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In the video, we see the man, stated as the father, shoot a celebratory shot into the air.  He briefly examines the pistol, which appears to be a Browning type single action of some kind.  He may have put on the safety, but it is not clear.  He then places the pistol down, probably on a chair.   We can see the young child moving toward the pistol as it is put down.   Link to video: In the video, the young boy picks up the pistol and seems to be trying to emulate his father.  The boys hands are placed...

Unlocking the Origins of Snake Venom by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * The origin of snake venom has been a long-time mystery to both creationists and evolutionists. Interestingly, new research confirms that the same genes that encode snake venom proteins are active in many other tissues.1 According to the biblical record, God’s creation was originally void of death, disease, and violence. Because of Adam and Eve’s rebellion, the whole of creation became subject to a curse that resulted in snakes with venom, stinging arthropods, and countless diseases. One of the chief questions facing creation biologists and geneticists is how venom was...

Racism exudes from the very pores of the Obamas, and he comprised his inner-most circle with people just as racially bigoted as himself. I reference Valerie Jarrett and Eric Holder for starters. There are those who argue Obama has exacerbated racial problems in the United States. I disagree. I say Obama has created problems where none existed, and with the deftness of an evil alchemist, he fomented a zeitgeist of unbridled black antipathy toward whites.

The Vatican on Monday offered to help the United States in its efforts to close Guantanamo prison, a goal fervently supported by Pope Francis. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the Holy See welcomed recent signs President Barack Obama appears to have accelerated efforts to close the controversial facility... He said the Vatican stood ready to "help find adequate humanitarian solutions through our international contacts...

Due to Ukraine's ongoing conflict with Russian-back separatists on its soil, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk appealed to the European Union (EU) and said that their country is in dire need of financial assistance, Reuters reported. On Monday, Yatsenyuk met with officials of the international union in Brussels, Belgium, to report Ukraine's current economic situation. According to the Prime Minister, the country's continuing battle against rebel forces is pushing Ukraine's economy to the brink of bankruptcy. In addition, ever since Russia annexed Crimea, Ukraine had lost about 20 percent of revenues from trade operations. In order to alleviate the country's financial...

On Saturday night the Senate held a vote on a $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill that many referred to as the CRomnibus. I voted against this bill because I oppose the cynical substance of the legislation. I also could not support the un-republican and undemocratic process by which a small collection of political and economic insiders crafted it, to benefit each other at everyone else’s expense. I also oppose the signal this bill sends to political insiders on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue; the signal it sends to special interest cronies on Wall Street and K Street; and the signal...

GOP elites in the Senate are understandably finding it arduous to defend their vote for a terrible budget bill, which ceded the power of the purse against a lawless president for the entire year. They are finding their vote against Cruz’s constitutional point of order to be downright indefensible. As such, they have honed in on an argument that Sens. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, by pushing the debate over the budget into the weekend, enabled Majority Leader Harry Reid to buy more time to confirm more of Obama’s liberal nominees. A number of establishment Republican senators, from Susan Collins...

A handful of families impacted by the Sandy Hook school shooting have decided to ease their grief by suing the manufacturer of AR style rifles. Obviously, a little unnecessary litigation is the most effective way to right the wrongs of a madman. According to CNBC: Ten families touched by the Newtown massacre filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday against companies that made, distributed and sold the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle that Adam Lanza used to kill 20 children and six staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary two years ago. The suit argues that the gun is a military assault weapon that never...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Abraham and Sarah New International Version (NIV) 18 The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. 3 He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought,...

A recent CapCon story and video documented the Michigan State Police using civil asset forfeiture to freeze the bank accounts and take the property of two men for months without even charging them with a crime. Forfeiture is a complicated process, but essentially allows for an end-run around what most people see as basic constitutional rights. Michigan should join other states, like North Carolina or Minnesota, in requiring a criminal conviction before assets can be seized. That won’t happen anytime soon, but in the meantime there are other reforms that politicians should consider during this lame-duck period. The bill with...

MOSCOW — The ruble’s value continued to slide on Tuesday despite the Russian central bank’s extraordinary effort to defend it, inducing further panic in the nation’s financial industry and presenting President Vladimir V. Putin with an acute new set of political and economic challenges. Scenes that Russians hoped had receded into the past reappeared on the streets: Currency exchange signs blinked ever-changing digits, and Russians rushed to appliance stores to buy washing machines or televisions to unload rubles. “We are seeing an economic crisis,” Natalia V. Akindinova, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, said in a telephone interview....

