Hillary Clinton

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News/Politics 4-13-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread.

Here’s a couple to start things off.

1. Hillary has officially announced her candidacy for President. So in honor of the occasion, here’s a list of her current scandals.

From TheNYPost  “Expected to announce her presidential run Sunday, Hillary Clinton has been attempting to rebrand herself: She’s Hillary 2.0, campaigning out of Brooklyn, a more accessible, relatable candidate who learned the lessons of her bruising, failed 2008 bid: From now on, no equivocating, no entitlement, no dubious financial dealings. How much has changed?

The Shady Foundation”

“And as Politico reported last week, a major phosphate company owned by the Moroccan government has just pledged at least $1 million to the foundation. In 2011, Clinton’s State Department assailed Morocco as a corrupt state guilty of “arbitrary arrests and corruption in all branches of government.” Women in Morocco are still subjugated by Islamic rule, yet last September, Hillary Clinton’s public stance on the government had changed.

“A vital hub for economic and cultural exchange,” she called it, one that was “in the midst of dramatic changes.”

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2. Memories Pizza has reopened for business. 🙂

From TheWashingtonTimes  “A northern Indiana pizzeria that closed after its owner said his religious beliefs wouldn’t allow him to cater a gay wedding opened Thursday to a full house of friends, regulars and people wanting to show their support.

“It’s a relief to get going again and try to get back to normal,” said Kevin O’Connor, owner of Memories Pizza.

Mr. O’Connor closed the shop for eight days after comments by him and his daughter, Crystal, to a local television station supporting a new religious objections law. The law, which has since been revised, sparked a boycott of Indiana.”

“Mr. O’Connor said the criticism hasn’t changed his beliefs. He said gays are welcome in his restaurant in the small, one-traffic-light town of Walkerton, 20 miles southwest of South Bend, but that he would decline to cater a same-sex wedding because it would conflict with his Christian beliefs.”

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News/Politics 4-10-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

Here’s a few to start things off.

1. Despite the press’ best efforts to portray him as a big old meanie because he won’t play along with their gotcha questions, Rand’s stock is up. And Hillary’s is down. 🙂

From YahooNews  “Democrat Hillary Clinton has slipped against leading 2016 Republican candidates in Colorado, Iowa and Virginia, according to a poll released on Thursday that cited damage from the furor over the former secretary of state’s emails.

The Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll also showed Clinton in a close race with U.S. Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who declared his candidacy on Tuesday.

Clinton, who is expected to announce her White House bid this month, is tied with all the Republican candidates in Colorado and almost all of them in the early voting state of Iowa, the poll said.

“It isn’t just one or two Republicans who are stepping up; it’s virtually the entire GOP field that is running better against her” since the last swing state survey on Feb. 18, pollster Peter Brown said in a statement.

He attributed the drop to the controversy that erupted in March over Clinton’s use of personal email for work when she was America’s top diplomat. Republicans have raised the prospect of congressional hearings on the issue.”

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2. If that hurt her, then this should too.

From TheHill  “The Clinton Foundation reportedly accepted millions of dollars from a Colombian oil company head before then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to support a trade deal with Colombia despite worries of human rights violations.

The report in the International Business Times comes as Clinton readies an expected run for president. She’s been dogged by questions about whether foreign donations to her foundations could have influenced her official decisions.

The report centers on donations from Frank Giustra and the oil company that he founded, Pacific Rubiales. In a Wall Street Journal story from 2008, Giustra is described as a “friend and traveling companion” of former President Clinton who donated more than $130 million to Clinton’s philanthropies. He’s also a Clinton Foundation board member and has participated in projects and benefits for the foundation.

When workers at Pacific Rubiales decided to strike in 2011, the Columbian military reportedly used force to stop the strikes and compel them to return to work, IBT reports, citing the Washington office of Latin America, a human rights group. Those accusations of human rights violations were part of the criticism of the United States-Colombia Free Trade Promotion Agreement, which was passed by Congress later that year. Pacific Rubiales has repeatedly denied charges that it infringed on workers’ rights.

On the campaign trail in 2008, Hillary Clinton, along with then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, opposed the deal as a raw deal for workers, according to IBT. The pair changed their tune after the election and publicly supported the trade agreement. As secretary of State, Clinton’s State Department certified annually that Colombia was “meeting statutory criteria related to human rights.””

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3. The incestuous relationship between the Obama White House and Google is an interesting read. And now Hillary and other Dems will use this to their benefit as well. I wonder where the American press has been on this story? OK, not really….

From TheDailyMail  “Google executives and employees donated more than $1.6 million to Obama’s two White House campaigns, and the online search giant parachuted top talent into both.

One result has been a coziness with the U.S. government’s executive branch that few other companies can match – marked by access for lobbyists, mentions in nearly half of Obama’s State of the Union addresses, and a personnel feeder trough serving the White House with new senior hires.

There have even been allegations that Google’s up-close-and-personal relationship with the West Wing earned it a reprieve from what would have been an earth-shaking Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit.

Google has insisted it never received special treatment in that case, punctuating its denials with an animated GIF of a laughing baby as a jab at the news outlet that leveled the charge.

White House visitor logs suggest a different kind of story for the company whose motto is ‘Don’t be evil.’

Employees of the Silicon Valley behemoth have been in the White House more than 230 times since Obama took office – approximately once per week. At least 190 of those meetings were with senior officials.”

Much more info at the link.

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by

News/Politics 3-26-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Hillary has been hit with a racketeering lawsuit.

From TheHill  “The conservative group Freedom Watch has filed a racketeering lawsuit against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that accuses her of failing to produce documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The civil suit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, argues that Clinton used her private emails to sell access to other officials in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation.

It alleges that, during her tenure, Clinton withheld documents requested under FOIA regarding State Department waivers given to businesses or individuals doing business with Iran, possibly undermining U.S.-imposed sanctions. 

