News/Politics

by

News/Politics 6-19-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. About time. Now things will get interesting.

From CNSNews  “Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is asking President Obama to “ensure accountability” in the ongoing IRS investigation by providing his committee with “all communications between Lois Lerner and any persons within the Executive Office of President for the period between January 1, 2009 and May 1, 2011.”

The IRS informed Congress on Friday that an untold number of Lerner’s emails to outside agencies, including the White House, were lost during the 2009-2011 time frame due to a “computer crash.”

Ways and Means is one of three congressional committees investigating the way the IRS, during Lerner’s tenure, handled groups seeking tax-exempt status. The IRS admits that conservative groups were singled out for inappropriate scrutiny and delay before the 2010 midterm election.”

Or is it time for more computer crashes?

______________________________________________

2. Looks like they broke another law in the IRS scandal too.

From TheDailyCaller  “The Internal Revenue Service is required by federal law to keep records of all agency emails and to print out hard copies of the emails to make sure they get saved in the event of a computer glitch.

The IRS recently claimed that it lost 24,000 of 67,000 emails that ex-official Lois Lerner sent between 2009 and 2011, due to a computer crash. The IRS, which agreed to turn over all of Lerner’s emails to the House Committee on Ways and Means, specifically lost emails Lerner sent to other Obama administration agencies and the White House. Lerner is a major figure in the targeting scandal that has hit the IRS.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, backed up the IRS’s claim of a computer crash. The IRS claimed that it is currently working to retrieve the emails by working with the other agencies, which are not obligated by the IRS’s agreement with the Ways and Means Committee to cooperate.

“The [Federal Records Act] requires agencies to make and preserve records of agency decisions, policies, and essential transactions, and to take steps to safeguard against the loss of agency records,” said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, who subpoenaed IRS Commissioner John Koskinen Monday.”

______________________________________________

3. Meanwhile, their breaking the law by destroying evidence in the VA scandal as well.

From HotAir  “Judicial Watch has found documentation that shows a deliberate effort to destroy documentation relating to massive cancellations of appointments at the VA in order to falsify wait times. In a press release this morning (not yet up on its site), the watchdog group lays out the findings from documents accessed through FOIA demands that vindicate one whistleblower and expose the wider fraud effort that went far beyond scheduling. In this case, the Office of Inspector General might have some questions to answer, too:

Judicial Watch announced today that in March 2014 it obtained internal Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) documents revealing that on November 25, 2009, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) was informed that top VA officials had ordered a nationwide purge of “all outstanding [MRI] imaging orders for studies older than 6 months.” Seven days later, on December 2, 2009, the OIG closed its investigation without taking further action.

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch also detail repeated efforts by VA whistleblower Oliver Mitchell, a Marine veteran and former patient services assistant, to persuade the OIG to fully investigate the mass destruction of veterans’ medical files and the cancellation of examination requests. The documents, dating back to 2009, reveal that OIG spent barely two months investigating the allegations before closing the case.”

______________________________________________

4. And dereliction of duty in the Benghazi scandal?

From CNSNews  “Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney says he believes the evidence will show that  President Obama and top administration officials were guilty of a “dereliction of duty” both during and after the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya that cost the lives of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

 “Verification of what the National Command Authority knew and when they knew it is extremely important as it will show, I believe, that there was dereliction of duty by the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State, and the CIA Director,” Lt. Gen. McInerney said at a joint conference with military and legal experts held by the Heritage Foundation and the Benghazi Accountability Coalition on Monday.

“That is a very serious charge. That is a very serious charge, and it was done in violation of the law of the United States,” declared Gen. McInerney, who served as an assistant vice chief of staff in the Air Force’s Washington headquarters, and was part of a group calling for a select committee to investigate the events in Benghazi back in March.”

______________________________________________

5. And in yet another potential scandal….

From TheDailyMail  “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services makes no effort to determine the immigration status of adult relatives when they show up to claim unaccompanied minor children who entered the U.S. illegally, a spokesman at the agency confirmed on Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of the under-18s – ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’ (UACs) in government-speak – have poured across the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months, creating what President Barack Obama has termed an ‘urgent humanitarian situation.’

HHS, which houses them until family members can be found, has begun releasing illegal immigrant children ‘by the hundreds’ into the custody of adults who are illegal immigrants themselves, an HHS official familiar with the situation on America’s southern border told MailOnline late on Tuesday.

An official spokesman for HHS’s Administration for Children and Families confirmed on Wednesday that the agency has no system in place to verify whether the adults are here legally.“

It’s not that they can’t, it’s because they don’t want to.

______________________________________________

6. Looks like corrupt PA democrats won’t be getting away with bribery and corruption after all, despite attempts by PA’s democrat AG to bury it.

From Philly.com  “Twenty-six months after an undercover operative allegedly made his last secret payment to a Philadelphia politician, a sting investigation that started and stopped has a renewed life.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced Wednesday that he had named a team of four top prosecutors to present the sting evidence to an investigative grand jury.

Williams pledged to complete the reborn investigation in “months, not years.” Prosecutors began calling witnesses before the 36-member jury about two weeks ago, his office revealed.”

“In March, The Inquirer disclosed the existence of the long-running sting and that state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane, a Democrat, had shut it down. Soon after taking office in 2013, Kane quietly ended the probe by dropping all charges against Ali in sealed court filings.”

And maybe they should look into the corruption in Kane’s office that led to it being dropped as well.

______________________________________________

 

by

News/Politics 6-18-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. SQUIRREL!!!!!!

From TheWashingtonPost  “One of the suspected ringleaders of the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi that killed four Americans, Abu Khattala is the first of the alleged perpetrators to be apprehended. He now awaits a transfer to the United States and a federal trial in the District.

