Photo Credit: NY Daily News

By Fares Akram. Gaza’s Hamas rulers prevented a group of children from entering Israel on Sunday for a postwar conciliatory trip meant to foster peace, Hamas and organizers said.

The 37 children, most of whom have lost a parent in fighting between Hamas and Israel, were to enter Israel on Sunday and spend a week visiting Jewish and Arab communities and a zoo. They were also going to travel to the West Bank for a meeting with the Palestinian president.

But a bus carrying the children and their adult chaperones was turned back when it reached the main crossing between Gaza and Israel. Hamas spokesman Eyad Bozum said the decision was made “to protect the culture of our children and our people” from normalizing relations with Israel. He said Hamas would make sure such a trip “will never happen again”. . .

Yoel Marshak, an Israeli organizer, said the visit was meant to a show a positive side of Israel and promote peace. (Read more on why Hamas stopped Palestinian children from their Israel peace trip HERE)

_____________________________________________

UAW Teachers Branch Joins Israel Boycott

By Sean Higgins. A local branch of the United Auto Workers has become the first U.S. labor organization to join the international movement to boycott Israel, according to liberal groups.

UAW Local 2865, which represents teaching assistants at the University of California, voted to join it on Dec. 4, saying that Israel was engaging in “ongoing human rights violations” against the Palestinians.

A total of 66 percent of the members backed joining the movement, which supporters call “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.” Only 2,168 members participated in the Dec. 4 vote, a small fraction of Local 2865’s reported 13,000 members.

The ballot language asked members to support the boycott and to call on both the university and the UAW to join in by “divest[ing] their investments, including pension funds, from Israeli state institutions and international companies complicit in severe and ongoing human rights violations as part of the Israeli oppression of Palestinian people.” It also called on UAW and the university not to do business with any such companies and for the federal government to end economic aid to the country. (Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Photo Credit: KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP / Getty Images

A Kansas school blocked a seventh-grader from handing out fliers inviting students to join her in prayer at the school’s flagpole.

Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano called the school’s ban “so obviously wrong and misguided,” noting that students “theoretically” have the same constitutional rights as anyone else.

“Schools can restrain speech if the speech is disruptive,” Napolitano said. “But when the speech is not disruptive and when it’s especially protected by the Constitution, like speech about religion or speech about non-religion, they cannot interfere with it.”

The school issued a statement to Fox News outlining its policy, which prohibits the distribution of religious material on school property before, during and after the school day.

Napolitano says this is unconstitutional unless the school can show that the “mere distribution” interferes with school activity. Napolitano does not believe it has done so. (Read more about the child who was stopped from handing out fliers for religious event HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Photo Credit: AP

Want to get your New Year started off right? Let’s recap 2014′s biggest blunders from the left. (Why only seven? Our time is limited.)

7. The child migrant crisis at the border. The Obama administration floated an amnesty for young illegal immigrants, preventing the removal of people who would have benefited from the DREAM Act — which Congress pointedly refused to pass — by executive fiat. Tens of thousands of teenagers and families from Central America came across the border, including unaccompanied minors.

Coincidence? The 1986 amnesty and six smaller subsequent amnesties were followed by an increase, not a decrease, in illegal immigration. Additionally, the Obama administration was warned at least a year in advance, according to The Washington Post, that a border crisis was brewing. Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions said “the rising crisis at the border is the direct and predictable result of actions taken by President Obama.”

Conditions in the country of origin aren’t likely to change soon. Neither are the conditions here in the United States. After the midterm elections, Obama made his proposed executive amnesty a reality. It’s not clear what, if anything, congressional Republicans will do about it in the New Year.

6. The Democrats’ abortion obsession backfired. The tide finally turned in the “war on women.” Democrat Wendy Davis ran for governor of Texas, of all places, on the color of her running shoes and the strength of her support for late-term abortion. Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall campaigned for reelection with a heavy emphasis on abortion and his challenger’s supposed desire to ban birth control. (Read the rest of the liberal fails HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

By Michelle Mankin. There’s no candy coating the truth: Obamacare has had a very terrible, horrible, crappy, none-too-happy year. What it really means is that the victims of Obamacare — taxpayers, health care consumers, health care providers, employers and employees — have had a hellish, nightmarish 2014.

Let’s start with premiums. President Candy Land promised that he’d “lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year.” But premiums for people in the individual market for health insurance have spiked over the last year. In fact, Forbes health policy journalist Avik Roy and the Manhattan Institute analyzed 3,137 counties and found that individual market premiums rose an average of 49 percent.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services itself admitted this month that average premiums will rise at least five percent for the lowest-cost plans offered by federal Obamacare health care exchanges. Democrats’ reaction? Obamacare rate shock doesn’t matter … because government is redistributing the burden and taxpayers are footing the bill! HHS crowed this week that nearly 90 percent of exchange enrollees received public subsidies in order to pay their premiums. (Read more about Obamacare’s horrible year HERE)

__________________________________________________

Minnesota Companies Score Obamacare Exemptions

By Tom Steward. Do you believe in miracles? Ask Greg Hall, whose company supplied technology and know-how that helped rescue 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for more than two months in 2010.

