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If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door. If you’re a member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving. [snip] Obama’s seeking a renewal...

Students at the University of Washington in Tacoma are getting an object lesson in the value of a dollar. As economic dominoes fall in the wake of a municipal minimum wage hike to $15 per hour in Seattle, university students find themselves digging deeper into their pockets to cover higher prices resulting from the mandate

Norway ranks as the world's best place to be a mother, well ahead of the United States which dropped to the 33rd spot in the annual scorecard released by Save the Children on Monday. Somalia is the worst place, just below the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. Save the Children released its 16th annual Mothers' Index, which rates 179 countries based on five indicators related to maternal health, education, income levels and the status of women. This year, the United States dropped from number 31 on the list to 33, behind Japan, Poland and Croatia....

The critically lambasted musical from composer Lucy Simon, lyricists Michael Korie and Amy Powers and book writer Michael Weller, will shutter Sunday, May 10 at the Shubert-owned Broadway Theatre, having played 26 preview and 23 regular performances. The show is staged by Tony winner Des McAnuff (Jersey Boys, The Who’s Tommy) and choreographed by Kelly Devine.

Stepping up pressure on the California Legislature to raise the tobacco tax, a coalition of health groups said Monday it will begin circulating petitions to put an initiative on the November 2016 ballot to hike the levy on cigarettes. The initiatives would raise the tobacco tax by $2 per pack of cigarettes to raise $1.5 billion annually for smoking prevention and smoking-related medical costs now borne by taxpayers through Medi-Cal, the state's healthcare program for the poor. The filing is by the group Save Lives California Coalition, which includes the American Heart Assn., American Lung Assn. in California, American Cancer...

Some of Hillary Clinton's defenders have taken to saying that voters shouldn't pay attention to the latest Clinton scandals -- the gushing of often undisclosed millions to the Clintons and their organizations by characters seeking official favors -- because the charges are just one more in a long series: Whitewater, the Rose law firm billing records, the Buddhist temple fundraising, the Lippo Group. So, the theory goes, because the Clintons have been accused of so many scandalous doings before, people shouldn't be concerned now about Secretary Clinton's actions that helped certain donors turn over 20 percent of U.S. uranium reserves...

The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision on last week allowing a Chicago-area gun and magazine ban to stand. Such bans are justifiable, according to the court, merely on the basis that they “may increase the public’s sense of safety.” The case, Friedman v. Highland Park, was filed in 2013, and sought to invalidate a city ordinance that banned “assault weapons or large capacity magazines (those that can accept more than ten rounds).” [..] Remarkably, the majority went on to suggest that even if the ban’s incursion on Second Amendment rights had no beneficial effect on safety...

Maine may be the most likely state to pass constitutional carry next.  The state is one of those which has has preserved open carry without government permission, though that applies to over 60% of the states.   In addition, it has a quirky shall issue permit system that gives a little bit of arbitrary power, in the form of a "good moral character" requirement, to local police or to elected officials, if there is no police chief.  The system was created in 1985, one of the early "shall issue" laws. These characteristics have lead to an effective campaign to reform...

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Definition of Sola Scriptura Sola Scriptura: the reformed Protestant belief that the Scriptures alone are the final and only infallible authority for the Christian. This does not mean that Scriptures are the only authority (nuda or solo Scriptura), as Protestants believe in the authority of tradition, reason, experience, and emotions to varying degrees (after all, “sola scriptura” itself is an authoritative tradition in Protestantism). It does mean that Scripture trumps all other authorities (it is the norma normans sed non normata Lat. “norm that norms which is not normed”). Controversy of Sola Scriptura Sometimes people get the idea that sola...

On Sunday, two Islamic gunmen enraged by a Muslim cartoon contest opened fire at Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas. The were immediately killed by good guys with guns. On Monday, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America launched a new gun control push, complete with a PSA asking mothers to call other mothers and talk to them about locking up their guns.

