A federal investigation has been launched after video footage showing a group of Atlanta gang members brutally beating a gay Atlanta teenager went viral this week.

In what started out as a local investigation, has now gone federal, and now the feds are looking into whether the guys were performing a hate crime in the shocking video footage (below).

The 30-second video clip, which was posted to f**kery central WorldStarHipHop, shows a young man dressed in all black getting ambushed and pummeled by at least 3 other men as he exits a convenience store.

The victim is then set upon by three men who punch and stomp him while he tries to cover his head. One of the attackers–who is wearing a shirt with “Jack Gang” imprinted on the back–even strikes the victim in the head with a tire.

As the man is beaten, the giggling cameraman announces, four times, “No faggots in Jack City.” An onlooker can be heard saying, “No faggot, man.” The video ends after one assailant picks up the victim’s cell phone and then punches the man in the head while holding the device.

[The Smoking Gun]

Officials aren’t sure when the video was recorded, but Atlanta police were made aware of the shocking video footage shortly after it was posted, and have now located the victim, who, along with his family, is fully cooperating with the investigation.

“Atlanta police investigators were able to locate the victim … who gave a statement to investigators,” Atlanta Police Department spokesman Carlos Campos said in a statement Tuesday night.

“We’re looking into the possibility of it being a federal hate crime,” FBI spokesman Stephen Emmett told the AJC on Tuesday.

Police say they’re still looking for the thugs in the video, and are asking anyone with information to call Zone 3 police officers at 404-624-0674 or call anonymously to Crime Stoppers Atlanta at 404-577-8477.

[TSG, AJC]

22-year-old Andrew Toothman was cuffed by State Police troopers after they responded to a 911 call from the World IGA market in Neon, a small Kentucky town with a population of less than 1,000 residents.

According to The Smoking Gun:

A court citation filed yesterday notes that Toothman–who was only wearing a pair of black boots–had “peanut butter and chocolate smeared all over person.”

Troopers noted that the store’s front door was “busted out,” and that several fire extinguishers had been discharged. Peanut butter and chocolate were also spread on the market’s floor and in the manager’s office.

But the most bizarre bit of vandalism, investigators reported, involved NyQuil, the popular cold and flu remedy. “There was nyquil on the floor that spelled out sorry,” according to the February 2 citation.

After admitting to breaking into the market, the naked peanut butter & chocolate burglar was charged with burglary, criminal mischief and indecent exposure, and is currently being held on $25,000 bond.

No word on why Mr. Toothman broke into a grocery store and smeared peanut butter and chocolate all over his naked body instead of just stealing stuff, like normal people … but we do have a couple of questions:

1.) What does his family think about this?
2.) Was he naked BEFORE or AFTER he broke into the store?
3.) Why did he take off everything, except for his black boots?
4.) Why was he even wearing black boots?
5.) What was up with the whole Nyquil and ‘sorry’ thing? Who was he apologizing to?
5.) Is he naked in his mugshot?

Sadly … we’ll never get the answers to these, but it never hurts to ask, does it?

SMH…

A 36-year-old personal trainer could serve up to 15 years behind bars for giving a teenage client too much of a work-out:

A personal trainer collapsed in court after she was jailed for having sex with a 14-year-old boy during a two year affair.

Suni Faith Anderson fainted and hit her head on a table after Judge Eric Ludlow told her she would serve up to 15 years.

Anderson, 36, was revived by court staff and wept as she was led away from a court in St George, Utah.

Earlier her teen victim’s mother had stood up in court and blasted Anderson for corrupting her son.

‘This is a picture of my son when he was 14 years old,’ the victim’s mother said while holding up a photo of her son.

‘Look. Suni, look! Does this look like someone a 34-year-old adult woman would want to have a relationship with?

The mother later called Anderson ‘the worst kind of pedophile’. She revealed police had secretly recorded Anderson telling her son ‘Well, you learned a whole lot, didn’t you?’

Anderson’s husband Jason, who had pleaded for leniency, was in court to see his wife jailed.

The personal trainer began a sexual relationship with the boy, then aged 14, when he visited her home for training sessions.

The affair lasted two years until the boy’s parents found about the relationship and contacted police.

The teen gave evidence against his former lover and told how everyone in his school knew about the affair.

‘I have to walk through the halls of my high school knowing that people know what happened, wondering what they’re thinking,’ he said.

The teen said Anderson had made sexual advances towards him before they slept together when he would visit her house for fitness sessions.

Andersen pleaded guilty in November to two second-degree felony counts of forcible sexual abuse. As part of a plea deal, eight other felony counts were dismissed.

She was jailed for one to 15 years and will be placed on a register of sex offenders. Her husband, also a personal trainer, had told the court they had lost several jobs since her arrest and were no longer allowed to work with youths.

[DM]

We still don’t get why all these older women are creeping around with young boys? Are there not enough grown men out there? Do these young boys have more stamina and listen better?

Whatever the deal is…it’s getting old and it never ends well for anybody. We think they should start holding the kids accountable as well…as if they don’t know what’s going on (Yeah right!).

You rarely hear about some teenage kid going to the authorities before it turns into a sexual relationship….it’s always waaayyy after the fact! (Like in this case: 2 years!)

Fellas….have any of you slept with this woman?!?

If so … sorry! :(

Read more at The Sun

This is NOT a joke!

Roseanne Barr has filed official paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run as a Green Party nominee for President of the United States, according to various confirmed reports.

The actress/comedian revealed the news on Twitter Thursday:

I am running for Green Party nominee for POTUS. I am an official candidate. I am4 the Greening of America&the world. Green=peace/justice

— Roseanne Barr (@TheRealRoseanne) February 2, 2012

Barr joins current Green Party nominees Kent Mesplay, Jill Stein and Harley Mikkelson, with the official candidate set to be announced at the Green Party Presidential Nominating Convention in July.

Roseanne says she’s sick of the Democrats and Republicans not working in the best interests of the American people, and she wants to bring some serious change to how things are done in the White House.

In a campaign-announcement speech she delivered in May 2010, Barr outlined a very ambitious three-step platform: First, to make war illegal and legalize hemp (including marijuana). Second, change the demographics of government to include more women. And third, outlaw “bull.”

“After the passage of this one law, the Patriarchy will inevitably begin to crumble, as will the concept of War itself, which is largely a large load of, well, bull,” Barr said in her speech last year.

In a more recent statement posted to the Green party Watch website this week, Barr says, “Both the Democratic and Republican parties are bought and paid for by corporate America and cater to the needs of the highest bidder as opposed to the people they claim to represent. I cannot be bought.”

Would you vote for Roseanne Barr for President?

This so many different types of wrong:

A 74-year-old man died after he accidentally swallowed his dentures during sex with a 62-year-old prostitute in Taiwan, reported Nanyang Siang Pau.

The man, known as Chen, had been living with a close female friend in New Taipei City after separating from his wife many years ago.

The prostitute said she had sex with Chen for 30 minutes.

She said Chen had got up from the bed, paid her and was about to put on his clothes when he suddenly collapsed.

“He fell back onto the bed. His eyes were open but he was not moving although I shook his body and tried to wake him up,” said the woman, who called the rescue team.

Chen was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Doctors later found his dentures stuck in his throat.

[Source]

There’s a serious lesson to learn from all this: dentures, prostitution and old age don’t mix very well! (At least one of them have to be taken out of the equation.)

A New York City mother was thrown in jail earlier this week after she abandoned her two young daughters on a street in Brooklyn in the cold with just a few diapers on the clothes on their backs.

26-year-old Dalisha Adams from Brooklyn, NYC was cuffed late Sunday night after two women called police earlier in the day after they found her two daughters — 3-year-old Dioni and 5-year-old Domini — alone in front of a housing complex Sunday afternoon.

Due to their extremely young age, the toddlers were said to be (obviously) completely unaware of the situation at hand, and seemed shaken up and visibly confused as to why their mother would just leave them in the street to fend for themselves.

To make matters even worse, according to the NY Daily News, the street where Dalisha Adams abandoned her daughters is right down the street from where their paternal grandmother lives.

Dalisha Adams pictured with the two adorable daughters she carelessly left stranded in Brooklyn.

“I would have took them,” said the girl’s grandmother Bertha Davis, who told the Daily News that she didn’t even know what was going on until she read the story on the front page of the paper.

Davis says her son Shawn Cobbs (the girls’ father, who has been accused by Adams of domestic violence) had an argument with Adams over the kids early Sunday.

“She wanted him to take the kids, and he told her he didn’t have a stable place to take the kids,” Davis said. “She must have got mad, dressed them kids and brought them here.”

There were no signs of physical abuse, though neighbors said Adams was known to curse and yell at the kids, and was overheard screaming at the girls just hours before she ditched them on the side of the road just a mile-and-a-half away from their home.

“She was always yelling at the kids, ‘Shut the f**k up,’” one neighbor said. “One day, I heard her curse out the little baby, ‘I’ll punch you in the f**king face.’”

Officer Billy Morales and his partner Ed Centeno pictured here with the girls after two elderly women found them helpless and alone on the side of the road.

The woman, who did not want to be identified, told the NY Daily News that she heard lots of shouting early Sunday afternoon right before the girls were abandoned.

“A kid was crying. She was saying, ‘Stop crying, shut the f**k up. I’m gonna get you out of here,” she said.

Other neighbors said that the girls were always clean and well dressed, but said their psycho mom would often shout at them and yank their arms.

Police say on Sunday, Adams drove the children nearly two miles away from their home in Brooklyn, and dropped them off near some housing projects where two elderly women found the young girls wandering up and down the street in the cold holding their diapers.

The older girl told the women her name was Domini and her little sister’s name was Dioni, and they lived in a “blue house with flowers in front of it on 53rd street,” but she was unable to tell them the exact borough of the city.

“Mommy just left us on the sidewalk and drove away,” 5-year-old Domini told them.

She also said that her mother’s name was Dalisha and she drove a white car. “She left [us] and she drove off,” 3-year-old Dioni told the women.

“They were calm but they were just huddled close together,” New York City police officer Edgard Centeno said. “They were standing by each other very close. They were, I guess, a little afraid that they were alone.”

Dalisha Adams posted this picture of a champagne bottle to her FAcebook page just hours after she left her two adorable young daughters on the side of a road in Brooklyn, New York City.

Just hours after dumping her daughters on the side of the road, Dalisha Adams went to a party at her friends house, and even posted a photograph of someone holding a bottle of champagne to her Facebook page.

Dalisha Adams was arrested after she abandoned her two daughters nearly 2 miles away from their home in Brooklyn, New York.

Police finally ID’d the children at around 10 p.m. that night, and us used a crowbar to break the door down at Breukelen Houses apartment where they say Adams lives with her two daughters.

They say an 8-year-old daughter was also staying in the home with her aunt, but Adams was nowhere to be found at the time.

Adams, who works as a security guard, apparently heard through an intermediary that cops were looking for her, and turned herself in at the NYC police precinct at around 11:30 p.m. that night.

Dalisha Adams was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor, and her girls are now in the custody of Children’s Services.

A guy named Alain de Botton — who is an accomplished atheist author — has come up with the bright idea to start an “atheist church.” (Huh?)

A collaboration with Tom Greenall Architects, the structure will be built in the City of London.