The complaint, which lists Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation as defendants, alleges the Clintons sold access to other U.S. government officials in return for donations to their organization, which they concealed, allegedly, by using a private computer server for her emails operated from their home in Chappaqua, New York. “

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2. The IG says a member of the Clinton family and their favorite flunkie were shown favoritism. This is the same scam Harry Reid is involved with.

From NationalReview  “A senior Department of Homeland Security official “created an appearance of favoritism and special access” by intervening on behalf of a company run by Hillary Clinton’s brother, a finding that contradicts the official’s testimony during his Senate confirmation hearing.

The issue pertained to the EB-5 program, which provides visas to immigrants who invest in the United States.

“In three matters pending before USCIS, Mr. Mayorkas, now deputy secretary of DHS, communicated with stakeholders on substantive issues outside of the normal adjudicatory process, and intervened with the career USCIS staff in ways that benefited the stakeholders,” the DHS inspector general reports. “Regardless of Mr. Mayorkas’ motives, his intervention in these matters created significant resentment in USCIS. This resentment was not isolated to career staff adjudicating within the EB-5 program, but extended to senior managers and attorneys responsible for the broader USCIS mission and programs.

The report “specifically focused on allegations of special treatment afforded to a Las Vegas casino project championed by Sen. Harry Reid, then the Senate majority leader, and an electric car enterprise led by Terry McAuliffe, who is now Virginia governor, and involving Anthony Rodham, the brother of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” according to ABC.”

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3. Saudi Arabia is getting more involved in Yemen.

From Al-arabiya  “Saudi Arabia waged early Thursday “Operation Decisive Storm” against the Houthi coup in Yemen and in support of legitimate President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

A Saudi air campaign was launched overnight which has already resulted in the elimination of several Houthi leaders.

Yemen air space is currently under full control of the Saudi Royal Air Force.

As the operation continues, a coalition of all GCC countries, barring Oman, is taking part in the campaign, including Sudan, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia has deployed 100 fighter jets, 150,000 soldiers and other navy units, Al Arabiya News Channel reported.”

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4. And yet Obama is begging them for a deal….

From Yahoo/Reuters ” Iran is failing to address suspicions it may have worked on designing an atomic bomb, according to the latest report by a U.N. watchdog, potentially complicating efforts by world powers to reach a deal with Tehran on its nuclear program.

The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tehran had still not provided information it was due to produce more than two months ago to help advance a long-running IAEA inquiry into suspected nuclear weapons research.

The confidential document was issued to IAEA member states less than three weeks before the Nov. 24 deadline by which Iran and six global powers are seeking to end a decade-old standoff over the Islamic Republic’s atomic activities.

“Iran has not provided any explanations that enable the agency to clarify the outstanding practical measures,” it said.

The IAEA was referring to two steps that Iran had agreed to carry out by late August, by providing information concerning allegations of explosives tests and other activity that could be used to develop nuclear bombs.”

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5. Planned Parenthood continues to receive millions from taxpayers.

From LifeNews  “Two years ago, pro-life members of Congress sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting a comprehensive report on which abortion advocacy groups Americans were forced to fund with their tax dollars. Today the government watchdog (GAO) released the requested report which details funding for six abortion advocacy groups over a three year period (2010-2012).

The six organizations researched were Planned Parenthood, Population Council, International Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Advocates for Youth and Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.

The report found the Planned Parenthood abortion corporation and its affiliates received $344.5 million in federal funds and another $1.2 billion in funding from Medicaid (which includes a combination of federal and state funds) for a total of $1.5 billion over three years from federal programs. The abortion fiant receives $1.2 billion from Medicaid, $201 million from the Title X family planning program $40.6 million from Title XX Social Services block grants and $25.9 million from the Title V Maternal and Child health Services block grant.”

“On average, Planned Parenthood receives approximately $500 million a year in taxpayer funds. The report found that the six organizations spent $481 million in federal funding from Fiscal Years 2010 to 2012.”

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6. I figured this would be a bigger story. It is a fire bombing at an abortion clinic after all. But then I read it, and now I understand why the MSM is ignoring it. Turns out a pro-abortion fanatic was trying to firebomb pro-lifers, so crickets is what you hear from the mainstream press. And she wasn’t just some nut off the street either.

From WeaselZippers  “A woman is facing charges after police say she threw a Molotov cocktail at anti-abortion protesters who were standing outside of Planned Parenthood. Melanie Toney, 52, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

According to the affidavit, the incident happened around 6:25 p.m. on Monday at the Planned Parenthood building on East Ben White Boulevard.”

“UPDATE (Nick):

Drew reported above on the molotov cocktail thrown at a pro-life prayer group outside a Planned Parenthood in Austin, Texas. While local media has been pretty straight up on the issue, MSM is underway to try to obscure the intent of the woman who threw a molotov cocktail outside of a Planned Parenthood in Austin, Texas, many reporting it simply as an attack at a Planned Parenthood, leaving the impression it is an anti-abortion protester.

Of course, that fact that it apparently was thrown into the middle of the prayer group might give you a clue.”

“Melanie Toney, a registered nurse, testified in Austin on July 8, 2013 also providing written testimony on Senate Bill #1 trying to defeat abortion restrictions.”

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by

News/Politics 3-19-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Sore losers.

From TheWeeklyStandard  “In a comment unprompted by any question from the media, White House press secretary lashed into some of the rhetoric Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu used in his reelection campaign. The White House even suggested it had hurt Israel’s democracy and America’s relationship with its greatest ally in the Middle East.

“There’s one other thing that I anticipated might come up that I just did want to mention as it relates to the Israeli elections.  Specifically, there has been a lot of coverage in the media about some of the rhetoric that emerged yesterday that was propagated by the Likud Party to encourage turnout of their supporters that sought to, frankly, marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens.  The United States and this administration is deeply concerned by divisive rhetoric that seeks to marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told the media aboard Air Force One today. 

