News/Politics 7-23-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Anybody shocked? And notice how the White House, like the media, continues to push the lie about “heavily edited” videos. The full, unedited versions were released along with the shorter/edited version from the start. But hey, why let facts get in the way of protecting your blood money, right Barry?

From TheHill  “White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Wednesday dismissed claims that Planned Parenthood has illegally profited from harvesting fetal tissue, saying the organization holds itself to “the highest ethical standards.”

Earnest defended Planned Parenthood one day after it was targeted by a second secretly recorded video that appears to show an organization official haggling over prices of fetal organs with a medical research firm.

The footage was filmed by anti-abortion activists from the Center for Medical Progress, which has threatened to release more videos until the government cracks down on Planned Parenthood.

When asked in a news conference whether President Obama had concerns about the video, Earnest pointed concerns about the video’s accuracy.

Earnest pointed to media reports that raise “significant concerns about the way those videos were selectively edited to distort not just the words of the individual speaking, but also Planned Parenthood.”

“They subscribe [to] and implement the highest ethical standards in carrying out their operations,” he said of the nonprofit health group.”

Well, you know, the highest ethical standards that butchers of unborn children can have anyway, which is obviously very low standards. 

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2. Another perv/Obama bundler is in trouble. Just imagine the press coverage if he were a Republican. But he’s not, so silence once again….

From TheFreeBeacon  “A proposed civil settlement by gay activist and Obama bundler Terry Bean that would have cleared Bean of criminal charges for an alleged sexual encounter with a 15-year-old boy was rejected by a Eugene, Ore., judge, according to Oregon Live.

Bean, who raised over $1 million for President Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns, was arrested last November and charged with two counts of third-degree sodomy and one count of third-degree sex abuse. The charges stemmed from allegations that the 66-year-old Bean and his 25-year-old boyfriend had sex with the teenage boy in a Eugene hotel when he was 15.

Last week, Bean’s lawyer cleared the court and attempted to sell a settlement agreement that had been reached with the teenage boy, but the deal was rejected by the judge who learned that Bean had avoided similar charges through a civil agreement.”

“His name appears on the White House Visitor Log more than 30 times. On one of those visits, Bean brought along his then-boyfriend Kiah Lawson, who was also arrested and charged with identical counts as Bean for the hotel encounter.

So this one isn’t his first victim. 

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3. The number of illegal aliens who crossed the border under Obama- 2.5 million. 

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Some 2.5 million illegal immigrants have flowed into the United States under President Obama, with 790,000 rushing in since 2013, according to a new analysis.

Calculations from the Center for Migration Studies and the Pew Research Center indicate 1.5 to 1.7 million aliens joined the illegal population from 2009 to 2013 — either overstaying a temporary visa or sneaking into the country, according to a Center for Immigration Studiesreport out Monday morning.

The immigration watchdog’s analysis of Census Bureau data also showed that an additional 790,000 illegals entered from the middle of 2013 to May of 2015, for a total of 2.5 million new illegal immigrants since Obama took office in January of 2009. That is a rate of 300,000 to 400,000 a year.”

And he’s not done yet….

From TheFreeBeacon  “The Obama administration is moving forward with plans to expand a waiver program that will allow additional illegal aliens to remain in the country rather than apply for legal status from abroad.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a proposed rule on Tuesday that would make changes to a waiver program created by President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration in 2013. The action created a waiver that primarily allowed illegal immigrants with a U.S. citizen spouse or parent to stay in the country instead of having to leave the United States and be barred from returning for three or 10 years, if they proved their absence would create an “extreme hardship” for their spouse.

The new rule expands eligibility to a host of other categories of illegal immigrants beyond those with citizen spouses and parents.

“DHS proposes to expand the class of aliens who may be eligible for a provisional waiver beyond immediate relatives of U.S. citizens to aliens in all statutorily eligible immigrant visa categories,” the proposed rule stated. “Such aliens include family-sponsored immigrants, employment-based immigrants, certain special immigrants, and Diversity Visa program selectees, together with their derivative spouses and children.”