U.S. officials said the joint Special Operations and FBI mission had been planned for months and was approved by President Obama on Friday. The Pentagon said that there were no civilian or other casualties and that all involved U.S. personnel had safely left Libya.

The administration provided few details about the operation itself, where Abu Khattala is being held or the timing of his first appearance in court. After news of the capture became public Tuesday morning, Obama, on a visit to Pennsylvania, said Abu Khattala “is now being transported back to the United States.” Administration officials said they expected him to appear in court here within days.”

And it only took nearly 2 years to catch a suspect hiding in plain sight, who gave numerous media interviews.

______________________________________________

2. James Rosen asks the obvious question.

From HotAir  “Two possibilities. One: The political situation on the ground in Libya changed enough to make a U.S intervention possible. My theory of why Obama laid off initially was because he didn’t want the weak Libyan government to have to cope with a backlash from the local militias if American troops swooped in and kidnapped a big-name jihadi or two. As long as we could monitor Khattala and make sure he didn’t run, we could wait until the government was in a stronger position to make our move. Problem is, the government’s only gotten weaker over time; lately, Libya’s devolved into a classic military-warlord-versus-jihadis struggle for control of the state. The White House may have concluded that there’d never be a better time to move on Khattala.

Two: This is exactly what it looks like, i.e. Obama’s trying to stop the bleeding he’s endured lately on foreign policy over Ukraine and Iraq and the Taliban Five by seizing an easy victory. I’m old enough to remember when U.S. counterterror developments, especially “terror alerts,” were greeted by our liberal betters online as obviously political gambits by the Bush administration, designed to distract the public from more important matters. Questioning the timing was standard practice for the lefty blogosphere circa 2006. Today, of course, it’s the height of crankery to believe that a guy whose party is in deep trouble in the midterms, and who’s proved before that he’s not above well-timed executive action for electoral ends, might have given this order with an eye to putting some good news on the front page for once. That’s what Rosen’s getting at here. Jen “Promise of Hashtag” Psaki has no real answer, of course.”

Psaki’s snide reply makes it obvious it’s number 2.

______________________________________________

3. In other Obama admin scandal news…..

From FoxNews  “A House committee probing the IRS targeting scandal has subpoenaed Commissioner John Koskinen to testify over the agency’s claims it cannot locate a trove of emails belonging to Lois Lerner, the former agency official at the heart of the scandal.

The IRS outraged congressional investigators Friday by saying it cannot find many of Lerner’s emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year.

Lerner headed the IRS division that processed applications for tax-exempt status. The IRS acknowledged last year that agents had improperly scrutinized applications for tax-exempt status by Tea Party and other conservative groups.

Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he is feels the lost email claims are another example of the IRS’ “repeated empty promises of compliance with oversight.”

_______________________________________________

4. And it appears several others involved in the IRS scandal are having computer issues too. What were the chances huh? 🙄

From NationalReview  “It’s not just Lois Lerner’s e-mails. The Internal Revenue Service says it can’t produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the targeting of conservative groups, according to two Republicans investigating the scandal.

The IRS recently informed Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp and subcommittee chairman Charles Boustany that computer crashes resulted in additional lost e-mails, including from Nikole Flax, the chief of staff to former IRS commissioner Steven Miller, who was fired in the wake of the targeting scandal.

The revelation about Lerner’s e-mails rekindled the targeting scandal and today’s news has further inflamed Republicans. Camp and Boustany are now demanding a special prosecutor to investigate “every angle” of the events that led to Lois Lerner’s revelation in May 2013 that the agency had used inappropriate criteria to review the applications for tax exemption.”

______________________________________________

5. This seems appropriate, and overdue.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “The Internal Revenue Service is about to get slapped with a harsh payback for messing around with conservative groups, blowing wads of tax dollars on employee conferences and helping implement Obamacare.

The House Appropriations Committee is set to OK an IRS budget of $10.9 billion, $1.5 billion under President Obama‘s request for fiscal year 2015, reducing the agency’s budget to 2008 levels.

The goal is to keep the tax agency focused on its “core duties,” and eliminate efforts to judge the political activities of tax-exempt groups and brake its implementation of Obamacare.

The funding is part of a larger $21 billion bill for several agencies including the IRS, Treasury Department and Securities and Exchange Commission. Noting that it cuts $2.3 billion from the president’s overall request, Chairman Hal Rogers said, “the bill focuses cuts on lower-priority or poor-performing agencies, such as the scandal-plagued and inefficient Internal Revenue Service.””

______________________________________________

6. Transparent as a brick wall. And as always with this administration, political interference from the top.

From HotAir  “This isn’t a matter of an Obama administration official whispering in local law enforcement’s ears or sending a vague memo. They’ve been actively interfering in public records requests and lawsuits:

The Obama administration has been quietly advising local police not to disclose details about surveillance technology they are using to sweep up basic cellphone data from entire neighborhoods, The Associated Press has learned.

Citing security reasons, the U.S. has intervened in routine state public records cases and criminal trials regarding use of the technology. This has resulted in police departments withholding materials or heavily censoring documents in rare instances when they disclose any about the purchase and use of such powerful surveillance equipment.

Federal involvement in local open records proceedings is unusual. It comes at a time when President Barack Obama has said he welcomes a debate on government surveillance and called for more transparency about spying in the wake of disclosures about classified federal surveillance programs.”

______________________________________________

 

 

by

News/Politics 6-17-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Is the VA punishing employees who speak out?

Of course they are, and they have been for years.