“It undermines the values and democratic ideals that have been important to our democracy and an important part of what binds the United States and Israel together.  We’ve talked a lot about how our shared values are an important part of what binds our two countries together, and rhetoric that seeks to marginalize one segment of their population is deeply concerning and it is divisive.  And I can tell you that these are views that the administration intends to communicate directly to the Israelis.””

Awwww….. You mad bro? 😆

From HotAir  “David Axelrod- “Tightness of exits in Israel suggests Bibi’s shameful 11th hour demagoguery may have swayed enough votes to save him. But at what cost?”

First Twitter response: “You mad bro?” Yup. Keep in mind that this lamenter of demagoguery is the same guy who ran a campaign that accused Mitt Romney of giving a woman cancer, blessing scurrilous charges of tax evasion, and darkly warning Ohio voters that Obama’s opponent wasn’t “one of us.” You’d think he’d respect a ruthless, win-at-all-costs (successful) strategy. Instead, he’s moaning about tactics and civility. Heal thyself, Axe. As for Lefties’ rapidly-congealing narrative that Bibi’s upset victory was the product of last-minute ugliness, read Commentary’s Jon Tabin:

Within moments of the announcement of the exit polls, some of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s critics were claiming his likely win in today’s Knesset election was the result of a crude, racist appeal to voters. The justification for this charge was a speech made by Netanyahu and released only on social media because of restrictions on campaign appeals in the media, telling the country that left-wing groups funded by foreign money were busing Arab voters to the polls in order to elect a left-wing government led by his Zionist Union rival Isaac Herzog. Netanyahu’s opponents interpreted this as an appeal to racism. The statement was unfortunate because it made it seem as if the prime minister viewed Arab voters as somehow illegitimate. But the voters likely saw it in a different light. The prospect of a left-wing government that depended on the Joint Arab List was always unlikely. But a critical mass of voters viewed the prospect with alarm not because they’re racists but because a government that relied on the votes of anti-Zionists that favor Israel’s dissolution was something they considered a danger to the future of their country…Though Western journalists mocked Netanyahu’s comments about wanting to prevent a “Hamasistan” in the West Bank, the voters in Israel largely agreed. That doesn’t make them racist or extreme. It means they are, like most Americans, realists. They may not like Netanyahu but today’s results demonstrates that there is little support for a government that would make the sort of concessions to the Palestinians that President Obama would like. They rightly believe that even if Israel did make more concessions it would only lead to more violence, not peace. Israel’s foreign critics and friends need to understand that in the end, it was those convictions have, for all intents and purposes, re-elected Netanyahu.”

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2. Most transparent administration… Oh never mind.  🙄

From TheAP  “The Obama administration set a record again for censoring government files or outright denying access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.

The government took longer to turn over files when it provided any, said more regularly that it couldn’t find documents and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy.

It also acknowledged in nearly 1 in 3 cases that its initial decisions to withhold or censor records were improper under the law — but only when it was challenged.

Its backlog of unanswered requests at year’s end grew remarkably by 55 percent to more than 200,000. It also cut by 375, or about 9 percent, the number of full-time employees across government paid to look for records. That was the fewest number of employees working on the issue in five years.”

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3. Why was the CIA director forced to sign, but Hillary wasn’t?

From NationalReview  “In my column on the plea agreement the Obama Justice Department allowed David Petreaus to enter after it was discovered that he mishandled classified information, I noted that he had been required to sign a separation agreement when he left the CIA. It is called a “Security Exit Form” and is obviously the CIA version of the State Department departure form described in Jim’s post (and linked in Shannen’s column) that Secretary Clinton should have signed upon leaving government service.

The prosecutors’ outline of the evidence against Petraeus includes the following (at pages 11-12, paragraph 27):

[O]n or about November 26, 2012, defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS executed … a Security Exit Form. The Security Exit Form included seven provisions regarding his continuing duty to protect classified information from disclosure. Among other things, by signing the Security Exit Form, DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS adopted the following provision: “I give my assurance that there is no classified material in my possession, custody, or control at this time.”

Petraeus was also required to sign at least three other forms dealing with his obligations not to retain government records and to keep secret information secret.”

And here’s an article about the dire consequences for not signing the form. Well, if your name isn’t Clinton they’re the dire consequences.

From TheDaily Caller

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4. Glenn Beck is saying what a lot of people are thinking, myself included.

From TheHill/MSN  “Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck on Wednesday announced he is leaving the Republican Party.

“I’ve made my decision — I’m out,” Beck said Wednesday on “The Glenn Beck Program,” his broadcast on TheBlaze.com. “I’m out of the Republican Party. I am not a Republican. I will not give a dime to the Republican Party. I’m out.” The host said Republicans lost him with their inaction on both ObamaCare and illegal immigration.

“All this stuff that they said and they ran and they said they were doing all of these great things and they were going to stand against ObamaCare and illegal immigration — they set us up,” Beck added. “They set us up. Enough is enough. They’re torpedoing the Constitution and they’re doing it knowingly.”

The former Fox News pundit also took issue with the GOP’s treatment of Tea Party lawmakers. Beck said that establishment Republicans had disrespected Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate.

“They’re taking on people like Mike Lee and Ted Cruz and they’re torpedoing them,” Beck said. “And these guys are standing for the Constitution.””

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5. A new study says breastfeeding leads to higher IQ and earnings later.

From MSNHealth  “People breastfed as infants have higher intelligence scores in adulthood, and higher earnings, according to a study published Wednesday that tracked the development of 3,500 newborns over 30 years.

And, critically, the socioeconomic status of mothers appeared to have little impact on breastfeeding results, according to a paper published by The Lancet medical journal.

“The effect of breastfeeding on brain development and child intelligence is well established,” lead author Bernardo Lessa Horta of the Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil said in a statement.