Dedicated to the idea of perspective, the black tower will scale 46 meters (150 ft), with each centimeter honoring earth’s age of 4.6 billion years, notes Wired.

But a place of worship isn’t the only attribute from organized religion that Atheists can benefit from, says de Botton. In his newly released book “Religion For Atheists,” the author points to design, art and community to inspire and attract a following.

Though de Botton has yet to announce a final date for opening the temple, he hopes to create a network of such buildings across the U.K.

[HuffPo]

A “church” for atheists to convene and practice “atheism” with each other? That has got to be one of the dumbest things we have EVER heard!

The world of music has lost another legend.

“Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius was found dead at his home in Los Angeles early Wednesday morning (Feb 1), and cops believe it was from an apparent suicide.

According to the LAPD, police responded to a call of a shooting at Cornelius’ home this morning before they found him at around 4am PST with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was 75 years old.

Don Cornelius, a former DJ and radio reporter, premiered “Soul Train” — an R&B themed youth-oriented dance show — on Chicago’s independent TV network WCIU.

The show was moved to syndication the following year when stations in several other cities started to pick it up.

When “Soul Train” moved to Los Angeles, it became a national hit before becoming an international hit, running in syndication for 25 years before going off the year in 2006.

Cornelius ended his run as host of the show in 1993, but remained its executive producer.

Over the years, the Soul Train brand expanded, and had become more popular, with awards shows like the Soul Train Music Awards, honoring R&B, jazz and gospel performers, and the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards, which focuses on female artists.

According to TMZ, Cornelius underwent a bitter divorce in 2009 and told an L.A. judge that he was experiencing “significant health issues” and wanted to finalize the divorce proceedings before he died.

The Los Angeles Times reported that there was no sign of foul play at the scene of his death, but they are still investigating.

In a 2010 interview with the Times, Mr. Cornelius said he was excited about a moving project he was developing about “Soul Train.”

“We’ve been in discussions with several people about getting a movie off the ground. It wouldn’t be the ‘Soul Train’ dance show, it would be more of a biographical look at the project,” he said. “It’s going to be about some of the things that really happened on the show.”

Soul Train, which ran for 35 years straight, is known as the longest-running first-run nationally syndicated show in television history.

This is unbelievable….

A 3 year-old boy will soon have to undergo surgery for a fetus that was formed inside of his stomach. (WTF?!?)

Doctors in Peru have found a “parasitic twin” in the stomach of a 3-year-old boy, and plan to surgically remove the tissue Monday.

Dr. Carlos Astocondor of the medical team at Las Mercedes Hospital in the northern port of Chiclayo says the condition occurs in about one of every 500,000 live births.

Astocondor will lead a team of 12 other physicians to remove the excess tissue from Isbac Pacunda in an operation that will take several hours.

He says the partially formed fetus weighs a pound and a half and is nine inches long.

Astocondor says the brain, heart, lungs and intestines never developed after the fetus was absorbed by the other fetus inside the mother’s womb. He says it has some hair on the cranium, eyes and some bones.

[CBS]

So in other words, he’s basically having an “abortion.” Wow.

We feel so bad for this little kid…..no boy or man should ever have to go through this!

Sophia Stockton — a Kansas City-area college student — ordered a used textbook about terrorism for one of her classes from Amazon, which is probably something lots of college students do. Pretty normal, right?

Wrong.

Stockton says as she was flipping through the pages of the book, a clear plastic bag with a mysterious white powdery substance fell out.

So she took the book and the bag to a nearby police station, where they discovered exactly what that “substance” was.

“I told them white powder was in my terrorism textbook and so I put it on the table and they’re like, ‘oh, okay,’ And so he went back and tested it,” Stockton recalls. “ He comes back and says, ‘you didn’t happen to order some cocaine with your textbook, did you?’ And I was like, no!”

Police officials didn’t report the incident to Amazon, but Stockton did reach out to the shopping website, though she doesn’t believe they are to blame, and will most likely continue to purchase from them in the future.

“I have ordered many times from Amazon and this is the first time I’ve seen anything like this,” Stockton told a local newspaper. “I don’t think that Amazon is at fault in this case. They can’t check every book that goes through their warehouse. I’m guessing that it (the cocaine) was just left in there by the previous owner of the book.”

Police believe there may have been up to $400 worth of cocaine in the bag, and investigators are currently trying to figure out where it may have come from.

We bet whoever that bag of coke belongs to will be pissed to find out they left it in an old book they sold to Amazon!

[NBC]

A male hospital caregiver in Logan, Utah has been accused of sexually assaulting a male patient who was intoxicated and unconscious, and police say they caught him in the act!

According to the police report (obtained by HuffPo), after responding to a call about a drunk man who had urinated and fallen asleep in a stranger’s home, cops brought in the extremely intoxicated man to the hospital and placed him in the care of 46-year-old hospital worker Hal Weston.

Logan Police Chief Gary Jensen said officers left the intoxicated man in an exam room behind a curtain for just a few short minutes as officers wrote up a report while they waited for him to wake up.

When an officer came back to check on the guy, that’s when he saw Weston performing oral sex on the blacked out patient.

“The officer walked in the room and pulled the curtain back slightly,” the report reads. “The officer observed the unconscious man laying on the hospital bed and the male caregiver performing a sexual act … The officer summoned hospital security.”

After he was (obviously) fired from his job, Weston was charged with forcible sodomy and was taken to the county jail before bailing himself out the next day.

It’s not clear what the victim’s reaction to the abuse was, however, one can imagine that he was pretty pissed about the entire situation. Who wouldn’t be after finding out a (male) hospital worker gave you head while you were knocked out drunk?

Your thoughts?

And we thought sick sh*t like this only happened in the movies…

A Florida man was recently arrested and charged with murder after killing another man and eating parts of his body, including his eye and pieces of his brain!

Tyree Lincoln Smith (pictured above) was taken into custody after his cousin turned him over to authorities.

The body of Angel Gonzalez was found on the third floor of an abandoned building in the New England town, and a medical examiner ruled the cause of death as blunt force trauma.

The perp was turned over to the police by a cousin, who claims Smith turned up at her house on December 15 and said he wanted to “get blood on his hands,” before heading to the apartment building where he used to live.

The next day, he allegedly returned to his cousin’s with not only blood on his hands – but also his pants, while carrying an ax.

He said he had been sleeping on the porch when he was awoken by a Hispanic man, who he invited inside and then ferociously beat around the head and face, before plucking out one of his eyes, and removing brain matter and skull fragments.

[Radar Online]

According to the police report, the deranged killer took the victim’s body parts to a nearby cemetery where he ate them.

“At the cemetery he said he ate the eyeball, which tasted like an oyster, and the brain matter,” the affidavit stated.

What. The. F**k?!?

Just thinking about the gory details of this sick man’s crime makes us want to throw up in our mouths. The world may be coming to an end this year after-all, folks!

Not such a Smooth criminal, eh?

Michael Jackson was recently arrested for pickpocketing at a Moscow subway station.

A 50 year-old Canadian man (who goes by the same name as the late pop star) was caught by cops stealing a wallet from a woman’s purse.

“Standing on the platform, the man stole a wallet from the purse of one of the passengers. Police officers witnessed the crime – they arrested the thief red-handed.”

Jackson was taken to the fifth police department for further investigation. The Investigative Committee of the Interior Affairs Department of the Moscow Metro filed a criminal case against the Canadian national in accordance with Part 2, Article 158 of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation (Theft). The police are currently investigating the Canadian’s involvement in other similar crimes.

[Source]

We bet some of you really thought we were talking about the real MJ at first. No, silly! (LOL)

Police in Florida say a 15-year-old girl called 911 to report that her mother was having sex with her boyfriend, and that she could hear them loud and clear.

According to the police report (obtained by The Smoking Gun), the snitch teenage girl and her mother were questioned at their Panama City home, where they had gotten into a “verbal altercation.”

Acknowledging that “there was no form of abuse or neglect in the house,” the girl (who sounds like a total nark!) told responding officers that she “felt disrespected” by her mom, and wanted to go to a local Christian children’s shelter “because she heard her mother having sex.”

The girl’s 35-year-old mother explained to police that she had invited her boyfriend over and “sometime during the visit, her daughter heard them having sex and became upset,” adding that their bedrooms are right next door to each other and she and her lover had no intentions on waking up her narky, dramatic daughter.

After she talked with a representative from the Children’s shelter, the prudish teenager decided against going, on account of she didn’t want to be late for school.

Sounds like this naive little girl needs to grow up, get a life, and find her own boyfriend to have sex with.

A Georgia mother was recently arrested and charged with misdemeanor cruelty for allowing her 10-year-old son to get a tattoo, according to Atlanta news station WSBTV.

Chuntera Napier of Cobb County says she just couldn’t say no to her son Gaquan when he asked her if he could get a tattoo in honor of his older brother who died after being hit by a car, and she had no idea that allowing him to do so was illegal.

“It made me feel good to know that he wanted his brother on him,” Napier said, adding that her family is still grieving the death of her 12-year-old son Malik, who was hit and killed two years ago by a teenage driver in nearby Macon County.

“My son came to me and said, ‘Mom, I want to get a tattoo with Malik on it, rest in peace.’ What do I say to a child who wants to remember his brother?” Napier said. “It’s not like he was asking me, ‘Can I get Sponge Bob? Like people getting all kinds of things on them. He asked me something that’s in remembrance of his brother. How can I say no?”

Napier said yes, and took her son to a tattoo shop in Smyrna where he got a tattoo of his brother’s name and former basketball jersey number. When asked why he wanted to get the tattoo, Gaquan said, “Because it represents my brother.”

But his mom didn’t know that due to a 2010 law, it is “unlawful for any person to tattoo the body of any person under the age of 18, except for a physician or osteopath…” which resulted in her being arrested after someone at Gaquan’s school saw the tattoo and notified authorities.

“I always thought that if a parent gave consent, then it was fine,” Napier said. “How can somebody else say that it’s not OK? He’s my child, and I have the right to say what I want for my child. I can’t go tell anybody else what I want for their child.”

While we don’t really think it’s appropriate for a 10-year-old child to get a tattoo, the fact that it was done in honor of his deceased 12-year-old brother definitely tugs at our hearts a little. And we do think it was a bit much for a mother to actually get arrested and charged with a crime over allowing her own son to get a tattoo.

What do you think?

An investigation is being launched after an unnamed man was shot ten times by Los Angeles police in broad daylight outside of a Carl’s Jr restaurant in California.

According to reports, police were called to the scene after the man smashed out several windows at the fast food restaurant.

Once the man emerged from the building … he was ordered by cops to drop his weapon, but refused to comply, which resulted in him was shot with a Tazer gun. (Which did little to nothing)

The man then retaliated and attempted to hit one of the officers with a three-foot metal pole, but before he could attack the officer who tazed him, another officer close by shot him five times.

The man was shot an additional five times after falling to the ground.

Watch the disturbing footage below:

We understand Cops having to do their jobs and wanting to protect themselves from harm, but did they have to take it this far??? We don’t think so…

President Barack Obama delivered his annual “State of the Union” address Tuesday night (Jan 24), outlining a handful of economic proposals, as well as an “economic blueprint” for the country that he says will attempt to give all Americans a “fair shot.”

