A 5-year-old boy in Kentucky shot and killed his 2-year-old sister on Tuesday while playing with a .22 caliber rifle that he was given as a gift, state police said in a statement.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, the shooting happened at the family’s home in Cumberland County around 1 p.m. The 2-year-old girl was later pronounced dead at Cumberland County Hospital.




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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/01/kentucky-5-year-old-gets-rifle-as-gift-and-shoots-2-year-old-sister-dead/

WISCONSIN — Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the latest GOP champion of an immigration reform bill in the House of Representatives, used an offensive term for undocumented people while touring town halls in Wisconsin this week to deliver the conservative pitch for comprehensive immigration reform.


Across Wisconsin, Ryan’s presentation emphasized achieving border security goals and universal E-Verify before moving undocumented immigrants to a “probationary” status. His embrace of a path to citizenship is certainly a shift away from the “self-deportation” immigration position Ryan campaigned on as a vice presidential candidate. But in responding to a skeptical participant at an Burlington, Wisconsin town hall, Ryan used the derogatory term “anchor babies” to describe the American-born children of undocumented immigrants, who are citizens under the 14th Amendment:








http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/05/01/1945601/paul-ryan-anchor-babies/

Scraping the BOTTOM of the Tea Barrel.

'TEA PARTY SUPPORT'....Working Hard to Elect Democrats!!...








Todd Cefaratti of the Tea Party Leadership Fund sent out has sent out a fundraising email urging tea partiers to give his group money so that he could recruit Sarah Palin to run for Senate in Alaska. Cefaratti, who apparently hasn’t kept up with current events much since the 2008 election, wrote, “You and I both know that Sarah Palin is a fighter who will stand up to Harry Reid and his pals in the Senate to protect our Constitution in issues like amnesty, gun control and our nation’s crushing debt. We know that, with Sarah in the Senate, conservatives across America can rest a little easier at night knowing that she’s at the watch.” You may be familiar with the Tea Party Leadership Fund from an incredibly annoying ad that features a beeping alarm clock, and sixty seconds of complete lies about Congress coming to take away your guns.



There are several problems with what the tea partiers are suggesting. First, Sarah Palin has repeatedly demonstrated that she has no idea what is in the constitution, so relying on her to protect your constitutional rights probably isn’t the best plan. Secondly, Sarah Palin was such a fighter that she could handle the ethic complaints filed against her in Alaska, so she resigned halfway through her only term in office. I believe the word Mr. Cefaratti meant to use was quitter, not fighter. Thirdly, the other reason why Palin quit as governor was that she thought she was a big star, and couldn’t wait to get out of Alaska. In fact, Palin spends most of her time in Arizona now. She really doesn’t live in Alaska anymore.



There is also the little fact that Alaskans really don’t like Sarah Palin. Palin is so unpopular in Alaska that a February 2013 poll found that she would lose the state to Hillary Clinton by 16 points. Her approval rating in the state is 37%. In many ways, this is typical tea party behavior. They are trying to recruit an ignorant, uneducated, ideological candidate to run in a state where she isn’t popular because they are under the delusional belief that she could win. There is no such thing as being too extremist or too dumb for the tea party.




cont'





http://www.politicususa.com/tea-party-palin-senate.html

.....But Bankers get a free pass...



In the latest act in the ongoing drama pitting federal drug laws against state legislation permitting the sale of marijuana, a U.S. attorney is threatening the landlords housing medical marijuana dispensaries with 40 years in federal prison. After ballot measures legalizing the sale and possession of recreational pot use passed in Colorado and Washington state, we wondered whether Obama’s second term would see the beginning of the end of the federal war on drugs.



But as the San Jose crackdown, among others, suggests, the Justice Department will not be backing down. In January, Southern California medical marijuana dispensary operator Aaron Sandusky was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for running a business deemed legal in his state since California legalized marijuana for qualified patients, caregivers and collectives in 1996 and 2003. Now, as the East Bay Express reported, “a new round of actions against lawful medical cannabis dispensaries in the South Bay” has begun following crackdowns in 2011:






The second-term Obama administration was presented an aperture to push back against the ruinous war on drugs. The Department of Justice is choosing to continue to act against good reason and the general will.





http://www.salon.com/2013/04/30/feds_threaten_medical_pot_dispensaries_with_40_year_sentences/

.