From TheNYTimes  “Staff members at dozens of Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals across the country have objected for years to falsified patient appointment schedules and other improper practices, only to be rebuffed, disciplined or even fired after speaking up, according to interviews with current and former staff members and internal documents.

The growing V.A. scandal over long patient wait times and fake scheduling books is emboldening hundreds of employees to go to federal watchdogs, unions, lawmakers and outside whistle-blower groups to report continuing problems, officials for those various groups said. 

In interviews with The New York Times, a half-dozen current and former staff members — four doctors, a nurse and an office manager in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Alaska — said they faced retaliation for reporting systemic problems. Their accounts, some corroborated by internal documents, portray a culture of silence and intimidation within the department and echo experiences detailed by other V.A. personnel in court filings, government investigations and congressional testimony, much of it largely unnoticed until now.

The federal Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistle-blower complaints, is examining 37 claims of retaliation by V.A. employees in 19 states, and recently persuaded the V.A. to drop the disciplining of three staff members who had spoken out. Together with reports to other watchdog agencies and the Times interviews, the accounts by V.A. whistle-blowers cover several dozen hospitals, with complaints dating back seven years or longer.”

I’m sure the President will be shocked when he reads about this. 🙄

______________________________________________

2. We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.

From CNSNews  “Federal tax revenues continue to run at a record pace (in inflation-adjusted dollars) in fiscal 2014, as the federal government’s total receipts for the fiscal year closed May at an unprecedented $1,934,919,000,000, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Despite record revenue, the federal government still ran a deficit of $436.382 billion in the first eight months of the fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, 2013 and will end on Sept. 30, 2014.

In the month of May alone, the federal government ran a deficit of $129.971 billion–bringing in $199.889 billion in revenue while spending $329.860 billion.

The White House Office of Management and Budget has estimated that in the full fiscal 2014, the federal government will collect $3.001721 trillion in taxes, spend $3.650526 trillion, running a deficit of $648.805 billion.”

______________________________________________

3. The White House story on the immigration surge is falling apart.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “But whether or not many people noticed, this was the week in which the Obama administration’s attempts to deflect blame for the border crisis fell apart.

Most of the illegal immigrants are what Border Patrol officials call OTMs. That is, while they are crossing into the United States from Mexico, they are actually from other countries — in this case, mostly Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador — and are classified as Other Than Mexican immigrants.

Top administration officials have tried to attribute the surge in crossings to violence and poverty in those countries. “The situation is motivated primarily by the conditions in the countries that they’re leaving — El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala,” said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday. “Violence, poverty — I believe that is principally what is motivating the situation.”

“As it turns out, the Republican explanation does withstand a whole lot of scrutiny. Recent days have been filled with anecdotal reports, from local news outlets in Central America to major American newspapers, citing immigrants who say they came because they believe U.S. law has been changed to allow them to stay. And now comes word that Border Patrol agents in the most heavily-trafficked area of the surge, the Rio Grande Valley sector of Texas, recently questioned 230 illegal immigrants about why they came. The results showed overwhelmingly that the immigrants, including those classified as UACs, or unaccompanied children, were motivated by the belief that they would be allowed to stay in the United States — and not by conditions in their homelands. From a report written by the agents, quoting from the interviews:”

______________________________________________

4. Lies my President told me. There’s a lot.

______________________________________________

5. Speaking of lies……

Even CNN isn’t buying the White House story on Lois Lerner’s lost emails.

______________________________________________

 

by

News/Politics 6-16-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. This explains a lot.

From TheNYObserver  “All the President’s Muses: Obama and Prosecutorial Misconduct- Chronic bungling by DOJ officials who have the President’s ear.”

“As Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski has written, prosecutorial misconduct has become “an epidemic.” And evidence has come to light that our president, the nation’s chief law enforcement official, seeks his counsel from the worst.

If ever a picture was worth a thousand words, it is a recently released White House photo of President Obama and his muses—if one only knew the truth behind those muses whispering in the President’s ear as they strategized in the aftermath of the Benghazi tragedy. To understand the (politely-put) “lack of transparency” from the White House, the enormous politicization of the Department of Justice, the release of Taliban leaders from Guantanamo, refusal to cooperate with congressional investigations, the IRS’s harassment of political opponents, and the cover-up of Benghazi, read on.”

“Attorney General Robert H. Jackson once said, “The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous. . . .While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst.” A prosecutor has almost unilateral, unchecked ability to destroy the lives of those he charges. It is beyond troubling that our top law enforcement officer chooses the company of those who repeatedly failed their duty.”

______________________________________________

2. And we can’t forget the enforcer, or lack there of, if that’s their preference.

From NationalReview  “Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department gave bad advice to President Obama and the Pentagon in the controversial Bergdahl prisoner trade that the president could ignore federal law requiring prior notification to Congress. This is just the latest example of how Holder helps the administration ignore the rule of law and crafts his “legal” opinions based on the desired political outcome, not the actual state of the law.

Under Eric Holder, the Justice Department has stood the old Ronald Reagan maxim “trust but verify” on its head and adopted a “trust and we won’t let you verify” approach to its activities.”

Even Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times, has said that “the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news.”

How much is the Justice Department’s uncooperative and secretive approach the product of Eric Holder’s management style and how much is in response to President Obama’s wishes? We would argue that the most likely explanation is that a president almost always appoints the attorney general he’s most comfortable with, someone who will watch his back on institutional issues and vigorously pursue his enforcement priorities. In Eric Holder, Barack Obama has found both a kindred spirit and a heat shield against criticism that would often be directed at the White House. And Holder has made it clear that he is “part of the president’s team.”