What has been less clear, is whether the effects persist into adulthood, and whether a mother’s socioeconomic status or education level played a bigger role in the outcome of previous studies than her choice to breastfeed or not.

“Our study provides the first evidence that prolonged breastfeeding not only increases intelligence until at least the age of 30 years but also has an impact both at an individual and societal level by improving educational attainment and earning ability,” said Horta.”

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by

News/Politics 3-13-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Here’s the 400 pages of new internet regulations.

From TheWashingtonPost  “The Federal Communications Commission has finally published its full net neutrality rules on its Web site. And they’re not for the faint of heart. Together with the dissents from the agency’s Republican commissioners, the document adds up to 400 pages.

The release of the rules comes two weeks after the FCC voted to approve them in a historic, polarized vote at the commission. Now begins the next chapter in the story. Expect Internet providers to comb through the publication, probing the rules for legal weaknesses they can take to court.”

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Oddly enough, the document cites a group funded by George Soros and one of his neo-Marxist friends a total of 46 times as “experts” pushing the matter. That’s probably why Obama needed it passed before we could read it.

More on that here, from TheDailyCaller

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2. The State Dept. won’t say whether Hillary signed crucial record forms, or whether she committed a felony. So I’m guessing it’s probably yes.

From NationalReview  “State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki couldn’t tell reporters on Thursday if Hillary Clinton signed an official records form presented to all employees as they leave the department — a crucial question in determining whether the former Secretary of State committed a felony by failing to turn over government e-mail records.

Former Department of Justice lawyer and National Review contributing editor Shannen Coffin noted this week that Clinton should have signed form OF-109 as part of her standard exit from the department. That form declares that she turned over all relevant records at the time of her departure — and stipulates that any failure to do so could result in felony fines and jail times.

Clinton did not turn over her government communications to the State Department until asked for them late last year. “

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3. Do you think they would have sat on this if she were a Republican? Me neither.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Politico scored a journalistic coup with its exclusive 2014 profile on Lois Lerner, the former IRS official at the center of the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.

But a former Illinois lawmaker who said Politico contacted him repeatedly that year with questions regarding claims he was targeted by Lerner in the mid-1990s has been left wondering why the news group chose to ignore his documented dealings with the former federal official.

“I was shocked,” Al Salvi told the Washington Examiner’s media desk, describing what he characterizes as several “lengthy” interviews with Politico reporter Rachael Bade.

Lerner went after his 1996 Senate campaign with a lawsuit totaling $1.1 million — an enforcement action that was eventually thrown out of court — when she was working at the Federal Election Commission, according to Salvi.

“I spent something like an hour and a half talking to Politico about this,” said Salvi, whose dealings with the FEC are well documented by the federal agency. “And I’m nowhere in the story. They had no intention of using anything I said.””

Click the link and read it. The IRS scandal wasn’t Lerner’s first time targeting political enemies.

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4. Huh. We’ve been assured for years that there was no slippery slope, and that approving gay marriage would not lead to other attempts to alter the institution. Guess that was a lie.

From SFGate  “An Oakland family has found what they think is the key to a happy household: three parents.

Two women named Melinda and Dani Phoenix and the man they both consider their husband, Jonathan Stein, are in a polyamorous relationship and parenting two babies together under the same roof.

Melinda and Dani began their relationship as a lesbian couple and became domestic partners in 2010. A year later, Jonathan joined them as the third partner and the three married last summer in a ceremony that is not legally recognized.

Now they’re sharing their story to raise awareness about polyamorous families and hope that some day these arrangements can be widely accepted and legally recognized. With children entering their picture, they feel gaining support from the community is more important than ever.”

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by

News/Politics 3-12-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

UPDATED

More trouble in Ferguson overnight.

From MSN/TheGuardian  “Two police officers have been shot in Ferguson, Missouri, as a small demonstration wound down in the city gripped by unrest since the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old last year.

One officer from St Louis County and another from Webster Groves were struck soon after midnight on Wednesday as they stood outside the Ferguson police headquarters, St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar said at a press conference early on Thursday morning.

“These police officers were standing there and they were shot, just because they were police officers,” said Belmar, who added that the officers sustained serious gunshot wounds.

The Webster Groves officer, a 32-year-old who has worked in the department for five years, was shot in the face, according to Belmar. The St Louis County officer, who is 41 and a 17-year law-enforcement veteran, was shot in the shoulder, he said.

Sergeant Brian Schellman, a spokesman for St Louis County police, told the Guardian that both officers were being treated in hospital. “No update yet on condition,” said Schellman. The St Louis Post-Dispatch reported police sources saying both were expected to survive.

Belmar said the shots appeared to have been aimed at the police as they were fired “parallel with the ground” and did not appear to have ricocheted. “I would have to make an assumption that these shots were directed exactly at my police officers,” he said.”

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1. The State Dept. has been the target of the “worst ever” cyber attack. But don’t worry, I’m sure Hillary’s private email server is totally secure. 🙄

From HotAir  “At one point in Hillary Clinton’s slightly less than marathon press conference on Tuesday, the former secretary of state insisted that there were no security breaches of her personal “homebrew” email server. How could she possibly know this? The secretary of state’s emails represent a high-value target for cyber hackers operating out of foreign intelligence agencies, and a breach is unlikely to leave a trace of any activity that the layman or even a cyber-intelligence professional would notice. Just ask the State Department.

“Overlooked in the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, is the fact that suspected Russian hackers have bedeviled State Department’s email system for much of the past year and continue to pose problems for technicians trying to eradicate the intrusion,” CNN reported on Tuesday.

As a matter of fact, the State Department is currently investigating what federal law enforcing officials are characterizing as the “worst ever” cyber-attack on America’s diplomatic establishment. “The attackers who breached State are also believed to be behind hacks on the White House’s email system, and against several other federal agencies, the officials say,” the CNN report continued.”

