19-year-old college student commits suicide after shooting first porn scene

http://www.lifesitenews.com/mobile/news/19-year-old-college-student-commits-suicide-after-shooting-first-porn-scene

Fri May 23, 2014 12:49 EST

Alyssa Funke

Alyssa Funke, aka "Stella Ann," RIP

                                                                            

STILLWATER, MN, May 23, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 19-year-old college student committed suicide just two weeks after making her first pornographic video.

Alyssa Funke, who starred in her first porn film earlier this year for a website called CastingCouch-X, used a shotgun to kill herself on April 16.

The teen, who adopted the stage name “Stella Ann,” was a straight-A student at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls. She told the pornographers, "I want to be a major in biology, minor in chemistry, and I want to be an anesthesiologist.”

It is widely thought she killed herself after former classmates at her high school in Stillwater, Minnesota, taunted her through Twitter and Facebook. Police say their investigation, which is still ongoing, has not yet found any criminal harassment.

Funke's parents say that she suffered from periodic depression. Local media report that the young lady's father has a record for swindling and theft, and her mother dealt drugs with a boyfriend. Funke's mother also neglected the family's younger siblings. Eventually, Funke moved in with her grandmother as a young teenager, though she still struggled with money.

Former pornstars told LifeSiteNews that troubled childhoods and deep depression – before or after a shoot – is not out of the ordinary in that industry.

Madyson Marquette, whose porn film name was Fayth Deluca, told LifeSiteNews that "after shooting porn, it seemed as if all the girls were depressed, including myself. We would shoot a scene and immediately after we would go do something to where we wouldn't have to think about what we had just done, whether that was getting so drunk we just blacked out, some type of drug like Xanax, cocaine, or ecstasy."

"The drugs contained our depression,” she said. “It took us to a fantasy world because the reality we were living was a nightmare.” Ironically, she said, their nightmare is what so many men "use as their fantasy."

To this day, Marquette says she "struggle[s] with depression, years after being out of porn."

"Women were not created to separate their emotions and sex, so if you are doing porn as a woman or a young girl, depression will creep in quick and fast," she said.

Brittni Ruiz told LifeSiteNews she had the same story. “After I shot porn I experienced severe depression for a couple of months," she said. "Once the love of Jesus hit me, I was able to discard all of my drugs and antidepressants that were supposed to make me 'happy,' but never really did."

Michelle Truax, who works with the anti-pornography non-profit XXXChurch, told LifeSiteNews that "while I don't have any official stats, I can tell you that almost all – if not all – of the women who have been mentored through our ministry have suffered with bouts of depression."

"It goes so much deeper than just the obvious," she said. "We have found that all of the women we have mentored have had issues in their past that caused them to seek out this type of work in the first place. Some will tell you that it started with stripping and the high they got from the attention was incredible for them, because they had never received that kind of attention before."

Click "like" if you say NO to porn!

According to Truax, however, "then it escalates into other things." She says that "ultimately it is a false high, a big letdown, because the attention is superficial." Deep, healthy relationships based on love are not found, "so it further tears at the core issues that were already under the surface before."

Craig Gross, who founded XXXChurch, says that his organization has "a mentor program in place for women that does not discriminate. In other words whether you are in the industry, or out of the industry, or somewhere in between, we have a network of women to mentor and walk with these gals."

Gross said partnerships are important, as well, to help women. "If a woman enters into our mentor program and she is in need of or seeking help beyond what we feel comfortable that we're qualified to give, we will see to it that they receive counseling from a licensed professional," he said.

Sent from my iPhone

Californians gripe about Obamacare enrollment snags, lack of doctors

Copied from the following link:

http://www.latimes.com/business/healthcare/la-fi-obamacare-california-exchange-complaints-20140522-story.html

Nearly 1,500 Californians have complained to state regulators in the last four months about their Obamacare coverage purchased through California's insurance exchange.

New data reveal the biggest category of complaints centers on getting confirmation of health plan enrollment and basic issues such as getting an identification card to obtain care.

Many consumers have also encountered difficulty finding a doctor who accepts their new coverage, as well as frustration with inaccurate provider lists, according to the California Department of Managed Health Care.

"If you have a medical condition and can't get care that is a very serious issue," said Marta Green, spokeswoman for the managed healthcare agency. "We are still working to resolve many of these cases."

Health insurers and officials at the Covered California exchange say they are working hard too to address consumers' gripes. They say some problems are inevitable from such a massive overhaul and that the number of complaints is a small fraction of the more than 1 million Californians who signed up under the Affordable Care Act.

