Al-Qaeda

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News/Politics 5-19-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. A group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which appears to be against actual religious freedom, is up in arms over remarks from a Christian Air Force general.

From FoxNews  “An Air Force general who recently spoke about how God has guided his career should be court-martialed, a civil liberties group is saying.

In a speech at a National Day of Prayer Task Force event on May 7, Maj. Gen. Craig Olson credits God for his accomplishments in the military, and refers to himself as a “redeemed believer in Christ.”

The Air Force Times reports that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has taken issue with Olson’s remarks, is calling for the two-star general to be court-martialed and “aggressively and very visibly brought to justice for his unforgivable crimes and transgressions.”

The group authored a letter to Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Walsh, arguing that Olson’s speech violates rules within the Air Force, which prohibits airmen from endorsing a particular faith or belief.

The letter, posted on the group’swebsite, begins, “This demand letter is sent to you on behalf of countless members of the United States Air Force who are utterly disgusted and shocked by the brazenly illicit and wholly unconstitutional, fundamentalist Christian proselytizing recently perpetrated, on international television (“GOD TV”), and streaming all over the Internet and in full military uniform, by USAF Major General Craig S. Olson on Thursday, May 7, 2015 during a VERY public speech for a private Christian organization (The “National Day of Prayer Task Force”: NDPTF) headed up by Focus on the Family founder, Dr. James Dobson’s, wife Shirley Dobson. “”

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2. Obama seeks to end immigration enforcement by local and state police…….. and anyone else for that matter. 🙄

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The administration issued a report Monday saying that in order to rebuild trust between police and their communities, the federal government should stop enlisting state and local police in most immigration enforcement, setting up another challenge as President Obama tries to please immigrant rights advocates while carrying out deportations.

The recommendations were part of Mr. Obama’s policing task force, set up in the wake of riots last year in Ferguson, Missouri, to suggest ways federal officials can help local police do their jobs better. The heart of the report called for curtailing transfer of heavy weapons and tank-style vehicles to state and local authorities, but the report also delved into the thorny issue of immigration, saying government must “decouple” enforcement from local police.

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security should terminate the use of the state and local criminal justice system, including through detention, notification, and transfer requests, to enforce civil immigration laws against civil and nonserious criminal offenders,” the task force said.”

Wanna rebuild trust Barry? Then stop race baiting at the expense of police. That’d be a good start.

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3. Worst idea about yet about how to “save” Detroit?

From TheNYTimes  “Detroit, a once great city, has become an urban vacuum. Its population has fallen to around 700,000 from nearly 1.9 million in 1950. The city is estimated to have more than 70,000 abandoned buildings and 90,000 vacant lots. Meanwhile, desperate Syrians, victims of an unfathomable civil war, are fleeing to neighboring countries, with some 1.8 million in Turkey and 600,000 in Jordan.

Suppose these two social and humanitarian disasters were conjoined to produce something positive.

Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, a Republican, has already laid the groundwork. In January 2014 he called for an infusion of 50,000 immigrants as part of a program to revitalize Detroit, and signed an executive order creating the Michigan Office for New Americans.

Syrian refugees would be an ideal community to realize this goal, as Arab-Americans are already a vibrant and successful presence in the Detroit metropolitan area. A 2003 survey by the University of Michigan of 1,016 members of this community (58 percent of whom were Christian, and 42 percent Muslim) found that 19 percent were entrepreneurs and that the median household income was $50,000 to $75,000 per year.”

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4. Shockingly, it appears Obama lied about Benghazi. Again. They knew Al-Qaeda was planning an attack before it happened, and yet did nothing to ensure the embassy’s safety.

From HotAir  “The date of the DIA conclusion (produced by a FOIA lawsuit from Judicial Watch) is remarkable for at least one reason. First, September 16 is an infamous date in the Benghazi timeline, as the date on which Susan Rice did a full Ginsburg to insist that the attack resulted from a spontaneous demonstration tied to an obscure YouTube video. Even though the DIA directly contradicted those talking points supplied by the White House to Rice, they continued to insist on using them for another two weeks, including Hillary Clinton. During that period, the Obama administration kept saying that they had no indication that this was a terrorist plot, even though the president of Libya insisted that it was a planned attack on one of the same shows on which Rice appeared.

As Catherine Herridge and Martha McCallum point out, the memo tells a lot more of the story than we knew before. The consulate and its intelligence operation nearby was keeping an eye on weapons transfers to anti-Assad forces in Syria, one of the proposed reasons why the US would have kept a consulate open in that city for so long. This was taking place at the same time that a number of American politicians were demanding more open support for rebels in Syria, a move that had support from Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta at the time according to Panetta’s memoir, but which Obama himself was reluctant to embrace — publicly, at least. Mike Morell insisted last week that the US took no part in that weapons movement, but did we need a consulate just to conduct passive intel on arms trafficking?

Why keep up the pretense? Obama was in the middle of an election, and didn’t want to acknowledge that he’d been caught with his pants down. And he may well have wanted to avoid answering questions about secret arms programs to anti-Assad rebels, especially given how that turned out in Syria and Iraq.

Speaking of which, the part about the rise of ISIS is even more interesting. The DIA tried to warn Congress about the threat in January 2014, which is when Obama compared them to the “jayvees.””

JudicialWatch has the whole story here. 

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Meanwhile, Gowdy keeps digging. 

From TheNYTimes  “When the Clintons last occupied the White House, Sidney Blumenthal cast himself in varied roles: speechwriter, in-house intellectual and press corps whisperer. Republicans added another, accusing Mr. Blumenthal of spreading gossip to discredit Republican investigators, and forced him to testify during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.

Now, as Hillary Rodham Clinton embarks on her second presidential bid, Mr. Blumenthal’s service to the Clintons is again under the spotlight. Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, a Republican who is leading the congressional committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, plans to subpoena Mr. Blumenthal, 66, for a private transcribed interview.

Mr. Gowdy’s chief interest, according to people briefed on the inquiry, is a series of memos that Mr. Blumenthal — who was not an employee of the State Department — wrote to Mrs. Clinton about events unfolding in Libya before and after the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. According to emails obtained by The New York Times, Mrs. Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, took Mr. Blumenthal’s advice seriously, forwarding his memos to senior diplomatic officials in Libya and Washington and at times asking them to respond. Mrs. Clinton continued to pass around his memos even after other senior diplomats concluded that Mr. Blumenthal’s assessments were often unreliable.”

