What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Islamic State selling, crucifying, burying children alive in Iraq: UN

From ZeeNews  “Iraqi boys aged under 18 are increasingly being used by the militant group as suicide bombers, bomb makers, informants or human shields to protect facilities against U.S.-led air strikes, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

“We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities,” committee expert Renate Winter told a news briefing. “The scope of the problem is huge.”

Children from the Yazidi sect or Christian communities, but also Shi`ites and Sunnis, have been victims, she said.

“We have had reports of children, especially children who are mentally challenged, who have been used as suicide bombers, most probably without them even understanding,” Winter told Reuters. “There was a video placed (online) that showed children at a very young age, approximately eight years of age and younger, to be trained already to become child soldiers.””

Monsters are real.

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2. If the Obama admin is looking for someone to arm, these would be the ones, although it’s a little late.

From Alarabiya  “Several Iraqi Christian armed forces will “soon” join the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in an attempt to regain control of their in the northern Ninveh Plain after they were seized by the militant group last year, a Christian lawmaker said Wednesday.

“The objective is to liberate their land in Nineveh Plain and to take charge of security in these areas afterward,” said Yaco Jacob, a Christian parliamentarian at the Kurdistan Parliament.

Jacob is member of the political bureau of the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), which is one of the country’s Christian political parties, with two deputies in the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad and two representatives in the Kurdistan parliament in Erbil.

The ADM has operated paramilitaries since the 1980s, when it allied with the Kurds to wage an insurgency against Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Christian force currently has 2,000 men who volunteered to fight ISIS.

Christian groups began rebuilding their armed forces in August 2014, a week after the Ninevah plain exodus, seen by some as the worse disaster to have ever affected the Iraqi Christians.”

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3. The president is coming after retirement accounts, and he has other middle class hurting proposals in his budget.

From MSN  “President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2016 budget was unveiled Monday to the American public, along with the Department of Treasury’s Greenbook, which provides further explanation and details of the proposals in the president’s budget.

In truth, the president’s budget is really more of a wish list than anything else, but it’s a good indication of where the administration is headed.

This year’s version of the budget includes a number of provisions targeting retirement accounts. That’s no surprise, as provisions aimed at retirement accounts have been a regular feature in budgets in recent years. What is a surprise, however, is how many proposals are targeting retirement accounts and how many new proposals there are. All told, this year’s budget features over a dozen provisions that, if they were to become law, could directly impact your retirement savings.”

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4. And there’s a college loan bomb hidden in his budget too.

From Politico  “In obscure data tables buried deep in its 2016 budget proposal, the Obama administration revealed this week that its student loan program had a $21.8 billion shortfall last year, apparently the largest ever recorded for any government credit program.

 The main cause of the shortfall was President Barack Obama’s recent efforts to provide relief for borrowers drowning in student debt, reforms that have already begun to reduce loan payments to the government. For more than two decades, budget analysts have recalculated the projected costs of about 120 credit programs every year, but they have never lowered their expectations of repayments this dramatically. The $21.8 billion revision—larger than the annual budget for NASA, or the Interior Department and EPA combined—will be tacked onto the federal deficit.

“Wow,” marveled Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “Whether or not it’s good policy to help borrowers with their payments, it’s obviously costly for taxpayers.”

The 40 million Americans with student loans are now saddled with more than $1.2 trillion in outstanding debt. And with higher education costs rising much faster than inflation, the already massive program has been growing at a spectacular clip; direct government loans alone increased 44 percent over the last two years despite an aura of austerity in Washington. The Obama administration has tried to ease the burden for some borrowers by reducing their payments to 10 percent of their income and forgiving their loans after 20 years; this year, the Education Department plans to make all borrowers eligible for that “pay-as-you-earn” relief.”

22 billion shortfall in just one year.

More here, from HotAir

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5. Some charities are refusing donations from Bill Clinton’s disgusting pal.

From TheDailyMail/Reuters  “Some charities that have received money from U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein said they are reviewing their relationships with him or will decline to accept any future gifts from him in the wake of recent allegations he forced an underage girl to have sex with Britain’s Prince Andrew and other powerful men.

Epstein, 62, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring an underage girl for prostitution and served a year in a Florida jail, has long burnished his reputation as a philanthropist through a series of foundations that he says have given millions of dollars to institutions ranging from Harvard University to a New York junior tennis league.

The allegations involving Epstein became a tabloid sensation on both sides of the Atlantic after lawyers for one of Epstein’s accusers made them in a court filing just over a month ago. It prompted strong denials from Prince Andrew and from prominent U.S. lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who was also accused of having sex with the girl.

The filing has also renewed questions about Epstein’s once close links to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, though there are no allegations of any wrongdoing by Clinton.

In interviews with Reuters, three recipients of Epstein’s money said they would accept no more gifts, at least while the recent allegations are under review. They are a cancer researcher at New York City’s Mount Sinai hospital who with colleagues received $50,000 in seed funding; a mentoring program for young Swedish businesswomen that got $30,000; and Ballet Palm Beach in Florida, which declined to say how much Epstein gave.”

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But at least one Rutgers professor thinks it’s no big deal. These people are sick.

From TheDailyCaller  “A Reuters exclusive published Monday explores the conundrum faced by nonprofits that have received money from Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier arrested and convicted for child prostitution.

But buried in the report is an insane statement from a Rutgers professor saying that he didn’t think he should return the money… because he didn’t think Epstein did anything all that bad.

Professor Robert Trivers told Reuters that Epstein was “a person of integrity who should be given credit for serving time in prison” and for settling civil lawsuits brought by underage girls. ”Did he get an easy deal? Did he buy himself a light sentence?” Trivers asks. “Well, yes, probably, compared to what you or I would get, but he did get locked up.”

But more to the point, Trivers didn’t see what the fuss was all about, since girls mature earlier nowadays. ”By the time they’re 14 or 15, they’re like grown women were 60 years ago, so I don’t see these acts as so heinous.””

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6. Hackers have infiltrated the system of the US’s  second largest insurer. Millions of people’s personal info has been breached.

From Cleveland/CBSLocal  “Health insurer Anthem said hackers infiltrated its computer network and gained access to a host of personal information for customers and employees, including CEO Joseph Swedish.

The nation’s second-largest health insurer said it was contacting customers affected by the “very sophisticated” cyberattack and was working to figure out how many people were affected.

The company said information the hackers gained access to included names, birthdates, email address, employment details, Social Security numbers, incomes and street addresses of people who are currently covered or have had coverage in the past.

CBS News reports hackers may have stolen up to 80 million records.”

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