In the third and last address of his first term, an upbeat President Obama gave his speech in the chamber of the House of Representatives, an arena that has been ruled by the Republican party, who makes up the majority of the House and continues to block much of his agenda.

Among the highlights of Obama’s address to the nation included several proposals, including making changes to the tax code that would not only limit deductions for companies that move jobs overseas, but also reward companies that create jobs here in the U.S. and increase taxes on wealthy Americans.

President Obama called for Congress to institute his new “Buffet Rule” — named after Berkshire Hathaway’s billionaire chairman Warren E. Buffett — which would force people who make over $1 million a year to pay a minimum effective tax rate of at least 30 percent in income taxes.

While Obama placed heavy emphasis on the economy, his speech was relatively short on national security, an area where political analysts and his own aides say his performance has been much stronger, compared to his performance with the economy.

He ended his speech by reflecting on the American assault last year that finally killed Osama bin Laden after 10 long years, recalling that fateful May 2011 day when he monitored the attack from the White House.

In addition his economic proposals, Obama also talked about putting in place new immigration laws, increasing student aid and making it so that students aren’t allowed to drop out of high school until they are at least 18 years old.

President Obama also announced the Defense Department’s brand new clean energy initiative, which he said “will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history” and has the potential to “power a quarter of a million homes a year.”

Watch Obama deliver his 2012 State of the Union address below:

TRANSCRIPT:

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought – and several thousand gave their lives.

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.

We can do this. I know we can, because we’ve done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known. My grandfather, a veteran of Patton’s Army, got the chance to go to college on the GI Bill. My grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line, was part of a workforce that turned out the best products on Earth.

The two of them shared the optimism of a Nation that had triumphed over a depression and fascism. They understood they were part of something larger; that they were contributing to a story of success that every American had a chance to share – the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What’s at stake aren’t Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.

Let’s remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. Technology made businesses more efficient, but also made some jobs obsolete. Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before, but most hardworking Americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren’t, and personal debt that kept piling up.

In 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other people’s money. Regulators had looked the other way, or didn’t have the authority to stop the bad behavior.

It was wrong. It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work, saddled us with more debt, and left innocent, hard-working Americans holding the bag. In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect.

Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. Together, we’ve agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion. And we’ve put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like this never happens again.

The state of our Union is getting stronger. And we’ve come too far to turn back now. As long as I’m President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.

No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last – an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.

This blueprint begins with American manufacturing.

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.

We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.

What’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries. It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh. We can’t bring every job back that’s left our shores. But right now, it’s getting more expensive to do business in places like China. Meanwhile, America is more productive. A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home. Today, for the first time in fifteen years, Master Lock’s unionized plant in Milwaukee is running at full capacity.

So we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.

We should start with our tax code. Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it.

So let’s change it. First, if you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home.

Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here – in America.

Third, if you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making your products here. And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers.

So, my message, my message is simple. It’s time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I will sign them right away.

We’re also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world. Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we are on track to meet that goal – ahead of schedule. Soon, there will be millions of new customers for American goods in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. Soon, there will be new cars on the streets of Seoul imported from Detroit, and Toledo, and Chicago.

Now, I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products. And I will not stand by when our competitors don’t play by the rules. We’ve brought trade cases against China at nearly twice the rate as the last administration – and it’s made a difference. Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires. But we need to do more. It’s not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated. It’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized.

Tonight, I’m announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trading practices in countries like China. There will be more inspections, more inspections to prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing our borders. And this Congress should make sure that no foreign company has an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing financing or new markets like Russia. Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you – America will always win.

I also hear from many business leaders who want to hire in the United States but can’t find workers with the right skills. Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job. Think about that – openings at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work.

It’s inexcusable. And we know how to fix it.

Jackie Bray is a single mom from North Carolina who was laid off from her job as a mechanic. Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte, and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College. The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training. It paid Jackie’s tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant.

I want every American looking for work to have the same opportunity as Jackie did. Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job. My Administration has already lined up more companies that want to help. Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, Orlando, and Louisville are up and running. Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers – places that teach people skills local businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing.

And I want to cut through the maze of confusing training programs, so that from now on, people like Jackie have one program, one website, and one place to go for all the information and help they need. It is time to turn our unemployment system into a reemployment system that puts people to work.

These reforms will help people get jobs that are open today. But to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow, our commitment to skills and education has to start earlier.

For less than one percent of what our Nation spends on education each year, we’ve convinced nearly every State in the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning – the first time that’s happened in a generation.

But challenges remain. And we know how to solve them.

At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced States to lay off thousands of teachers. We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance. Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives. Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies – just to make a difference.

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. And in return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn. That’s a bargain worth making.

We also know that when students don’t walk away from their education, more of them walk the stage to get their diploma. When students are not allowed to drop out, they do better. So tonight, I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.

When kids do graduate, the most daunting challenge can be the cost of college. At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt, this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July. Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves millions of middle-class families thousands of dollars. And give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years.

Of course, it’s not enough for us to increase student aid. We can’t just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we’ll run out of money. States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets. And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down. Now, Recently, I spoke with a group of college presidents who’ve done just that. Some schools re-design courses to help students finish more quickly. Some use better technology. The point is, it’s possible. So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can’t be a luxury – it is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

Let’s also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren’t yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else.

That doesn’t make sense.

I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That’s why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.

The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.

You see, an economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country. That means women should earn equal pay for equal work. It means we should support everyone who’s willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs.

After all, innovation is what America has always been about. Most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses. So let’s pass an agenda that helps them succeed. Tear down regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from getting the financing to grow. Expand tax relief to small businesses that are raising wages and creating good jobs. Both parties agree on these ideas. So put them in a bill, and get it on my desk this year.

Innovation also demands basic research. Today, the discoveries taking place in our federally-financed labs and universities could lead to new treatments that kill cancer cells but leave healthy ones untouched. New lightweight vests for cops and soldiers that can stop any bullet. Don’t gut these investments in our budget. Don’t let other countries win the race for the future. Support the same kind of research and innovation that led to the computer chip and the Internet; to new American jobs and new American industries.

Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, right now American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right – eight years. Not only that – last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.

But with only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, oil isn’t enough. This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy – a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.

We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. And I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.

The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.

Now, what’s true for natural gas is just as true for clean energy. In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries. Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled. And thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.

When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried that at 55, no one would give him a second chance. But he found work at Energetx, a wind turbine manufacturer in Michigan. Before the recession, the factory only made luxury yachts. Today, it’s hiring workers like Bryan, who said, “I’m proud to be working in the industry of the future.”

Our experience with shale gas, our experience with natural gas shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don’t always come right away. Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.

We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven’t acted. Well tonight, I will. I’m directing my Administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes. And I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, working with us, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history – with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.

Of course, the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy. So here’s a proposal: Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings. Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the next decade, and America will have less pollution, more manufacturing, more jobs for construction workers who need them. Send me a bill that creates these jobs.

Building this new energy future should be just one part of a broader agenda to repair America’s infrastructure. So much of America needs to be rebuilt. We’ve got crumbling roads and bridges. A power grid that wastes too much energy. An incomplete high-speed broadband network that prevents a small business owner in rural America from selling her products all over the world.

During the Great Depression, America built the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. After World War II, we connected our States with a system of highways. Democratic and Republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, from the workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today.

In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

There’s never been a better time to build, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest-hit when the housing bubble burst. Of course, construction workers weren’t the only ones who were hurt. So were millions of innocent Americans who’ve seen their home values decline. And while Government can’t fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.

And that’s why I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit, and will give those banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.

Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a Government and a financial system that do the same. It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.

We’ve all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, and buyers who knew they couldn’t afford them. That’s why we need smart regulations to prevent irresponsible behavior. Rules to prevent financial fraud, or toxic dumping, or faulty medical devices, these don’t destroy the free market. They make the free market work better.

Now, there is no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly. In fact, I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his. I’ve ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don’t make sense. We’ve already announced over 500 reforms, and just a fraction of them will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years. We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill – because milk was somehow classified as an oil. With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk.

I’m confident a farmer can contain a milk spill without a federal agency looking over his shoulder. But I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago. We will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury pollution, or making sure that our food is safe and our water is clean. I will not go back to the days when health insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women differently than men.

And I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules. The new rules we passed restore what should be any financial system’s core purpose: Getting funding to entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and getting loans to responsible families who want to buy a home, or start a business, or send a kid to college.

So if you’re a big bank or financial institution, you are no longer allowed to make risky bets with your customers’ deposits. You’re required to write out a “living will” that details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you fail – because the rest of us are not bailing you out ever again. And if you’re a mortgage lender or a payday lender or a credit card company, the days of signing people up for products they can’t afford with confusing forms and deceptive practices. Those days are over. Today, American consumers finally have a watchdog in Richard Cordray with one job: To look out for them.

We’ll also establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people’s investments. Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there’s no real penalty for being a repeat offender. That’s bad for consumers, and it’s bad for the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals who do the right thing. So pass legislation that makes the penalties for fraud count.

And tonight, I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.

A return to the American values of fair play and shared responsibility will help us protect our people and our economy. But it should also guide as we look to pay down our debt and invest in our future.

Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let’s agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay. Let’s get it done.

When it comes to the deficit, we’ve already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more, and that means making choices. Right now, we’re poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else – like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both.

The American people know what the right choice is. So do I. As I told the Speaker this summer, I’m prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors.

But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up. You’re the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You’re the ones who need relief.

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.

We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich. It’s because they understand that when I get a tax break I don’t need and the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference – like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That’s not right. Americans know that’s not right. They know that this generation’s success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to the future of their country, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That’s how we’ll reduce our deficit. That’s an America built to last.

I recognize that people watching tonight have differing views about taxes, debt; energy and health care. But no matter what party they belong to, I bet most Americans are thinking the same thing right about now: Nothing will get done this year, or next year, or maybe even the year after that, because Washington is broken.

Can you blame them for feeling a little cynical?

The greatest blow to our confidence in our economy last year didn’t come from events beyond our control. It came from a debate in Washington over whether the United States would pay its bills or not. Who benefited from that fiasco?

I’ve talked tonight about the deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street. But the divide between this city and the rest of the country is at least as bad – and it seems to get worse every year.

Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics. So together, let’s take some steps to fix that. Send me a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress, I will sign it tomorrow. Let’s limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact. Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa – an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.

Some of what’s broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days. A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything – even routine business – passed through the Senate. Neither party has been blameless in these tactics. Now both parties should put an end to it. For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a simple rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.

The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it’s inefficient, outdated and remote. That’s why I’ve asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.

Finally, none of this can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town. We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas.

I’m a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more. That’s why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and States. That’s why we’re getting rid of regulations that don’t work. That’s why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program.

On the other hand, even my Republican friends who complain the most about Government spending have supported federally-financed roads, and clean energy projects, and federal offices for the folks back home.

The point is, we should all want a smarter, more effective Government. And while we may not be able to bridge our biggest philosophical differences this year, we can make real progress. With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow. But I can do a whole lot more with your help. Because when we act together, there is nothing the United States of America can’t achieve.

That is the lesson we’ve learned from our actions abroad over the last few years.

Ending the Iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies. From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America.

From this position of strength, we’ve begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer. This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America.