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by

News/Politics 1-21-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Before we get to the obvious big one I’d like to remind everyone of something. Let’s look at the bright side. If past history is any indication, only 30% of what Obama promised last night stands a chance of actually happening. 🙂

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Judging by his recent history, it doesn’t really matter what President Obama says in Tuesday’s State of the Union address — Congress is going to ignore him anyway.

Mr. Obama has the second-worst record of getting his State of the Union policy requests enacted into law of any president in the last five decades, according to an analysis by two scholars that puts him only above the unelected two-year presidency of Gerald Ford.

From 2009 through 2014, Mr. Obama issued 209 different calls for action from Congress in his speeches, but only saw lawmakers follow through on 64 of them — good for just 30 percent. That’s only slightly better than Mr. Ford’s 28 percent success rate, and is well below the likes of President Clinton, the previous Democratic president, who won 44 percent of his policies even though he faced a Congress more Republican than Mr. Obama has.”

And here’s a breakdown on the 112 SOTU promises he didn’t keep going into last night.

From Grabien  “The media are already analyzing the new proposals President Obama is set to layout this evening in his sixth annual State of the Union address (seventh if you count his unofficial 2009 address). Here at Grabien, we’re also looking at results. Taking a look back at past SOTU promises, How many actually ever materialized? 

The numbers aren’t pretty. From 2009 through 2014, we count 112 promises that to date remain unfulfilled. 

We should also note that many of these promises are duplicated from one year to another. For example, every year he has pledged to pass comprehensive immigration reform, overhaul corporate taxes, reduce regulations, and close Guantanamo Bay.”

They have a list of them all, and a nice video montage at the link so you can see and hear them for yourself.

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2. Now unto last nights affair…..

Obama calls for civility, then isn’t.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “President Obama spent much of Tuesday’s State of the Union calling for civility in politics — then taunted Republicans over his two election victories, after many of them applauded the looming end of his political career.

Mr. Obama issued a broad call for “a better politics” that began with common principles, and said his agenda isn’t political, pointing out “I have no more campaigns to run.””

“Mr. Obama’s two separate veto threats in his speech this year is tied for the most in any State of the Union going back at least a century. President George W. Bush also issued two veto threats in 2008, and President Clinton issued two in 1996.”

“But Mr. Obama’s threat may have been the broadest, with one of his threats covering everything from immigration to tweaking Obamacare to revamping the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms.”

He wants to work with Republicans, but only on his agenda. Not happening.

If you missed the speech, or just couldn’t take anymore, here’s the prepared transcript of his remarks.

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3. Is it just me, or was the Republican response as bad as I thought? Not so much the content as her delivery. Personally I thought Paul Ryan’s rebuttal on the Brett Baier show was much better than hers. I’ll find the video and post it later.

From APNews  “Republicans controlling Congress will focus on people’s concerns about jobs and health care and steer the country away from President Barack Obama’s failed policies, the newly minted senator delivering her party’s official response to the State of Union address said Tuesday.

In remarks that mixed calls for bipartisan cooperation with a flexing of GOP independence, freshman Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, cited Americans’ worries about stagnant wages, lost jobs and canceled health care coverage. She called on Obama to cooperate with Republicans to simplify the tax code by lowering rates and eliminating unspecified loopholes, and to ease trade barriers with Europe and Asia.

“Americans have been hurting, but when we demanded solutions, too often Washington responded with the same stale mindset that led to failed policies like Obamacare,” Ernst, referring to Obama’s health care overhaul, said in excerpts from her speech released before its delivery. “It’s a mindset that gave us political talking points, not serious solutions.””

Here’s the Ryan “rebuttal.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NETBgd2Hq34&x-yt-cl=84359240&x-yt-ts=1421782837&feature=player_detailpage

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4. Here’s more on Obama’s speech.

From TheDailyMail  “Obama accused of class warfare: President with ‘no more campaigns to fight’ riles Republicans with State of the Union tax increases for the rich – to pay for laundry list of progressive proposals 

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5. Uh-oh. Maybe this has something to do with the President not mentioning Al-Qaeda last night.

From Bloomberg  “The U.S. government should immediately close and evacuate the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, according to Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

I asked her today whether the embassy, which remains open despite raging violence throughout the Yemeni capital, should be closed. She responded: “Based on what I know so far, yes.”

“I’m very concerned about our embassy there, who is still there, who isn’t still there, and what the plans are,” Feinstein added.

White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett said today on MSNBC that no decisions have been made on whether to close the embassy. A car carrying U.S. diplomatic personnel was fired on in Sana’a in a neighborhood away from the embassy. Houthi rebels, who control the much of the capital, have now reportedly taken over the presidential palace.

CNN reported today that the Pentagon has moved two warships, the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima and the dock landing craft Fort McHenry, into the area pre-emptively in case a request for an evacuation is made. So far, the State Department has not asked the military for assistance.”

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by

News/Politics 5-23-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Add another to the list, with a new twist.

From Miami/CBSLocal  “People are dying,” he finally said, “and there are so many things that are going on there that people need to know about.”

Fiore, a criminal investigator for the VA police department in South Florida, contacted CBS4 News hoping to shed light on what he considers a culture of cover-ups and bureaucratic neglect. Among his charges: Drug dealing on the hospital grounds is a daily occurrence.

“Anything from your standard prescription drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet, and of course marijuana, cocaine, heroin, I’ve come across them all,” he explained.

Even inside the hospital, he says he was stopped from doing his job – investigating reports of missing drugs from the VA pharmacy. When the amount of a particular drug inside the pharmacy doesn’t match the amount that the pharmacy is supposed to have, a report, known as a “discrepancy report” is generated. Normally it was his job to investigate the reports to determine if they were the result of harmless mistakes or criminal activity. But all that changed, he said, about two years ago.”

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2. Let the issuing of subpoenas begin!

From NBCNews  “A House committee will order three top officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs to testify later this month about why they have not turned over documents about a troubled VA hospital in Phoenix.

The House Veterans Affairs Committee asked for the documents in an investigation into why as many as 40 people died waiting for treatment from the Phoenix facility, and into allegations of a secret patient wait list to hide delays in care.

The VA told the committee that it will release the documents in batches, not all at once. The committee, which wants to see VA emails and other communications about the hospital, called that response inadequate.”

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3. This could get interesting.

