Gitmo

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News/Politics 11-7-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Of course they are. That’s exactly what I would expect sore losers to do. I hope Harry doesn’t get too crazy. After all, whatever he does with 51 votes, can be undone with 51 votes, thanks to his nuclear option.

From TheWashingtonPost  “Before ceding full control of Congress to the GOP in January, Senate Democrats are planning to rush a host of critical measures to President Obama’s desk, including bills to revive dozens of expired tax breaks and avoid a government shutdown for another year.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is also aiming to chip away at a backlog of presidential nominations to the federal bench and the State Department over the next month, although Democratic aides say they will be unable to process all of the hundreds of pending appointments before turning the chamber over to Republicans.

Republican leaders, too, are inclined to clear the legislative decks of must-pass bills so they can start fresh in January, when they will have control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in eight years. Leaders from both parties are due at the White House for a lunch Friday to begin discussing the parameters of the possible in a new era of Republican domination.

At his first news conference since the GOP landslide at the polls this week, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday warned Obama to abandon his “go-it-alone” strategy of governing by executive order and to begin looking for areas of compromise with Congress.”

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2. Everything is bigger in Texas…. including Wendy Davis’ loss. 🙂

From NationalReview  “Wendy, we barely knew ye! Actually, that’s not true. We knew Wendy Davis well — too well. It is difficult to think of a more overexposed candidate in the 2014 election cycle.

We knew (from the get-go) that she was a publicity-stunt actress with show-stopping athletic shoes made famous when she spoke for eleven hours in favor of a woman’s “right” to kill her unborn child. We knew that she was the type of woman who leaves her husband and children in Texas to attend Harvard Law School, then divorces said husband the day after he pays her final law-school bill. And we found that she had — like many another brand-name politician — a politically convenient memory of myriad personal details. Of course, her memory was infallible when it came to the memoir she released less than two months before the election.

In case that was not enough, we found out, too, that she was not suited to running for homecoming queen, let alone governor of a state with an economy the size of two Switzerlands, about the functioning of which she seemed to be perilously confused. And if she was not on the campaign trail failing Civics 101, she was excelling in Advanced Mudslinging, accusing her wheelchair-bound opponent of exploiting his disability for votes, or of threatening to rescind the right to interracial marriage — despite the fact that he is married to a Hispanic woman.

As I wrote in my pre-mortem postmortem of the Wendy Davis campaign two weeks ago, Davis’s candidacy will never rise to the levels of infamy achieved by Todd Akin and Christine O’Donnell, because she had the benefit of a “D” next to her name. But Davis was a worse candidate than either, victimized not by a single foolish comment, but by managing to step on more rakes than Sideshow Bob. Adding to that was her determination to double down on those mistakes, so that she often looked not just bumbling, but mean.”

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3. They never learn. 

From AOL.com  “One of the longest-held prisoners at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay was sent home to Kuwait on Wednesday, the first release based on the determination of a review panel that has been re-evaluating some men previously classified as too dangerous to release.

Fawzi al-Odah had been told his release was imminent but didn’t know the date until shortly before he boarded the flight back to his country from the base in southeast Cuba, his lawyer, Eric Lewis, said.

The 37-year-old al-Odah had been the focus of an arduous battle to secure his release that had the support of his government. Lewis, who spoke to him about a week before the departure, said the prisoner just wanted to get on with life.”

“The release of al-Odah was criticized by U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a chief proponent of keeping the prison open. The New Hampshire Republican called it “yet another dangerous example of the Obama administration’s misguided motivation to empty and then close Guantanamo rather than protect the national security interests of the United States.””

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4. Huh. The mainstream press appears to have missed this story. I wonder why….? 🙄

Are they afraid to arrest her because they fear more riots? They’re gonna happen either way.

From TheDailyMail  “Michael Brown’s mother has been named as one of the ‘attackers’ who assaulted and robbed vendors selling t-shirts commemorating the youngster’s death.

A report from Ferguson police identified Lesley McSpadden, 34, as one of a group of up to 30 people that ran into the tent and ransacked the stall in the Missouri city on Saturday October 18. 