America's Christophobes have been plenty busy lately. Maybe the Christmas season makes them especially nervous. A few weeks ago, Atlanta Fire Rescue Department Chief Kelvin Cochran was suspended for a month without pay for the unforgivable sin of self-publishing a Christian book in which he expressed his disapproving views about homosexual behavior, among other things. City spokeswoman Anne Torres said: "We understand that (Cochran) was distributing the book to other employees. We are still not sure yet what the circumstances surrounding that are. ... The bottom line is that the (Mayor Kasim) Reed administration does not tolerate discrimination of any...

The oil price crash could take thousands of good-paying jobs with it in America and around the world. More cuts are almost certainly on their way. On Monday, ConocoPhillips (COP) became the first major U.S. oil company to reveal that it is slashing spending for 2015, a decision the CEO asserted was "prudent given the current environment." Bad news already started to flow this week: Halliburton (HAL) affirmed that it plans to cut 1,000 positions due to the depressed oil market, and BP (BP) announced an unspecified number of layoffs as part of a $1 billion restructuring plan. It's true...

Seven more states signed on to a lawsuit challenging President Obama's executive action halting the deportation of as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants, bringing the total to 24 states, Texas Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday. The new states to join the coalition were Arizona, Florida, Arkansas, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma. The original 17 states, including Alabama, Kansas and Texas, filed suit in U.S. District Court last week, arguing that Obama overstepped his powers in enacting such changes on his own. "The president's proposed executive decree violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law, circumvents the will of...

More than two decades after the Berlin Wall fell, it appears that the United States and Russia are engaging in the same sort of proxy wars that were so common during the Cold War. Everywhere that Western and Russian spheres of influence meet there is the potential for conflict, and the two aging superpowers have shown their willingness fight through their neighbors. However, this game of chess has taken on a whole new dimension that is radically different than what we saw during the Cold War. The whole point of a proxy war is to resist your enemy without actually...

Cratering crude-oil prices may be a blessing to cash-strapped American consumers, but it’s a double-edged sword when it comes to the overall economy. The problem for the overall economy is not so much the drop in oil prices as it is the velocity at which oil prices have fallen. The plunge from a peak of just over $100 per barrel in the early summer to today’s $58 — a massive 42 percent drop in just a few short months, most of which has come in the last 90 days — could make anyone’s head spin. The rapid fall in crude...

When it comes to crude oil and other hydrocarbons, the United States is bursting at the seams. The United States has very rapidly become a powerhouse as an exporter of finished petroleum products, natural gas liquids, other oils including ethanol, and even crude oil — with total gross exports of all of these combined expected to reach 5 million barrels per day (mb/d) or more by the end of this year, up a stunning 4 mb/d since 2005. Total oil exports in 2014 pushed the commodity to the top of the list of U.S. exports by category, far surpassing all...

If you watched any of the NFL on FOX Sunday, you may have caught this commercial imploring Dish customers to push the satellite carrier to keep Fox News in the lineup. FNC’s current deal with Dish expires this Saturday night at 11:59pmET. “We are simply notifying our viewers about the possibility of not being able to access FOX News on their current satellite TV provider,” says Tim Carry, EVP of Distribution for Fox News. Nearly 20,000 people called the 800 number and more than 75,000 went to the website after the ad aired during yesterday’s NFL games. The ad is...

(Reuters) - The ruble plunged more than 10 percent for the second day on Tuesday and recorded its worst fall since the Russian financial crisis in 1998 as confidence in the central bank evaporated after an ineffectual overnight rate hike. The rouble opened around 10 percent stronger against the dollar following the overnight 650-basis-point rate hike, but it reversed gains in early trade and fell to record lows, pushing losses this year against the dollar to over 50 percent. At 0637 ET, the rouble was down over 11 percent against the dollar at 73.00 after dipping past 74 rubles per...

Crony Capitalism: Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivered a stemwinder speech last Friday on the need for government to rein in Wall Street influence. But it's big government that created the monster in the first place. Warren, D-Mass., was attacking a "dangerous provision" in the so-called cromnibus spending bill that, she said, stripped a part of Dodd-Frank that big banks, particularly Citigroup, don't like. Her speech had the left slobbering over itself. Michael Tomasky, writing for the Daily Beast, said Warren's "weekend heroics" made her the "most powerful Democrat in America." The Huffington Post ran a column calling it "the speech that...