“As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.” ― Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

The Senate on Monday approved a procedural voted in favor of the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2014. The bill is a combination of several proposals aimed at allowing people to use land controlled by the federal government.

It would make sure more target ranges are placed on public land, and that target shooting, hunting and fishing can take place on these lands, ends a ban on fishing gear made with lead components, something that was put in place for environmental reasons. Additionally, it will let people import polar bear trophies from Canada harvested from bears taken before they were placed on the endangered species list.

The bill, however is not sitting well with Democrats, who opposed it by saying the Senate should not be trying to expand the rights of people with guns, including Senator Chris Murphy.

“There is a perfectly legitimate debate to be had about bringing more legal guns onto public property,” Murphy said. “But there is a more important debate than that about taking illegal guns off of our city streets.”

“If the United States Senate is going to spend a week debating a bill about gun policy, than we should be talking about getting rid of illegal guns,” he added. “We should be talking about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. We should be talking about stopping the epidemic of gun violence across this country.”

He and Senator Richard Blumenthal both said they would vote against the bill because the Senate should be considering tougher gun regulations citing the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in late 2012. But they, along with others, were not enough to stop the overwhelming majority support for the bill.

Now, several GOP senators are hoping to offer amendments to strengthen gun right in the bill. However Senator Harry Reid is reportedly planning to block any floor amendments.

“These pro-gun Senators want to offer good amendments like concealed carry reciprocity,” Gun Owners of America notes, “but that won’t be possible if Harry Reid blocks their ability to offer pro-gun amendments with an ‘amendment tree.’”

Reid has often used procedural tactics, preventing Republicans from offering amendments that could put vulnerable Democrats on the spot in November. This and the gutting of the filibuster, has led too much of the legislative gridlock in the chamber.

Across the country in Washington State, a battle over gun rights is heating up with two opposing ballot initiatives concerning background checks. Initiative 594 would strengthen background checks on gun purchasers to include gun shows and online sales. Initiative 591, one the other hand would prohibit background checks by the state unless they conform to federal background check laws.

Initiative 594 says it would “apply the currently used criminal and public safety background checks by licensed dealers to all firearm sales and transfers, including gun show and online sales, with specific exceptions.”

On Sunday, the Seattle Times editorial board endorsed the increased background check initiative and opposed the ballot measure supported by the pro-gun groups, slammed the anti-background check measure as “wholly inappropriate, unnecessary and potentially a reckless retreat.”

“The firearm industry and its entrepreneurial forces know their market, so the notion of ‘confiscating’ guns is immediately mentioned,” the opinion piece added.

If passed, Initiative 591 would make it “unlawful for any government agency to confiscate guns or other firearms from citizens without due process” and “unlawful for any government agency to require background checks on the recipient of a firearm unless a uniform national standard is required.”

As the debate over gun control and the Second Amendment rages Independence day brought New York City’s “most concentrated explosion of gun violence this year,” the New York Post reported, as a dozen people were shot, three fatally, within a five-hour span.

One victim “suffered a head wound so grisly that cops couldn’t tell if he’d been shot, stabbed or beaten,” the Post reported.

Another seven people were shot in the early morning hours of Saturday in Indianapolis, and six more at a Houston music festival around the same time on the same day.

But it is in Chicago that the most gun violence took place with at 82 people shot and 14 deaths during the long Independence Day weekend. At five of those shootings were police-involved, ending with two people killed.

“There has to come a tipping point where this changes,” Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said. “The illogical nature of what’s happening here — that government can intercede and prevent this from happening is overwhelming. And I refuse to think otherwise in a great country like America that we can continue to allow this to happen — not just on a state, but on a federal level.”

A Florida teen remains under house-arrest in Jerusalem. Fifteen-year-old Tariq Khdeir was attending a demonstration related to the death of his cousin, 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, when he was arrested and beaten.

Hassan Shibly, executive director with the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Florida, claims the beating came at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

“You can see video of them really stomping on his face,” Shibly said.

However a statement released by the Israeli Defense Force refutes Shibly’s claim.

“It seems that the Israel Police Forces were involved in the incident, and not the IDF Forces,” the statement reads.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that such beatings “should not happen.”