“This report noted that even the State Department’s .gov addresses are not entirely secure, and that attacks on unclassified email systems can expose sensitive information to foreign intelligence services. Capture enough sensitive information, and a competent espionage service can piece together classified material. This is not an inconsequential matter.

We know as a result of the infamous Romanian hacker “Guccifer” that Clinton received messages from her longtime private advisor Sydney Blumenthal via email. How do we know? Blumenthal’s emails were compromised, and that hack revealed that he had shared a variety of private intelligence assessments as well as personal communications with Clinton while she served as the nation’s chief diplomat. It’s possible that none of the emails Clinton provided to the State Department included her correspondence with Blumenthal, according to a FOIA request from Gawker.

“The Clinton camp’s claims about the email account being above-board is also contradicted by the State Department’s response to Gawker’s inquires two years ago,” Gawker’s J.K. Trotter observed. “[T]he State Department replied to our request by saying that, after an extensive search, it could find no records responsive to our request.””

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2. Maybe McConnell isn’t as clueless as he acts.

From NationalJournal  “After weeks of Democrats questioning his unwillingness to schedule the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be attorney general, the Senate majority leader announced at a press conference Tuesday that the Senate will vote to confirm her next week. There’s just one catch: Members will have to get past legislation that includes a controversial abortion rider first. “This is bad,” Jessica Brady, a spokeswoman for Judiciary Committee Democrats, said Tuesday.”

“To get their vote on Lynch, Democrats will have to get off of the trafficking bill. And, so far, Republicans aren’t showing any willingness to remove the controversial abortion language.

Democrats are furious that McConnell’s top deputy, Republican Whip John Cornyn, snuck—in their telling—a provision into a bipartisan human-trafficking bill that would prevent any of the funds reserved for trafficking victims from being used on abortions or Plan B contracepton (known as the morning-after pill).

Cornyn argued Tuesday that the legislation including the abortion language was posted publicly on Jan. 13. It earned a dozen Democratic cosponsors and passed the Judiciary Committee unanimously without a single Democratic member or aide flagging the abortion language. It was on page four.

 Democrats discovered the problem Monday night, sending staffers and members into a frenzy. The abortion language was not included in a list of changes made to last year’s trafficking bill sent to Democrats by Republican staffers, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin said Tuesday. As a result, the language went unnoticed.”

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3. The Obama admin has some ‘splainin’ to do.

From Breitbart  “The judge who blocked President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration has ordered the Justice Department to answer allegations the government misled him about part of the plan.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen has ordered federal government lawyers to appear in his court March 19 in Brownsville. The hearing is in response to a filing last week in which the government acknowledged some deportation reprieves were granted before Hanen’s Feb. 16 injunction.”

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More here, from MSN/Reuters  “On Monday, Hanen said in a one-page order that the court will not rule on any pending motions at least until a court hearing set for March 19, where government attorneys will have to explain a filing that said some 100,000 people had been given three-year periods of deferred action prior to the judge’s injunction.

Hanen, who has previously criticized U.S. immigration enforcement as too lax, based his Feb. 17 ruling on an administrative law question, faulting Obama’s administration for not giving public notice of his plans. He also cited ways that Texas would be harmed by the action but used no other states as examples.

The decision was an initial victory for 26 states that brought the case alleging Obama had exceeded his powers with executive orders that would let up to 4.7 million illegal immigrants stay without threat of deportation. Obama’s orders bypassed Congress, which has not been able to agree on immigration reform.”

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4. They’ve learned nothing.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Nearly seven years after it was bailed out from the housing market crash, mortgage giant.

Fannie Mae is still engaging in behavior that could precipitate future financial crises and taxpayer losses, a government watchdog warns in a report to be released Wednesday.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency inspector general said its latest concerns involve Fannie Mae’s “haphazard” decision to fill a critical auditor position with an employee who lacked proper qualifications and suffered from a conflict of interest.

Unless Fannie Mae’s leaders and the audit committee that allowed the hiring do their jobs better, there is a “substantial risk” the mortgage company “will operate in an unsafe and unsound manner, suffer losses and expose U.S. taxpayers to further financial risks,” the inspector general said.

The watchdog also had harsh words for the FHFA, the federal agency that oversees Fannie Mae, saying its own leadership failed to act on concerns about the hiring of the auditor position, choosing instead to stay silent.”

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5. A brief modern history of Congressional “treason.”

From HotAir  “Over the last couple of days, media outlets and some Democrats have lost their minds over the letter signed by 47 Republican Senators, sent to Iran to warn them that President Obama does not have the authority to create a lasting agreement without the participation of Congress. The New York Daily News ran a headline calling them “traitors,” a charge that has been bandied about on social media without any sense of either its legal sense or the history of Congressional influence on foreign policy. A petition on the White House website to arrest the 47 Senators has gathered over 136,000 signatures, in an apparent attempt of the ignorant to publicly self-identify.

Obviously, this situation requires a little history and perspective, as well as a civics lesson on the nature of co-equal branches of government, and on how this latest “treason” stacks up. The US and the Soviet Union conducted a 44-year “cold war” that often turned hot in places like Korea and Vietnam, and yet as Noah pointed out yesterday, Senator Ted Kennedy encouraged the Soviets to interfere in the 1984 election. Noah also mentions Nancy Pelosi’s trip to visit Bashar Assad in 2007 against the Bush administration’s express desires. But there are even more instances that speak more directly to Congressional interference with executive branch efforts on foreign policy.