As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sana’a to Tripoli. A year ago, Qadhafi was one of the world’s longest-serving dictators – a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone. And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can’t be reversed, and that human dignity cannot be denied.

How this incredible transformation will end remains uncertain. But we have a huge stake in the outcome. And while it is ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well. We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings – men and women; Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty.

And we will safeguard America’s own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests. Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.

The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe. Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever. Our ties to the Americas are deeper. Our iron-clad commitment – and I mean iron-clad — to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history. We’ve made it clear that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope. From the coalitions we’ve built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we’ve led against hunger and disease; from the blows we’ve dealt to our enemies; to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back.

Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about. That’s not the message we get from leaders around the world, who are eager to work with us. That’s not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Cape Town to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they’ve been in years. Yes, the world is changing; no, we can’t control every event. But America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs – and as long as I’m President, I intend to keep it that way.

That’s why, working with our military leaders, I have proposed a new defense strategy that ensures we maintain the finest military in the world, while saving nearly half a trillion dollars in our budget. To stay one step ahead of our adversaries, I have already sent this Congress legislation that will secure our country from the growing danger of cyber-threats.

Above all, our freedom endures because of the men and women in uniform who defend it. As they come home, we must serve them as well as they’ve served us. That includes giving them the care and benefits they have earned – which is why we’ve increased annual VA spending every year I’ve been President. And it means enlisting our veterans in the work of rebuilding our Nation.

With the bipartisan support of this Congress, we are providing new tax credits to companies that hire vets. Michelle and Jill Biden have worked with American businesses to secure a pledge of 135,000 jobs for veterans and their families. And tonight, I’m proposing a Veterans Jobs Corps that will help our communities hire veterans as cops and firefighters, so that America is as strong as those who defend her.

Which brings me back to where I began. Those of us who’ve been sent here to serve can learn a thing or two from the service of our troops. When you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white; Asian or Latino; Native American; conservative, liberal; rich, poor; gay, straight. When you’re marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. Or when you’re in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one Nation, leaving no one behind.

One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden. On it are each of their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates – a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary; and Hillary Clinton, a woman who ran against me for president.

All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves. One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn’t deserve credit for the mission. It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job – the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs. More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other – because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s someone behind you, watching your back.

So it is with America. Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes. No one built this country on their own. This Nation is great because we built it together. This Nation is great because we worked as a team. This Nation is great because we get each other’s backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we’re joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, and our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

Joe Paterno — the legendary former football coach for Penn State — will be honored over the next three days with multiple funeral and memorial services scheduled at the university.

The 85-year-old, who is said to have won more games than any other coaches in college football, but was abruptly fired last year amid a child sex abuse scandal that scarred his good reputation, died Saturday (Jan 22) from lung cancer at a hospital in State College, PA.

Paterno’s family released the following statement Sunday morning to announce his death:

“His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled. He died as he lived. He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been. His ambitions were far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave this Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players and his community.

“As the last 61 years have shown, Joe made an incredible impact. That impact has been felt and appreciated by our family in the form of thousands of letters and well wishes along with countless acts of kindness from people whose lives he touched. It is evident also in the thousands of successful student athletes who have gone on to multiply that impact as they spread out across the country.”

Over a period of 46 years as the head football coach for Penn State University, Joe Paterno won 409 games, setting an unprecedented record for a Division I football coach. He also guided his teams to national championships in 1982 and 1986.

Paterno’s lung cancer diagnosis was revealed shortly after he was fired from his head coach position by the Penn State board of directors in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Sandusky, Paterno’s former assistant coach from 1969 to 1999, is charged with over 50 counts of sexually abusing at least 10 young boys over a 15-year period.

During the Sandusky investigation, Paterno testified to the grand jury that Mike McQueary, a former graduate assistant coach, told him that he saw Sandusky sexually assault a young boy in the Penn State locker room.

McQuery himself also testified that he had seen Sandusky attacking the child, and that he had told Paterno, who said he passed along the information to school officials, but did not notify any law enforcement authorities.

Paterno, McQueary and other Penn State officials were all severely criticized for failing to execute moral responsibility by not reporting the incident to the police.

According to various confirmed reports, two public viewings for Joe Paterno will be held on Tuesday from 1 – 11pm, and on Wednesday from 8am – 12 noon at a spiritual center on the Penn State Campus.

A private funeral service is scheduled for 2pm on Wednesday, followed by a public memorial service at 2pm Thursday at the Jordan Center, which is a basketball arena that holds up to 16,000 people.

Of course since Paterno was somewhat involved in a child sex abuse scandal, there will definitely be some controversy surrounding his funeral services, and of course, Westboro Baptist Church is at the helm of it.

According to the daughter of the infamous church’s pastor, Westboro officials intend to protest and bring their anti-homosexuality message to the college.

Joe Paterno is dead. WBC will picket his funeral.He’s in hell.Don’t partake of your neighbor’s sin! @espn @bleacherreport #GodH8sPennRape

— MargiePhelps (@MargieJPhelps) January 22, 2012

The Kansas-based church is well-known for their stance against homosexuality and their protests at celebrity and military funerals. In the past, they have targeted services for Michael Jackson, Steve Jobs, “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn and others.

Turns out Swizz Beatz wasn’t the CEO of now defunct file sharing website Megaupload.com after-all.

Earlier this week, when Megaupload was shut down by the DOJ (U.S. Department of Justice), multiple credible news outlets, including us, falsely reported that Swizz Beatz (born: Kasseem Dean) was the CEO of the massively popular website.

Though the rapper/producer and part-time NYU professor’s name was indeed listed on Megaupload.com’s “About Us” page before it was taken down, according to the company’s attorney Ira Rothken, Swizz Beatz was NOT the CEO of the Hong Kong based company.

Well, at least not YET.

“To my knowledge, Swizz Beatz was never involved in any meaningful way,” Megaupload attorney Ira Rothken told VentureBeat. “He was negotiating to become the CEO, but it was never official.”

So in other words … they were in the process of making Swizz Beatz the CEO, but never got a chance to make it official.

Beatz’ name was also absent from the 72-page federal indictment brought against Megaupload, which is 68 percent owned by the site’s founder Kim Dotcom.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom pictured at a court hearing in Auckland, New Zealand

According to confirmed reports, Kim, as well as six other individuals, were charged with five counts of criminal acts, including conspiracy to commit racketeering and criminal copyright infringement.

Kim, who celebrated his 38th birthday last week, was arrested after police raided his $24 million New Zealand estate during a birthday party. Police say when they arrived on the property, Dotcom ran to a “safe room” in the house and barricaded himself in before police found him with a loaded shotgun.

Megaupload Ltd. reportedly cost copyright owners more than half a billion dollars, while they generated over $175 million in revenue, which gave Mr. Dotcom the financial ability to live a lavish lifestyle that saw him purchase at least 18 cars, including a 2010 Maserati, a 2008 Rolls Royce and a number of Mercedes Benzes.

The site came under fire last month after a viral video/song called “The Megaupload Song” was released showing a number of celebrities supporting the file-sharing service, including Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown and Diddy.

It’s not exactly clear when or even how Mr. Dotcom and Swizz Beatz even crossed paths and became so close, but sources familiar with the situation say that Mr. Beatz thought he could persuade Dotcom to turn Megaupload into a legitimate, licensed music service.

Looks like that won’t be happening anytime soon, however new reports state that Beatz is still interested in being a part of the company.

A source close to the music industry professional confirmed MTV News that Swizz is still seriously involved with the company, and he was not involved with the crimes that led to the federal indictment against the site’s current executives.

“He’s not walking away from this,” the source told MTV, adding that his name was added to the site as its CEO “prematurely.”

Once all of the legal issues are resolved, it is still very possible that Swizz Beatz will officially join Megaupload as its CEO.

A former McDonald’s employee recorded cell phone video footage of a mouse trapped inside a bag of Big Mac buns at a McDonald’s in Philadelphia.

In the now viral video, which Karruim Demaio shot on November 14th in the back storage room of the restaurant, the frantic mouse can be seen scurrying across SEVERAL different hamburger buns.

“I was going back there to get something else and I heard some rustling, so I turned around, and I look, I seen a mouse inside the bread. Not on top of the package, but inside of the package,” the former employee told Fox 29 reporters.

Demaio says his manager ordered him and other employees to serve the “infected” buns, and had wiped off mouse droppings from buns before serving them to customers on multiple occasions in the past.

“That wasn’t the first time. That was about the sixth or seventh time. That’s what made me like, I got to get video of this,” he said. “I was working there from October of 2010 to January of this year. There hasn’t been a time when we couldn’t go in the back and see mouse droppings on the bread.”

Another employee at that very same location, who chose to remain anonymous, confirmed Demaio’s accusations, and actually witnessed the general manager brush droppings off the bread with her own two eyes.

But the manager denied the accusations when Fox 29 reporters asked her about them. “I’m going to call the police for that, that’s so crazy,” she responded.

The news team reached out to the franchise owner of that particular McDonald’s and received the following statement:

“After viewing the video, we are going to continue to investigate this claim to make certain we have all the facts. I want my customers to know that I am taking this matter seriously and will immediately address any issues that may exist. Therefore, if necessary, we will work with the appropriate authorities to get the facts,” said Ken Youngblood, McDonald’s owner/operator.

According to the Philadelphia Health Department’s recent inspections, “the establishment is not in satisfactory compliance… And current management practices have allowed unacceptable public health or food safety conditions.”

Regardless … we think it’s time to start cooking at home a little bit more.

A man from Thailand recently married his dead girlfriend in a bizarre wedding ceremony that also doubled as a funeral for the young bridge.

According to the TAN, Chadil Deffy, also known as Deff Yingyuen, and his girlfriend Sarinya “Anne” Kamsook met 10 years ago at Thailand’s Eastern Asia University.

The young couple had been planning on getting married in the future, but unfortunately, Anne unexpectedly died on January 3rd in a car accident before the couple could set a date.

The news became the “Talk of the town” on Facebook and YouTube after ” Chadil Deffy ” or Deff Yingyuen, stated his love for his late girlfriend, Sarinya or “Anne” Kamsook.

Much to the surprise of his friends, on January 4, Deff posted the message on his Facebook page, inviting his friends to an wedding-cum-funeral rite for his longtime girlfriend at a local temple in Surin Province. [PDN]

During the unusual ceremony, which was recorded and photographed, Deffy, dressed in an all black tuxedo, can be seen kissing his late girlfriend and putting a ring on her finger.

Touching and creepy all at the same time.

Your thoughts?

A man who was recently convicted of raping and murdering a 7-year-old girl from Georgia committed suicide in prison Thursday (Jan 19).

A spokeswoman for the state Dept. of Corrections confirmed to the AJC that 20-year-old Ryan Brunn was found unresponsive in his jail cell at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia at around 4:00 pm. He was then taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead a little after 5:30 pm.

“I can confirm that Ryan Brunn did commit suicide,” Kristen Stancil said in an official statement.

“This is the kind of justice that I was expecting for him for all the damage that he made to my little daughter,” said the victim’s mother Jocelyn Rivera. “Now, I can say that I feel satisfied.”

Just two days prior, on Tuesday (Jan 17), Brunn was sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to the murder of 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera, who was taken by Brunn from an apartment complex playground near her home in Canton, GA on December 2nd 2011.