Pearlie Gordon, 54, Brown’s mother-in-law, and two men were selling ‘Justice for Mike Brown’ merchandise when the subjects ‘jumped out of vehicles and rushed them’ during what police are classifying as an armed robbery.”

“More than $1500 in merchandise and $400 in cash ‘was stolen by unknown subjects’ who managed to escape before police arrived.”

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More here, from TheSmokingGun  “A police report detailing a fight last month between members of Michael Brown’s family over the sale of commemorative t-shirts identifies the late teenager’s mother as one of the “attackers” who beat and robbed vendors selling the merchandise from a tent in a Ferguson, Missouri parking lot.

A copy of the Ferguson Police Department report was provided yesterday by city attorney Stephanie Karr. When TSG requested the document two weeks ago, Karr noted that Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, was “described in the report” and had “specifically requested that the report be withheld from the media.”

“McSpadden’s mother, Desureia Harris, began to rip down t-shirts hanging on a line, Gordon told officers. Then, she added, other members of the group began “tearing her booth apart.” Gordon (seen at left) said that during the melee she was repeatedly struck in the head and knocked to the ground.

At one point, Gordon recalled, she heard McSpadden “yell to an unknown subject, ‘That’s Calvina’s mom, get her @#%.” [Calvina is the first name of Michael Brown Sr.’s wife.] “McSpadden then ran up and punched Gordon,” according to the report.

Gordon’s male associates were also beaten–reportedly with a pipe–during the confrontation, and one of the men was transported by EMS workers to a local hospital for treatment of “injuries sustained during the assault.”

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by

News/Politics 5-28-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

President Obama took bi-partisan heat this Memorial Day for the backlog on veterans disability and benefits claims. Jon Stewart and Fox are hitting him from all sides. Even Bob Beckel is calling for the resignation of the head of the VA. A little bit of CONTENT WARNING! for the Stewart material for some bleeped cussing. Be sure to watch the video at this link. From Mediaite

“Typically, when the hosts of Fox News’ The Five play a clip of Jon Stewart, it’s used to demonstrate everything that’s wrong with the liberal, mainstream media. But for Memorial Day, the show decided to open with a segment from The Daily Show they could all get behind.

The clip in question came from the most recent installment of Stewart’s consistent attacks against the Department of Veteran Affairs’ benefits claims backlog.

Eric Bolling, who has had his disagreements with Stewart in the past, gave him credit for “very outspoken on this issue.” He reserved his criticism for President Obama, who “literally said we have to fix this” but “then he doesn’t do anything.”

The bipartisan nature of the issue extended to Bob Beckel, who was even more furious than Bolling over the VA’s apparent inability to process its benefit requests. Calling the situation “disgraceful” and “unacceptable,” he advocated for department head Eric Shinseki‘s resignation

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On this one, I have to agree with Michelle Malkin. This is a really bad idea. From TownHall

“Gird your loins, America. President Obama intends to empty out Guantanamo Bay and send scores of suspected Muslim terror operatives back to their jihadist-coddling native countries. Goaded by anti-war activists and soft-on-terror attorneys (including those from Attorney General Eric Holder’s former private law firm), Obama announced Thursday that he’ll lift a ban on sending up to 90 Yemeni detainees home and will initiate other stalled transfers out of the compound.

This radical appeasement of Obama’s left flank is a surefire recipe for more Benghazis, more U.S.S. Coles and more innocent lives at risk.

A little more than three years ago, the White House assured Americans that it would not release Yemeni detainees back to their al-Qaida-infested land. In January 2010, international press outlets reported that at least a dozen former Guantanamo Bay prisoners had rejoined al-Qaida to fight in Yemen. Yemen was also the terror training ground of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the jihadist who attempted to bomb Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day in 2009.”