“Obviously, it is forbidden under Israeli law to beat up a suspect who is in handcuffs,” states Mark Regev.

A U.S. consular officer visited the teen in an Israeli detention center in Jerusalem and issued a statement following the visit:

“We are profoundly troubled by reports that he was severely beaten while in police custody and strongly condemn any excessive use of force. We are calling for a speedy, transparent and credible investigation and full accountability for any excessive use of force.”

Tariq described how police hit him.

”They hit me in the face, they hit me, they brutally hit me, they put me unconscious. I could not do anything about it,” Tariq said.

Israeli police say Tariq resisted arrest, attacked officers and was carrying a shepherd’s sling used for lobbing stones when he was arrested. Tariq was fined about $900 and sentenced to nine days of house arrest.

His mother, Suha Abu Khdeir, protested the continued restrictions on her son.

“I feel like he does not deserve to be on house arrest out of his own home for nine days and have a bail. On what charges? He has not been charged. There is no charge on him. Why are you putting him on house arrest? It makes no sense. I am American. I know the American law. This does not happen in America,” she said.

Tariq’s cousin, Mohammed died after being struck on the head with a blunt object and kidnapped off the street. An autopsy also showed traces of smoke in his lungs, indicating it was still breathing while the fire was burning.

Working quickly, Israeli authorities arrested six people believed to have murdered Mohammed. They have yet to release their names.

Mohammed’s mother welcomed news of the arrests but said she had little faith in the Israeli justice system.

“I don’t have any peace in my heart. Even if they captured who they say killed my son,” she said. “They’re only going to ask them questions and then release them. What’s the point?”

“They need to treat them the way they treat us. They need to demolish their homes and round them up, the way they do it to our children,” she added.

All this comes after the bodies of the three Israeli students were found, tied-up and buried beneath a pile of rocks in an open field in an area called Wadi Tellem north of the Palestinian village of Halhul. They were found after a “tip” to look in the field, which had been previously searched

Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship, were studying in West Bank yeshivas. They disappeared while hitchhiking home late at night June 12th, a week before the start of summer vacation.

Official reports are that “They know it’s the three, they will know for sure after they do the autopsy. It appears that they boys were shot to death, likely “very close to the kidnap” time, and that the prime suspects had still not been caught.

Hamas, a Palestinian militant group has been accused by Israel of taking the boys; however they have denied the kidnapping. Following the kidnappings, however Hamas ‘celebrated’ by handing out candy to Palestinian children.

In the meantime, Israel has identified at least two of the kidnappers as members of Hamas. Israel’s Shin Bet security service is working with Palestinian authorities to find Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisheh, who went missing the day the teenagers disappeared.

Both Qawasmeh and Aisheh have served time in Israeli prisons.

“If you step over that line, there are consequences to those actions,” Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said. “And I believe they stepped over that line. No doubt about it. They need to be held accountable for it.”

U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials say they agree with Gillespie’s position that rancher Cliven Bundy should be held accountable for his role in an April standoff with the BLM. Spokeswoman Celia Boddington, in a statement said the agency continues to pursue the matter.

“There is an ongoing investigation and we are working diligently to ensure that those who broke the law are held accountable,” she said, declining to elaborate.

The BLM claims Bundy owes over $1 million in fees and penalties for trespassing on federal property without a permit over 20 years. Bundy, whose ancestors settled in the area in the late 1800s, refuses to acknowledge federal authority on public lands.

A federal judge in Las Vegas first ordered Bundy to remove “trespass cattle” from land the BLM declared a refuge for the endangered desert tortoise in 1998. However the BLM only obtained court orders just last year allowing the roundup.

Gillespie blamed the BLM for escalating the conflict adding Bundy isn’t a hardened criminal, but a rancher who stopped paying his fees and that was not worth risking violence.

“I came back from that saying, ‘This is not the time to do this,’ ” said Gillespie. “They said, ‘We do this all the time. We know what we’re doing. We hear what you’re saying, but we’re moving forward.’”

Boddington disputed Gillespie’s contention the agency mishandled the roundup.

