner has made up his mind about the Star Trek parody video produced by the Internal Revenue Service. He tweeted: "So I watched that IRS video. I am appalled at the utter waste of US tax dollars." If you haven't been paying attention, the IRS released the video last week after CBS News filed a Freedom of Information Act Request. The video, which shows IRS employees boldly going "where no government employee has gone before," was supposed to be used for training purposes.It's...

In the first three months of the year, members of the first family have been on three vacations, averaging a vacation a month. And now it's being reported that the first daughters are on a spring break vacation in the Bahamas. Obama Photo AP / Steven Senne The Obamas began the new year in Hawaii. "President Obama departed Hawaii this morning for Washington, after spending NINE days vacationing with family and friends in his native state. Here’s a quick look at how he spent his vacation," ABC reported on January 6, 2013. "Obama played FIVE rounds of golf with SEVEN...

It’s spring break, and President Obama’s daughters are off on yet another vacation. While the U.S. economy could use a little help, according to Breitbart News, the Obama girls are spending their time – and taxpayers’ dime – in the Bahamas. The girls’ visit to the Atlantis resort was not publicly announced, but Breitbart says its sources have confirmed the information, verified also through sightings posted on social media:

For the past four years, American taxpayers have paid nearly $400,000 so that Yale University could study the sexual conflict of waterfowl and “plasticity in duck penis length.”

Las Vegas Township Constable John Bonaventura will not face criminal charges related to his arrest last week on suspicion of driving under the influence, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said. In a statement, Wolfson said that although Bonaventura’s preliminary breath test showed he was over the legal blood-alcohol limit when he was pulled over Feb. 12, that test is not admissible in court. An arrest report indicates he registered a level of 0.099 on that test. A second, admissible breath test showed Bonaventura’s blood-alcohol level at 0.069, below the legal limit of 0.08. That test was administered at the...

AUSTIN – You know America is changing when leftists have even infiltrated Texas schools. According to the website txcscopereview.com, a lesson plan for 6th graders in government schools reads as follows: Notice socialist/communist nations use symbolism on their flags representing various aspects of their economic system. Imagine a new socialist nation is creating a flag and you have been put in charge of creating a flag. Use symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism on your flag. What kind of symbolism/colors would you use?

Foes of same-sex marriage are laboring to pay the tab for an epic legal case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, as the movement suffers from fundraising shortfalls that could sap its strength in future battles. ProtectMarriage dot com, the advocacy group defending a California gay marriage ban now under review by the high court, showed a $2 million deficit in its legal fund at the end of 2011 - the third year in a row that expenses exceeded donations, federal tax records show.... "Unless the pace of donations starts to pick up right away, we could soon be forced...

Bears re-reading as Obama begins his Second Assault upon the United States. ==================================================== Yeah, that's what NASA should be all about. "Charlie Bolden: Stealth Middle East Diplomat?," by Keith Cowing at NASA Watch, July 2 (thanks to Weasel Zippers): Bolden: I am here in the region - its sort of the first anniversary of President Barack Obama's visit to Cairo - and his speech there when he gave what has now become known as Obama's "Cairo Initiative" where he announced that he wanted this to become a new beginning of the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world....

A new video game featuring a black alien female superhero delivered to Earth to fight global warming is about to hit the market thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Obama administration. The National Endowment for the Arts is funding the Spelman College of Atlanta, Ga.'s multi-episode game called "HERadventure." In the grant announcement made last year, the NEA said the story "focuses on a young female superhero sent to Earth to save her own planet from devastation because of climate changes caused by social issues impacting women and girls." The game is set to debut on March 8 on...

Run>Hide>Fight. Your guide to surviving an active shooter event. This is a video the city of Houston put together on what to do should you (a citizen) run across an active shooter, such as the guy in the movie theater. They were just finishing it when the Colorado shootings occurred. If you haven’t seen it……it is well worth the watch and worth sharing with your family and friends as well. DHS sponsored video, worth watching. They sorta gloss over the gun free zone sign on the door. I'd be somewhat inclined to spray the fire extinguisher in the shooter's face,...

In a landmark settlement, the Pentagon has agreed to give full back pay to U.S. service members who were discharged due to their sexual orientation under the military's “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The payouts will be granted to service members dismissed from the military under the now-repealed policy on or after November 2004. “This means so much to those of us who dedicated ourselves to the military, only to be forced out against our will for being who we are,” former Air Force Staff Sgt. Richard Collins said in a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought...