Almost as miraculous, Hall’s American Manufacturing Company just received a permanent federal exemption from provisions of the Affordable Care Act that contradict the Catholic deacon and businessman’s religious convictions.

“I’m very happy. Obviously, it was not a battle we wanted to join, but we felt we had to and so we did,” said Hall about his St. Joseph company. “We’re pleased that we’re able to continue to offer our employees medical insurance without the areas that violated our Catholic conscience.”

Christmas came early for seven Minnesota business owners, once faced with the dilemma of violating their religious convictions or paying massive fines to the Internal Revenue Service. (Read more from this story HERE)
___________________________________________________

Obamacare Employer Mandate Takes Effect Today

By Rick Moran. The Obamacare employer mandate that requires companies with more than 100 employees to offer insurance coverage to 70% of them goes into effect January 1, 2015. Those companies with between 50 and 100 employees will be forced to offer coverage next year.

The employer mandate was delayed a year for political reasons. Employers are not expected to have a problem covering employees, but the reporting requirements to the IRS are a nightmare. . .

Massive confusion is likely this tax season as employers and individuals alike will struggle with new forms and new requirements. This will be a boon to tax prep firms like H&R Block, who have been advertising their expertise in Obamacare compliance. (Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Photo Credit: Breitbart

By Matthew Boyle. “We’ve had nonstop Jeb Bush talk the last two weeks,” Levin said in an email to Breitbart News late Tuesday evening. “Is there a reason why he’s silent now about the GOP leadership debacle in the House? They are his supporters after all.”

Reached earlier in the day by phone, Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said, when asked for her boss’s thoughts on the scandal, that she hadn’t spoken with Bush about it yet. But she promised to track him down sometime on Tuesday and get a statement to Breitbart News about it later in the day—a statement that still hasn’t materialized.

Levin’s right that Bush’s silence about this GOP leadership scandal is intriguing since Bush was the talk of the political world in the days leading up to this scandal. Right after he announced he was actively exploring a run for the presidency in 2016, he topped a CNN-ORC poll of potential GOP candidates.

The poll found Bush far and away leading the pack of potential GOP candidates in a primary, with 23 percent of support. The next best potential candidate was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with 13 percent, followed by Dr. Ben Carson with 7 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tied with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) with 6 percent. (Read more on whether Jeb Bush stands with Boehner HERE)

____________________________________________________________

Why Jeb Bush Can’t Bypass Conservatives

By W. James Antle. Before Jeb Bush announced he was “actively exploring” a presidential bid came news he was just as actively seeking a way to avoid appealing to conservatives. (The Bushies prefer the word “pandering.”)

The would-be King Bush III consulted one of the country’s foremost experts on excelling in the Republican Party without being too conservative: Arizona Sen. John McCain.

“I just said to him, ‘I think if you look back, despite the far right’s complaints, it is the centrist that wins the nomination,’” McCain told Bush, according to The New York Times. (Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Photo Credit: Free Patriot

By Jason Howerton. Police officers fatally shot a suspect in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday night after he allegedly tried to “run down a couple cops” with his vehicle.

Officers were initially attempting to arrest the man for making terroristic threats against law enforcement officials in rants posted on YouTube, according to police.

Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood told reporters officers were trying to serve an arrest warrant at a home in Clifton, Pennsylvania, when they saw the suspect leaving the scene, according to WPVI-TV. Officers pursued the suspect, but they tried to stop him in his vehicle, he allegedly tried to run over the cops.

It was reported that several officers fired shots at the suspect, killing him. Officers with the Clifton Heights, Upper Darby and Haverford Police Departments were reportedly involved in the incident, which unfolded at around 4:35 p.m. on Tuesday. (Read more about the suspect who threatened to kill cops HERE)

______________________________________________________

NYC Mayor de Blasio’s Pick for NYPD Oversight Board Linked to Group in Cop-Killer Video

By Evin Gahr. The lawyer who chairs the New York City agency responsible for investigating police brutality allegations has ties to the federally funded legal-aid group featured in a cop-killer video.

Richard Emery, chairman of the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board and his own civil-rights law firm, told The Daily Signal that any perceived conflict of interest is absurd.

Bronx Defenders, which received at least $1.5 million from the Obama Justice Department since 2009, says on its website that assistance from Emery’s firm, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff and Abady, “makes the work we do possible.” (Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.