“It is unfortunate that the sheriff is now attempting to rewrite the details of what occurred, including his claims that the BLM did not share accurate information,” she said. “The sheriff encouraged the operation and promised to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us as we enforced two recent federal court orders.”

“Sadly, he backed out of his commitment shortly before the operation, and after months of joint planning, leaving the BLM and the National Park Service to handle the crowd control that the sheriff previously committed to handling,” Boddington added.

The BLM backed down during the showdown with Bundy and his supporters, citing safety concerns, released nearly 400 head of cattle collected from Bundy during the weeklong standoff.

Tensions escalated after a video showed one of Bundy’s sons being struck with a Taser.

“I think if anybody would look at how they handled the protesting with the use of Tasers and police dogs, anyone who had been in policing would question those tactics,” said Gillespie. “And I believe that led to the heightened interest and escalating the situation.”

Prior to the stand-off Gillespie was named by the National Sheriffs’ Association’s winner of the prestigious Ferris E. Lucas Award for Sheriff of the Year 2014. Senator Harry Reid presented Gillespie with a Congressional Proclamation for being selected at Reid’s office in the Lloyd George Federal Building.

The award was presented to Gillespie June 22nd during the opening part of the 2014 NSA Annual Conference in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Reid made himself a target after calling standoff supporters “domestic terrorists.”

“Those people who hold themselves out to be patriots are not. They’re nothing more than domestic terrorists,” Reid said. “I repeat: What went on up there was domestic terrorism.”

Reid also said Gillespie is continuing to work with the federal government on putting together a task force to deal with the Bundy family.

As former Libertarian vice presidential nominee Wayne Allen Root writes about the Bundy-BLM standoff, “I live in Las Vegas. I live and breathe Nevada politics. Something is very wrong. Something smells rotten in the Nevada desert. And Senator Harry Reid’s fingerprints are all over it.”

So far no charges have been brought against Bundy, his family or supporters.

However the BLM is being sued by a watchdog group that wants to review its decision-making and records about the standoff. The lawsuit by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is asking a federal court to order the BLM to turn over public records that may show agency employees were put at risk during the standoff.

The suit alleges the BLM isn’t responding to Freedom of Information Act requests for documents about the April 12th decision to abandon the roundup.

“They left themselves without a good option other than combing through thousands of acres for stray cows,” said Executive Director Jeff Ruch.

It also alleges the BLM refuses to provide an annual accounting of threats and attacks against agency employees. It also seeks records of criminal referrals the BLM has sought; any advisories or warnings to agency employees before and after the standoff; any directives or advisories for handling “similar incidents of armed resistance to lawful orders;” and all “decision documents” about the roundup and removal of the cattle.

Born in Franklin County, Indiana, in 1831, Jonathan Lyons later moved with his family to Iowa. It was from there that, as an asthmatic 18-year-old, he joined a wagon train bound for Oregon and worked his way across the country.

After spending some time farming in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, stories of gold strikes on the Salmon River in northern California enticed him to come to Klamath County in 1852. Unlike others, Jonathan planted a garden at the Forks of the Salmon River and drove cattle up from Sonoma to establish a grocery and butchering business.

Lyons traveled along the Salmon and Klamath rivers a side of beef slung on each side of his mule, earning his living mining the miners. He was always a welcome visitor in the mining camps.

In 1861 Jonathan met a young Hupa woman he called Amelia, from the village of Meskut in Hoopa Valley. They were legally married at Martin’s Ferry on the Klamath River.

Amelia’s Hupa family has been forgotten over the years as has the year she was born. Also not known is if Lyons married her according to Hupa tradition, but he likely would have paid her family the respect they were due with an appropriate dowry.

It was in Hoopa Valley that their first son, Anderson, was born in 1863. In the Klamath County Census of 1870, only three of the Indian-white marriages were recorded and the Lyons’ marriage was one of the three.

By 1864, Jonathan and Amelia had relocated to the Lower Klamath near Martin’s Ferry, when Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation was established. This was the result of Jonathan helping Indian’s during the “Indian Wars.”

An example is the case of a young Hupa woman who stabbed and killed a soldier from Fort Gaston who was trying to rape her. Jonathan stole a canoe in which she was able to escape to the mouth of the Klamath River, where she was sheltered by the Yurok Tribe.