From TheDailyBeast  “In 2012, the Obama administration produced a draft National Intelligence Estimate that reached a surprising conclusion: al Qaeda was no longer a direct threat to America. That classified assessment, which has never before been publicly disclosed, was in keeping with the message coming from the White House. President Obama rode to re-election in 2012 partly on the success of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. At rallies and in press conferences, the president and top officials publicly said al Qaeda was on the run.

But some senior U.S. intelligence officials, like Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Michael Flynn, fought hard against that assessment, which amounted to an official pronouncement of the American intelligence community’s collected wisdom. Flynn and his faction won a partial victory, striking the judgment that the terrorist group no longer posed a threat to the homeland. “Flynn and others at the time made it clear they would not go along with that kind of assessment,” one U.S. intelligence officer who worked on the al Qaeda file told The Daily Beast.  “It was basically: ‘Over my dead body.’”

Since that internal clash—and since Obama said in his 2012 State of the Union that “al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America”—the terror group has thrived throughout the Islamic world. In the last year alone, al Qaeda has established safe havens in Libya, Syria  and Iraq.

And so naturally, the White House has softened its earlier position, concluding that al Qaeda and its affiliates still represented a serious threat. But the tension between the White House and many top military and intelligence officials fighting the long war remain.”

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4. Even veterans not relying on the VA for health care are suffering because of decisions from the White House.

From TheFreeBeacon  “A California veteran is having trouble finding a doctor because of a faulty Obamacare plan.

Kyle, affected by chronic Lyme disease he contracted while on active duty, is frustrated with the lack of doctor availability on his Anthem BlueCross insurance plan. “I was on the phone with Anthem for two hours while they were trying to find me a doctor within 20 miles. Finally a supervisor came on the phone and said ‘Sir, we have to go, we have other people to help’ and advised me [that] I need to cancel my plan,” he told KPIX.

State law stipulates that insurers must have enough doctors to enable patients to get an appointment within 15 days within 15 miles of their home. Kyle was not able to find a doctor under these requirements and neither was Anthem. Inaccurately listed doctors are considered a violation of the law. The list of doctors given to CoveredCalifornia was incorrect.”

Insider emails suggest a worsening doctor shortage looms. Just like the VA.

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5. Just a reminder of what prominent voices on the left had to say about ObamaCare, and how the VA was the model.

From TruthRevolt  “And herein lies the problem for the left: the failures at the VA, including its bureaucratic incompetence, its waiting lists, and its deaths, all debunk the notion that a government-run healthcare system will work. It’s a fresh slap in the face to all those commentators who, in pushing Obamacare, endorsed the VA as a model.

There are some pretty big names on that list. Paul Krugman in 2011 wrote of the VA’s “huge success story”:

Multiple surveys have found the VHA providing better care than most Americans receive, even as the agency has held cost increases well below those facing Medicare and private insurers…the VHA is an integrated system, which provides health care as well as paying for it. So it’s free from the perverse incentives created when doctors and hospitals profit from expensive tests and procedures, whether or not those procedures actually make medical sense.

Krugman added, “Yes, this is ‘socialized medicine’…But it works, and suggests what it will take to solve the troubles of US health care more broadly.”

You can add Nicholas Kristof from the NY Times, Ezra Klein, from WashPost, and a Princeton “scholar” to the list as well.

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6. You gotta love it. Some federal workers aren’t paying their fair share.

From TheAP “From workers in Congress and at the White House to active duty troops, more than 318,000 federal employees and retirees owe just over $3.3 billion in back taxes, the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday.”

“Those behind in their tax payments include 714 of the roughly 17,000 people working for the House and Senate, the agency said. IRS officials said the data used to compile the report did not indicate whether any of those delinquent taxpayers were members of Congress.

In addition, 36 of the nearly 1,800 people who work at the White House and its various agencies owe taxes, according to the IRS. The IRS provided no further breakdown of exactly where those delinquent taxpayers worked.”

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by

News/Politics 5-8-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Ted Cruz and the definitive list of Obama’s 76 lawless actions. Not surprising. As today’s news shows, everything this administration does has an element of fraud involved.

From TheDailyCaller  “Republican Sen. Ted Cruz released a definitive list Wednesday of 76 “lawless” Obama administration actions and abuses of power.

Cruz’s “The Legal Limit Report No. 4,” obtained by The Daily Caller, delves into little-known and little-reported details of President Obama’s executive actions. Cruz was set to discuss his report at the Federalist Society in the Promenade Ballroom of the Mayflower Hotel in Washington at 2:15 PM Wednesday.

“Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President’s persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat,” Cruz stated in the report’s introductory remarks.

“President Obama has openly defied [rule of law] by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce. When President Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act,” Cruz wrote. “In the more than two centuries of our nation’s history, there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same.”

You can read the entire list at the link. It speaks for itself, and he more than makes his case.

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2. Will they lock her up if that’s what it takes to get answers from her?

From RollCall  “Deep in the recesses of congressional power — and in precedent stretching back to the 18th century — is the ability to pursue “inherent contempt” against individuals, including the right to imprison a person in the Capitol to compel compliance with lawmakers’ authority.

Congress hasn’t exercised inherent contempt power since 1935 and there’s no suggestion that lawmakers are actively considering the option in Lerner’s case.

But House attorneys, and lawyers for the former Internal Revenue Service official, are looking at the potential legal paths as House leaders consider first whether to take a contempt citation to the floor and, if it passes, whether the Justice Department will pursue prosecution.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted on party lines to recommend the full House hold Lerner in contempt and refer her to the Justice Department for refusing to testify before the committee on allegations of political targeting at the IRS of conservative political groups seeking tax-exempt status. The GOP members said Lerner, who resigned from the IRS last year under fire for her role as the head of the office at the heart of the controversy, waived her Fifth Amendment privilege by delivering an opening statement declaring her innocence before the panel last year.”

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3. Of course they are. After all, nobody’s been held responsible for the IRS scandal, so why would they fear scrutiny of yet another potential scandal blatantly targeting their political enemies?

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Government officials, reacting to the growing voice of conservative news outlets, especially on the internet, are angling to curtail the media’s exemption from federal election laws governing political organizations, a potentially chilling intervention that the chairman of the Federal Election Commission is vowing to fight.

“I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers,” warned Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman in an interview.

“The right has begun to break the left’s media monopoly, particularly through new media outlets like the internet, and I sense that some on the left are starting to rethink the breadth of the media exemption and internet communications,” he added.