______________________________________________

3. The debacle continues…..

From TheNYTimes  “The Obama administration is contacting hundreds of thousands of people with subsidized health insurance to resolve questions about their eligibility, as consumer advocates express concern that many will be required to repay some or all of the subsidies.

Of the eight million people who signed up for private health plans through insurance exchanges under the new health care law, two million reported personal information that differed from data in government records, according to federal officials and Serco, the company hired to resolve such inconsistencies.

The government is asking consumers for additional documents to verify their income, citizenship, immigration status and Social Security numbers, as well as any health coverage that they may have from employers. People who do not provide the information risk losing their subsidized coverage and may have to repay subsidies next April.

Federal subsidies for the purchase of private insurance are a cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act. More than eight out of 10 people who selected health plans through the exchanges from October through mid-April were eligible for subsidies, including income tax credits. So far this year the federal government has paid out $4.7 billion in subsidies, and the amount is expected to total $900 billion over 10 years.”

Looks like their cornerstone is crumbling.

______________________________________________

4. Arizona is threatening legal action against the feds for dumping illegal immigrants in their state.

From TheWashingtonPost  “Arizona officials are threatening legal action to stop the Obama administration from moving hundreds of undocumented immigrants from Texas to their state after a surge of illegal border crossings swamped immigration officials in the Rio Grande Valley.

The U.S. Border Patrol has acknowledged flying hundreds of migrants from Texas to Tucson and Phoenix, where many have been dropped off at Greyhound bus stations. Last week, immigration agencies began sending hundreds of undocumented minors apprehended while crossing the border to a holding facility in Nogales.

Arizona officials say they were not notified before the transports began.”

““These aliens are not being transported for the purposes of detaining them in a federal facility located in Arizona. Rather, DHS is inexplicably moving them some 1200 miles and simply releasing them here (outdoors in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees) rather than in Texas,” Horne wrote [pdf].”

______________________________________________

 

by

News/Politics 6-13-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Perhaps this is why folks are so concerned about the 5 just released.

From TheTelegraph/UK  “The FBI “most wanted” mugshot shows a tough, swarthy figure, his hair in a jailbird crew-cut. The $10 million price on his head, meanwhile, suggests that whoever released him from US custody four years ago may now be regretting it.

Taken during his years as a detainee at the US-run Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, this is the only known photograph of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria. But while he may lack the photogenic qualities of his hero, Osama bin Laden, he is fast becoming the new poster-boy for the global jihadist movement.

Well-organised and utterly ruthless, the ex-preacher is the driving force behind al-Qaeda’s resurgence throughout Syria and Iraq, putting it at the forefront of the war to topple President Bashar al-Assad and starting a fresh campaign of mayhem against the Western-backed government in Baghdad.

On Tuesday, his forces achieved their biggest coup in Iraq to date, seizing control of government buildings in Mosul, the country’s third biggest city. Coming on top of similar operations in January that planted the black jihadi flag in the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi, it gives al-Qaeda control of large swathes of the north and west of the country, and poses the biggest security crisis since the US pull-out two years ago.”

______________________________________________

2. CONTENT WARNING!!!! Some of the photos at the link are extremely gruesome. Baghdad is their next target.

From TheDailyMail  “The full horror of the jihadists’ savage victories in Iraq emerged yesterday as witnesses told of streets lined with decapitated soldiers and policemen. Blood-soaked bodies and blazing vehicles were left in the wake of the Al Qaeda-inspired ISIS fanatics as they pushed the frontline towards Baghdad.

They boasted about their triumphs in a propaganda video depicting appalling scenes including a businessman being dragged from his car and executed at the roadside with a pistol to the back of his head. The extent of the carnage came as:

______________________________________________

3. Of course they did. This has always been orchestrated by top Democrats from day one.

From PowerLine  “It is just about impossible to keep up with all of the Obama administration scandals, but the corruption of the Internal Revenue Service ranks near the top. Unfortunately, it has gone hand in hand with Barack Obama and Eric Holder’s corruption of the Department of Justice. The perversion of law enforcement agencies for political ends is starkly revealed by the fact that in 2010, as part of its effort to stem the Tea Party movement, the IRS gave the FBI disks containing more than 1.1 million pages of documents on Section 501 non-profits, so that the FBI could selectively prosecute conservative groups and donors.

The facts, as we know them so far, were laid out yesterday in a letter from Congressmen Darrell Issa and Jim Jordan to John Koskinen, Commissioner of the IRS. The letter includes a series of emails that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has finally obtained, after more than a year of stonewalling by the Obama administration. The IRS originally told the House committee–falsely–that the disks contained only publicly available filings by the non-profit organizations. But the IRS later admitted that it had illegally transferred confidential taxpayer information to the FBI.

The IRS’s purpose was explicitly political. Sarah Ingram, Lois Lerner’s predecessor in charge of tax-exempt organizations at the IRS, wrote in a September 21, 2010 email, the subject of which was a favorable front-page story in the New York Times:“

Thanks, as always, for the excellent support from Media. I do think it came out pretty well. The “secret donor” theme will continue–see Obama salvo today and Diane Reehm (sp).”

_____________________________________________

4. The FBI has finally opened up a criminal probe of the VA scandal.

From CNN  “The FBI says it has opened a criminal investigation of the Veterans Affairs Department, which is grappling with a scandal over long waiting lists to provide care and allegations that paperwork was faked to make delays appear shorter.

FBI Director James Comey told a House hearing on Wednesday the bureau’s Phoenix office has joined an ongoing review by the VA inspector general.

The move at least partly satisfies requests from key members of Congress from both parties who have pressed for a full probe by the Justice Department as the scandal accelerated in recent weeks and led to the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki in May.