<p>Some opinions only get attention because they come from people with advanced degrees who make their living on the taxpayer dime. That’s certainly the case for Hugo Schwyzer, a history and gender studies professor at Pasadena City College.</p> <p>He has a history of blaming white men for most of the mass killings that take place in the United States. Friday’s tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut gave him a great opportunity to spout his nonsense once again.</p>

A decade ago, a British philosopher put forth the notion that the universe we live in might in fact be a computer simulation run by our descendants. While that seems far-fetched, perhaps even incomprehensible, a team of physicists at the University of Washington has come up with a potential test to see if the idea holds water. The concept that current humanity could possibly be living in a computer simulation comes from a 2003 paper published in Philosophical Quarterly by Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford. In the paper, he argued that at least one of...

Residents living near the beachfront homes where President Barack Obama and First Family vacation with their friends every year since 2008 were alerted on Monday to some specifics of the Obamas' holiday vacation plans. The report delivered to residents living along the ocean and canal that surrounds the multi-million dollar homes at Kailuana Place where the President stays, informed them of restrictions that will be implemented for 20 days beginning December 17 and running through January 6. In a matter of weeks, Kailua residents will see the familiar street barricades fronted by U.S. Secret Service agents and Navy Seals and...

The White House is pulling a tactic out of its campaign playbook – and President Obama’s own community organizing past – using the organs of government to enlist average Americans to help Obama advocate for his priorities. In an email sent to people who signed up to receive official updates from the White House, recipients are told to forward the message to their friends, asking them to help promote what is in effect White House propaganda. The White House email list, which government officials began compiling earlier in Obama’s term, is separate from the famed Obama campaign email list, but...

The case of Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash is, as sex scandals sometimes are, poised on the cusp of legally actionable and none of our damn business. (See also Petraeus, David, et al.) Clash, 52, acknowledges having had a relationship with a young man, now 24, while he was over the age of consent. His accuser says it began when he was 16. Clash has taken a leave of absence from Sesame Street while responding to the allegation. If his lover was under the age of consent, that’s a matter for the law. If he was over—whatever you personally think of...

This Saturday, the Midwest Marxist Conference was held at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. The event was teeming with teachers who spoke about the new found bond between the radical socialists and their Teachers Union. The all-day event, which collected money to support Chicago Socialists and featured a communist bookstore, provided students on-campus along with the radical left community to plan the next phase in their activism. After the opening plenary, breakout sessions addressed more specific topics like the history of the Democratic party, education, and case studies in Russia. In these sessions, speakers continued to celebrate the use...

The Blog Michelle Obama: 'On Nov. 7 We're Going to Party Hard' 2:00 PM, Oct 17, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER Single Page Print Larger Text Smaller Text Alerts At a fundraiser today in New York, First Lady Michelle Obama expressed confidence in her husband's chances for reelection. "On Nov. 7 we're going to party hard," she said. Election Day this year is November 6. From the pool report: "After hearing my husband talk about his values and his vision at the debate last night, I'm pretty fired up," she said. "Let me tell you, I am so glad last...

The University of California -- Merced (UCM) spent $80,000 in a self-described attempt to advance ideas of “economic justice.” According to the school’s official website, UCM aims to create a “society in which the distribution of resources is equitable” and promote “cultural awareness.” To bring these goals to term, the university created a special “Social Justice” department which hosts annual events such as the “National Coming Out Awareness” week and a “Multicultural Odyssey in San Francisco.”

Lance Armstrong challenged the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to name names and say what it had on him. On Wednesday, it did. The anti-doping body revealed a group of 11 former Armstrong teammates — some loyal, some estranged — who each provided evidence of drug use on the U.S. Postal Service team. USADA Chief Executive Travis Tygart called it “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.” USADA will deliver its reasoned decision against Armstrong later Wednesday, a summary of the facts it used to hand him a lifetime suspension and erase his titles. The organization...

KEENE, Calif. (AP) — Maria Ybarra's trailer is one of two left on the property that for over two decades was home to Latino labor leader Cesar Chavez and farmworkers like Ybarra who made up his movement. Today, the foothills of the Tehachapi mountains continue to house the United Farm Workers of America headquarters and memorials to Chavez, though farmworkers no longer live there. On Monday, during a campaign swing through California, President Barack Obama will designate 105 acres of the property as a national monument within the National Park system — a move that could help shore up support...