Noting the success of sites like the Drudge Report, Goodman said that protecting conservative media, especially those on the internet, “matters to me because I see the future going to the democratization of media largely through the internet. They can compete with the big boys now, and I have seen storm clouds that the second you start to regulate them, there is at least the possibility or indeed proclivity for selective enforcement, so we need to keep the media free and the internet free.”

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4. Told you the ObamaCare numbers were just more fuzzy math. And fraud. Lots of fraud.

From Rare.US  “In a House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations subcommittee hearing this morning, a major health insurance trade association representative testified that the administration is reporting inflated enrollment numbers.”

According to their testimony:

“Duplicate enrollments: Because of the challenges that surfaced with the launch of the Exchanges in October 2013, some consumers were advised to create a new account and enroll again. As a result, insurers have many duplicate enrollments in their system for which they never received any payment. In cases where an insurer has a new enrollment for a consumer who previously enrolled, they are not expecting that original policy to be effectuated – even though that data is still reported.”

In other words, due to website glitches, some individuals may have enrolled multiple times. In these cases, the government may count all of these enrollments toward the total enrollment number. The insurer, knowing that the individual enrolled multiple times, will count that individual as having paid.”

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5. I guess this is to replace the operation they had running in Benghazi. They’re goin’ legit this time.

From TheLongWarJournal  “While the opposition Syrian National Coalition, headed by Ahmad Jarba, has been meeting with US officials this week in Washington in an effort to secure further support, including more funding and additional antitank and antiaircraft weapons, news from Syria indicates that some advanced US-made weapons are already being used in various Syrian provinces by rebel fighters.

Over the past few weeks, media reports have stressed that US officials have begun a “pilot program” of providing small quantities of advanced weapons, including TOW missiles, to vetted “moderate” groups, and specifically the Harakat Hazm, which fights in a newly formed coalition called the Southern Front. [See Threat Matrix, The shadowy flow of US weapons into Syria.]

As we at LWJ have pointed out, however, alliances and accommodations between the so-called ‘moderate’ rebel groups and the Islamists have made it very difficult for outside backers of the Syrian opposition to ensure that weapons and other aid provided does not end up in the hands of the Islamists, who dominate the battlefields. [See Threat Matrix, Southern Front tries to disassociate itself from Al Nusrah, which illustrates that an increasing number of reports from ‘moderate’ commanders claiming independence from Islamist groups such as Al Nusrah appear to be concocted in order to secure the provision of more weapons and funding from the West.]

Yesterday the opposition activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the Islamic Front, a large coalition of mainly Islamist fighting groups, was using US TOW missiles in clashes in Aleppo against the forces of President Bashar al Assad and allies. According to SOHR, the Islamic Front (which it refers to as “Islamic battalions”) employed the weapons in Aleppo’s Al Sheik Najjar area and near Al Brej, and possibly near the air force intelligence building in Al Zahraa district as well.”

What could possibly go wrong? I’m sure it’s OK, they vetted ’em and they’re all like totally moderate, or something. 🙄

As if such a simple Jedi mind trick will make us forget we’re arming the bad guys.

These aren’t the droids Al-Qaeda you’re looking for. 🙄

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6. Not shocking. And remember, they’re independent and they’re like totally unbiased professionals. It’s true, I think they were vetted by the same people as the “moderates” above, so you know you can trust ’em. 🙄

From TheWashPost  “A majority of American journalists identify themselves as political independents although among those who choose a side Democrats outnumber Republicans four to one, according to a new study of the media conducted by two Indiana University professors.

Write Lars Wilnat and David Weaver, professors of journalism at Indiana, of their findings:

Compared with 2002, the percentage of full-time U.S. journalists who claim to be Democrats has dropped 8 percentage points in 2013 to about 28 percent, moving this figure closer to the overall population percentage of 30 percent, according to a December 12-15, 2013, ABC News/Washington Post national poll of 1,005 adults. This is the lowest percentage of journalists saying they are Democrats since 1971. An even larger drop was observed among journalists who said they were Republicans in 2013 (7.1 percent) than in 2002 (18 percent), but the 2013 figure is still notably lower than the percentage of U.S. adults who identified with the Republican Party (24 percent according to the poll mentioned above).”

“Over the last several decades, three things have happened: 1) The number of Democratic-identifying reporters increased steadily prior to a significant drop in the latest survey 2) The number of Republicans has steadily shrunk with that number dipping into single digits for the first time ever in the new survey c) more and more reporters are identifying as independents.  What seems to be happening — at least in the last decade – is that journalists are leaving both parties, finding themselves more comfortable as unaffiliateds.”

Independent. Sure. 🙄

Regardless of self identified party label, liberal is more accurate. Just like the college professors teaching at most of today’s journalism schools.

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by

News/Politics 4-22-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. This will be interesting to watch.

From TheDailyCaller  “Congressman Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, could be facing an ethics investigation if Cleta Mitchell has her way.

Mitchell — a partner at Foley & Lardner and the legal counsel for True the Vote in its case against the IRS for its targeting of conservative groups — is pursuing Cummings over his conduct in the wider investigation.

“[Cummings] announced within 30 days after the IRS scandal that “Whoops, all this investigation is over, and we don’t need to be doing anything more on that,’ and he has done everything he can do to thwart and obstruct this investigation,” Mitchell said. “And has just been adamant that the investigation needs to end, that this is just a witch hunt, that there’s nothing there, that nobody did anything wrong.”

Mitchell believes that Cummings’s actions, including what he described as  ”his investigation of True the Vote” is outside of his jurisdiction and that it is a gross abuse of power to investigate private citizens.”

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2. The culture of corruption in the Obama admin continues. 

From HotAir  “When Congress refused to appropriate more funds for ObamaCare enrollment after already committing a deluge of cash to that effort, now-outgoing HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius began working the phones to perform an end run around Capitol Hill. Sebelius began calling corporate CEOs to push them into donating millions of dollars to Enroll America, an outside group started by Anne Filipic, a former White House staffer. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigated, and discovered that Filipic wasn’t the only White House staffer involved in the fundraising campaign:

The White House allegedly was involved in seeking financial support for a pro-ObamaCare group, according to a new report issued in response to Republican concerns about the administration’s fundraising efforts.