Consumer frustration with smaller physician networks has drawn the most attention statewide.

About 12% of the 1,459 exchange customers who complained to the state cited an access to care problem, according to state figures. The data cover complaints received from Jan. 1 to April 30.

Not surprisingly, Green said, the two largest health plans in Covered California accounted for the most complaints overall and in the category of access to providers.

Anthem Blue Cross, a unit of industry giant WellPoint Inc., received 658 complaints through April and nearly 13% dealt with provider issues, state data show.

Blue Shield of California was next with 461 complaints and 17% focused on finding an in-network doctor.

Peter Lee, the exchange's executive director, said, "[T]hese complaints are one indicator we are looking at for the scale and scope of the problem .... We want to ensure the networks are adequate."

At an exchange meeting Thursday, Covered California credited some insurers for expanding their networks to better serve higher-than-expected enrollment.

For instance, Health Net Inc. said it boosted the number of doctors in its exchange HMO plan by 68% since Jan. 1 to 11,600.

Anthem said it has added more than 3,800 medical providers to its statewide exchange network since January, including well-known hospitals such as Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Blue Shield said its PPO network for individual coverage has grown to include 62% of physicians and more than 80% of hospitals on its standard PPO roster.

Industry officials point out that many consumers welcome the lower premiums a narrower network can offer.

"Some networks are very broad and others are more selective -- giving consumers the option of choosing a plan that may have fewer providers but costs less in monthly premiums," said Charles Bacchi, executive vice president at the California Assn. of Health Plans.

Covered California said health plans will submit proposed rates for 2015 in the next week. The state expects to announce the new premiums in late July after negotiating with insurers.

The exchange estimates that its enrollment from the recently completed six-month sign-up period will be about 1.2 million, assuming 85% of consumers pay their premiums.

A new forecast predicts Covered California enrollment will reach 1.7 million after 2015 open enrollment and hit 2 million by 2016.

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

NEW WORLD ORDER BEING BUILT

http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/05/24/us-secretary-war-says-new-world-order-built-good/

US Secretary of War Says ‘New World Order Being Built’ to Do Good

A public admission by a politician that a New World Order is under construction should leave us all more worried than when we woke up this morning. The elite are becoming more blatant, bolder both in words and actions, as they move towards their goal of a One World Government.

“During an event honoring the 223rd anniversary of Poland’s constitution last night — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said we are seeing a new 21st century world order being built and although there are conflict and complications, there’s still hope.”

Via Activist Post

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Contributed by The Daily Sheeple of www.TheDailySheeple.com

VIET REFUGEE NOW TYCOON SAYS CALIFORNIA OFFICIALS NO BETTER THAN COMMUNISTS

http://americathemovie.com/blog/?p=184

VIET REFUGEE NOW TYCOON SAYS CALIFORNIA OFFICIALS NO BETTER THAN COMMUNISTS

He fled his native Vietnam with virtually nothing and has built a hot sauce empire — but says dealing with California bureaucrats and excessive regulations isn’t that different from his Communist homeland.

David Tran speaking out on the CBS Morning News.

“David Tran is the founder and CEO of Huy Fong Foods, the maker of the famously tasty Sriracha hot sauce,” writes Zenon Evans for Reason.com. “Grappling for months with regulators and politicians in southern California about the spicy scents that his factory emits, Tran recently compared meddlesome government to that of a Communist country.”

Huy Fong Foods is a hot sauce company based in Rosemead, California that was founded in 1980 on Spring Street in Los Angeles‘s Chinatown. It has grown to become one of the leaders in the Asian hot sauce market, especially Sriracha sauce.

The company is named for a decrepit Panamanian freighter, the “Huey Fong,” that carried Tran and 3,317 other refugees out of Vietnam in December 1978.

Tran’s successful Sriracha sauce was developed by the company’s founder, David Tran, who had grown chili peppers and produced and sold chili sauce in Long Binh, a village just north of Saigon. He fled Vietnam in 1979 as a part of the migration of the Vietnamese boat people following the Vietnam War.

But now he’s wondering if settling in California was a mistake, writes Evans. “It might sound hyperbolic, but he does know a thing or two about living under the nightmarish bureaucracy of a red utopia.”

After all, Tran escaped the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and “its many intrusions” three decades ago to start a new life in The Land of the Free.

“Today, I feel almost the same. Even now, we live in USA, and my feeling, the government, not a big difference,” Tran said from his factory outside of Los Angeles.