The rigors of teaching apparently got to Michigan State University professor John McCarthy Monday. According to multiple sources, the math teacher stripped naked in the middle of his Calculus 1 class and started shouting obscenities.

The University of California Student Association (UCSA) secretly passed a resolution last month which condemned the nation of Israel of “racism.” The resolution, passed through the student organization with unanimously support, claims there is a “wealth of scholarship and legal opinion” that exists affirming “racism” on behalf of Israel. The resolution was in response to HR 35, a California Assembly resolution condemning anti-Semitism in higher education.

They won't officially declare the election over, but the experts at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics Thursday declared that President Obama's surge in key battleground state polls has pushed him well over the magic mark of 270 Electoral College votes, meaning his reelection is all but a lock. "We are not calling the race," said the experts, but the polls currently show "a decisive Obama victory." The team of Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley said if the election were held today, Obama would win 290 Electoral Votes, Mitt Romney 204. And the 42 toss-up Electoral Votes...

A college professor has been placed on leave after she allegedly forced her class to sign a pledge to vote for President Obama in the upcoming elections. Early last week Professor Sharon Sweet at Brevard Community College (BCC) allegedly told students to sign a pledge that reads: “I pledge to vote for President Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket.” The pledge was printed off of GottaVote.org, a website funded by the Obama campaign. University administrators said they learned about the incident late Thursday afternoon and launched an investigation, after they received a phone call from a concerned parent....

(snip) ....... They measured social tolerance by two variables: Gender-orientation tolerance, measured by whether respondents would agree to having gay persons speak in their community or teach in public schools, and whether they would oppose having homosexually themed books in the library. Racial tolerance, measured by responses regarding various racial and ethnic groups, including African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. Eighty percent of the study respondents were Caucasian, LeRoux said. The researchers measured altruistic behavior by whether respondents said they had allowed a stranger to go ahead of them in line, carried a stranger's belongings, donated blood, given directions to a...

Efforts to advance climate-change education in schools and communities are getting a boost from a set of six grants awarded this week by the National Science Foundation, totaling nearly $19 million. The grants will support a number of efforts, including a joint project in Maryland and Delaware to help schools deliver effective and regionally relevant instruction in grades 8-12, and pay for work led by the New England Aquarium to enhance climate-change education in zoos, aquariums, and other settings. The four other NSF grants include: -- $5.7 million to Columbia University for a project to help the public understand climate...

Dust off those resumes, the Los Angeles City Council may soon be looking for a condom cop. Earlier this year the council appointed a committee to study how a newly minted law requiring the use of condoms on some adult film sets could be enforced. After several meetings between police, representatives of the porn industry and other committee members, the city’s administrative officer issued a 47-page report Wednesday. Among its recommendations: contracting with a licensed medical professional who would conduct periodic inspections of film productions to make sure condoms are used. Other proposals include establishing a fee, the amount to...

Al Armendariz's big mouth cost him his job as a regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now that he's working for the Sierra Club, Armendariz appears even more opinionated about the industry he once regulated.In his first comments since resigning from EPA in April, Armendariz unloaded on the coal industry, called President Obama the most environmental president ever, and attacked the state of Texas for fighting the EPA in court. He also addressed the controversy surrounding his comments comparing the EPA's philosophy to the brutal tactics used by the ancient Roman army to intimidate its adversaries.Armendariz's most pointed comments...

In presidential campaign ads, President Barack Obama claims that his economic plan includes “$4 trillion in deficit reduction.” For a president who has increased the national debt more than all U.S. presidents from George Washington to George H.W. Bush combined, the claim seems incredible. Indeed, it is. A new analysis of Mr. Obama’s budget reveals the president’s plan would add $10.6 trillion in debt accumulation over the next decade, bringing the U.S. federal debt to a jaw-dropping $25.4 trillion. Still, the president and his surrogates continue to claim the Obama plan would cut spending. “The President’s proposals… include a balanced...

Chris Bram is the author of the novel Gods and Monsters. Gore Vidal was famous for his hates: academia, presidents, whole portions of the American public and, most notably, Truman Capote. Yet he could be incredibly generous to other writer friends. He wrote beautiful, appreciative essays about Tennessee Williams and Dawn Powell. He was a man of many facets and endless contradictions. He achieved his first notoriety in 1948 when he was only 22, for his novel, The City and the Pillar. It was the fullest, most frank portrait of gay American life at that time. The book wasn't autobiographical...

