What’s interesting in the news today?
Open Thread!
Here’s a few to start things off.
1. Republicans have chosen 3 new Senators for the Armed Services Committee.
From DefenseOne “A lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard and the first female combat veteran in the Senate. A former Army Ranger and captain educated in the Ivy League. A lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves who worked on former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s national security staff. These are the three newly elected senators who will serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republicans announced Monday.
Senators-elect Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, all post-9/11 veterans who served in either Iraq, Afghanistan or both wars, will serve on the Senate’s defense committee, according to incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The Republican conference and full Senate will ratify the picks.”
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2. Since our state SG refused to do her job because all these dirty politicians are Dems like her, some local prosecutors are stepping up.
From Philly.com “Philadelphia prosecutors announced criminal charges Tuesday against two more elected officials swept up in the undercover sting investigation that state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane had argued could not be successfully prosecuted.
District Attorney Seth Williams announced conspiracy, bribery and conflict of interest charges against state Reps. Vanessa Lowery Brown and Ronald G. Waters, both Philadelphia Democrats, for accepting cash from an undercover operative.
In announcing the charges, Williams had harsh words for Kane, who he said had to be forced through “judicial intervention” to turn over key documents in the case.”
“After The Inquirer first broke the news of the aborted operation, Kane vigorously defended her decision. She contended the investigation was poorly managed, relied on a questionable undercover agent, and was possibly tainted by racial targeting. All five elected officials captured on tape are African American.”
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3. Obama and Clinton sure love those foreign contributions, huh? And of course Menendez’s dirty little fingers are all over this too.
From MSN/NYTimes “The Obama administration overturned a ban preventing a wealthy, politically connected Ecuadorean woman from entering the United States after her family gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to finance records and government officials.
The woman, Estefanía Isaías, had been barred from coming to the United States after being caught fraudulently obtaining visas for her maids. But the ban was lifted at the request of the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton so that Ms. Isaías could work for an Obama fund-raiser with close ties to the administration.
It was one of several favorable decisions the Obama administration made in recent years involving the Isaías family, which the government of Ecuador accuses of buying protection from Washington and living comfortably in Miami off the profits of a looted bank in Ecuador.
The family, which has been investigated by federal law enforcement agencies on suspicion of money laundering and immigration fraud, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to American political campaigns in recent years. During that time, it has repeatedly received favorable treatment from the highest levels of the American government, including from New Jersey’s senior senator and the State Department.
The Obama administration has allowed the family’s patriarchs, Roberto and William Isaías, to remain in the United States, refusing to extradite them to Ecuador. The two brothers were sentenced in absentia in 2012 to eight years in prison, accused of running their bank into the ground and then presenting false balance sheets to profit from bailout funds. In a highly politicized case, Ecuador says the fraud cost the country $400 million.”
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Wandering Views 