Of course, it was in response to something Glenn Beck had said but it’s a start. Last Friday, Beck was speaking to a group of students at NYU when he told them that he had left Fox News to save his soul. Turns out that Beck, as usual, was twisting the truth to fit into his own little fantasy narrative. He told the students:





Norma Desmond? Um…. okay. I wonder if Beck realizes that Norma Desmond was a kook, nutty as a fruitcake, one coke short of a Happy Meal… you know, insane. Maybe it was a true Freudian slip? In any case, Beck’s claim that leaving Fox was something he did to protect his soul isn’t exactly the reality of the situation. It turns out, as Mike Allen of Politico found, that Beck’s departure was an attempt to save a completely different part of Beck’s anatomy. Allen emailed Fox for a reaction to Beck’s self-serving tale and received the following (from an understandably anonymous spokesperson) in reply:






The exodus of advertisers was in response to a campaign by the group, Color Of Change. They, like many Americans with a soul, were upset about Beck’s racist rhetoric. They began calling and sending emails and letters to advertisers on Beck’s eponymous show. So many of them dumped the show that it had to run with no ads for a short time in the U.K. (why would they ever watch Beck there?). This campaign went on for months until Beck finally announced his departure from Fox 2 years ago. Since then, he has found a niche online where the terminally paranoid can put on their tin foil hats and watch their hero rant about his rich fantasy world.




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http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/04/30/the-whole-story-fox-reveals-why-glenn-beck-really-left/

ENGLISH SUBTITLES - 57:15
A Must Watch!





Film by Peter Vlemmix.

Control on our daily lives increases and privacy is disappearing.
How is this exactly happening and in which way will it effect all our lives? A film about the rise of the surveillance state into your life.

Made in Holland, this film was an instant online buzz with over 80.000 Vimeo views.

While answering a question about the sequestration cuts, Colbert-Busch said, "when we talk about fiscal spending and we talk about protecting the taxpayers, it doesn't mean you take that money we saved and leave the country for a personal purpose." The comment, referring to Sanford's euphemistic hike down the Appalachian Trail that actually turned out to be a trip to Argentina, drew a healthy mixture of cheers and boos from the crowd in attendance. When Sanford resisted the urge to jump in with a response, one of the moderators said, "She went there, Governor Sanford."

"I couldn't hear what she said," Sanford replied, drawing huge laughs from the audience thinking he may be deflecting the issue with a joke. When the laughter died down, he stuck with his story, saying, "Can you repeat it? I didn't hear it, I'm sorry."

YA RIGHT!




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The National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation each began running radio ads Monday in New Hampshire commending and thanking Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) for her opposition to legislation that would have expanded background checks on gun buyers, the Washington Post reported.



In the NRA's spot, Ayotte is hailed as someone who "cares about protecting our kids." “She knows the only way to prevent tragedies like Sandy Hook is to fix our broken mental health system," the ad's narrator said. "That’s why Kelly Ayotte brought Republicans and Democrats together on a bipartisan solution. And it’s why Kelly had the courage to oppose misguided gun-control laws that would not have prevented Sandy Hook.”



According to WaPo, the NRA's ad is slated to run on several popular talk and music radio stations. The ad from NSSF, a national trade association for the firearms industry, took a thinly veiled shot at New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), whose group "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" had pressured Ayotte to vote in favor of the gun bill that fizzled in the Senate earlier this month.









http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/nra-runs-ads-thanking-sen-ayotte-for-no

Now, that's a loyal pal.

In this very sad, yet heartwarming video, a sick-at-heart pooch is 'mourning' the death of a beloved but unlikely friend: A beaver named Beavis.

According to YouTube user "Jack Bdead" who uploaded the video, Beavis and Bella the dog had played and lived together "for quite a while" before Beavis died last year.

"Bella has been in mourning for hours," the YouTuber said. Though first published when Beavis breathed his last in July 2012, the moving video has experienced a viral resurgence this week.




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/26/dog-mourns-beaver-video_n_3166292.html

Saturday morning on MSNBC, Dave Zirin of The Nation questioned why former President George W. Bush had not been held accountable for alleged war crimes.


His remarks came amid a discussion on the U.S. response to terrorism on the Melissa Harris-Perry Show.






cont'


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/28/msnbc-guest-dave-zirin-why-is-bush-not-on-trial-for-war-crimes/