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PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Uniformed militants attacked a school, killing at least 126 people and taking hostages on Tuesday, an official said - an atrocity condemned by the U.S. as "senseless and inhumane." "The gunmen entered class by class and shot some kids one by one," a student who was in the school at the time told local media. Provincial official Bahramand Khan said at least 126 people were killed and 122 injured. More than 100 of the dead were school children, he added. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault, which appeared to be targeting the the children of...

Taliban terrorists that disguised themselves as soldiers and murdered over 130 people, mostly children, at a Pakistan school allegedly burned a teacher alive and made the students watch. According to a NBC News report, which cited an unnamed military official, the terrorists stormed the Army Public school in Peshawar, in north-west Pakistan, and committed the horrific act as well as detonating a suicide bomb which killed a number of students. "They burnt a teacher in front of the students in a classroom," said the unnamed military source to the US TV network. "They literally set the teacher on fire with...

I have been devoting my columns this month to the Ten Commandments because we need a fixed moral anchor to solve the problem of evil. And nothing is as effective as the Ten Commandments. Two weeks ago PragerUniversity.com released eleven five-minute video courses — one for each commandment and an introduction. The series has received over 2 million views. Everything needed to make a good world is contained in these Ten Commandments. Whatever your faith, or if you have no faith, I invite you to watch the videos at www.prageru.com. They are cleverly animated with text and graphics. Here is...

The odds are stacked against low-income Americans seeking the education they need to move up. Chelsey Stone had already escaped so many of the traps that keep poor children in poverty for life. She recalls begging neighbors for dinner when her mother sold their food stamps for drug money. She slept on the trampoline outside when the heroin showed up and her mom locked the door and the binges began. When she rebelled as a teenager, it was with poster board: She plastered her house with bright signs warning, “Do Not Throw Needles Away Here.” Her teachers saw that spark....

Russia's ruble plunged to an all-time low against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday, despite the Russian central bank's stunning move to hike interest rates to 17 percent in an effort to support the currency.

Expressing “profound gratitude” for the “dedicated and selfless service of women religious,” the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has issued its long-awaited Final Report on the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States of America. “This Congregation asks the members of each institute to evaluate their actual practice of liturgical and common prayer,” the report stated as it called upon religious institutes to engage in further dialogue and self-assessment. “We ask them to discern what measures need to be taken to further foster the sisters’ intimate relationship with Christ and...

Ted Cruz gave a fantastic interview tonight on the Mark Levin Show and you can listen to the full interview below. I’ve posted the highlights below from his communications director:

The Allied War Veterans Council of South Boston voted last night to allow a gay veterans group to march in the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, according to Brian Mahoney, the group’s commander. “It’s awesome. It’s outstanding,” said Bryan Bishop, founder of OUTVETS, the first openly gay group to be allowed to march in the parade after a two-decade-long controversy. Bishop was credited by Mahoney as having swayed the board. Bishop told the Herald that when he spoke to the nine-member council last night and gave his pitch, he didn’t think it could have gone worse and was shocked when...

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...