.... I'm delighted that the Administration and Board of Gordon College has not eliminated a prohibition of “homosexual practice” from its Life and Conduct Statement in the face of an unwarranted accreditation attack. Nevertheless, the present situation does not appear to me to be as rosy as David French (a lawyer who has advised President Lindsay and Gordon College) depicted it in his May 1 National Review online article, “Gordon College Keeps Its Faith and Its Accreditation.” ..... The New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) may have left Gordon alone for the time being but only because they...

A commenter wrote: I was not aware that Newman concedes the point that there was no bishop in Rome during that period and I am surprised to hear that! Could you possibly reference that for me? I’m working with the 1989 edition, published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Newman (p. 12) in discussing the Rule of Vincent of Lerins (what was believed always, everywhere, by all — which he single-handedly dismissed) is quoting an imaginary Anglican interlocutor on the discrepancies in teaching from the time of the early church to his time in the 19th century: I shall...

HOUSTON - It's the middle of the night and your house is being invaded by armed men with guns who plan to take you hostage and take what they want. What are you going to do now? What you decide to do in the next 15 minutes could save your life and the lives of your loved ones, or end in tragedy and death. A special team of security experts with decades of experience -- Jim Napolitano, a former U.S. Secret Service agent, and Col. Bernie McCabe, former member of United States Special Operations -- is going to teach you...

A lone black hole is, unsurprisingly, black. For a more dramatic view, though, zip on over to the Milky Way's centre, the home of a supermassive black hole nearly four million times more massive than the Sun. The black hole's gravity has gathered lots of gas and dust, which has accumulated into a disc that's spiralling into the hole – circling the drain, so to speak. As the material gets consumed, friction heats it up to billions of degrees, producing lots of radiation, and outflows of energy and charged particles. The hot disc would be quite a sight. As for...

The sun is almost completely blank. The main driver of all weather and climate, the entity which occupies 99.86% of all of the mass in our solar system, the great ball of fire in the sky has gone quiet again during what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century. The sun's X-ray output has flatlined in recent days and NOAA forecasters estimate a scant 1% chance of strong flares in the next 24 hours. Not since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots. We are currently...

Wal-Mart issued a statement Monday to TPM dismissing "rumors" that tunnels were being built by the U.S. military beneath closed stores in an attempt to launch a takeover of Texas. "There’s no truth to the rumors," Wal-Mart spokesperson Lorenzo Lopez told TPM via email. The tunnels are part of a series of conspiracy theories surrounding "Jade Helm 15," a military training operation set to take place later this year in seven Western states. The conspiracy theorists have said the operation may be part of a covert attempt to takeover Texas and other states. In response to the theories, Texas Gov....

On Sunday evening, two men were shot and killed outside the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas where a cartoon contest was underway featuring depictions of the prophet Mohammed. At the time, we reported that ISIS had taken credit for what ultimately appears to have been a botched attempt to carry out an attack similar to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo in France:  And while the FBI did not have any immediate comments or speculation on the reason behind the attack, according to the Site intel group, overnight it was Islamic State supporters who took "credit" for the bungled shooting...

Adrian Bayford reportedly bought Samantha Burbidge at least ten horses Ex postman also purchased £1.5m arena in Norfolk and fleet of horseboxes Friends say sudden interest in horse riding is all for showjumping partner Couple became engaged after six-week romance following Mr Bayford's split from wife Gillian, 15 months after lottery win A lottery winner who split from his wife after they scooped a £148 million jackpot has splashed out £2milllion on horses and stables for his 28-year-old fiancée, it has been claimed. Adrian Bayford, 44, who became the second biggest lottery winner in British history in 2012, has reportedly...

Reports on the terrorist attack on the "Draw Muhammed" art competition in Garland, Texas indicate that the two jihadis, armed with "assault rifles" and wearing "protective gear," were very quickly neutralized (within seconds of initiating their attack) by a Garland traffic cop armed with only a handgun. The bad guys rolled up at the site, exited their vehicle, and immediately opened fire on a police car at the entrance. They were able only to wound an unarmed security officer before the traffic officer engaged them and terminated the threat (and, in the process, their worthless lives).