Until now, outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was the only official known to have solicited financial support for Enroll America, a nonprofit that promoted enrollment for the Affordable Care Act. But a Government Accountability Office report released Monday detailed not only the secretary’s involvement but that of a White House adviser.”

“It’s worth noting at this point that HHS regulates these markets in significant ways, especially after the passage of ObamaCare. This wasn’t just a case of working the phones for a charity. This was the Cabinet official with the most impact on these businesses extolling the efforts of a supposedly independent group launched by a close adviser to the President. It doesn’t take much ink to connect those dots, which is why insurers began complaining loudly enough about the pressure for Congress and the media to take notice.”

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3. Once again the result of feel-good policies are unintended consequences worse than what they supposedly fixed.

From TheAP  ” Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration’s conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.

A $500,000 study paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change concludes that biofuels made with corn residue release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared with conventional gasoline.

While biofuels are better in the long run, the study says they won’t meet a standard set in a 2007 energy law to qualify as renewable fuel.”

Of course the govt funds this stuff so it disagrees with the findings, as does the companies taking that money. Not shocking.

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4. Missing the obvious, and I suspect mostly for political reasons. After all, they’d have to admit to 50+ years of failure and the fact that their entire platform of policies has resulted in a disaster for America. They have to ignore it, because they made it that way.

From TheWallStJournal  “Suppose a scientific conference on cancer prevention never addressed smoking, on the grounds that in a free society you can’t change private behavior, and anyway, maybe the statistical relationships between smoking and cancer are really caused by some other third variable. Wouldn’t some suspect that the scientists who raised these claims were driven by something—ideology, tobacco money—other than science?

Yet in the current discussions about increased inequality, few researchers, fewer reporters, and no one in the executive branch of government directly addresses what seems to be the strongest statistical correlate of inequality in the United States: the rise of single-parent families during the past half century.

The two-parent family has declined rapidly in recent decades. In 1960, more than 76% of African-Americans and nearly 97% of whites were born to married couples. Today the percentage is 30% for blacks and 70% for whites. The out-of-wedlock birthrate for Hispanics surpassed 50% in 2006. This trend, coupled with high divorce rates, means that roughly 25% of American children now live in single-parent homes, twice the percentage in Europe (12%). Roughly a third of American children live apart from their fathers.”

“More than 20% of children in single-parent families live in poverty long-term, compared with 2% of those raised in two-parent families, according to education-policy analyst Mitch Pearlstein’s 2011 book “From Family Collapse to America’s Decline.” The poverty rate would be 25% lower if today’s family structure resembled that of 1970, according to the 2009 report “Creating an Opportunity Society” from Brookings Institution analysts Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill. A 2006 article in the journal Demography by Penn State sociologist Molly Martin estimates that 41% of the economic inequality created between 1976-2000 was the result of changed family structure.”

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5. I see they’ve responded to the criticism they received for getting caught off guard.

From HotAir  “Last week, CNN reported that an al-Qaeda conference took place in Yemen, headed by the number-two man in the global structure, and that the US appeared to have missed it. If so, we may be making up for lost time. A series of drone attacks in Yemen has killed dozens of terrorists from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the most dangerous of the constituent networks in the AQ umbrella:

An operation targeting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is under way in Abyan and Shabwa, Yemen, a high-level Yemeni government official who is being briefed on the strikes told CNN on Monday.

The official said that the scale of the strikes against AQAP is “massive and unprecedented” and that at least 30 militants have been killed. The operation involved Yemeni commandos who are now “going after high-level AQAP targets,” the official said.”

“CNN’s Mohammed Jamjoom reports that the Yemenis are a little skeptical of these operations, and that the embarrassment of missing the convention last week may be driving the claims now:”

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6. The worst is yet to come. This is what has been behind all the illegal delays by the White House. This is what they’re seeking to avoid before the mid-terms. And this is coming from a Democrat.

From NationalReview  ““There are parts of Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, that were postponed because they are unpalatable,” he told the Boston Herald. The “Cadillac tax” that goes into effect in a few years and taxes employer health plans over a certain value, he said, will be “the first time in this country’s history that we have actually taxed health care.”

““We will lose seats in the House,” he said. “I am fairly certain of that based on the poll numbers that are coming out from the more experienced pollsters down there, and I think we may lose the Senate.””

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by

News/Politics 4-21-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Today’s Boston Marathon, and the anniversary of last years terrorist attack, have turned the focus again to the bombers. Some in the press, including the NY Times, have gone overboard with stories that look like the terrorist’s fan club wrote them.

From TheBostonHerald  “Yesterday it was the turn of The New York Times, under the headline, “Marathon Bombing Suspect Waits in Isolation.”

“This one was perfectly timed — on the first anniversary of the Joker placing one of his kettle bombs in front of little Martin Richard, who had moments to live after the Times’ victim du jour decided he wanted to murder an 8-year-old infidel.

Does every trust-funded, pony-tailed male Marxist writer in this country have a crush on the “tousle-haired” youth? Rolling Stone, the Globe, now the Times — they start writing about this guy and suddenly they sound like heartsick teenage girls.

This isn’t journalism, it’s mash notes. If these Tiger Beat-like stories were Top 40 songs, they’d have to bring back Leslie Gore to sing them.”

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2. Does Obama foreign policy embolden enemies like Al-Qaeda?

From FoxNews  “All Americans should be aware of some very disturbing events that speak to the state of terrorism, the strength of al Qaeda and our nation’s security. In light of the danger unfolding around us, we also need to question whether or not President Obama’s administration is serious about confronting what is clearly a gathering storm, or whether, in fact, his policies are encouraging those who wish to harm us.

One of the more shocking events illustrating the growing strength of al Qaeda is the release of a video this week showing what CNN reports as “the largest and most dangerous gathering of al Qaeda in years.” It’s what experts think is a recent gathering of the terrorist group’s leadership and more than 100 fighters in Yemen.

It now appears al Qaeda was “on the run” in the same way you were able to keep your doctor and hospital.

Whether we didn’t know about the gathering, or did and chose to do nothing, it’s another signal to the beasts around the world that no one is home in Washington, D.C.”

The story then goes on to mention how some 9-11 families feel they’re sabotaging trials at Gitmo, and that the FBI is interfering.

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3. You can read more on that here.

From MSNNews  “Frustration simmered into suspicion Wednesday as relatives of Sept. 11 victims attending stalled hearings here accused a jealous Justice Department of conducting an FBI probe of 9/11 defense lawyers to derail the long-awaited war crimes tribunal.