Joe Scarborough pointed out one example this morning on Twitter from the Reagan era. The Reagan administration wanted to block Soviet influence in the Western hemisphere by backing rebellions against Communist dictators, especially in Nicaragua. Reagan supported the contras against Daniel Ortega, a policy which Democrats opposed and for which they later passed the controversial Boland Amendment in an attempt to restrict Reagan’s options in foreign policy (and which led to the Iran-Contra scandal.) Before Boland, though, 10 Democrats in the House — including Edward Boland (D-MA) — wrote a letter to Ortega called the “Dear Commandante” letter pledging their support to his government. See if this sounds familiar:

The 10 authors include Jim Wright of Texas, the majority leader; Edward P. Boland of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and other senior Democrats in the foreign policy field. The letter tells Mr. Ortega that it was written ”in a spirit of hopefulness and goodwill” and voices regret that relations between Nicaragua and Washington are not better.

The writers stress that they all oppose further money for rebel campaigns against the Sandinista Government. In a veiled reference to the Reagan Administration, the letter says that if the Sandinistas do hold genuine elections, those who are ”supporting violence” against the Nicaraguan leaders would have ”far greater difficulty winning support for their policies than they do today.””

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News/Politics 3-10-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. It’s time to drag her in and get some answers.

From FoxNews  “In the depths of the hacker and IT-blogger community, a skirmish has broken out over the nature of Hillary Clinton’s email server — a debate that could have profound implications for national security during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, and for investigators hoping to mine her emails for evidentiary purposes.

The questions center on where, exactly, Hillary Clinton’s email server is, or was, physically located; which private-sector firms may have been hosting it; and how secure Clinton’s emails were at any given point. 

Why does the physical location matter? Because if the server was not in Clinton’s home, and was maintained at some other site, then the secretary of state and the Diplomatic Security corps that guarded her were not in physical control of her server. This would have raised the possibility for compromise of Clinton’s account, either from an inside job, carried out by the very firm retained to host the server, or from external actors that could range from the Kremlin to China to independent hackers.”

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2. The dispute intensifies…

From MSN/WaPo  “An already heated battle between the White House and Republicans over negotiations to curtail Iran’s nuclear program grew more tense Monday when 47 Republican senators sent a letter to Iran designed to kill any potential deal.

The White House responded by accusing the Republicans of conspiring with Iranian hardliners, who oppose the delicate negotiations, and suggested that their goal was to push the U.S. into a military conflict.

“It’s surprising to me that there are some Republican senators who are seeking to establish a back channel with the hard-liners in Iran to undermine an agreement between Iran and the broader international community,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday.

He characterized the Republican effort as a “rush to war or at least a rush to the military option that …is not at all in the best interest of the United States.”

The letter’s main author Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) described the one-page letter as a remedial civics lesson to help Iran’s mullahs better understand the limits of presidential power.”

Says the guy who wants to give those same hardliners a nuclear weapon…

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3. Jihad, American style.

From TheTelegraph  “Egyptis facing a new campaign of violence, this time a series of attacks targeting western companies like KFC and Vodafone.

A series of bombings has killed at least three people and injured scores more in Cairo and Alexandria in recent weeks, separate from the intense jihadist violence being inflicted by Isil-backed terrorists against the police and military.

It seems in part inspired by an American Muslim convert with an anti-capitalist agenda, who posts texts online urging Egyptians to throw off a “neo-liberal” order in favour of Islam.

Shahid King Bolsen – born Shannon Morris – served time in Dubai for killing a German businessman, and hiding his body in a suit-case. Now he inspires young radicalised Egyptians with online calls for action – though he told The Telegraph he does not approve of violence.”

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4. Hold his feet to the fire.

From WND  “Pro-life activist Jill Stanek is joining with the Christian Defense Coalition later this month to stage a sit-in on Capitol Hill over lack of action on a late-term abortion ban that was supposed to be passed in January.

The sit-in is scheduled for 11.a.m. EST on March 25 outside the office of House Speaker John Boehner.

At issue is the GOP leadership’s handling of the “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” which bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy but includes exceptions for victims of rape and incest.”

“The bill was supposed to be voted on Jan. 22 in conjunction with the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision to legalize abortion and while Washington was filled with pro-life activists for the annual March for Life. Stanek said the concept is very simple.

“It is a ban on abortion past 20 weeks,” she explained. “It is known that by 20 weeks, and probably before, children feel pain. When they are aborted at 20 weeks, they are literally drawn and quartered. They’re just ripped apart, limb by limb. So this ban would make it a federal offense [and] ban abortions past 20 weeks.” But the bill, which sailed through the House with a smaller Republican majority in the previous Congress, never received a vote.”

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5. Oh boy…. 🙄

From CNSNews  “Many people are living longer, but not to age 112 or beyond — except in the records of the Social Security Administration.

The SSA’s inspector general has identified 6.5 million number-holders age 112 — or older — for whom no death date has been entered in the main electronic file, called Numident.

The audit, dated March 4, 2015, concluded that SSA lacks the controls necessary to annote death information on the records of number-holders who exceed “maximum reasonable life expectancies.”

“We obtained Numident data that identified approximately 6.5 million numberholders born before June 16, 1901 who did not have a date of death on their record,” the report states.

Some of the numbers assigned to long-dead people were used fraudulently to open bank accounts. And thousands of those numbers apparently were used by illegal immigrants to apply for work:”

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News/Politics 3-9-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The White House is dragging out Obama’s favorite excuse.

Scandal? What scandal? Oh, you mean the one Obama read about in the news?

Yet another lie. They’ve known since August of last year at least.

From Politico  “The White House, State Department and Hillary Clinton’s personal office knew in August that House Republicans had received information showing that the former secretary of state conducted official government business through her private email account — and Clinton’s staff made the decision to keep quiet.”

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You mean these Clinton staffers?

From FoxNews  “Emails obtained through a federal lawsuit show that two top aides to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were running interference internally during the 2012 Benghazi terror attack.

The aides were Philippe Reines, widely described as Clinton’s principal gate-keeper, and Cheryl Mills, who has been at Clinton’s side for decades.