Officials have said the inspector general is sharing findings with federal prosecutors, and the Justice Department could launch a full-blown criminal probe if any of the information meets the standard for doing so.”

_____________________________________________

 

 

 

 

by

News/Politics 6-12-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Of course they did. 🙄

They pander at any and all opportunities, and if it steers money toward their donors in the process, even better.

From CNSNews  “A $350 million grant opportunity announced Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services to provide shelter for unaccompanied alien children (UAC) states that recipients providing residential shelter to these children must provide them with “family planning services” and that residential care providers deliver services in a manner that is “sensitive” to sexual orientation and gender identity.

“Residential care providers are required to provide…family planning services,” says an official description of the grant program published by HHS.

“Residential care providers are required to provide or arrange for the program required services in a manner that is sensitive to the…sexual orientation, gender identity, and other important individual needs of each UAC [unaccompanied alien child],” says the official description.”

______________________________________________

2. This proves once again that they Obama admin always knew it was a terrorist attack, and that a video never had anything to do with it. They’ve lied since day one.

From FoxNews  “The terrorists who attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 used cell phones, seized from State Department personnel during the attacks, and U.S. spy agencies overheard them contacting more senior terrorist leaders to report on the success of the operation, multiple sources confirmed to Fox News.

The disclosure is important because it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry, as the administration claimed for several weeks after the attacks.”

“Eric Stahl, who recently retired as a major in the U.S. Air Force, served as commander and pilot of the C-17 aircraft that was used to transport the corpses of the four casualties from the Benghazi attacks – then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods – as well as the assault’s survivors from Tripoli to the safety of an American military base in Ramstein, Germany.

In an exclusive interview on Fox News’ “Special Report,” Stahl said members of a CIA-trained Global Response Staff who raced to the scene of the attacks were “confused” by the administration’s repeated implication of the video as a trigger for the attacks, because “they knew during the attack…who was doing the attacking.” Asked how, Stahl told anchor Bret Baier: “Right after they left the consulate in Benghazi and went to the [CIA] safehouse, they were getting reports that cell phones, consulate cell phones, were being used to make calls to the attackers’ higher ups.”

______________________________________________

3. A bad omen for moderates? I’d be more inclined to agree had McConnell lost too.

From TheNYTimes  “The House Republican leadership, so solid in its opposition to President Obama, was torn apart Tuesday by the defeat of its most influential conservative voice, Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader. His demise will reverberate all the way to the speaker’s chair, pull the top echelons of the House even further to the right and most likely doom any ambitious legislation, possibly through the next presidential election.

Conservatives who have helped fuel some of the most contentious showdowns over the last three years on issues such as immigration and raising the federal debt ceiling are likely to be emboldened by Mr. Cantor’s shocking loss as they seek to replace him with someone even more closely aligned with their views.

Further, House Republicans began to immediately plot a new leadership structure that before Tuesday night had hinged merely on whether Speaker John A. Boehner would seek to keep his post next year.”

“One measure of the extraordinary defeat could be seen in the candidate’s finances. Since the beginning of last year, Mr. Cantor’s campaign had spent about $168,637 at steakhouses compared with the $200,000 his challenger, David Brat, had spent on his entire campaign. With Mr. Cantor out, members from solidly Republican states will almost certainly be vying for one of the top jobs, if not Mr. Boehner’s gavel. The current Republican leadership slate is filled with members from swing states where the pressure to moderate views on topics such as immigration looms.”

______________________________________________

4. Not surprising. I think a lot more people would choose this option given the choice.

From Breitbart  “An upset last night in the Democrat primary for governor of Nevada was almost as stunning as the Brat win in VA-7. 

“None of the Above” won with 29.96% of the vote. Nevada was the first state to institute a “none of the above” line to its ballot in 1975, as a way for voters to protest weak, unqualified candidates.

Senator Harry Reid, who runs the Democrat party in Nevada with an iron fist, told reporters earlier this year, that the candidate to run against the popular Republican Governor Brian Sandoval, would be “a respectable Democrat and someone that people know.”

______________________________________________

5. 20 years ago I’d have said this could never happen here. Now I say it will happen here within the next 20 years. Wedding cakes were just the first step.

From TheTelegraph/UK  “Gay Danish couples win right to marry in church“

Homosexual couples in Denmark have won the right to get married in any church they choose, even though nearly one third of the country’s priests have said they will refuse to carry out the ceremonies.”

“The country’s parliament voted through the new law on same-sex marriage by a large majority, making it mandatory for all churches to conduct gay marriages.”

“Under the law, individual priests can refuse to carry out the ceremony, but the local bishop must arrange a replacement for their church.”

______________________________________________

6. You mean the anti-gun folks lie to push their agenda? Say it isn’t so…..

From NationalReview  “This map, which purports to show that there are have been 74 “shootings at schools” since the abomination at Newtown, is currently doing the rounds.”

“Tuesday’s school shooting in Oregon is at least the 74th instance of shots being fired on school grounds or in school buildings since the late-2012 elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., according to a list maintained by the group Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for policies it believes limit gun violence.

There have been at least 37 shootings on school grounds this year, which is just barely half over. All told, there has been nearly one shooting per week in the year and a half since Newtown. Everytown identifies a school shooting as any instance in which a firearm was discharged within a school building or on school grounds, sourced to multiple news reports per incident. Therefore, the data isn’t limited to mass shootings like Newtown—it includes assaults, homicides, suicides and even accidental shootings. Of the shootings, 35 took place at a college or university, while 39 took place in K-12 schools.