It’s not the first time he’s spoken out about the issue. He previously accused the local government of wanting to shut him down. Last month the city council deemed the $80 million business a “public nuisance” for giving off a peppery odor. In 2013, the city sued Tran (despite lobbying to get him to move Huy Fong Foods there in the first place) and California’s health regulators shut down the factory for 30 days.

Tran has received offers from public officials throughout the country that want to court Huy Fong Foods. Texas, which is far more business-friendly than California, has made the biggest push.

Because his peppers are grown locally, Tran is reluctant. He did indicate that he may open another factory elsewhere to meet the growing demand for his popular hot sauce.

BEN CARSON AND 2ND AMENDMENT RIGHTS

http://www.redstate.com/2014/03/11/dr-carsons-prescription-gun-control/

Dr. Carson’s prescription for gun control

Dr. Ben Carson came in third on the CPAC straw poll for president, making him the not-Paul not-Cruz winner.  Not to sound flippant, but that’s a significant position, since the top two spots were pretty much pre-ordained.  Run through a mental list of all the folks Dr. Carson beat out for that bronze medal, and you can see why it matters, even if you don’t place a huge amount of faith in straw polls this far out from the election.

The thing is, we’re really not that far out from the election, not for any candidate who wants to get serious.  In fact, the hour is growing late.  Presidential campaigns are massive undertakings.  Hopefully the 2012 race permanently shattered the illusion of an outsider sweeping in from nowhere, whirling across the ballroom floor to pick up the nomination, and gliding smoothly into the White House.  It doesn’t work that way.  It will never work that way.  Assembling money and support for a winning bid is serious business indeed.  Even if the candidate has a skeleton-free closet and a natural gift for avoiding self-destructive mistakes on the campaign trail, the resources to sustain fifty-state campaigns in both primaries and the general election take years to assemble.  Not even Mitt Romney did it right, and he got started very early in the game, bringing both personal wealth and formidable management skills to the task.  (Let us not dwell on what happened to those formidable management skills when it came time to assemble his campaign apparatus.  The important lesson here is that 2014 is actually very late in the game for anyone to lay the groundwork for a 2016 bid.)

So if Dr. Carson wants to play, it’s time to start lining up pieces on his side of the board.  His assets include a well-deserved reputation for great intelligence and compassion, plus a unique charisma.  People just plain like the man, including people who don’t entirely agree with him.  His CPAC speech was a rambling affair in which he just wanted to get a few things off his chest (essentially the way he himself introduced his presentation.)  The audience ate it up like candy, and responded with completely unforced wails of dismay when Carson noticed he was running out of time:

Every candidate wishes he had a bottle full of what Ben Carson brews every time he steps up to the podium.  But natural charisma and intelligence aren’t enough in politics.  Issues and positions matter too, especially in the Republican Party, which – to both its credit, and frustration – is far more serious about its core issues than Democrats are.  As long as money gets spent, taxes go up, and the government gets bigger, Democrats can hand out enough lollipops to keep their coalition together.  Even their livelier internal disputes can be smoothed over a with a billion or two in promises.  And the Left is very comfortable with concealing Party ideology to protect candidates with views that its electorate finds nominally unpalatable, such as the absurd fiction of the “pro-gun Democrat,” or the all but extinct “pro-life Democrat,” whose antics were grimly amusing back in the bygone Bart Stupak era.

Republican voters, on the other hand, allow for much more limited rhetorical flexibility with their most sensitive issues, especially gun control.  And that’s where Ben Carson runs into a bit of tough sledding, because he has expressed some sympathy for gun control efforts.  This lead to a fair number of “nice man, but I could never vote for him for President” assessments from conservatives.

Carson hasn’t actually said all that much on the topic until now.  Most of the “deal breaker” response is based on his response when Glenn Beck asked if ownership of semi-automatic weapons should be permitted.  Carson replied, “It depends on where you live.  I think if you life in the midst of a lot of people, and I’m afraid that that semi-automatic weapon is going to fall into the hands of a crazy person, I would rather you not have it.”

Now, we could spend all day parsing every word of this response, beginning with the depth of Dr. Carson’s knowledge of “semi-automatic” weapons.  (I could be wrong, but I don’t get the impression he’s big on hunting or shooting sports.)  And he concluded by saying he’d rather people in urban areas not have such guns, not “and that’s why I think they should be illegal, no matter what the Second Amendment says.”

But it’s not unfair to note that the Second Amendment is not a regional ordinance, and the right to keep and bear arms does not atrophy simply because one happens to live in Detroit rather than Montana.  (And on that score, the police chief of Detroit has famously come out in support of citizens’ right to defend themselves.)  If Carson wants to run for office, he must realize that in hyper-regulated America, people reflexively assume that the President plans to make his personal preferences compulsory.  When you say “I’d rather people not have them,” everyone naturally assumes the “… so I’ll make them illegal” conclusion.