7-year-old Jorelys Rivera

According to published reports, Brunn, who worked as an apartment maintenance man, enticed Jorelys into a vacant unit at the River Ridge Apartments, where he raped her.

Afraid she was going to tell her family, Brunn then beat the 7-year-old girl over the head with a roller skate, cut her throat, and then tossed her lifeless body in a trash bin at the complex before calmly rejoining his roommate and a female friend for a night of shopping and pot smoking, as if nothing had ever happened.

James McCollum, who lives in the apartment building where Brunn killed Jorelys Rivera, said he had been following the case all week.

“As far as I’m concerned, he got off easy,” McCollum said. “He didn’t suffer enough. When you hear how he beat her to death with her own skate, he didn’t suffer enough.”

But Nancy Hudgins, who also lives in the apartment complex, said her heart goes out to both Brunn’s family and the Rivera’s

“His mind wasn’t right, but I feel kind of sad for the person because he was a human being,” she said. “I don’t see how he could have done that.”

The AJC reported that though Brunn had no criminal history as an adult, investigators feared that he had molested two other girls.

This Ryan Brunn guy — who actually confessed to the details of his rather disturbing crime — wouldn’t have lasted a minute in prison anyway, so in our opinion, he got off pretty easy by killing himself.

Your thoughts?

For just $2 extra, Burger King will deliver right to your door-step!

The Home of the Whopper has been testing delivery service at several of its restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area and plans to expand the trial to include more locations over the next week, according to a company statement. The fast-food chain has been providing this service internationally for years in Mexico, Turkey, Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

The company didn’t release a timeline as to when (or if) the service will be available nationwide. The four stores currently offering the option deliver within a 10-minute radius. Customers pay a $2 delivery fee, and all orders must meet an $8 to $10 minimum, the statement said.

For those concerned about the quality of the food suffering during the delivery process, Burger King said it has developed new packaging technology, including thermal bags to keep food “hot and fresh.” The service will be available to any home or office, so long as there is a physical address, and orders can be placed by phone or online.

[Source]

Rival fast food chain McDonald’s has been doing this for some time now in Manhattan, though they only deliver to business and a company spokesman said that they have no plans to further expand the service at this time.

Would you pay $2 extra just to have fast food delivered to you so that you don’t have to wait in line? Let us know!

Legendary blues singer Etta James has died following a lengthy battle with leukemia at her home in Riverside, California, her manager confirmed with multiple major media outlets today. She was 73 years old.

“This is a tremendous loss for the family, her friends and fans around the world,” James’ manager and longtime friend Lupe De Leon said. “She was a true original who could sing it all – her music defied category. I worked with Etta for over 30 years. She was my friend and I will miss her always.”

Over a career that spanned 50 years, Etta James won four Grammy Awards and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

Born Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles on January 25, 1938, the future music legend began singing in church before she was discovered in 1954 by bluesman Johnny Otis, who changed her name from “Jamesetta Hawkins” to “Etta James.”

James’ biggest hits to date include “Good Rockin’ Daddy,” “All I Could Do Is Cry,” her first hit “Wallflower,” and of course, the immensely popular “At Last.”

Throughout her career, Ms. James battled drug and alcohol addiction, and was in and out of rehab, including a 17-month stint in the mid-1970′s, without much success.

Finally, in 1988, when James admitted herself to the Betty Ford Clinic in 1988 for codeine addiction just before her 50th birthday, “I took back my life,” says James, who remained clean after that.

In the early 1990s, Jaguar licensed her song “At Last” to use in a television ad, giving the song way more exposure than it had when it was originally released in 1961, which gave her a career boost.

James continued to perform in the 1990′s, and she came into the spotlight again in 2008 when Beyonce portrayed her in the movie “Cadillac Records,” which was loosely based on Chess Records where James recorded in the 1960s.

While James says she enjoyed the movie, she thought that it “had some inconsistencies,” and for the most part, ignored the success she had on records and on black radio before she came to Chess Records in 1960.

The music legend praised Beyonce’s performance, although in 2009, she was disappointed that the White House invited Beyonce to sing “At Last” at President Obama‘s inauguration instead of her.

She also said that Beyonce “should get her ass whooped,” though she later said that she was joking.

In April 2009, Ms. James sang “At Last” on “Dancing with the Stars,” which would be one of her last performances.

Because of her ongoing health problems, James had slowed down with performing in 2010 when she was admitted to the hospital with a blood infection, among other ailments, including Alzheimer’s disease.

In May 2011, Ms. James was admitted to the hospital again with a urinary tract infection and “sepsis” (a blood infection), her son Sametto James explained to Reuters at the time.

Ms. Etta James is survived by her husband of 41 years Artis Mills, and their two sons.

Sadly, we have no answer to that very important question. But we do have the details on why this guy was arrested. And it’s still pretty funny!

According to The Smoking Gun, 23-year-old Travis Williams was arrested last week for disorderly conduct after he was spotted menacing patrons outside a shopping mall.

When cops arrived, they say they found Williams covered in a white powdery substance, and he had a “fighting stance” and “refused to stop screaming obscenities,” saying things like “F**k you, motherf**ker!”

Though the police report offers no insight as to Why Williams was covered in white powder, his 94-page rap sheet reveals that he has no job, and has been arrested “several dozen times” for a number of different crimes, including burglary, grand theft, larceny, battery, trespassing and marijuana possession.

And just in case your curious mind was wondering … yes, Williams has also been arrested SEVERAL times for cocaine possession.

[TSG]

Kid don’t be playing these days about their juice….

A 5 year-old boy is in police custody after stabbing three of his family members following an argument over a juice box.

Damn. That kid must have been reallllyyyyy thirsty!

Throwing a cat at your wife during a heated argument probably isn’t the best idea…..because somebody could get seriously injured!

An elderly woman from Buenos Aires, Argentina is in critical condition after being hit in the head with a cat slung out of a window.

A cat hurled from a high window in Buenos Aires, Argentina, seriously hurt a woman, 85, when it hit her on the head.

The pet cat was thrown out of the fourth floor window of an apartment block in the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires as a married couple had a blazing row.

During their quarrel the husband picked up the family pet and threw it at his wife, who ducked.

The cat then flew out of an open window, landing on the elderly woman’s head as she crossed the street below.

The victim, a former opera singer named as Betty, also happens to be the couple’s neighbour.

She is described as being in a critical condition in hospital after suffering a fractured skull.

The cat didn’t survive the fall.

[Daily Mirror]

Who in the hell throws a cat out of anger?? This guy is a straight up clown!

The United States Marines Corps say they have identified and interviewed the four men who were seen urinating on corpses in Afghanistan in a viral video that was posted online this week.

The video, which first surfaced online Wednesday morning, and is described as a “recruitment tool for the Taliban,” shows four men in full combat uniform laughing and joking around as they relieve themselves on three dead bodies.

One of the men can be heard saying, “Have a great day, buddy!” as his colleagues laugh, and another jokes, “Golden like a shower.”

According to various published reports, the four men were members of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines out of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, where they reportedly showed the video off as some sort of “war trophy.”

So far, the names of the men have not been released, but an unidentified official says that some of the men are no longer members of the military.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta called the video “utterly deplorable” and ordered a high-level probe into the incident, which has been condemned by other White House officials and politicians, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator John McCain and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who called the soldiers’ actions “inhumane.”

“Those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent,” said the Secretary of Defense, who advised the commander of western troops in Afghanistan to launch their own investigation.

Hillary Clinton expressed “total dismay” at the video, calling it “deplorable behavior” and “absolutely inconsistent with the standards of behavior that the vast majority of Marines hold themselves to.”

“Anyone, anyone found to have participated or know about it, having engaged in such conduct, must be held fully accountable,” she said.

Though the nature of the charges brought against the men are unclear, desecrating bodies is a crime under U.S. military law and the Geneva conventions.

In response to the growing diplomatic storm surrounding the situation, the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Lt. General Curtis Scaparrotti, said in a message to troops Friday that defiling, desecrating, mocking, photographing or filming for personal use insurgent dead constitutes a grave breach” of the laws that are currently governing armed conflict.

But not everyone is so strongly against the video. A prominent anti-Muslim activist in New York, Pamela Geller, who famously opposed the construction of an Islamic center near ground zero, praised the soldiers for desecrating the the corpses of Afghans who she described as “murderous savages.”

“I love these marines. Perhaps this is the infidel interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body for burial,” she wrote on her blog.

Florida Rep. Allen West, an ex-Army lieutenant colonel, slammed non-military people who are criticizing the four marines seen in the video, saying, “…unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”

CNN contributor Dana Loesche, who also supports the troops and their crude actions, said in an interview with FM News Talk 97.1 in St. Louis, Missouri, “C’mon people, this is war. Do I have a problem with that as a citizen of the United States? No, I don’t.”

Meanwhile, Eugenia Weiss, a military psychiatrist based out of California, suggested the soldiers may have been “stressed” or “pranksters with extremely bad taste.”

Eugene Fidell, who teaches a military course at Yale University, said that the Marines could be sent to prison if a jury of military officers deem it to be an appropriate punishment.

[ABC, CNN]

Your thoughts?

Police say they arrested a Southern California man earlier this week after he broke into his ex girlfriend’s home and crawled into her bed just so that he could cuddle with her.

According to the Orange County Register, Augustin Sanchez cut through a wire screen and pushed open his former girlfriend’s bedroom window as she slept at around 6:30 am on Sunday morning (Jan 8).

The police report states that after Sanchez crawled into the bed to cuddle, he also attempted to take the woman’s clothes off before she slipped out of bed and called 911.

When cops arrived, they found Sanchez, who was sloppy drunk. He was arrested on the spot, and booked for suspicion of burglary and sexual assault.

Now that he’s in jail, he can do all the cuddling he wants, because we’re sure there are plenty of ready and willing cuddle partners in prison!

[OC Register]

Twin sisters Ena Pugh and Lily Millward celebrated their 102nd birthday TOGETHER last Wednesday (Jan 4 2012), despite Lily being in the hospital with a broken hip.

For the past 102 years, with the exception of their 79th birthday when they both were sick, the sisters have NEVER spent their birthday apart. That’s over 100 birthdays!

Great-gran Lily said the secret of their long life was “laughter and having a joke with each other”.

And her daughter Dianne Powell, 65, said: “They took great delight at seeing their picture in the Guinness Book of Records — they are both very proud of their title.”

She added: “My mum’s recovering in hospital after she slipped and fell just before Christmas.

“But she’s in good spirits and enjoying the attention of being one of the world’s oldest twins.

“Ena pops in to see her in hospital when she can — they are very close.

“And despite the terrible weather she made a special effort to get together on their birthday.”

Farmer’s daughters Ena and Lily were born before the outbreak of World War I when Queen Victoria’s son Edward VII was king.

Ena was born first, with Lily coming a few minutes later at their family farm cottage in the tiny village of Garthbrengy, near Brecon, Wales.

Their parents Charles and Laura Thomas had ten children — including twin brothers — but Ena and Lily are the only survivors.

Read more at: The Sun

The United States Marine Corps say that a video posted online this week showing U.S. Marines stationed in Afghanistan urinating on several dead Taliban bodies will by “fully investigated.”

The extremely graphic video, which was posted Wednesday morning, is around 39 seconds, and shows at least 4 male Marines literally peeing on the bodies of 3 dead men dressed in traditional Afghan clothing.