“These things just don’t happen. It’s not some rogue FBI agent. This had to be approved from the highest level of the FBI to do this,” said Don Arias of Panama City, Fla., a former Air Force officer and New York City firefighter whose brother Adam was killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Some could even say that this was done purposely to derail these hearings and to force it back into federal court,” he told reporters. His sister Lorraine added: “It looks like a well-orchestrated snafu. We’re going to stall now for them to all be investigated. A reappointment process could drag it out another year or more.”

The 10th round of hearings stalled this week on the revelation that two FBI agents questioned a security officer on one 9/11 defense team, then had him sign a nondisclosure agreement, an incursion into attorney-client confidentiality that defense lawyers called “chilling.”

The Obama admin has always wanted show trials in federal court.

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4. Did the Obama admin put off the Keystone Pipeline decision in exchange for 100 million to help finance their 2014 campaigns?

Yes. And yet they still whine endlessly about the Koch Bros.

From TheIJReview  “While the media is obsessed with the Koch brothers this campaign season, a billionaire hedge fund manager from San Francisco just bought off the White House to the tune of $100 million in order to delay the Keystone XL pipeline decision.”

“What you won’t hear about in mainstream media is how Billionaire Tom Steyer drove the decision by promising to spend $100 million to help Democrats in the midterm election who help defeat the project:”

The hypocrisy is stunning, but just what we’ve come to expect from Dems.

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5. China appears poised to become the world’s most Christian nation.

From TheTelegraph  “Officially, the People’s Republic of China is an atheist country but that is changing fast as many of its 1.3 billion citizens seek meaning and spiritual comfort that neither communism nor capitalism seem to have supplied.

Christian congregations in particular have skyrocketed since churches began reopening when Chairman Mao’s death in 1976 signalled the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Less than four decades later, some believe China is now poised to become not just the world’s number one economy but also its most numerous Christian nation.

“By my calculations China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon,” said Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University and author of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule.”

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Common Core required readings that would make a longshoreman blush
Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/04/17/common-core-required-readings-make-longshoreman-blush/#JrLSyOTaARjJXS7E.99
Common Core required readings that would make a longshoreman blush
Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/04/17/common-core-required-readings-make-longshoreman-blush/#JrLSyOTaARjJXS7E.99
by

News/Politics 1-9-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Why does this not surprise me? 🙄

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The Justice Department selected an avowed political supporter of President Obama to lead the criminal probe into the IRS targeting of tea party groups, according to top Republicans who said Wednesday that the move has ruined the entire investigation.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, and regulatory affairs subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said they have discovered that the head of the investigation is Barbara Kay Bosserman, a trial lawyer in the Justice Department who donated more than $6,000 to Mr. Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, as well as several hundred dollars to the national Democratic Party.

“The department has created a startling conflict of interest,” Mr. Issa and Mr. Jordan said in a letter sent Wednesday and reviewed by The Washington Times. “It is unbelievable that the department would choose such an individual to examine the federal government’s systematic targeting and harassment of organizations opposed to the president’s policies.”

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2. For this one, we’ll start with a reminder of what Pres. Obama had to say a while back.

“A day after 9/11, we are reminded that a new tower rises above the New York skyline, but al Qaeda is on the path to defeat and bin Laden is dead.”

From CNN  “From around Aleppo in western Syria to small areas of Falluja in central Iraq, al Qaeda now controls territory that stretches more than 400 miles across the heart of the Middle East, according to English and Arab language news accounts as well as accounts on jihadist websites.

Indeed, al Qaeda appears to control more territory in the Arab world than it has done at any time in its history.”

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3. Once again the Obama admin is sees racism everywhere. They seem to think it’s the schools fault that these kids end up in prison. Apparently the consequences for their criminal behavior is the schools fault because they reported it.

From HuffPost  ” The Obama administration is urging schools to abandon overly zealous discipline policies that civil rights advocates have long said lead to a school-to-prison pipeline that discriminates against minority students.

The wide-ranging series of guidelines issued Wednesday in essence tells schools that they must adhere to the principle of fairness and equity in student discipline or face strong action if they don’t. The American Civil Liberties Union called the recommendations “ground-breaking.”

“A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct,” Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Holder said the problem often stems from well intentioned “zero-tolerance” policies that too often inject the criminal justice system into the resolution of problems. Zero-tolerance policies, a tool that became popular in the 1990s, often spell out uniform and swift punishment for offenses such as truancy, smoking or carrying a weapon. Violators can lose classroom time or become saddled with a criminal record.”

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4. Spiritual, but not religious. Sure… 🙄

Also from HuffPost  “From its historic black churches to large Jewish enclaves to landmark Catholic and Protestant churches, New York City is the ultimate religious melting pot. And now, overseeing it all is a new mayor whose only religious identity seems to be “spiritual but not religious.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio is now perhaps the nation’s most visible “none,” an icon of one of the nation’s fastest-growing religious groups — those without any formal religious identification.

His election could reflect a new kind of American politician — one who is shaped by religion and religious values but is not expected to talk about or bow to religion as in years past, said Jennifer Jones Austin, co-chairwoman of de Blasio’s transition team and the daughter of a pastor.

“What drives him are his fundamental beliefs about liberation theology when it comes to social justice, our responsibility to care for all who are on this earth,” Jones Austin said. “I heard him on several occasions say ‘Amen’ when he felt very strongly about something.”

Oh goody, liberation theology. Yay.

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by

News/Politics 1-7-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Huh. And I just read in the NY Times that Al-Qaeda had nothing to do with Benghazi, and wasn’t even there according to the Times reporter. Go figure… 🙄

From FoxNews  “The U.S. government is trying to apprehend an al Qaeda terrorist wanted for his role in the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans.

 The suspect, Muhammad Jamal, was imprisoned in Egypt last fall and in September was being held by the Egyptian government. His current whereabouts could not be confirmed, said U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. One official said Jamal remains in Egyptian custody, contrary to reports that he was in Yemen.

Jamal was labeled a designated terrorist by the United Nations Oct. 18, identifying him and the group he formed, the Muhammad Jamal Network, as linked to the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack.”

Just further proof that the Times piece was nothing more than an attempt to provide cover for the Hillary 2016 team.

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2. Once again Democrats seeking to be all-inclusive almost let the fox into the hen-house. Just like with the Brotherhood, they’re enabling questionable people, assisting them, and taking their advice.