By 1870, after having two more sons, Sherman near Martin’s Ferry and Harvey at the former Albee Ranch on Redwood Creek, Jonathan and Amelia moved to the Bald Hills where their fourth son, Antonio, was born. It was here that Jonathan began to buy land that came to be known as the Lyons Ranch in the Bald Hills.

On August 3rd, 1903, the Lyons’s were mentioned in the Humboldt Times for the success of their sheep ranches:

“Pioneer Jonathan Lyons and his estimable wife are surely enjoying the profit of their own labors, for beneath their own fig and vine they are now watching the third generation coming to replace them in part of the toils and tribulations of life. Jonathan Lyons and wife are still in harness. Miss Josie, a splendid girl who acts as postmistress, takes the heaviest load from her mother’s shoulders, while Mr. Lyons has a man or two outside to do the labor whom he guides. Four sons, men without a blemish to their name reside on fine farms, with plenty of fat, clean sheep to keep the larder well stocked.”

Jonathan Lyons died in 1913; Amelia died at her daughter’s home in Fortuna in 1921. They are buried beside each other in the Blue Lake Cemetery.

Philadelphia — A para-military extremist group has proclaimed its autonomy from the government, and plans to secede. The announcement comes more than a year after troops fired on protestors, leaving 72 people dead, including eight civilians.

In April of last year, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage, ordered the National Guard to seize a large cache of weapons from area locals. Soldiers however met armed extremists, the same organization now claiming the government lacks authority over the group.

Sources close to the situation say the rebel leaders voted July 2nd to approve the move to secede from the nation. Two days later the manifesto was formally adopted.

Despite a law prohibiting the distribution of propaganda, several copies the manifesto were handed out by local Philadelphia printer John Dunlap, along Market Street. While he remains free, Dunlap was questioned at length by officials.

Department of Homeland Security officials are currently searching for four Pennsylvania men who are said to have signed the document. John Morton, Robert Morris, George Clymer, and Benjamin Rush, have been identified as “ringleaders” of the extremist faction, and remain at large.

The 37-year-old Clymer is a known radical, who’s still being sought by authorities for inciting riots in Boston three years ago. In one incident, Andrew Oliver, a government tax collector, was threatened with hanging by an angry mob and later was the subject of a mock funeral.

The same mob also went to Oliver’s office, severely vandalized the building. They also set fire to some of Oliver’s property.

Meanwhile, Suffolk County Sheriff William Greenleaf, ordered by Massachusetts Lt. Governor John Penn to end the rioting, was assaulted by the mob, which also looted and destroyed Oliver’s house. So far no arrests have been made in the case.

Morton, 51, a former Justice of the Peace, is believed to be hiding out in the area of Ridley Township, where he has family. 42-year-old Morris, an immigrant has a home in Philadelphia and is thought to be there.

The youngest, 30-year-old Rush is a Princeton University graduate and medical doctor. The Byberry native is accused by DHS to be practicing medicine with out a license.

In December of last year, the government passed the ‘Prohibitory Act,’ in order to put a stop to extremist activities. Then last month there were several attempts to halt boat traffic along the Delaware River leading to shots being fired between extremists and DHS. Extremists have maintained a blockade on the river, preventing DHS from reaching inland ports.

It is expected that the administration will soon issue a directive authorizing military intervention to end the blockade.

The American War for Independence would last for five more years. Yet to come were the Patriot triumphs at Saratoga, the bitter winter at Valley Forge, the intervention of the French, and the final victory at Yorktown in 1781. In 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris with Britain, the United States formally became a free and independent nation.

Happy Independence Day — lest we forget…

Dozens of protesters blocked the road Tuesday, so buses full of undocumented immigrants couldn’t make their way to a U.S. Border Patrol Station in Murrieta, California. About 140 people were flown into San Diego from Texas and bused to Murrieta with more expected to arrive every three days or so.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement buses eventually left Murrieta and headed south to a detention facility in San Ysidro. Murrieta was one of the cities chosen to help process the immigrants because it has a federal border protection facility.