The Marines can be heard laughing and joking, while one Marine says, “Have a great day, buddy!” Another guy jokes, “Golden like a shower!”

The disturbing video’s caption reads, “scout sniper team 4 with 3rd battalion 2nd marines out of camp lejeune peeing on dead talibans.”

Shortly after it was posted, the video went viral and has appeared on hundreds, maybe even thousands of websites.

Muslim organizations across the United States expressed their outrage over the videos to gossip website TMZ, calling the footage “disgusting,” and asking that the soldiers be rightfully punished.

“We are appalled by the video” … a rep for the Muslim Public Affair Council tells us … adding, “We ask Secretary of Defense Leon Penetta to reprimand these soldiers. These soldiers don’t stand for what our nation and our army and armed forces fight for on a daily basis.”

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) had a similar opinion — saying, “We condemn this apparent desecration of the dead as a violation of our nation’s military regulations and of international laws of war prohibiting such disgusting and immoral actions.”

CAIR adds, “If verified as authentic, the video shows behavior that is totally unbecoming of American military personnel and that could ultimately endanger other soldiers and civilians.”

[TMZ]

The desecration of corpses during wartime violates military law and could possibly land these guys in front of a court-martial, a judicial court for trying members of the armed services accused of offenses against military law.

Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Gregory Wolf said in an e-mail that the authenticity video hasn’t been confirmed, nor has its origin been tracked down.

“The actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our corps. This matter will be fully investigated,” Wolf said.

Remember that episode of “South Park” when a dwarf named Dr. Nelson came to South Park Elementary to teach the kids “words are like bullets, they go through me” … and Cartman laughed uncontrollably at his every move and eventually made the little guy so that mad he actually fought the loud and obnoxious fourth grader?

Well there’s a real life case of this that we all could learn from:

A dwarf prosecutor is suing a man she called as a witness in a court case – after he broke down laughing in court at her size.

Silke Schoenfleisch-Backofen, 39, is a little lady with a big name, and an even greater sense of right and wrong.

She may stand only 3ft 8in high but Ms Schoenfleish-Backofen punches well above her legal weight as many villains in Frankfurt have found to their cost.

So when Russian-German Wadim Golanev, 25, cracked up in hysterics at the ‘dwarf lady’ in court during a case about theft, she was decidedly unimpressed.

Golanev was unable to answer her questions due to his hysterical laughter, pointing at her and singing ‘Hi Ho, Hi Ho!’ from Snow White And The Seven Dwarves.

No-one else joined in. And before he left the witness box he was handed a hastily scrawled summons accusing him of ‘obscene insults’ and ordered to appear before a judge next month.

[DAILY MAIL]

We still don’t quite understand why anyone with a brain would make fun of a lawyer (out of all people) during a court case. Now she’s going to sue the pants off of this jerk and really show him what it feels like to be small!

A 21-year-old Iranian man who recently got a tattoo on his penis has now been left with a “permanent semi-erection,” according to MSNBC News.

The man apparently thought it would be a pretty good idea to get a penis tattoo in Perisian script reading “borrow be salaamat,” which means “good luck on your journeys,” as well as the first initial of his girlfriend’s last name (“M”).

So what exactly happened during (or after) the procedure that made the guy have a permanent semi-erection?

According to the Iranian doctors, this is what happened to the young man.

The tattooist punctured too-deep holes that damaged vessels in the penis, resulting in fistulas, and then a pseudoaneurysm, a pooling of blood outside a vessel wall.

They recommended he see a specialist to have the blood removed, but he rejected that idea and saw another doctor to have a shunt procedure performed. It didn’t work.

Since the fellow is still able to have sex, and achieve a more-or-less normal erection, he’s rejected any more treatments, even the one his urologists recommended in the first place.

In one of those statements you’d think nobody would actually have to make, the Iranian doctors wrote “based on our unique case, we discourage penile tattooing.”

[MSNBC]

Uhh … no shit?

Just in case you’re curious, CLICK HERE for the actual photo of the penis tattoo, which obviously is NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

Here’s a pretty useful tip for teachers. If you’re ever in a position where you have to be creative and invent a series of math word problems for your third grade students….it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to include questions like this: “Each tree had 56 oranges; If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”

Several Gwinnett parents contacted Channel 2 Action News in outrage after their children brought home a math assignment that referenced slavery and beatings.

Christopher Braxton talked with Channel 2′s Kerry Kavanaugh and said he couldn’t believe it when he read his 8-year-old son’s math homework Wednesday.

“It kind of blew me away,” Braxton said. “Do you see what I see? Do you really see what I see? He’s not answering this question.”

The question was a word problem that said, “Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”

Another math problem said, “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”

“I was furious at that point in time,” Braxton said.

“Something like that shouldn’t be imbedded into a kid of the third, fourth, fifth, any grade,” parent Terrance Barnett said. “I’m having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slaves or beatings are in a math problem. That hurts.”

Both fathers said they contacted the principal of Beaver Ridge Elementary school in Norcross. They wanted to know what the third-grade math teachers were thinking.

Kavanaugh brought that question to Gwinnett County School District officials.

“In this one, the teachers were trying to do a cross-curricular activity,” district spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.

Roach explained the teachers were trying to incorporate social studies lessons into the math problems, which is something the school district encourages. But the problem with the questions is there is no historical context.

“We understand that there are concerns about these questions and we agree that these questions were not appropriate,” Roach said.

“Whoever put together this paperwork and everything else, the schools and everything else, shouldn’t teach it this way,” said Braxton.

The parents were told the school vice principal had collected the assignment to shred them so that they didn’t resurface.

Roach said there is a process in place to review questions before they are handed out to students, which didn’t happen here.

Roach said the administration will work with teachers on how to develop better questions that are “meaningful and appropriate.”

[WSBTV]

What are your thoughts about this?

A convicted murderer (pictured at the top left corner) shot three of his family members before turning the gun on himself after his cancer-stricken wife was given tea and toast….instead of the orange he prepared for her.

A man repeatedly shot his adult son and two sisters-in-law in his living room, killing them in front of his terminally ill wife, then fatally shot himself on the front porch as family tension about the cancer-stricken woman’s care apparently boiled over, authorities said.

An earlier dispute about whether the woman should have been fed tea and toast or the orange her husband had peeled for her apparently set off the shooter Monday, 63-year-old Paul Gilkey.

The Logan man spared his wife and allowed his grown stepson to leave unharmed, Hocking County Sheriff Lanny North said Tuesday. The stepson drove away from the property, a house on a wooded hillside in rural southeastern Ohio, to seek a cellphone signal and call for help.

“He let me leave because I have kids,” the stepson, Ralph Sowers III, says in the recorded 911 call.

The sick woman, 59-year-old Darlene Gilkey, witnessed the shootings from a hospital bed in her living room but wasn’t injured, the sheriff said. The family friction escalated into violence in the evening when Paul Gilkey went to a bedroom, retrieved a semiautomatic handgun and began threatening relatives, North said.

Autopsies showed that Darlene Gilkey’s sister Barbara Mohler, 70, of New Straitsville, was shot twice in the head at close range, and another sister, 63-year-old Dorothy Cherry of New Plymouth, was shot in the head and chest, Hocking County Coroner Dave Cummin said. The Gilkeys’ son, 38-year-old Leroy Gilkey of Columbus, was killed with three close shots to the head, Cummin said.

Sowers told an emergency dispatcher that Gilkey shot one of the women first, then turned the gun toward his own son.

“He tried to shoot my brother, and my brother was hiding behind me. And then he kept telling me to `Duck! Duck! Duck!”‘ Sowers said. He said eventually Gilkey reached the gun past him and fired, and Leroy Gilkey dropped to the ground. Paul Gilkey later shot himself in the chest, the coroner said.

Afterward, his body stayed upright on the porch that’s viewable from the end of the sloped gravel driveway, but the darkness made it difficult to tell whether he was alive, North said. Deputies who stormed the home around 9 p.m. found Gilkey dead and three more bodies on the living room floor.

Sowers, the stepson, said he initially feared Gilkey might have fled the home. He told dispatchers his stepfather had a history of violence.

Gilkey, known as David or Dave because he went by his middle name, served a decade in prison beginning in 1974 for killing a man in Athens County in May of that year, according to court records. He also had a 1986 arrest for felonious assault, according to the sheriff.

He had not worked for several years because of a workplace injury, his sister-in-law Peggy Gilkey said. She and other relatives said Paul Gilkey had been stressed and upset while trying his best to care for his ailing wife.

“He was really trying to take care of her, but he felt like people weren’t letting him,” Peggy Gilkey said. He felt as though his wife’s relatives were taking over her care, and he was upset because items were being taken from the home, she said.

She said her brother-in-law probably let his wife live because he loved her so much. The couple had divorced in 1975, shortly after he went to prison, but remarried a few years ago, she said.

Gilkey’s cousin Matthew Henderson said his own wife happened to call the home after the shooting and spoke with Darlene Gilkey, who said her husband “shot everybody” before going outside.

Henderson said his cousin recently bought two or three plots at a cemetery, though it didn’t seem unusual for a man whose wife had terminal cancer. He described Gilkey as unpredictable and unstable.

Darlene Gilkey was receiving hospice care through a company in nearby Lancaster, whose chief executive declined to comment Tuesday because of privacy restrictions. Investigators said she was taken to a hospital after the shootings rattled the normally quiet area.

Barbara Mohler had worked several miles south of the shooting site at the local Walmart for more than a decade. Employees there were grieving Tuesday and extending their condolences to relatives of Mohler, who worked in the bakery, Walmart spokeswoman Ashley Hardie said.

Leroy Gilkey was a high school Spanish teacher in the Westerville school district in suburban Columbus, where he was well loved by students and colleagues, a district spokesman said.

[Fox News]

All of this over a piece of damn fruit? This world is coming to an end!

Who knew old people hated Judge Judy so much???

An elderly woman from Jupiter named Janet Knowles was arrested over the weekend for hitting an elderly man over the head with a hammer because Judge Judy pissed her off.

And just in case you were wondering, Ms. Knowles is NOT related to Beyonce, and is NOT from outer-space (that we know of).

A 62-year-old woman was arrested Sunday morning after she hit a 65-year-old man on the head with a hammer, police say.

Janet Knowles, of Jupiter, was arrested on a charge of aggravated battery using a deadly weapon.

Jupiter Police responded to the defendant’s house around 11:30 a.m. Sunday after dispatchers received a call of a domestic disturbance.

When police arrived, they interviewed the alleged victim – who was not named in the probable cause affidavit – while he held bloody paper towels on his head.

The victim told police he was watching “Judge Judy” on television while sitting on his recliner, when Knowles got “upset with Judge Judy,” the affidavit says.

Knowles then hit him in the head with a hammer and the victim received a “large cut” to his head and left forearm.

He was treated at the scene by Palm Beach County Fire Rescue crews. Knowles told police she was upset because Judge Judy was on television. She became “mad” and then hit the victim on the head with the hammer.

Knowles also began talking about a neighbor and what a neighbor was wearing, the affidavit says.

Police said Knowles could not hold a conversation with them during the investigation.

The affidavit does not say what the relationship between Knowles and the victim is.

Knowles is being held in the Palm Beach County Jail without bond.