The Post is admirably clear that the map includes both colleges and schools, that it counts “any instance in which a firearm was discharged within a school building or on school grounds,” and that the data isn’t “limited to mass shootings like Newtown.” This point has also been made forcefully by Charles C. Johnson, who yesterday looked into each of the 74 incidents and noted that not only did some of them not take place on campuses but that “fewer than 7 of the 74 school shootings listed by #Everytown are mass shootings,” that one or more probably didn’t happen at all, that at least one was actually a case of self-defense, and that 32 could be classified as “school shootings” only if we are to twist the meaning of the term beyond all recognition.”

______________________________________________

by

News/Politics 6-11-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. WOW. Talk about stunning. He was well ahead in most polls.

From NBCNews  “In a stunning upset, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the second-highest ranking Republican in the House, lost his primary challenge to a tea party-backed candidate Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

Economics professor Dave Brat defeated Cantor to become the GOP nominee for Virginia’s 7th congressional district.

Cantor, who serves as the House majority leader, heavily outspent Brat and was widely expected to survive the challenge from the right.

Brat painted the seven-term congressman as a Washington insider who has become too liberal to represent the Richmond-area district. He accused Cantor of supporting immigration reform that would give “amnesty” to those living in the United State illegally.”

And as a lame duck, will he push even harder?

__________________

GOP leadership is in chaos over it.

From NationalJournal  “Befuddlement hit and lingered within the House GOP leadership ranks as Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s election fate was unwinding on Tuesday. Cantor lost in a major upset to primary challenger Dave Brat.

A senior Republican leadership aide described the mood as “chaos for the leadership ranks.”

“We’re absolutely stunned. Honestly, we really can’t believe it,” said the aide, who likened it to the 2004 election defeat of Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who was Senate minority leader at the time.”

I’d say Boehner’s a little nervous about retaining his leadership post about now.

__________________

So who is this guy?

From ABCNews  “Meet Dave Brat, an economics and ethics professor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, who launched a long-shot — and ultimately successful — bid to oust House Majority Leader Eric Cantor from his seat representing Virginia’s 7th Congressional District. “

“Brat, who admits that he has supported several Cantor candidacies over the years, says he mounted his improbable primary campaign because the House GOP’s No. 2 leader has lost touch with his constituents, “veering from the Republican creed.”

“Brat calls himself as a “free market guy,” and says he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He also pledged never to increase taxes and to stick to a five-year promise not to vote to increase the debt limit.

“This isn’t a personal race. I’m not running against Eric,” he stressed in the May interview. “I’m just running on the founding principles that Adam Smith and free markets – they made us the greatest nation on the Earth. All right? It’s no mystery. Our rights, tradition, along with free markets and the Judeo-Christian tradition all together made us the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. I think we’re veering off course a little bit there and I want to get us back on that course that brought us to greatness.”

______________________________________________

2. Things are worsening in Iraq.

From HotAir  “Mosul falls to al-Qaeda as US-trained security forces flee”

“And not just Mosul, according to some reports, but the entire northern province of Nineveh has now fallen into al-Qaeda’s control.  Parliamentarians from the region want a declaration of emergency and immediate government intervention, but the forces that had been in Mosul have fled — some of which abandoned their uniforms as well as their posts as the ISIS forces swarmed into the city:

Insurgents seized control early Tuesday of most of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, including the provincial government headquarters, offering a powerful demonstration of the mounting threat posed by extremists to Iraq’s teetering stability.

Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot, overran the entire western bank of the city overnight after Iraqi soldiers and police apparently fled their posts, in some instances discarding their uniforms as they sought to escape the advance of the militants.”

______________________________________________

3. And once again, US arms fall into the hands of the bad guys.

From TheNYT  “The insurgent fighters who routed the Iraqi army out of Mosul on Tuesday did not just capture much of Iraq’s second-largest city. They also gained a windfall of arms, munitions and equipment abandoned by the soldiers as they fled — arms that were supplied by the United States and intended to give the troops an edge over the insurgents.

The problem is not a new one, but it looms larger now that the United States is shifting its counterterrorism strategy away from using American armed forces directly, and toward relying on allied or indigenous troops and security forces supplied and trained by the United States. President Obama proposed last week that a $5 billion fund be set up to finance such efforts.

But those proxy forces do not always prove equal to the task, and when they buckle, the United States finds itself having unwittingly armed its enemies — a problem the Obama administration has been trying to avoid in Syria by carefully limiting its aid to the opposition there. The militants who swept into control of Mosul on Tuesday are believed to be connected to the main Islamist militant group fighting in Syria.”

Which is why we shouldn’t be arming them in Syria either.

______________________________________________

4. Gee, maybe this has something to do with the current fiasco.

From CNSNews  “The number of unauthorized migrants apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol along the U.S. Southwest border has decreased by 74.7% since 2000, according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.

According to the U.S. Border Patrol, there were 1,643,679 illegal alien apprehensions, defined as the arrest of a removable alien, along the Southwest border in fiscal year 2000. The southwest border includes Big Bend, Del Rio, El Centro, El Paso, Laredo, Rio Grande Valley, San Diego, Tucson, and Yuma. Since 2000, the number of apprehensions along this border decreased by 74.7%, totaling 420,789 apprehensions in fiscal year 2013.

In the May 2, 2014 CRS report, Apprehensions of Unauthorized Migrants along the Southwest Border: Fact Sheet, it states,  “Southwest border apprehensions began to decline mid-decade, dropping by 8% between FY2005 and FY2006. They fell more rapidly between FY2006 and FY2011, by an average of 14% each year. Since FY2011, apprehensions increased by 26%.”