From TheFreeBeacon  “The representative of a human rights group headed by a designated al Qaeda terrorist was denied a visa by the State Department after being invited by congressional Democrats to discuss drone strikes.

Mohammad Al Ahmady, the Yemen director for Geneva-based NGO Al Karama, was expected to brief Reps. Alan Grayson (D., Fla.), Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), and Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) the morning of the Nov. 19, according to press release from Grayson’s office.

Ahmady, who also serves as a top official in an al Qaeda-linked Yemeni political party, did not attend because of visa issues. The State Department said it could not comment on visa matters.

Several Al Karama officials have faced terrorism allegations. Al Karama’s founder and current president Abdul Rahman Naimi was designated as a terrorist and al Qaeda supporter by the U.S. Treasury Department in December, along with the group’s Yemen representative Abdulwahab Al-Humayqani. Al Karama’s legal director, Rachid Mesli, is currently wanted for terrorism charges in Algeria.”

And it gets worse. These people are involved with AQ in Iraq and Syria, as well as funding them. In the case of Iraq, they sent as much as 2 million a month to the very people our soldiers were fighting. 

Now they all play dumb and blame each other for their blunder. Typical.

Click the text and read the whole thing. This wasn’t an accident. This is the type of people Democrats and the president regularly take advice from. And the UN is considering their application for “consultant” status as well.

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3. Here’s an interesting read on the percent of men arrested before the age of 23. If this is accurate, it’s over 40%. I think more details on how this was figured would be helpful because those numbers are pretty shocking. Or is this the chickens of a fatherless society coming home to roost? And how much is the result of the failed “War on Drugs?”

From TheHuffPost  “A large number of American men have already been arrested by the time they’re in their early 20s, according to a new report.

The study, published on Monday in the journal Crime & Delinquency, found that nearly half (49 percent) of African-American men and 40 percent of white men have been arrested by the age of 23, “which can hurt their ability to find work, go to school and participate fully in their communities,” according to a press release.

The research was based on an analysis of national survey data from 1997 to 2008 of teenagers and young adults. The arrests included minor crimes like truancy as well as serious violent crimes. It excluded traffic offenses.”

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4. Looks like the talking heads at MSNBC are getting a much-needed babysitter so they stop embarrassing the network, as if that alone is their problem. But don’t be too optimistic, his previous babysitting job was as executive producer for Keith Olbermann, and we all know how well that turned out…. 🙂

From NationalReview  “MSNBC, the left-leaning cable-news network, has settled on one solution to its recent problems. It now has an executive reviewing scripts before they go on the air. The role, which has fallen to Rich Stockwell, a former executive producer of The Ed Show and Countdown with Keith Olbermann who now oversees special projects at the network, was created as several of the network’s hosts have, to the embarrassment of network brass, conducted a master class in political incorrectness. In recent months, Alec Baldwin, Martin Bashir, and, most recently, Melissa Harris-Perry have awkwardly crashed into the trinity of sexual orientation, gender, and race, leading many to wonder if there are any adults in charge at MSNBC.

There is one such adult, actually, and her name is Rachel Maddow. Though she provides the network’s ideological vision — MSNBC president Phil Griffin has called her “our quarterback” — she’s neither an executive nor a manager. Griffin, who wears both hats, is, from all appearances, letting the inmates run the asylum. Meanwhile, the network that Griffin has labeled “the place for progressives” is experiencing a free fall in its ratings, which are down 29 percent from 2012. A decline was expected after a presidential-election year, but MSNBC’s competitors did not suffer as acutely. Fox News was down only 5 percent in total viewers (it suffered far more in the coveted 25–54 demographic, where the network has persistently struggled); CNN’s numbers, under the stewardship of newly installed president Jeff Zucker, remained flat.

Apologies are rare in the world of television, but they have come from MSNBC at a regular clip in recent months. “Anti-gay slurs are wrong,” Baldwin said in late November. Days before, he had accosted a photographer who was following his family and allegedly hurled an anti-gay slur in his direction. The same day Baldwin issued his apology, Martin Bashir took to the air with a clumsy pontification about Sarah Palin, slavery, and human excrement. By early December, both Baldwin and Bashir had announced that they were leaving the network.

The dust had hardly settled before Tulane professor cum MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry was tearfully apologizing to “families formed through transracial adoption.” She had led a holiday humor segment on December 30 that used as its jumping-off point a Romney-family photo. Harris-Perry said the segment took an “unexpected” turn as her guests poked fun at Mitt Romney’s adopted African-American grandson.”

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5. We have a winner! After Auburn pulled a Kansas City and blew a big lead, FSU wins the national championship 34-31.

From MSN/FoxSports  “For all Jameis Winston had done as a redshirt freshman for Florida State, he never had to pull the Seminoles from the brink of defeat.

In the biggest game of the year, down by four with 79 seconds left, the Heisman Trophy winner put together the drive of his life, and the Seminoles proved they could take a punch to win a championship.

Winston threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to Kelvin Benjamin with 13 seconds left and No. 1 Florida State beat No. 2 Auburn 34-31 to win the BCS national title game on Monday night.”

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by

News/Politics 11-25-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The President has made a deal with Iran. Israel is not pleased, and have pointed out that they are not bound by it and will do what they feel necessary.

From TheHill  “President Obama phoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, promising to consult with him on ongoing efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Obama told Netanyahu that he wanted to begin consultations “immediately” on Iran, after diplomats struck a temporary deal in Geneva to begin placing limits on Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief.”

“Netanyahu blasted that accord after it was struck, calling it a “horrible mistake.” He added that Israel would not be bound by it.”

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2. Will the Senate’s use of the “nuclear option” allow Obama to stack the IPAB (death panel)?

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3. More ObamaCare lawsuits are working their way through the courts.

From TheNYDailyNews  “The Obamacare rollout has been a debacle, with delays in the implementation  of mandates, technical glitches in the exchanges, cancelled individual policies  and more.

It’s about to get worse. The federal judiciary is currently hearing four  cases challenging decisions made by the Internal Revenue Service that could soon  deliver more major blows to the Affordable Care Act.

One such decision extended subsidies provided by Obamacare for lower-income  individuals and families (those making up to four times the poverty level) to  people in the 36 states served by the federally-operated exchange,  HealthCare.gov.