The increase in border crossings is linked to rumors in Central America that children are eligible for legal U.S. residency. The surge has also been prompted by violence and extortion from gangs in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Murrieta held a town hall meeting Monday where Mayor Alan Long assured residents the immigrants have no criminal backgrounds and that health screenings will be done. Still, he urged residents to call their elected officials and voice opposition to the plan.

Speaking to a Latino group in Las Vegas Wednesday, Senator Harry Reid blamed House Speaker John Boehner for telling President Barack Obama that he won’t bring immigration up for a vote this year as well as Congressman Joe Heck, for not putting more pressure on the GOP leadership.

“It’s gone until next year,” Reid, said at a brief news conference after his talk to ‘Hispanics in Politics.’

Reid added, however, that there’s a slim possibility of getting something done following the November 4th general election.

“Maybe we’ll get something in the lame-duck (session.) The Republicans should suffer at the ballot box,” Reid said, adding of Heck, “He’s not been helpful.”

Heck is running for re-election to a third term in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District. Meantime, Reid is backing Heck’s Democratic opponent, Erin Bilbray, in the race.

Reid added the immigrant children need to be taken care of, although the law isn’t clear on what the U.S. should do with them.

“We can’t use the children as pawns,” Reid claimed.

However, by tying the ‘humanitarian-crisis’ to the upcoming elections, Reid has in effect made the kids’ ‘pawns.’

Obama is vowing to act on his own due to House inaction on immigration reform that proponents say could help address a wave of illegal alien children crossing the border from Mexico. Obama argues has to act in large part because of the recent surge in unaccompanied Central American children showing up by the thousands at the U.S.-Mexico border and the GOP-controlled House’s unwillingness to vote on the issue until at least after the November elections.

“American cannot wait forever … ,” Obama said Monday. “That is why, today, I am beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress.”

But there are limits to the power of his cell phone and pen, according to CNN.

He can redress rules on who to rank and prosecute in deportation hearings; send more border patrol agents as well as members of the National Guard to the affected areas; continue to allow illegal aliens who were brought to the U.S. as kids to stay; continue using ankle bracelets or weekly mandatory check-ins with immigration officials as an alternative to detention; and increase the amount of free legal help to illegal aliens in deportation hearings.

But he can’t bar people from applying for political asylum. Those guidelines are set by the United Nations Refugee Convention, which the U.S. has signed; he can’t increase the number eligible for green cards because their spouses or parents are U.S. citizens; eliminate judicial review for people ordered deported; round-up all illegal immigrants and deport them without some sort of legal hearing; or issue a blanket executive action legalizing all illegal aliens.

They fail to mention ‘closing the border,’ however. Then there is also the fact Obama tends to ‘act on his own.’

Since January 2012, the Obama administration has suffered at least 13 unanimous defeats in cases it argued, according to the Cato Institute. Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Institute, said unanimous decisions are “indicative of an administration that pushes and breaks through the envelope in its assertion of federal power.”

Obama will likely sidestep Congress on immigration reform by expanding on his so-called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals memorandum, which essentially allows young illegal immigrants to stay in the United States if they were brought into the country illegally by their parents and have not been convicted of a major crime, Federation for American Immigration Reform spokesman Ira Mehlman predicted.

“I expect him to continue to ignore U.S. immigration law,” Mehlman said. “This can all be traced back to the DACA program…under the guise of not splitting up families.”

Union membership has dropped from 18.5 percent in 1983 to 7.5 percent by 2013 in the private sector and 45.5 percent to 38.7 in the public sector. Because of this, there is an all-out assault on business, both big and small.

In 2009, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn issued an executive order unionizing the caretakers of in-home patients that received Medicaid benefits. This deliberate scheme to bolster the waning membership rolls of public sector unions spread with successful attempts in Missouri, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

However, most of these caretakers are not employees of the patient, but rather family members.

Such is Pam Harris’ case, who cares for her disabled son, Josh. Despite the fact she doesn’t receive compensation from the government, Quinn’s executive order reclassified her as a state employee, forcing her to pay membership dues to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) against her wishes.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court ruled Illinois home health care workers cannot be required to pay fees that help cover a union’s costs of collective bargaining. In a 5-4 split along ideological lines, the justices said the practice violates the First Amendment rights of nonmembers who disagree with the positions that unions take.