And the only reason for the increase is they’ve changed how they count, and include those turned away at the border as apprehensions/deportations. The Obama admin numbers here are about as accurate as the unemployment numbers. Just fuzzy math.

______________________________________________

by

News/Politics 6-10-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Disgraceful.

From HotAir  “And they’ve been waiting a long time, too. The Associated Press reports on an internal audit from more than 700 VA facilities shows that 57,000 veterans have waited 90 or more days for their initial medical appointment, let alone for any advanced care that might be needed. Another 64,000 have been enrolled in the VA health-care system for more than ten years without ever getting to see a doctor:

The Veterans Affairs Department says more than 57,000 patients are still waiting for initial medical appointments at VA hospitals and clinics 90 days or more after requesting them. An additional 64,000 who enrolled in the VA health care system over the past 10 years have never had appointments.

The audit confirms that 13% of scheduling staff received instruction in how to fraudulently cover up the horrendous wait times and access issues. The rest of the wait-list issue gets chalked up to a “complicated” appointment scheduling process and “confusion” among staff on how to manage it.

Will anyone buy that? It’s important to remember that this is the result of an internal audit run by the VA on orders from Eric Shinseki before he resigned under an avalanche of public pressure on the VA scandal. No one has yet conducted an outside audit, although the Inspector General is conducting an independent investigation of the Phoenix facilities which became the epicenter of the scandal. For an idea of why an internal audit may not produce the whole truth and nothing but the truth, read Lindsay Wise’s McClatchy report on the internal culture of the VA and the complete lack of effort at reform over the last several years:”

_____________________________________________

2. The crisis created by the Obama admin’s refusal to enforce border laws is worsening.

From TheDailyMail  “Obama instituted an immigration policy that the GOP says enticed tens of thousands of Central American children to cross America’s southern border illegally without any parents to guide them.

More than 33,000 have been picked up in Texas alone since October. The U.S. border patrol says its forces are overwhelmed, and the courts are bracing for a flood of immigration cases from children held in temporary detention facilities designed to handle a fraction of the numbers. Sanitation problems are beginning to rear their ugly heads.

Obama rolled out a controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2012, allowing many illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors to escape deportation for two years. The White House gave them another two-year window last week.

As a result, say some GOP leaders, America’s system for handling illegal immigration has been strained to the breaking point and is attracting hundreds of new illegal-immigrant children every day. Compared to the year before Obama’s policy took effect, twelve times as many kids are coming north illegally this year.

___________________________________

3. And there appears to be no end in sight.

From FoxNews  “Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Friday she is “disturbed and outraged” after she was informed by federal officials that not only has the government been shipping illegal immigrants out of Texas and “dumping” them in her state, it has no plans to stop.

Federal officials told Brewer Friday that the practice will continue for the foreseeable future, and this weekend more than 1,000 illegal immigrant children will be “dumped” in Arizona. Adults and family units will also arrive, though Brewer was not told how many, her office said.

Reports first surfaced last week that scores of illegal immigrants in Texas were being flown, bused and then abandoned out of state in Arizona and elsewhere.  After learning of the practice, Brewer sent a scathing letter to the president on Monday posing a string of questions about the policy. Brewer said Friday what little she has learned since then has made her even more concerned.

“This is a crisis of the federal government’s creation, and the fact that the border remains unsecure – now apparently intentionally – while this operation continues full-steam ahead is deplorable,” she said in a statement.”

______________________________________________

4. News of this first leaked from a story on photos taken at the border by agents. So they get the treatment all whistleblowers get nowadays. Threats and intimidation.

From TownHall  “Last week, photos surfaced from Texas and Arizona showing Border Patrol processing centers overwhelmed as thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America continue to need shelter and resources. The photos show hundreds of children sleeping in crowded, chain linked cages. Agents have described the situation as a humanitarian crisis.

In response to the leaked images out of Arizona, Patrol Agent in Charge Leslie Lawson is cracking down on the use of personal technology by agents in the Nogales Border Patrol processing center.

“Due to the recent unauthorized use of a personally owned electronic device in the Nogales Processing Center, the use of such devices will be restricted to locations outside of detention areas,” Lawson wrote in a June 6 memo to all employees at the Nogales station. “Effective immediately, the use of personally owned cellular phones, cameras, or recording devices in the Nogales Detention Facility and the Nogales Processing Center is strictly prohibited. All personnel working or visiting detention facilities at the Nogales Station will be required to turn off these electronic devices and store them in a locker other secure location prior to entering the detention area.”

According to sources, agents have been threatened with firings if found to have leaked the photos to media.”

______________________________________________

5. “America’s rising “progressive clerisy,” and the march toward McCarthyism”

Also from HotAir  “Is there anything more intolerant than the Tolerance Brigade? At the Daily Beast, Joel Kotkin agrees with Bloomberg’s Stephen Carter on the rise of a new McCarthyism, this time imposing penalties for dissent from progressive orthodoxy rather than tolerating debate on a broad range of issues. Both use attempts to silence argument in academia as the flash point that exposes this thought-police mentality. Carter recently wrote about the attempts to intimidate Douglas Laycock, an opponent of same-sex marriage and explicitly invokes McCarthyism as the dynamic in play:

A law student and a recent graduate, spurred on by the advocacy group GetEqual, have filed freedom-of-information requests for his telephone and travel records, in what they describe as an effort at dialogue about what they consider the harmful effects of his views.

This description is implausible. If they wanted to talk to him, they could knock on his door. The effort is aimed at intimidation. They want him to shut up.” But even when a professor holds opinions off at the far margin, to target him or her for intimidation is an affront to the freedom that makes the academy worth cherishing.