But the law spells out clearly that such federal subsidies will be granted  “through an exchange established by the state” – not that they can be granted by  the federal government.”

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4. Sticker shock.

From USAToday  “Sweeping differences in health care exchange pricing among states and counties is leading to sticker shock for some middle-class consumers and others who aren’t eligible for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

The average prices for the most popular plans are twice as high in the most expensive states as those with the lowest average prices, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data for 34 states using the federal health insurance exchange.

PPOs, the most popular type of health care plan, carry monthly premiums that range from an average of $819 a month in the most expensive state to $437 in the least expensive. Plans on the federal and state exchanges are grouped into four categories that cover 60% to 90% of out-of-pocket costs. USA TODAY looked at the pricing of PPOs and HMOs across these bronze, silver, gold and platinum categories.

The premiums for bronze-level plans are generally the least expensive, but  “the deductibles are simply not affordable,” says Laura Stack, a former financial analyst looking for full-time work and using her 401k to pay for health insurance. “Many will not be able to afford the per person deductibles before insurance begins to pay. What are you really paying for?”

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5. Next, who knew, and when did they know it?

From TheNYPost  “Let me be the first to ask: Did the White House know that employment reports were being falsified?

Last week I reported exclusively that someone at the Census Bureau’s Philadelphia region had been screwing around with employment data. And that person, after he was caught in 2010, claimed he was told to do so by a supervisor two levels up the chain of command.

On top of that, a reliable source whom I haven’t identified said the falsification of employment data by Census was widespread and ongoing, especially around the time of the 2012 election.”

“The chief of the Commerce Department usually oversees the Census, which determines how many congressional representatives and how much money each state gets for the next decade. But the Obama administration had decided — the story went — that Emanuel was a better guy for the job.”

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6. Told ya’. Now aren’t you glad the US didn’t do any more for them like the Obama admin wanted too? We shouldn’t have provided arms either, but Obama has a thing for doing that, arming people he shouldn’t. Like Fast and Furious, Egypt, and now Syria.

From TheJerusalemPost  “The six largest Islamist rebel factions in Syria declared a new Islamic Front on Thursday, forming the largest alliance of opposition fighters yet in the 2-1/2-year conflict.

Syria’s fractious rebel forces have tried many times to unify their ranks and failed. Islamist rebel commanders, in a video aired on al Jazeera, said their new union would not only seek to oust President Bashar Assad but establish an Islamic state.”

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by

News/Politics 10-10-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread, as always.

We have some interesting ones today.

First up, Wow. 🙄

From DigitalTrends.com  “It’s been one full week since the flagship technology portion of the  Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) went live. And since that time, the befuddled  beast that is Healthcare.gov has shutdown, crapped out, stalled, and  mis-loaded so consistently that its track record for failure is challenged only  by Congress.

The site itself, which apparently underwent major code renovations over the  weekend, still rejects user logins, fails to load drop-down menus and other  crucial components for users that successfully gain entrance, and otherwise  prevents uninsured Americans in the 36 states it serves from purchasing  healthcare at competitive rates – Healthcare.gov’s primary purpose. The site is  so busted that, as of a couple days ago, the number of people that successfully  purchased healthcare through it was in the “single digits,” according to the Washington Post.

The reason for this nationwide headache apparently stems from poorly written code, which buckled under the heavy influx of  traffic that its engineers and administrators should have seen coming. But the  fact that Healthcare.gov can’t do the one job it was built to do isn’t the most  infuriating part of this debacle – it’s that we, the taxpayers, seem to have  forked up more than $634 million of the federal purse to build the  digital equivalent of a rock.”

You say digital rock, I say Obama’s legacy. Either works.

Oh wait……. Never mind, his legacy isn’t working. 😯

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California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a new law allowing non-physicians to perform abortions.

From Breitbart  “The legislation, which had been pushed vigorously by Planned Parenthood, had been strongly opposed by pro-life groups and some physicians, arguing that it amounted to legalizing back-alley abortions for profit.

In a statement, Gov. Brown boasted that AB 154 was one of seven bills signed Tuesday “to support the health and well-being of women in California.”

How exactly does letting unqualified people perform a medical procedure supportive? And well-being? Really? Unbelievable.

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But….but….but…. they’re mostly moderates. Obama and McCain said so.

From TheLATimes  “U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly concerned that Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups could carve out a haven in Syria that will offer the kind of sanctuary they once enjoyed in northwestern Pakistan, current and former U.S. officials say.

Officials say a clandestine CIA program that provides rudimentary training and weapons to U.S.-backed politically moderate insurgents is unlikely to curb the growing strength of extremists among the opposition militias seeking to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Though the fighting remains limited to Syria, U.S. intelligence officials already are looking at worst-case scenarios if the country breaks into distinct government- and rebel-controlled enclaves. The alarm grew recently when militants from Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate considered the most capable and best-armed rebel force, and its allies seized a border crossing between Syria and Jordan near the Syrian city of Dara.”

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This one wouldn’t surprise me at all. Their do-gooder efforts rarely work out as planned.

From Dallas/FtWorthCBSLocal  “It started as a simple look at bullying. University of Texas at Arlington criminologist Seokjin Jeong analyzed data collected from 7,000 students from all 50 states.

He thought the results would be predictable and would show that anti-bullying programs curb bullying. Instead — he found the opposite.

Jeong said it was, “A very disappointing and a very surprising thing. Our anti-bullying programs, either intervention or prevention does not work.”

The study concluded that students at schools with anti-bullying programs might actually be more likely to become a victim of bullying. It also found that students at schools with no bullying programs were less likely to become victims.”

But are there just more reported at schools with programs, which could skew the numbers?

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Here’s an interesting case, although I’m surprised it went this far. Seems like a stretch to me. You can’t get plastered and then say you’re not responsible for your actions and what happens once you are. Or can you? We’ll see I guess.

From MSNNews  “Three people convicted of murder in deadly crashes urged New York’s highest court Tuesday to throw out their convictions, arguing they were too intoxicated to know the threat they posed to others.

The murder convictions of Martin Heidgen, Taliyah Taylor and Franklin McPherson all hinge on the prosecution’s contention they acted with “depraved indifference to human life” in fatal crashes that share a number of common threads: driving too fast in the wrong lane while under the influence.

Defense attorneys argued prosecutors failed to prove their clients acted with depraved indifference and, in fact, their clients were too impaired to know what they were doing.”

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