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The White House’s least favorite journalist. Well, other than everybody at Fox. 🙂  From Politico

“The Obama administration won’t answer the CBS News correspondent’s questions  because her investigations — into Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Solyndra — often  reflect negatively on it. Some colleagues at CBS News, where she has worked for  two decades and earned multiple Emmy awards, dismiss her work because they  perceive a political agenda. And now, she says, someone may have hacked into her  computers.

Attkisson’s one piece of solace may come from finally gaining some like-minded  colleagues in the media. For years, Attkisson has been one of the few mainstream  reporters pursuing critical stories about the Obama administration. Today, as “scandal season” takes hold in Washington, she has seen her longstanding  skepticism of the White House and the Justice Department become the conventional  attitude among a formerly deferential Beltway press corps.

Attkisson is a dogged reporter, driven by a strong skepticism of government.  Producers at CBS News once nicknamed her “Pit Bull,” a source said, because she  gets on a story and won’t let go. But that is seen as both a strength and a  weakness. Her drive can produce great journalism, but it can also cause her to  push stories to the point that colleagues — especially those of a more  progressive bent — suspect a political agenda.”

Sure they do, because it doesn’t match their political agenda. 🙄

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Senator Durbin is finally fessing up to encouraging the IRS to target conservative groups. Of course along with a lame attempt to justify it. Funny, Obama for America didn’t concern him though. From RealClearPolitics

“SEN. DICK DURBIN: I can just tell you flat-out why I did it. Because that Crossroads organization was boasting about how much money they were raising as a 501(c)(4). Let’s get back to the basics. Citizens United really unleashed hundreds if not thousands of organizations seeking tax-exempt status to play in political campaigns. The law we wrote as Congress said that they had to exclusively be engaged in social welfare and not politics and campaigning. And, so, here is the IRS trying to decide whether or not these organizations really comply with the law. Crossroads was exhibit A. They were boastful about how much money they were going to raise and beat Democrats with.”

And……? OfA was bragging about breaking records for money raised. Yet you didn’t seem concerned with that.

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They targeted the  NY Times too? From YahooNews

“The New York Times reports the Department of Justice investigated national security leaks given to Times reporter David Sanger over his story last year about the Stuxnet virus by pulling all the email and phone records of government officials who communicated with the reporter. Last summer, Sanger reported the U.S. helped develop the Stuxnet virus and used it to attack Iran, becoming the first country to carry out a sustained cyber attack with the intent of destroying another country’s infrastructure. The was some hoopla and a hullaballoo about leaks and DOJ investigations, the Associated Press case, and now a year later we’re finding out just how far things went.”

Here’s a related story. Like Holder’s supposed recusal letter, it disappeared. From Reuters

“News Corp said on Monday it is still reviewing whether it has any record of a notification from the United States government involving a subpoena for a Fox News reporter’s phone records.

The media conglomerate was responding to the Justice Department, which said it told News Corp about the seizure of phone records for James Rosen, a reporter with Fox News, in August 2010.

“While we don’t take issue with the DOJ’s account that they sent a notice to News Corp, we do not have a record of ever having received it,” said News Corp spokesman Nathaniel Brown, who added the company is looking into the matter.

Fox News, which is owned by News Corp, has said it never received a notification from the government.”

Maybe he’s using invisible ink. 🙂

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A horrible story of abuse is finally coming to light in NY. The elite Horace Mann Prep School has released a statement admitting to years of sexual abuse by teachers and staff. There are at least 31 kids involved, many now grown. From TheNYPost.

With a CONTENT WARNING! for adult subject matter.

“The elite Horace Mann prep school today apologized for decades of sexual abuse suffered at the hands of teachers and administrators and pledged reforms to improve student safety, in its first public comments addressing the sex scandal.”

“The elite Bronx prep school has been accused of turning a blind eye to sex assaults on at least 31 children between 1962 and 1996. In today’s statement, the school admitted that “former teachers and administrators in fact did abuse, in various degrees,students.””

“Other survivors are pressuring lawmakers in Albany to approve a bill that would allow molested students to sue schools well after the statute of limitations has expired. Currently, the statue prevents adults who were sexually abused as kids from filing claims after they turn 23.”

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