[Source]

This old lady is straight up crazy!

If we were that old man we would beg for someone to put us in a nursing home so we can watch Judge Judy WITHOUT getting randomly attacked with hammers by crazy old ladies!

Meghan McCain, the 27-year-old daughter of Mr. Senile himself aka John McCain, recently failed miserably after she attempted to use an almost big word on live TV.

Meghan recently scored a gig as a contributor on MSNBC, and during a recent television appearance, she did that thing where you stupidly accidentally say the wrong word in place of what you really mean. (For example: Some people tend to say “Napoleon Ice Cream” when they really mean “Neapolitan.”)

MSNBC contributor Meghan McCain appeared on Alex Wagner’s show “Now” on Monday, and used a bizarre word to describe what she believed was the President and Mrs. Obama’s right to privacy.

The panel was discussing “The Obamas,” a new book by The New York Times’ Jodi Kantor, which details the apparent friction between Mrs. Obama and members of the President’s cabinet, including former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

McCain seemed to be defending the Obamas right to privacy, and took issue with the fact that the book was published while the Obamas were still in the White House. “I have no problem with this type of thing being written if they were out of office,” McCain said. She then said not once, but twice, that the Obamas deserved “a small emoticon of privacy.”

Though she did say the word twice, it’s unclear if McCain meant to say “emoticon” to describe a small amount of privacy to which the Obamas are entitled.

[HuffPo]

We’re almost 100% positive she meant to say a “modicum” (small amount) instead of “emoticon,” but whatever. She gets points for at least staying on topic and referring to the right person/people. Unlike her old, decrepit father who doesn’t even know who he’s campaigning for in the upcoming election.

[Video Source]

A penny that used to be worth only 1 cent back in the late 1700s was recently sold at a Florida action for a record $1.38 million!

The pricey penny is supposed to be “historic,” as it was made at the Mint in Philadelphia in 1793, the first year that the United States started making its own coins after gaining independence from Great Britain.

From the Associated Press (via the New York Daily News):

A once-cent copper coin from the earliest days of the U.S. Mint in 1793 has sold for a record $1.38 million at a Florida auction.

James Halperin of Texas-based Heritage Auctions told The Associated Press on Saturday that the sale was “the most a United States copper coin has ever sold for at auction.” The coin was made at the Mint in Philadelphia in 1793, the first year that the U.S. made its own coins.

Heritage officials said in a news release that the name of the buyer was not revealed but that he was “a major collector.” One of the coin’s earliest owners was a well-known Baltimore banker, Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr.

“Mr. Eliasberg was nicknamed, ‘the king of coins’ because before his death in 1976 he assembled a collection that consisted of at least one example of every coin ever made at the United States Mint, a feat never duplicated,” Halperin said in the news release.

The final bid for the coin last week was one of the largest sales at the Florida United Numismatists coin show and annual convention, which runs through Sunday. Halperin said a five-dollar gold piece from 1829 also was sold.

Halperin said there remain a few hundred 1793 coins in different condition, but that the one auctioned off Wednesday night is rare because it wasn’t in circulation.

Officials say it shows no wear on its lettering, its Lady Liberty face or the chain of 13 linking rings on its back.

“This coin is known as a ‘Chain Cent’ because the central design on the back is a chain of 13 linking rings. It represented the solidarity of the 13 original colonies, but some critics claimed the chain was symbolic of slavery, and the design was quickly changed from rings to a wreath,” Halperin said in the news release.

Halperin said the auction had $60 million in transactions.

Would you pay $1.38 million for a penny that’s supposed to be ‘historic?’

Papa John’s has been on the receiving end of some major backlash after an Asian woman who recently paid a visit to the pizza restaurant tweeted a photo of a receipt that had “lady chinky eyes” printed on it where her name was supposed to go.

Minhee Cho, a Korean-American from New York City, posted the photo of the receipt with the racial slur on it to her Twitter page, where it was quickly retweeted by hundreds of people.

Within hours, the photo had become viral with nearly 30,000 views.

“Hey @PapaJohns just FYI my name isn’t ‘lady chinky eyes,’” Minhee Cho wrote, along with a picture of the receipt, which was issued from a Papa John’s store on Broadway.

Cho’s tweet resulted in the pizza chain firing the employee who was responsible for the offensive receipt.

Reps for Papa John’s also used the pizzeria’s Twitter and Facebook accounts to issue apologies.

A message posted to their Facebook page read:

“We were extremely concerned to learn of the receipt issue in New York. This act goes against our company values, and we’ve confirmed with the franchisee that this matter was addressed immediately and that the employee is being terminated. We are truly sorry for this customer’s experience.”

Addressing the matter via their Twitter feed, Papa John’s told their followers that they have “issued an apology, are reaching out to customer & franchise employee is being terminated.”

Despite their numerous attempts at an apology, Reuters notes that Papa John’s is likely to experience more backlash from customers, given the nonchalant response of a few employees at the offending store.

An assistant manager at the store told New York City based website Gothamist, “We’re all of different races here in this store. So she didn’t mean any harm, didn’t mean to stereotype against her, to discriminate against her, but that’s how she took it.”

Franchise owner Ronald Johnson, who runs five Papa John’s locations, including the one where the incident took place, was also sympathetic to the employee who was fired.

“I bet I’ll talk to her and she won’t know why this is offensive,” Johnson told Gothamist. “She needs to know, and she will know. If I fire her, two years from now, she won’t even remember why she got fired. If I sit her down and talk to her, I can help her.”

Meanwhile, a Papa John’s manager who simply identified himself as “Jerome” (for obvious reasons) blames Cho for the negative publicity the company has received from the incident.

“It’s affecting how we work,” Jerome complained to the New York Post. “This is a place of business. I truly don’t think it’s fair what she did; it’s just crazy … I think the lady put it out there just to get some attention — some people like that type of attention. I truly don’t think it’s fair. It’s been taking up all our time. It’s been very disruptive.”

What do you think? Did Cho just want some attention … or was she truly offended by being called “Lady Chinky Eyes?”

Your thoughts?

[Reuters]

A guy with the coolest name EVER was arrested last Thursday in Madison, Wisconsin on a number of criminal charges!

According to published reports, 30-year-old Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybob-Bop-Bop‘s charges include carrying a concealed weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana and a violation probation.

Court records state that Zopittybob-Bop-Bop was born Jeffrey Drew Wilschkue, but he legally changed his name to Beezow Doo-Doo Zoopittybop-Bop-Bop in October.

Zopittybop-Bop-Bop was arrested at a local park back in April 2011 (when he was still Jeffrey Wilschkue) after neighbors complained of “excessive drinking and drug use.”

Police say when they took him into custody, they found marijuana, drug paraphernalia, a knife and a loaded handgun, among other items, in his backpack.

On his way to jail, Zopittybop-Bop-Bop allegedly told cops that he would eventually “get even with them.”

When he’s not getting into trouble with the law, Beezow Doo-Doo Zoopittybop-Bop-Bop enjoys activities such as “eating,” “standing,” “walking,” “thinking,” and “diamond,” according to his (unconfirmed) Facebook page, which also lists that he is “single.”

Ladies … any takers on being the first ever Mrs. Beezow Doo-Doo Zoopittybop-Bop-Bop?

[Madison.com]

Keeping it Real 101:

Ladies, if you just so happen to meet a hot guy at a night club, share a kiss with him at sunrise, and give him you’re number to later realize it was the wrong digits……Starting an Internet campaign to find your prince charming might not be the best idea. Because he probably already has moved on. (True story!)

A woman who launched an internet campaign to track down a hunk she met on a Spanish holiday, has discovered he is ‘already taken’.

Sadly, Julia Cross, a PR consultant from London, did not get the fairytale ending she had hoped for after her Prince Charming Martin O’Kane got in touch to say he was ‘flattered’ but already had a girlfriend.

The tale of thwarted love comes after Cross and O’Kane met at an Ibiza nightclub in September and shared a kiss as they watched the sunrise.

After Cross failed to hear from her lover the 33-year-old, became convinced she had given him the wrong number.

It was left to her friends to launch a Facebook and Twitter campaign dubbed ‘Find Martin’ to help her rekindle the holiday romance.

In her appeal she said ‘he seemed like a really considerate guy, and I would be delighted if he got in contact’.

But O’Kane has now come forward revealing he got back together with an old girlfriend after his trip to Ibiza.

When contacted this weekend, he suggested the media should run a competition for someone to date Cross if she would be up for it.

O’Kane wrote in an email: ‘I have to say I found this all hilarious and I’m obviously very flattered! I hope Julia isn’t too embarrassed by some of the negative comments…About a week or so after I got back from Ibiza I dropped Julia a message but got no response. Didn’t really think too much more about it as these things happen. I guess it’s possible I took the number wrong.’

Mr O’Kane, who also lives in Clapham, added that while he was ‘definitely not married’, he was ‘unfortunately’ no longer single.

Of his girlfriend, he said: ‘She already feels a bit odd that there’s a national campaign to set me up with someone else.’

SOURCE 1, SOURCE 2

We feel kinda bad for this chick….she caused a lot of attention for nothing, but we’re sure she will find her Mr. Right someday!

In celebration of their 100-year anniversary, The Girl Scouts have released a brand new cookie called “Savannah Smiles.”

The brand new powder sugar-covered, lemon-flavored cookie’s name is a nod to Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low, who started the world famous organization in 1912 in Savannah, Georgia.

The Savannah Smiles cookies are supposed to a healthier option, in comparison to the dozens of other GSC flavors, and are described this way by Little Brown Bakers (the company manufacturing the cookie):

This lemon wedge cookie is cool and crisp, with just the right number of lemon chips to deliver tiny bursts of flavor. And, when you hold it right, you’ll quickly be reminded of that world-famous “Brownie Smile.”

According to WebMD:

Savannah Smiles actually have a relatively low fat and calorie content for the serving size, compared with other Girl Scout cookies (they are a bit higher in sodium, however).

Girl Scouts began taking orders for their new cookie flavor on Saturday (Jan 6) but the cookies don’t officially arrive until February.

What are your thoughts on the new “Savannah Smiles” Girl Scouts cookie?

Selling Drugs for Dummies:

The next time you’re in court for drug charges……it might not be the smartest idea to wear a shirt that gives instructions on how to cook crack cocaine. (It might not help your case that much!)

A man facing drug trafficking charges made a strong first impression at his court appearance in Broward County when he showed up wearing a “crack shirt.”

The man’s shirt included instructions for making crack cocaine.

Michael Weinstein, the attorney who took a picture of the shirt, said, “I realized the gentleman who was up at the podium in front of a judge charged with trafficking is wearing a jacket with a how-to manual of how to cook crack cocaine. I couldn’t believe the gumption this person had.”

The defendant has not yet been identified.

Weinstein told Local 10 the judge at the court appearance remained professional and did not comment on the man’s choice of clothing.

SOURCE

This dude has to be one of the dumbest people in the world. He might as well brought the drugs to court with him!

The troubled 15-year-old girl who was “accidentally” deported to Colombia last year is now safe at home in Texas with her mother and grandmother as of Friday night (Jan 6), the Associated Press reports.

Jakadrien Turner reportedly arrived in Dallas via the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport last night shortly before 10 pm and was escorted through the international gate by her grandmother Lorene Turner and her mother Johnisa Turner.