And when it comes to gun control, everyone with proper reverence for the Second Amendment lives in fear of the Republican squish who will give it away.  No matter how badly gun control has fared at the ballot box, we all know the prevalent political and media culture strongly favors it.  Just as we view our Second Amendment rights as a crucial element of our independence, the Left thinks the right to keep and bear arms is an insult to the power and wisdom of their beloved super-State.  You’re supposed to do as you’re told, and when you get in trouble, you’re supposed to await rescue from the State and its operatives.  The implication that the State probably can’t save you, and can never stumble upon some magic formula for regulating crime out of existence, makes liberals very angry.  They could get a lot done with the aid of a prominent, beloved Republican leader who came out in favor of their agenda.

So if Carson wants to run for President, he’ll need to clear all this up.  Interestingly enough, he has been taking steps to do so.  On Monday, he declared himself opposed to gun registration, saying he “used to think they needed to be registered, but if you register them, they just come and find you and take your guns.”

And by “they” he means “pretty sinister internal forces.”  He went on to address his earlier comments about the difference between urban and rural gun ownership, saying he would “never advocate anything to interfere with Second Amendment rights,” affirming that “law-abiding American citizens absolutely should have gun rights.”

He’s spoken of his fidelity to the Constitution many times, so unless you’re inclined to think his further thoughts are just elaborate posturing to conceal a deep gun-control agenda, it sounds like he came to exactly the realization I mentioned above: the need to separate what he thinks free people should discuss among themselves, and what sort of legislation he would be willing to support.

Personally, I’m a diehard Second Amendment absolutist who is extremely nervous around guns – I am quite willing to exhaust myself fighting for your right to keep and bear arms.  Maybe Dr. Carson has similar personal reservations about firearms.  But if he truly believes in the Second Amendment, and can capably articulate the ramifications of that belief, shouldn’t that be good enough?  My guess is that some will remain uneasy because they know how hard the dominant political and media culture will hit him on this issue, either during the campaign to trip him up, or after he gets elected to squeeze support from gun control from the new President.  He’d best be ready to wrestle bears and wolves to protect our gun rights.

Governments Use Regulatory Laws to Nullify First Amendment

http://godfatherpolitics.com/15637/governments-use-regulatory-laws-nullify-first-amendment/

Governments Use Regulatory Laws to Nullify First Amendment

One of the most frightening trends in American law is using regulations to nullify our fundamental rights, especially those found in the First Amendment. The most prevalnent tactic is campus speech codes. We’ve seen it with zoning ordinances. A Bible study group meets in homes and zoning regulations claim that the meetings can’t take place anymore.

A California family was fined for holding weekly Bible studies in their home because the meetings were said to violate the city's zoning regulations.

“Stephanie and Chuck Fromm have been living in their San Juan Capistrano home for 18 years and were shocked when they received a notice of violation from the city. They have already been fined $300 and have been told they will be fined an additional $500 per meeting if they continue to meet without a Conditional Use Permit.”

The city of San Juan Capistrano eventually changed the law after a lot of bad publicity when the story went national.

Beware if you have a temporary pond on your property. Bureaucrats want to regulate them.

At issue is a proposed rule from the federal Environmental Protection Agency that would become part of the federal Clean Water Act.

[Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey] told [an] audience the rule would give the EPA authority to regulate ‘virtually all outdoor water,’ and would surely result in new permit requirements and regulations for land owners.’”

How about posting a sign on your own property? Beware! The regulators see that sign and don’t like it, especially it includes a religious or political message.

“The Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) is ordering that a Ten Commandments sign posted on private property near a state highway be removed.

“Jeannette Golden of Hemphill, Texas purchased the 6 x 12-foot sign from the organization God’s Ten last summer and posted it on her property just off Highway 21. However, according to reports, Golden was soon contacted by the state, which took issue with the sign, stating that the display could be classified as commercial advertising.”

A $125 permit would be needed. In addition, there would be an annual fee of $75 and a $250 surety bond. And if the land owners don’t comply, they could be fined $1000 per day.

When this argument didn’t work, the Texas Department of Transportation tried another regulatory ploy. Jeannette Golden was told that “no permit is possible” because “the sign must be removed as pursuant to the Highway Beautification Act, which relates to advertising.” Of course, the sign is not an advertisement; it’s an expression of her free speech rights.