The emails show that while receiving updates about the assault as it happened, Mills told then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland to stop answering reporter questions about the status of Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was missing and later found dead. 

Also littered throughout the State Department emails, obtained by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, are references to a so-called Benghazi Group. A diplomatic source told Fox News that was code inside the department for the so-called Cheryl Mills task force, whose job was damage control.”

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FOIA requests? Never heard of ’em….

From TheFreeBeacon  “The State Department may have ignored or rejected a request made in 2012 under the Freedom of Information Act by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) seeking Hillary Clinton’s email addresses, according to a Daily Caller report on Thursday.

The New York Times reported on Monday that Clinton exclusively used a private email account and server for her email during her four years as secretary of state, skirting federal records laws, as well as State Department and Obama administration transparency guidelines, and raising suspicions that numerous public records requests for her emails were improperly blocked.

Anne Weismann, CREW’s general counsel, submitted a FOIA request to the State Department on Dec. 6, 2012, seeking “records sufficient to show the number of email accounts of or associated with Secretary Hilary Rodham Clinton, and the extent to which those email accounts are identifiable as those of or associated with Secretary Clinton.”

CREW’s request came on the heels of news that former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson had used an alias email account to conduct government business, and the organization was seeking to see if other senior officials used similar pseudonymous email accounts.”

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2. And Clinton and Jackson aren’t the only ones….

From TheDailySignal  “IRS manager Lois Lerner allegedly used an msn.com email account labeled ‘Lois Home’ for government-related communications. Lerner was a key player in what the IG found was the tax agency’s unfair targeting of conservative groups.

Former Obama EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson used private email accounts, as well as a secret EPA email address under the pseudonym “Richard Windsor,” to conduct official business. That included communicating with a climate lobbyist.”

“The EPA inspector general recently found the agency’s Chemical Safety Board Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso and two top officials used personal email accounts to conduct official business. The IG said the officials did not preserve the emails, in violation of federal regulations.”

“Attorney General Eric Holder’s criminal division head, Lanny Breuer, was caught forwarding controversial Fast and Furious-related emails to his personal account.”

“Obama Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, Holder’s former assistant attorney general for civil rights, allegedly used his private email account to leak non-public information about official business.

As to whether Holder himself ever used personal email for government business, the Justice Department isn’t saying. A spokesman did not respond to requests for information about Holder’s email practices.”

This is common practice in the self-proclaimed “most transparent administration ever.”

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3. And since I brought up Holder….

From InvestorsBusinessDaily  “Unable to pin racism charges on Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, Attorney General Eric Holder is using half-baked data to manufacture a case of racism against his entire police force.

Holder’s race-baiting civil rights crew combed through several years of Ferguson Police Department data on traffic stops, searches and arrests and “found a pattern of racial disparities in Ferguson’s police activities.”

“African Americans are overrepresented in FPD’s vehicular stops” and victims of “racial bias,” Holder concludes in his report.

He notes that blacks accounted for 85% of vehicle stops, “despite comprising only 67% of Ferguson’s population,” while whites made up 15% of stops, despite representing 29% of the population.

So there you have it, a slam-dunk case of racism, right? Hardly.

Outrageously, the nation’s top prosecutor failed to control for factors that explain the racial “disparity” in traffic stops, such as speeding, DUI, expired license plates, headlight, seat-belt and child-restraint violations and other reasons for being pulled over.

Holder’s own department statistics show that African Americans, on average, violate speeding and other traffic laws at much greater rates than whites.”

You mean Holder’s race-baiting dishonestly and fudging the numbers? Say it ain’t so….. 🙄

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4. This is just one more reason Boehner has to go. Like I said, he’s a Democrat’s best friend.

From TheHill  “A number of right-wing Republicans, long wary of Boehner’s commitment to GOP efforts attacking President Obama’s policy priorities, have openly considered a coup in an attempt to transfer the gavel into more conservative hands.

But Democrats from across an ideological spectrum say they’d rather see Boehner remain atop the House than replace him with a more conservative Speaker who would almost certainly be less willing to reach across the aisle in search of compromise. Replacing him with a Tea Party Speaker, they say, would only bring the legislative process — already limping along — to a screeching halt.”

““I’d probably vote for Boehner [because] who the @#$% is going to replace him? [Ted] Yoho?” Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said Wednesday, referencing the Florida Tea Party Republican who’s fought Boehner on a host of bipartisan compromise bills. 

“In terms of the institution, I would rather have John Boehner as the Speaker than some of these characters who came here thinking that they’re going to change the world,” Pascrell added.”

Yeah, nobody wants to change the world. Just the horribly broken and corrupt Washington DC.

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News/Politics 3-5-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Good question. This also deals with the supposed defense the White House is using about the law not changing until she left office. That 2014 law was an updated version of one already on the books. What she did is illegal. The White House knows this, but those hidden emails are bad for them too.

From NationalReview  “There is also little doubt, given this functional definition, that e-mail has been covered by the Federal Records Act since its adoption by the federal government during the Clinton administration. As Ian Tuttle correctly notes, the State Department’s own manual has plainly provided, since 1995, that e-mail records must be preserved under the Federal Records Act.

So was the use of private e-mail allowed when Clinton was secretary? Well, sure, at least to some extent. I suspect every federal employee has, at some time, used a private e-mail account to conduct business. But that doesn’t excuse failure to comply with the Federal Records Act. Best practices have always been that an employee using a private account for government business has to either print the e-mail (which rarely happens) or copy or forward the e-mail to the employee’s official government e-mail account for preservation. Those practices, which reflected the law as it existed before Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, were codified by National Archives Regulations in 2009, which required that any records created on private e-mail accounts must be saved to the federal-records system. And Congress confirmed that in 2013, by adopting a prohibition on the use of private e-mail, unless the employee forwards to or copies an official e-mail account within 60 days of the record’s creation.