Kotkin blames this on a rising “progressive clerisy” that has formed at the highest levels of government bureaucracy, the entertainment industry, and academia:”

______________________________________________

6. And here’s a look at one example of what those 3 groups are accomplishing together. Brainwash kids into compliance. This is much easier than having to deal with differing opinions from free thinking adult folks later on. Best to squash that while they’re young.

From, appropriately, Moonbattery  “hand reports on situations unlikely to be exposed on the evening news. This email from a concerned parent is a prime example:

I am a parent in Oakland, California and I have a kindergartner in public school. My child came home [Thursday] and told me about the MANDATORY assembly for gay “pride” month. Parents had NO idea this was going to happen and I’m totally blindsided by it.

There is a video on the school’s website showing the assembly… It was nothing more than homosexual indoctrination about the meaning of the rainbow flag and “queer” history. On stage was the rainbow flag but NO American flag. And then a “gay men’s chorus” sang songs about homosexual “freedom.”

This is an elementary school and children as young as 5 were present. Like I said, parents were NOT informed in advance. My child brought home a bookmark with the rainbow flag on it and a quote from radical lesbian poet activist, Audre Lorde, whose work includes a book called “Uses of the Erotic.” This is for Elementary School! …

You can watch the assembly yourself and decide if the origin of the rainbow flag and “queer history” are appropriate discussions to have with elementary students, or if it’s even has any educational value to begin with, at the link.

______________________________________________

 

 

 

by

News/Politics 6-9-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. First up today, we know that fasting accompanied by prayer has spiritual benefits, but now some are saying that it has physical benefits too.

From TheTelegraph/UK  “Fasting for as little as three days can regenerate the entire immune system, even in the elderly, scientists have found in a breakthrough described as “remarkable”.

Although fasting diets have been criticised by nutritionists for being unhealthy, new research suggests starving the body kick-starts stem cells into producing new white blood cells, which fight off infection.

Scientists at the University of Southern California say the discovery could be particularly beneficial for people suffering from damaged immune systems, such as cancer patients on chemotherapy.

It could also help the elderly whose immune system becomes less effective as they age, making it harder for them to fight off even common diseases.”

______________________________________________

2. Next up, he’s not heavy, he’s my brother.

From NBCNews  “A Michigan teenager who wanted to raise awareness about cerebral palsy by walking 40 miles with his younger brother strapped to his back battled heat, rain, fatigue and more to finish the trek Sunday.

Hunter Gandee, 14, had been planning for weeks to pull off the walk, hoping to put a face on the muscular disorder that prevents his 7-year-old sibling, Braden, from being able to walk without help. But all his organizing couldn’t prepare him for the conditions he faced as he packed the 50-pound boy over two days.”

“Honestly, yes, there was a point that we did consider stopping,” Hunter said. “Braden’s legs — the chafing was getting pretty bad. We did have to consider stopping. It was at about the 30-mile point.” A phone call changed all that.

Hunter reached out to a friend, who said a prayer for the brothers. That, combined with some rest and a change in how Braden was positioned on his brother’s back, helped the boys make it the final 10 miles.”

______________________________________________

3. As in football, politics requires a strong ground game.

From Politico  “Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is helping open a “GOP engagement office” on Saturday in an African-American area of Louisville, part of a frenetic summer schedule aimed at reaching beyond the party’s traditional base, with explicit appeals to minorities and young people.

In late summer or early fall, Paul plans a major foreign policy address that will give him a prime chance to close a gap with establishment Republicans that has been perhaps the biggest hurdle to acceptance of Paul by party elites.

The itinerary will bolster the widespread view among Republican leaders that Paul is doing the most visible spadework of the party’s potential presidential candidates. As a sign of his advanced planning, the senator told AP that he would consider running for reelection and president at the same time, and that a Kentucky ballot law against dual candidacies would not be an obstacle.”

______________________________________________

4. This is the problem with arming the bad guys. Sooner or later, they turn their weapons on you.

From TheNYPost  “In his new book, “Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Ben­ghazi” (Broadside Books), writer Kenneth R. Timmerman explains how the US government’s efforts to arm the Libyan rebels backfired, flooding weapons into Syria, and as he ­reveals here, Afghanistan: The Obama administration isn’t only giving the Taliban back its commanders — it’s giving them weapons.

“The next day, an explosive ordnance disposal team arrived to pick through the wreckage and found unexploded pieces of a missile casing that could only belong to a Stinger missile.

Lodged in the right nacelle, they found one fragment that contained an entire serial number.

The investigation took time. Arms were twisted, noses put out of joint. But when the results came back, they were stunning: The Stinger tracked back to a lot that had been signed out by the CIA recently, not during the anti-Soviet ­jihad.

“My sources in the US Special Operations community believe the Stinger fired against the Chinook was part of the same lot the CIA turned over to the ­Qataris in early 2011, weapons Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department intended for anti-Khadafy forces in Libya.”

______________________________________________

5. As usual, nothing is as they advertised it.

From TheCourier-Journal  “It wasn’t supposed to work this way, but since the Affordable Care Act took effect in January, Norton Hospital has seen its packed emergency room become even more crowded, with about 100 more patients a month.

That 12 percent spike in the number of patients — many of whom aren’t actually facing true emergencies — is spurring the hospital to convert a waiting room into more exam rooms.

“We’re seeing patients who probably should be seen at our (immediate-care centers),” said Lewis Perkins, the hospital’s vice president of patient care and chief nursing officer. “And we’re seeing this across the system.”

That’s just the opposite of what many people expected under Obamacare, particularly because one of the goals of health reform was to reduce pressure on emergency rooms by expanding Medicaid and giving poor people better access to primary care.”

______________________________________________