“‘I wasn’t advertising because that’s my freedom of religion, and that’s what I believe, and I was not informing anybody,’ she told reporters. ‘It was just something that I stood for.’

“Local residents have rallied around Golden by purchasing a billboard not too far from her property that reads ‘In God We Trust.’ Others have verbally expressed support for the right to display the sign.”

Of course she has the right to display the sign as long as it does not obstruct the sight line of motorists.

Regulators and bureaucrats are not constitutionally immune from the Bill of Rights.

Liberals Want Conservatives Gone

http://godfatherpolitics.com/15644/cnn-chicoms-liberals-want-conservatives-gone/

From CNN to Chicoms, Liberals Want Conservatives Gone

Liberals as a group are fanciful dreamers, with heads full of hopes and fantasies about a rosy world filled with choirs of singing cherubs ... and when their dreams don't come true, they are bloody-minded, vicious little so-and-sos who are willing to slit your throat for standing in their way.

Take for instance the case of communist China, which has clear ideas about the way the world should be. While its government pretends to promote an open-minded society, with free enterprise for all, in actuality it's still the same old Marxist claptrap and iron hand in an iron glove policy that it's always been.

Few things stand in the way of the Workers Paradise Plan more than Christianity. A personal relationship with God, complete with God-given rights and the knowledge that every individual is special doesn't exactly jibe with the Communist notion that people are just expendable resources, mere atoms in the body of the State, which is the supreme universal authority.

Some uneducated Christians may be fuzzy on the incompatibility of the two worldviews, but Karl Marx wasn't. That's why his Communist Manifesto spends so much time railing about religion being "the opiate of the masses." (Marx is probably also the source of the false notion that atheism is somehow not a religion.)

So even while China portrays itself as an open society, we get incidents like a recent one in which Communist Party officials tore down a church in Zhejiang province with the excuse that the cross on top of the building was "too shiny."

The reality, of course, is that the Chicoms have been wiping out churches by the dozens because that darned Christianity was catching on again, as it is wont to do under threat of persecution.

Liberals in this country are no different in their desire to see conservatives, particularly Jewish and Christian conservatives, go the way of the dinosaur.

At any given time, there are usually dozens of ongoing efforts to ban the Ten Commandments, crosses, Bible reading, praying, teaching of the Constitution or even discussions about American history somewhere in this country.

The Republican Party leadership, under the thrall of the likes of the serpentine Mitch McConnell and the oily Karl Rove, has been focusing on destroying conservatives (and with them the GOP's best chance of getting back in power) because at their core, the RINO Brigade is just as devoted to statism as the declared Left is in this country.

Now that they've had some recent primary successes against Tea Party candidates, the left-wing media are racing to write the Tea Party's epitaph.

I think this makes about the 15th time they've done so.

The meme this week is that the Tea Party is "on life support" because of the recent defeats and because of a totally unbiased CBS poll released today that found "only" 15 percent of Americans support the Tea Party movement, down from 31 percent back in 2010, right after conservatives took back the House.

Considering that Gallup just last week had national support for the Tea Party at 22 percent across all parties, CBS' numbers are a little suspect. Add in the fact that most journalists are unable to distinguish a genuine Tea Party group from, say, the NRA or any other conservative coalition, and it's clear some salt should be applied heavily to CBS' poll.

But that won't stop the media from running with an anti-conservative story line. And when that doesn't work out, there's always the old "Huh? What story?" play, such as CNN and other media outlets are using with the numerous Obama scandals.

CNN President Jeff Zucker said as much Monday at the Deadline Club awards dinner, where he said CNN was "not going to be shamed" into covering Benghazi and other scandal stories, not when there are stories with "real news value," such as the missing Malaysian plane that ceased to be interesting within a day after it happened.

Zucker said, "I don’t think there’s any question about our commitment to breaking news, as evidenced by all the questions about the plane. ... So we’re still there whenever that happens, but we’re going to supplement that with some different kind of storytelling. ... Climate change is one of those stories that deserves more attention, that we all talk about."

But he noted, "When we do do those stories, there does tend to be a tremendous amount of lack of interest on the audience’s part."

It should be recognized that under Zucker's leadership, CNN's ratings have been run into the ground, with its worst prime time ratings in 20 years.

It shouldn't be a shock that the Democrats, whose members such as Florida Rep. Joseph Garcia think "We've proved that Communism works," would concoct a fable about conservatives being a vanishing species and try to keep "conservative" stories out of public sight.

But the reality, dear comrades, is we are here to stay, and we're growing stronger every day despite an occasional bloody lip.

Ss