The ruling is limited to “partial-public employees” and stopped short of overturning decades of practice allowing public sector unions of teachers, firefighters and other government workers to pass through their representation costs to nonmembers.

Recently, SEIU spent more than $2 million of its members dues money to fund the Restaurant Opportunity Center (ROC), a so-called “worker center” that the union uses to skirt rules about union organizing. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union spends freely on another outfit called OURWalmart, trying to push unionization more deeply into the retail sector.

These groups like UFCW, ROC, OurWalmart, and Fast Food Forward hold protests and demonstrations, stage strikes and walkouts, chant slogans demanding outlandish minimum wage with bussed-in protestors who don’t work for any of the companies subject to the protests.

In early June, the Seattle City Council approved a large minimum wage hike to $15 per hour, giving larger businesses with over 500 employees three years to comply and smaller businesses seven. However, under current labor law, franchises like fast food chains are technically small businesses since they’re owned and operated locally.

A June 24 Seattle-Times survey shows 42 percent of businesses are “very likely” to cut staffing levels in response to the new law, and 44 percent are “very likely” to cut employee hours.

Meanwhile, 70 percent indicated that the new law will spur cost increases, while 43 percent are “very likely” to limit their future expansion in the city. In fact, one in seven businesses plans to close at least one location in the city in response to the new law.

Leading the wage-hike charge in Seattle is Socialist Alternative Councilmember Kshama Sawant. She also has it out for the practice of tipping.

“We don’t want any worker to be beholden to the mood of the customer on any given day,” Sawant stated.

The Seattle-Times reported ROC co-director Saru Jayaraman, “described tips as institutionalized sexism” and then to make her views perfectly clear added “the best option, she suggests, is to eliminate tips.”

She recently told the University of California, Berkeley’s alumni magazine: “Ultimately, this system of tipping needs to go.”

Jayaraman also told the Ford Foundation, who has given more than $2 million to ROC: “No portion of anybody’s income should be tips because tips are not wages.”

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the average hourly wage for a restaurant employee earning tip income is $11.82, which by most definitions lifts them into the American middle class. It also shows top earners can collect $24 an hour or more.

The service industry in Seattle is fighting back, with a group called ‘Tips Are Wages.’

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Federal Government can’t make companies pay for emergency contraceptive coverage for employees that could lead to abortions, in violation of their religious beliefs. The case was brought by Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma-based retail chain owned by the Green family.

The Greens said they are willing to cover 16 of the 20 birth control methods mandated by Obamacare to its employees, but not four others because the risk of abortion goes against their religious beliefs.

“Providing these objectionable drugs and devices violates the deeply held religious convictions of the Greens — the sole owners of their family businesses — that life begins at conception,” the company’s website reads. “Yet refusing to comply with the federal mandate would subject them to an untenable choice of paying substantial fines or discontinuing the outstanding and affordable health insurance plan currently provided to their valued employees.”

The company argued that the Obamacare mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which says the government cannot place burdens on the exercise of freedom of religion. Furthermore, attorneys for the company pointed out that the Obama administration had granted an exemption for churches and accommodations for religious hospitals, schools and nonprofits, but for-profit companies were unfairly required to comply with the coverage rule or pay fines.

The majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito agreed with that argument.

“Any suggestion that for-profit corporations are incapable of exercising religion because their purpose is simply to make money flies in the face of modern corporate law,” Alito wrote, adding that by requiring religious corporations to cover contraception, “the HHS mandate demands that they engage in conduct that seriously violates their religious beliefs.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer. Ginsburg warned in her dissent that the decision was not as narrow as it claimed to be.

“In a decision of startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs,” Ginsburg wrote.

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, called the decision a blow to women’s reproductive health.

“Today, the Supreme Court ruled against American women and families, giving bosses the right to discriminate against women and deny their employees access to birth control coverage,” Richards said in a statement. “This is a deeply disappointing and troubling ruling that will prevent some women, especially those working hourly wage jobs and struggling to make ends meet, from getting birth control.”

The Obama administration failed to show that the broad contraception mandate is the least restrictive way of advancing its interest in ensuring access to birth control. The Court also ruled that the decision applies only to the contraception mandate, not other insurance mandates, such as those involving vaccinations.

Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that the government could pay for this coverage if it wants to make it available, but cannot compel a company to do so. The decision deals a big hit to the Obama administration, which defended its interpretation of the law as something that forces companies to provide all manner of birth control methods to workers.

“We will, of course, respect the Supreme Court ruling,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday, adding that the administration will “consider the range of options available to the president.”

Earnest also called on Congress to make sure the women affected still have contraception coverage. “Congress needs to take action to solve this problem that has been created,” he said.

Senator Harry Reid said Congress will have to pick up where the Supreme Court left off after the court ruled that employers don’t have to provide contraceptives to their employees.

“If the Supreme Court will not protect women’s access to health care, then Democrats will,” Reid tweeted using #NotMyBossBusiness, after the Supreme Court ruled today that employers can’t be forced to cover contraceptives under Obamacare.

Congresswoman Dina Titus, representing Las Vegas, condemned the decision in a statement.

“Ninety-nine percent of American women will use contraception at some point in their lives. Employers should not be able to impose their religious beliefs on female employees, ignoring their individual health decisions and denying their right to reproductive care,” she wrote.

Congressman Steven Horsford, representing North Las Vegas tweeted his criticism of the ruling: “#SCOTUS Ruling today: Corporations are people. Women are not.”

Nevada’s Republicans in Congress didn’t immediately have anything to say on the ruling, their Twitter feeds and statement lists remain quiet. However Kentucky Senator Rand Paul welcomed the ruling.

“Religious liberty will remain intact and all Americans can stay true to their faith without fear of big government intervention or punishment,” said Paul. “Our nation was founded on the principle of freedom, and with this decision, America will continue to serve as a safe haven for those looking to exercise religious liberty.”

House Speaker John Boehner, said in a statement, “Today’s decision is a victory for religious freedom and another defeat for an administration that has repeatedly crossed constitutional lines in pursuit of its Big Government objectives.”

Recently the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled the Washington Redskins trademarks on the claiming the name is “disparaging to Native Americans.” This effort was largely sparked by Nevada’s Senator Harry Reid.

His support of banning ‘Native American’ names from our general lexicon is leading to a new dilemma, this one over the use of such names in the U.S. military. In a Washington Post opinion piece last Thursday, Boston Review’s managing editor Simon Waxman lamented:

“In the United States today, the names Apache, Comanche, Chinook, Lakota, Cheyenne and Kiowa apply not only to Indian tribes but also to military helicopters. Add in the Black Hawk, named for a leader of the Sauk tribe. Then there is the Tomahawk, a low-altitude missile, and a drone named for an Indian chief, Gray Eagle. Operation Geronimo was the end of Osama bin Laden.”

“Why do we name our battles and weapons after people we have vanquished? For the same reason the Washington team is the Redskins and my hometown Red Sox go to Cleveland to play the Indians and to Atlanta to play the Braves: because the myth of the worthy native adversary is more palatable than the reality — the conquered tribes of this land were not rivals but victims, cheated and impossibly outgunned.”

“The destruction of the Indians was asymmetric war, compounded by deviousness in the name of imperialist manifest destiny. White America shot, imprisoned, lied, swindled, preached, bought, built and voted its way to domination. Identifying our powerful weapons and victorious campaigns with those we subjugated serves to lighten the burden of our guilt. It confuses violation with a fair fight.”

Time again, it’s been claimed that Harry Reid is an ardent supporter of our U.S. military.

“In my experience, no one has supported the military in Nevada more effectively than Senator Reid,” writes retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Harold Belote of ‘Veterans for Harry Reid.’

“I’m proud to stand with Harry Reid,” concludes Belote.

Really?

After seven U.S. Marines died last year during a night-time training exercise at the munitions depot in Hawthorne — the one he’s credited with saving — Reid decided he would use the tragedy to complain about sequestration.

“These men and women, our Marines were training there in Hawthorne,” Reid said from the Senate floor. “And with this sequester, it’s going to cut back. I just hope everyone understands the sacrifices made by our military. They are significant, being away from home, away from families, away from their country.”

