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Parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School appeared before a subcommittee of the Connecticut Legislature on Monday to speak about gun control. While some used the platform to promote stricter firearms legislation, at least one parent became passionate, claiming that there are more than enough laws on the books, that current regulations simply need to be enforced and that the nation needs to embrace personal responsibility.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, yesterday afternoon I'm minding my own business. What was I doing? I think I was reading. I got an e-mail from Howie Kurtz, our old buddy. He used to be at the Washington Post, and I think he's at the Daily Beast now. He also has this show Reliable Sources at CNN and Howie said, "I don't know if you were watching," and I wasn't. "But Bob Costas was on my show today, and Bob Costas brought your name up just out of the clear blue. I didn't bring it up. Costas brought your name up...

Taco Bell is pulling a TV ad after receiving complaints that it discouraged people from eating vegetables. -snip- The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health advocacy group, this weekend urged people to tweet their complaints about the ad and the chain quickly made the decision to pull it.

The Environmental Protection Agency is getting taken to court left and right for their many overzealous regulations and intrusions into private industry, with varying results– but on Friday, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that, why no, the EPA may not punish the oil industry for their noncompliance with the EPA’s lofty Renewable Fuels Standard mandates in failing to blend a certain amount of cellulosic biofuels into their product, seeing as how those biofuels are not actually available.

Mandrake reported on Friday that David Cameron’s mother, Mary, had been asked why the Prime Minister was pressing ahead with plans to change the law in favor of same-sex marriage when it was alienating so many of the Conservative Party’s natural supporters. “I know, but David just won’t be told,” the retired Justice of the Peace replied. The answer may be close to hand: a cabinet minister points to Samantha Cameron’s influence on her husband. “Samantha is the driving force behind the policy,” claims the minister. The baronet’s daughter, who is a creative consultant at Smythson, the Mayfair luxury goods...

An Army veteran from Athens, Ga. proved last week you don’t have to be a physical match for a home invader as long as you have the proper tools for self-defense. When someone kicked in his front door Wednesday afternoon, Mark Sikes, a wheelchair-bound 53-year-old, instinctively reached for the pistol in his bedroom nightstand, reports the Athens Banner-Herald.“I pointed the gun at him and told him he better get the hell out, and he flew like a bat. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him,” Sikes told the paper.Sikes wasn’t sure if the intruder had a weapon, and the invader, a...

President Obama is praising the new Pentagon plan to lift restrictions on women in combat. "Today, by moving to open more military positions -- including ground combat units -- to women, our armed forces have taken another historic step toward harnessing the talents and skills of all our citizens," Obama said in a statement Thursday. Today, every American can be proud that our military will grow even stronger with our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters playing a greater role in protecting this country we love." Interview with the New Republic: "I have to tell you if I had a son,...

EAST ST. LOUIS • About 100 people were attending a musical event at a small church here when several masked gunmen burst into the church and demanded money and valuables, members and attendees said Monday. The attendees, who did not give their names for fear of retaliation, said at least three robbers ordered people at the music event to the floor and took cash from them in the holdup about 5:30 p.m. Sunday at IRA Grove Free Will Baptist Church, 1701 Belmont Avenue. The gunmen were wearing bandanas over their faces, according to police and witnesses. Witnesses did not get...

Releases Doves as a "Symbol of the Spirit of God"In his Sunday Angelus address, Pope Benedict XVI called on the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square to live Sunday not only as a day of rest and of the family, but above all as a day "to dedicate to the Lord." Addressing thousands of pilgrims, the Holy Father called to mind the Sunday Gospel of St. Luke, where Jesus enters the synagogue on the Sabbath. The Pope noted that Jesus Christ, as a devout believer, "does not neglect the weekly liturgical rhythm." Continuing his commentary on the Gospel, the Holy...

Tea party activists looking to oust Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a GOP primary may get some help from an unlikely source: Democrats. Big Democratic donors, local liberal activists and a left-leaning super PAC in Kentucky are telling tea partiers that they are poised to throw financial and organizational support behind a right-wing candidate should one try to defeat the powerful GOP leader in a 2014 primary fight. -snip- Now, Paul is supporting McConnell’s reelection bid. And much to the chagrin of tea party activists looking for a McConnell primary challenger, Massie has emphatically said he won’t take on...

...“I, along with 3 million educators across the country, proudly support our members’ efforts in saying ‘no’ to giving their students a flawed test that takes away from learning and is not aligned with the curriculum,” said National Education Association President Dennis van Roekel...

Having heard it straight from President Obama last Monday, the “devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms” looming in our immediate future are all imminent catastrophes fueled by rapid climate change about which we simply must do something right away — but this is exactly the type of alarmist rhetoric that ensures we pursue the types of ineffective, top-down, big-government, expensive, and internationalist solutions that will actually have very little net effectiveness in sincerely addressing the issue.One of environmentalists’ favorite past-times includes whipping up a certain amount of global-warming frenzy as an excuse to implement...

Barbara Walters has been in the hospital for more than a week after she fell and hit her head during pre-Inauguration festivities in Washington, D.C. — and now the View co-host has contracted the chickenpox. While doctors were monitoring Walters after her fall, they noticed her fever was not subsiding and eventually determined that it was due to chickenpox, according to The Associated Press.

Seattle - The item, a single-use device that had already been used, is a launch tube assembly for a Stinger portable surface-to-air missile.

"...If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you'll see more of them doing it," [President Obama] said.

Apple today updated iOS to version 6.1, adding LTE capabilities to 36 additional iPhone carriers and 23 additional iPad carriers around the world, so even more iPhone 5, iPad mini and iPad with Retina display users can experience ultrafast wireless performance to browse, download and stream content at blazing fast speeds. To date, iOS users have uploaded over nine billion photos to Photo Stream, sent over 450 billion iMessages and received over four trillion notifications. “iOS 6 is the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, and with nearly 300 million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices on iOS 6 in...

Moscow, January 28, Interfax - The implementation of a program for the construction of 200 Orthodox churches in Moscow may take 10 to 20 years, Vladimir Resin, an advisor to the Moscow mayor and a State Duma deputy, told journalists. "I think the whole program may take 10 to 20 years. It is important not only to build them, but also make them habitable," Resin said. The program will take such a long time as the construction is being financed only by donations, he said. "Our goal in implementing the program is to commission at least 10 [churches] a year,"...

SNIP A pair of workers at a frozen food distribution center outside of Atlanta, Ga., made off with $65,000 worth of frozen chicken wings earlier this month, according to cops in Gwinnet County. Dewayne Patterson and Renaldo Jackson, who both worked at the Nordic Distribution Center, allegedly backed a rental truck up to the back of the loading area at the center and loaded 10 pallets of Tyson frozen chicken wings onto the truck. SNIP

San Diego Police Chief, William Lansdowne said in an interview that the implementation of new gun laws will take guns off the streets of America within a generation.

An old-time trial lawyer once said, "When your case is weak, shout louder!" Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shouted louder when asked about the Obama administration's story last fall that the September 11th attack on the U.S. ambassador's quarters in Benghazi was due to an anti-Islamic video that someone in the United States had put on the Internet, and thereby provoked a protest that escalated into violence. She shouted: "We had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans? What...