“She’s happy to be home,” the family’s attorney Ray Jackson said, adding that the family was “ecstatic” to have Jakadrien back in Texas so that they can “do what we can to make sure she gets back to a normal life.”

Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin said that contrary to numerous reports in the media, Jakadrien, who is 5 months pregnant, was living at a home for expectant mothers in Bogoto, Colombia, and not being held in a foreign prison.

Jakadrien was accidentally deported to Colombia in April 2011 when she was 14 years old after she gave Houston police a fake name following an arrest for shoplifting.

The name she gave to police, Tika Lanay Cortez, apparently belonged to a Colombian woman who was in the United States illegally, and had multiple warrants out for her arrest.

Immigration experts admit that while cases of mistaken identity are rare, people can slip through the cracks, especially if they don’t have legal help or family members working on their behalf, which is very similar to Jakadrien’s situation.

Still, the question remains as how to how immigration officials allowed a 14-year-old American girl to be briskly shipped off to a foreign country.

Houston police said in a statement that her name was run through a database to determine if she was wanted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement but the results were negative. She was then turned over to the Harris County jail and booked on the theft charge.

The county sheriff’s office said it ran her through the available databases and did the interviews necessary to establish her identity and immigration status in the country, with negative results. A sheriff’s office employee recommended that an immigration detainer be put on her, and upon her release from jail she was turned over to ICE.

U.S. immigration officials insist they followed procedure and found nothing to indicate that the girl wasn’t a Colombian woman living illegally in the country.

An ICE official said the teen claimed to be Cortez throughout the criminal proceedings in Houston and the ensuing deportation process, in which an immigration judge ultimately ordered her back to Colombia.

Standard procedure before any deportation is to coordinate with the other country in order to establish that person is from there, the ICE official said.

The ICE official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to discuss additional details of the case, said the teenager was interviewed by a representative from the Colombian consulate and that country’s government issued her a travel document to enter Colombia.

Jakadrien was issued travel documents at the request of U.S. officials using information they provided, the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Colombian officials are investigating what kind of verification was conducted by its Houston consulate to issue the temporary passport.

The girl was given Colombian citizenship upon arriving in that country, the ICE official said.

According to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the girl was enrolled in the country’s “Welcome Home” program after she arrived there. She was given shelter, psychological assistance and a job at a call center, a statement from the agency said.

“If she looked like an adult, and she told them she was a 21-year-old Colombian citizen, and she didn’t show up in their databases, this was inevitable,” said Albert Armendariz, an immigration attorney from El Paso.

Jakadrien’s family says they have no idea why she ended up in Colombia. Johnisa Turner said the girl is a U.S. citizen who was born in Dallas and was not fluent in Spanish. She said neither she nor the teen’s father had ties to Colombia. Jakadrien’s grandmother, Lorene Turner, called the deportation a “big mistake somebody made.”

[AP]

Your thoughts?

A tooth deficient pervert was arrested after Chicago police say he literally took his clothes off, and exposed himself to a theater full of children and their parents at a showing of the new movie “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.”

According to police, 34-year-old Edward Brown took his clothes off and paraded around in his birthday suit in front of at least 96 movie-goers, many of them children before he sat down in his seat, still fully nude.

Police told the Chicago Tribune that they were able to quickly evacuate the traumatized movie patrons from theater without any issues, and ordered Brown to put some clothes on, at which point they handcuffed him and threw him in the back of a squad car.

Brown was arrested on charges of sexual exploitation of a child and misdemeanor disorderly conduct, the Tribune reported.

When police asked Brown why he did what he did, he told them that a woman had promised him crack and sex if he went to the theater, took his clothes off and sat in the front row butt naked.

Police were unable to find the unidentified woman, nor were they able to find Brown’s missing front teeth.

[Chicago Tribune]

During what was supposed to be a campaign speech in support of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney Thursday afternoon (Jan 5) in Charleston, South Carolina, Senator John McCain slipped up with his wording, and accidentally endorsed President Barack Obama.

“I am confident with the leadership and the backing of the American people, President Obama will turn this country around,” Senator McCain said confidently.

“We believe in America. We believe that our best days are ahead of us…” old man McCain continued, not even realizing that he hadn’t said ‘Mitt Romney.’

SC governor Nikki Haley and Mitt Romney noticed the error though, and quickly moved in to take the mic away from the geriatric senator, who finally corrected himself, saying, “President Romney. Excuse me! President Romney. President Romney will turn this around…”

So just to clear things up, the crazy old man is endorsing Mitt Romney … and not President Obama, which would have been pretty epic though, right?

[Fox 11]

15-year-old Jakadrien Turner has been missing since 2010 when she ran away from home.

A teenage African American girl from Dallas who has been reportedly missing since 2010 was recently found pregnant and being held in a foreign prison.

According to various reports, Jakadrien Turner was 14 when she ran away from home after her grandfather died and her parents got a divorce.

Several months later, Jakadrien turned up in Houston and was arrested for theft. She had no identification, and gave police a fake name.

When police ran the name, they found out that it belonged to a 22-year-old illegal Colombian immigrant who had multiple arrest warrants.

That’s when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials stepped in, and took the girl’s fingerprints, but somehow deported her to Colombia without even trying to successfully verify her true identity.

WFAA in Houston reports that upon her arrival in Colombia, a Spanish-speaking country, Jakadrien received a work card and found work cleaning homes, though one would imagine things would be pretty hard for a 14-year-old girl working in a country where she doesn’t understand the language.

“It’s very frustrating,” Lorene Turner, the girl’s grandmother told WFAA.

Turner says she has spent countless hours searching for her missing granddaughter on Facebook.

“Once I get home I am up until 3 or 4 in the morning searching and looking,” Turner said. “It’s all I can think about. Finding my baby.”

Turner finally found Jakadrian after searching for her daily since the fall of 2010. “God just kept leading me,” she said. “I wake up in the middle of the night and do whatever God told me to do, and I found her.”

Turner said that with the help of Dallas Police, she unexpectedly found out that her now 15-year-old granddaughter had been deported to Colombia in April of 2011, and not only that, but she was in prison … and pregnant.

“They didn’t do their work,” Turner said. “How do you deport a teenager and send her to Colombia without a passport, without anything?”

Despite numerous pleas from the girl’s family through U.S. officials, who were in direct contact with officials at the U.S. embassy in Bogota, the Columbian government refused to release the child and allow her to be sent home.

Jakadrien Turner was found pregnant and in prison in Colombia after her grandmother searched for months on Facebook.

“She talked about how they had her working in this big house cleaning all day, and how tired she was,” the girl’s grandmother said regarding her work release.

WFAA reported:

Through her granddaughter’s Facebook messages, Turner says she tracked Jakadrian down. U.S. Federal authorities got an address. U.S. Embassy officials in Colombia asked police to pick her up.

But that was a month ago, and the Colombian government now has her in a detention facility and won’t release her, despite her family’s request. “I feel like she will come home,” the grandmother said with tears in her eyes. “I just need help and prayer.”

There are still many unanswered questions about how an African-American girl who speaks no Spanish is mistaken for a foreign national. Immigration officials are investigating and released a statement late Tuesday.

“ICE takes these allegations very seriously,” said ICE Director of Public Affairs Brian Hale. ” At the direction of [the Department of Homeland Security], ICE is fully and immediately investigating this matter in order to expeditiously determine the facts of this case.”

ICE officials also noted there have been instances where ICE has seen cases of individuals providing inaccurate information regarding who they are and their immigration status for ulterior motives.

Whatever the case may be … there should be some serious attention brought to the fact that an unidentified 14-year-old girl was just abruptly shipped off to foreign country where she got pregnant and was later sent to prison.

[WFAA, Dallas News]

Your thoughts?

Authorities in Indiana say a teenage boy who was playing paintball with family members was shot and killed by a farmer who mistook him for a coyote.

17-year-old Brandon Spangler of Flushing, Michigan was visiting his dad in rural Indiana at the time of the incident.

According to the New York Daily News, Spangler was unloading paintball equipment from a car with his father and three brothers on a farm in Shelby, Indiana last Friday (Dec 30) when he was randomly shot.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The farm’s owner, 41-year-old Jason Bagley, told authorities that he knew the Spangler family, and had actually given them permission to play paintball on his property, however, he had no idea that the Spanglers would show up on Friday, and they didn’t call ahead.

Bagley says he mistakenly shot the boy after he heard “rustling” in some trees near his home, thinking it was a pack of wild coyotes.

The farmer recalled using a hunting rifle, and firing multiple times at the wooded area the family was in, unknowingly shooting Brandon in the shoulder, cops told local news reporters.

An autopsy report states that Spangler was killed by a single gunshot wound to the upper body, and investigators are trying to figure out whether or not they will file any charges against Farmer Bagley.

“He was very loved and everybody’s going to miss him. He was an outstanding person,” said Spangler’s 19-year-old sister Alyssa said, adding that her brother had a quiet personality, was loving, respectful and never got into any trouble.

Alyssa also said that her brother was an honor roll student who made good grades and took Advanced Placement courses at his high school in Flushing, Michigan.

“He was a great son and an amazing brother,” Alyssa said. “And he had the biggest heart. You could always count on him to fix anything.”

Flushing Schools Superintendent Tim Stein echoed Alyssa Spangler’s sentiments regarding her brother, also saying that Brandon was a good student.

“It’s a tragedy and certainly our heart goes out to the family and we’ll do whatever we can to support them through the grieving process,” Stein said.

In addition to his sister Alyssa, Brandon Spangler is survived by his parents Joanne and Michael Krampe of Flushing, and Mark and Michele Spangler of Greenwood, Indiana, as well as his brother Brian Spangler, half-sisters sisters Brianna and Lindsay Krampe, half-brothers Aaron and Logan Spangler, and his step-brother and sister James and Jessica Krampe.

[NYDN, MLive, Photo: ABC12]

31-year-old Ronald Deaver (left) was arrested after he stabbed another man for not knowing Beyonce and Jay-Z (right) were married.

Police say they arrested a 31-year-old man named Ronald Deaver (pictured here) on charges of felonious assault after he allegedly stabbed another man following an argument on New Year’s Eve.

According to confirmed reports, the argument started because the victim didn’t know Beyonce was rapper Jay-Z‘s wife.

Det. Marty Compton of the Parma Police Department tells Fox 8 News that Ronald Deaver, 31, of Parma, was arrested and charged with felonious assault for allegedly stabbing a 48-year-old Garfield Heights man following an argument.

Det. Compton says the fight began because the victim did not know that singer Beyonce’s husband is rapper Jay-Z.

An arrest report obtained by Fox 8 News states the alleged stabbing occurred around 11:00 p.m. on December 31, 2011, outside Deaver’s apartment on Broadview Road.

Det. Compton says authorities were called following the stabbing and the victim was taken to a local hospital. He was later transferred to MetroHealth Medical Center where he is currently listed in good condition.

Police attempted to locate Deaver at his apartment, but according to the report, a woman in the residence, Jennifer Fornari, 31, told officers that Deaver no longer lived there.

Deaver was located by police a short time later and Fornari was arrested on an obstructing justice charge.

[Fox 8]

A man was actually stabbed on New Year’s Eve because he didn’t know Beyonce and Jay-Z were married.

Welcome to 2012, folks!