That’s not support – that’s politicking. And since he started this politically correct mumbo-jumbo about ethnic slurs against American Indians, and he’s such a big fan of the military, Reid should ‘put up or shut up.’

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled police may not search the cell phones of people they arrest without first getting a search warrant. The Obama administration and the states of California and Massachusetts , defending the cell phone searches, said cell phones should have no greater protection from a search than anything else police find.

In San Diego, police found indications of gang membership when they looked through defendant David Riley’s smart phone. Prosecutors used video and photographs found on the smart phone to persuade a jury to convict Riley of attempted murder and other charges.

California courts rejected Riley’s efforts to throw out the evidence and upheld the convictions, however the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the California’s high court to take a new look at Riley’s case.

In Boston, a federal appeals court ruled police must have a warrant before searching suspect’s cell phone. Police arrested Brima Wurie on suspicion of selling crack cocaine, checked the call log on his flip phone and used that information to find where he lived.

When they searched Wurie’s home, using a warrant, they found crack, marijuana, a gun and ammunition. The evidence was enough to produce a conviction and a prison term of more than 20 years.

The appeals court ruled for Wurie, but left in place his drug conviction for selling cocaine near a school that did not depend on the tainted evidence. That conviction also carried a 20-year sentence.

Because cell phones contain so much information, police must get a warrant before looking through them, Chief Justice John Roberts said.

“Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may show, they hold for many Americans the privacies of life,” Roberts said.

The message to police about what they should do before rummaging through a cell phone’s contents following an arrest is simple.

“Get a warrant,” Roberts said.

The chief justice acknowledged that barring searches would affect law enforcement, but said: “Privacy comes at a cost.”

Authorities concerned about the destruction of evidence can take steps to prevent the remote erasure of a phone’s contents or the activation of encryption, Roberts said. One exception to the warrant requirement left open by the decision is a case in which officers reasonably fear for their safety or the lives of others.

Legal observers noted that the language in the court’s ruling could give new life to lawsuits claiming the NSA’s monitoring program violates the Fourth Amendment.

Last February, Senator Rand Paul asked a federal court to make the National Security Agency destroy the American phone records it has gathered as part of a data-mining program on the grounds that bulk collection violates the Fourth Amendment.

“We will ask the question in court whether a single warrant can apply to the records of every American phone user, all of the time, without limits, without individualization,” Paul told reporters outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The Supreme Court also delivered a blow to President Obama, ruling he went too far in making recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. The court sided with Senate Republicans and limited the president’s power to fill high-level vacancies with temporary appointments.

It was the first-ever Supreme Court test involving the long-standing practice of presidents naming appointees when the Senate is on break. In this case, Obama had argued that the Senate was on an extended holiday break when he filled slots at the NLRB in 2012.

He argued the brief sessions it held every three days were a sham intended to prevent him from filling the seats. The justices rejected that argument, though, declaring the Senate was not actually in a formal recess when Obama acted during that three-day window.

Justice Stephen Breyer said in his majority opinion that a congressional break has to last at least 10 days to be considered a recess under the Constitution.

“Three days is too short a time to bring a recess within the scope of the Clause. Thus we conclude that the President lacked the power to make the recess appointments here at issue,” Breyer wrote.

At the same time, the court upheld the general authority of the president to make recess appointments.

Reacting to the Supreme Court decision, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the administration is “deeply disappointed” in the ruling.

He said that while the administration disagrees with the decision, it will honor it.

Finally, the high court struck down a Massachusetts law that set a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics, saying it violates the First Amendment. Massachusetts had argued that the buffer zone, which anti-abortion protesters said violated their free speech rights, keeps patients and clinic staff safer.

“The buffer zones burden substantially more speech than necessary to achieve the Commonwealth’s asserted interests,” Roberts wrote on behalf of the court.

The immediate impact of the decision will be on Massachusetts, but advocates expect that similar fixed-distance buffer zones in other states, including one now being challenged in Maine, will be next. The Supreme Court stopped short of declaring that the law discriminated against the anti-abortion viewpoint.

A decision is expected next week in another case about access to reproductive health — Hobby Lobby versus Sebelius, taking aim at contraceptive coverage under Obamacare.