But Mrs. Clinton did something here that went well beyond occasional or incidental use of private e-mail accounts. She eschewed the use of an official account entirely, and deliberately established a private e-mail account, apparently maintained on a server in the Clintons’ New York home. As a result, her e-mails were at no time during her tenure in office subject to the Federal Records Act. (She provided some of the e-mails only after she left office, and only when the Department of State asked for them back.) As our friends at Judicial Watch will no doubt remind everyone, there were plenty of Freedom of Information Act requests that would have implicated her e-mails. But they were never searched, even though a reasonable search of all responsive federal records must be made in response to FOIA requests. And the records would have been relevant to congressional inquiries as well, including continuing investigations of the Benghazi attacks.

Why does that matter? Well, a federal criminal law makes it a felony when any custodian of official government records “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same.” The crime is punishable by up to three years in prison. And interestingly, Congress felt strongly enough about the crime that it included the unusual provision that the perpetrator shall “forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.””

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2. There are so many things wrong with this I wouldn’t even know where to start.

From TheDailyMail  “Jihadi John and his asylum-seeking family have milked the British benefits system for 20 years, the Mail can reveal today. Housing the Islamic State executioner and his relatives in affluent parts of London has cost taxpayers up to £400,000.

One landlord said Mohammed Emwazi’s family were ‘parasites’ and ‘tenants from hell’. Incredibly, they are still believed to be pocketing £40,000 a year in handouts despite there being no sign of them in Britain.

Emwazi’s father Jasem, who has six children, is back in his native Kuwait – the country he claimed he fled fearing for his life.

Westminster City Council is still paying the rent on the family’s £600,000 flat even though the rules say housing benefit should normally be stopped after 13 weeks.

MPs said they were horrified that the child of a family given refugee status, citizenship and benefits had returned the favour by orchestrating the murder of two of its citizens.”

The sad thing is Britain  is probably too far gone down the PC slide to even try to stop this type of activity. Open borders and a welfare state have consequences.

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3. What’s wrong with this picture?

From FoxNews  “Twice designated a terrorist by the United States government, considered responsible for up to 20 percent of American casualties in the Iraq war, Major General Qasem Suleimani, the legendary Iranian spymaster and leader of the Quds Force – the elite special operations wing of the hardline Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – is now stirring alarm in Washington for doing something the Obama administration would ordinarily cheer: taking the fight to ISIS in Iraq.

Photographs circulating on social media show Suleimani operating alongside senior Iraqi officials in the theater in and around Tikrit, the Sunni ancestral home of Saddam Hussein that is located almost equidistant between Mosul, the ISIS-controlled city 120 miles to the north, and Baghdad, the capital of the Iraqi government 100 miles to the south.

The presence of Suleimani at the forefront of Iraqi forces’efforts to reclaim Tikrit from ISIS control underscores both the expanding influence of Iran on the central Iraqi government and the increasingly critical role that Shi’ite militiamen, thought to be operating under Quds command, are playing in the Iraqi fight against ISIS. Neither development brings pleasure to senior U.S. officials or lawmakers in Congress.”

““This is an organization which has engaged in spreading sectarian terror in Iraq. And now, this is the force that the Iraqi government has turned to for help in order to liberate Tikrit from Islamic State terrorists,” Alfoneh told Fox News. “In other words, we have one terrorist organization which is helping the Iraqi government get rid of another terrorist organization.”

Such tangled lines of authority and influence are exactly what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had in mind on Tuesday, when he told a joint meeting of Congress: “When it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy.””

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News/Politics 3-4-15

What’s interesting in he news today?

Open Thread.

1. Hillary has some ‘splainin’ to do.

From TheWashingtonPost  “The New York Times reported Monday night that, during her tenure at the State Department, Hillary Clinton never used her official e-mail account to conduct communications, relying instead on a private e-mail account. As the Times notes, only official accounts are automatically retained under the Federal Records Act, meaning that none of Clinton’s e-mail communication was preserved.

In March 2013, an adviser to Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, had his e-mail hacked by “Guccifer” — the Romanian hacker perhaps best known for revealing George W. Bush’s paintings to the world. At the time, Gawker reported that Blumenthal was communicating with an account that appeared to belong to Clinton at the “clintonemail.com” domain. The content of some of those e-mails was published by RT.com.

Examining the registry information for “clintonemail.com” reveals that the domain was first created on Jan. 13, 2009 — one week before President Obama was sworn into office, and the same day that Clinton’s confirmation hearings began before the Senate.”

This isn’t an occasional email sent on a private account, this is all of them. Same as the head of the EPA and others. There’s a pattern here of Obama admin officials trying to circumvent oversight.

Officials investigating Hillary over Benghazi say she has other personal accounts as well, and they want to see them too.

More here, from Politico

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2. And yes, it’s illegal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qTNYgBtQ6oo ______________________________________

3. Patreus has pled guilty to charges related to the sharing of sensitive info with his lover. This is the same charge Hillary should be looking at.

From TheNYTimes  “David H. Petraeus, the best-known military commander of his generation, has reached a plea deal with the Justice Department and admitted providing his highly classified journals to a mistress when he was the director of the C.I.A.

Mr. Petraeus has agreed to plead guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material, a misdemeanor. He is eligible for up to one year in prison, but prosecutors will recommend a sentence of probation for two years and a $40,000 fine.

The plea deal completes a spectacular fall for Mr. Petraeus, a retired four-star general who was once discussed as a possible candidate for vice president or even president. He led the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was the architect of a counterinsurgency strategy that at one time seemed a model for future warfare.”

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4. As is typical of Republican leadership, they’re snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. If only they had the guts of Reid. Then they would have used his “nuclear option” and done this right. But since Boehner and the establishment crowd support Obama’s amnesty plan anyway, they think this provides them cover to punt it to the courts. That’s not leadership, it’s pathetic. Boehner has to go.

More on that here, from NationalReview 

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