You know, it's bad enough that a percentage of Americans admit to getting "the news" from Comedy Central's Daily Show and host Jon Stewart. But when a legal affairs correspondent from National Public Radio starts citing highly-edited videos created by this comedy show to bash presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney while defending President Obama, citizens should be tremendously concerned about their tax dollars funding this media outlet (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo): Nina Totenberg Cites Highly-Edited Jon Stewart Video to Bash Romney and Defend Obama CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Because it captures the essence of Obama’s view of...

Full Headline: 'Run, hide, fight': Homeland Security releases public service video on how to get to safety and survive a mass shooting Following last Friday's mass casualty shooting in Aurora, Colorado, the City of Houston has released an instructional video on what to do in case of a similar emergency. Funded by the Department of Homeland Security, the city hopes that the video can help people prepare people for the worst. Entitled Run.Hide.Fight. Surviving an Active Shooter Event, it depicts a fictional shooting incident in a crowded office building. In the six-minute video, a narrator warns that all shooter events...

Yes, that would be the US Department of Agriculture, which is supposed to promote agriculture. Agriculture includes cattle ranching as well as farming (and dairies!). One of the most significant duties of the USDA is to rate the quality of meat so that consumers can be sure they’re eating healthy food. So why did the USDA send out a message to its employees discouraging the consumption of meat, using United Nations material? Senator Jerry Moran, a Republican who represents cattle-ranch-heavy Kansas, asked that question on the floor of the Senate yesterday:

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A federal program is giving away thousands of free cell phones and minutes in Minnesota, and you’re paying for it. Helping low-income people connect to services they need, the program gives free phones with hundreds of free minutes each month to people in need to land jobs, make appointments and stay in touch with family. But the program has come under fire for its $1 billion price tag and reports of fraud. . . Odell Hilson sold his phone for $20 because he needed the money. He didn’t remember which company gave it to him, but he...

Explanation: What are these humans doing? Dancing. Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend political boundaries and occur in practically every human society. Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, planned on dancing, and filmed the result. The above video, the latest in a series of similar videos, is perhaps a dramatic example that humans from all over planet Earth feel a common bond as part of a single species. Happiness is frequently contagious -- few people are able to watch the above video without...

Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick has vetoed the state legislature’s attempt to ban the use of EBT cards — or food stamps — to purchase items such as tattoos, porn and jewelry. Patrick vetoed the reforms Sunday while signing the state’s $32.5 billion budget. According to the Boston Herald, which first reported the veto, the governor berated the legislature’s stab at banning the purchase of specific items like manicures, tattoos, guns, porn, body piercings, jewelry, and bail by saying the move was “political grandstanding” at a time when such reforms are already on track elsewhere. “I’m not going to do...

THE GATEWAY PUNDIT: Your tax dollars at work – Paying this douche to work at the EPA. EPA science writer says he’s happy Andrew Breitbart is dead.

The Minnesota Vikings' new $975 million stadium is expected to bring construction jobs to parts of Minneapolis hit hardest by poverty and unemployment. Elected officials, business owners and civic leaders who backed the stadium are hoping it will be a boon to the jobless, including the 22 percent of black workers who were counted as unemployed as recently as last year, Minnesota Public Radio reported Tuesday, June 12. That was nearly triple Minnesota's overall jobless rate.

A special category of tuition created this month for illegal immigrants at a public university in Colorado violates both federal and state law, Judicial Watch points out in a letter to the school’s Board of Trustees. Therefore JW is calling for the immediate rescinding of the measure, which enables certain unlawfully present aliens to attend the taxpayer-funded school, Metropolitan State College of Denver, without having to pay full non-resident tuition. “In approving this new category of tuition, the College recognized that these students would otherwise be required to pay full non-resident tuition because of their inability to demonstrate lawful presence...

ONALASKA, Wash. - You can tell Onalaska is old fashioned just by looking. "We're in the country, we're small town, we like it that way,” said parent Kadra Gilliland. But something at the elementary school last week has folks in this quiet town making noise. "What gives this woman the right to come down here and go above our authority, is the way I look at it,” said parent Curt Pannkuk. "I was one pissed off cowboy," said parent James Gilliland. These parents are upset about a sex education class for the fifth graders last week. "She learned oral sex...