The waivers allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country while they await visas, and avoid a penalty under U.S. law that bars persons who entered the country illegally from returning for at least three years.”

Diversity visas? I’m afraid to ask….. 🙄

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4. Don’t worry, I’ve found some good news for today too. 

Problem solved. But atheists will still be miserable, because it’s what they do. 

From StarsAndStripes  “The land beneath the cross on Mount Soledad in San Diego has been purchased by a private nonprofit group for $1.4 million, a key step toward possibly ending a more than two-decade legal controversy over having a cross on public property.

The Mount Soledad Memorial Association announced Monday that it had purchased the half-acre of property from the U.S. Department of Defense.

A provision in the defense authorization bill passed in December called for the federal government to sell the land beneath the cross to the memorial association, which has pledged to retain the cross as part of a war memorial.

The 43-foot cross was erected in 1954. More than 3,000 plaques honoring veterans are on walls surrounding the cross. The memorial association has long tended the cross and surrounding property, holding Memorial Day and Veterans Day events there.

Since the late 1980s, litigants, including the ACLU and Jewish War Veterans, have argued that the cross violates the constitutional separation of church and state. In 2006, the land was transferred from city ownership to the federal government.

The case is now with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in a previous ruling ordered the cross removed, although it remains unclear what effect the sale of the property by the Department of Defense will have. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case.”

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5. Repaying a debt. 

From Breitbart  “In 1938, 19-year-old George Weidenfeld was given safe passage to the United Kingdom, thanks to the help of a Christian group called the Plymouth Brethren. Weidenfeld would later work at the BBC and go on to co-found the publishing firm Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

The publisher just recently financed the resettling of 42 Syrian Christian families into Warsaw, Poland, who all made it safely to Europe. The operation was carried out in total secrecy, as identifying the refugees’ names may threaten their family members remaining in Syria. Furthermore, 200 more Syrian Christian refugee families are expected to receive safe passage to Poland in the next few months, Weidenfeld said.

Weidenfeld, who feels he has a “debt to repay,” told The Times of Israel, “We have been deeply moved by the plight of Christians in conflict-torn Middle East countries, and we are supporting the transfer of Christian families to safe havens where they can lead normal lives.”

Additionally, the Jewish National Fund–a pro-Israel organization–has stepped in to help finance the Christian rescue operations, according to the report. Another charity, the Warsaw-based Esther Foundation, has provided temporary accommodations for the refugees.”

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News/Politics 5-11-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. The Obama admin continues it’s amnesty program, despite a court order not to. Laws are for the commoners. 

From TheWashingtonTimes  “President Obama’s lawyers admitted to a federal judge late Thursday that they had broken the court’s injunction halting the administration’s new deportation amnesty, issuing thousands of work permits even after Judge Andrew S. Hanen had ordered the program stopped.

The stunning admission, filed just before midnight in Texas, where the case is being heard, is the latest misstep for the administration’s lawyers, who are facing possible sanctions by Judge Hanen for their continued problems in arguing the case.

The Justice Department lawyers said Homeland Security, which is the defendant in the case, told them Wednesday that an immigration agency had approved about 2,000 applications for three-year work permits, which was part of Mr. Obama’s new amnesty, even after Judge Hanen issued his Feb. 16 injunction halting the entire program.

Top Obama officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, had repeatedly assured Congress they had fully halted the program and were complying with the order.”

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2. Shockingly, the Obama admin continues to stonewall on the Benghazi probe. 

From RollCall  “The Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Friday defended the pace of his panel’s year-old investigation into the 2012 terror attack and announced plans to interview three top aides to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., in a 15-page “Interim Progress Update” released on the one-year-anniversary of the committee’s creation, blamed the Obama administration for delays in the panel’s probe.

“It is difficult to conduct a fact-centric congressional investigation when the Administration impedes the Committee’s progress by repeatedly failing to answer the Committee’s requests or to provide information in a timely manner,” wrote the South Carolina Republican.

“The largest impediment to being able to write the final, definitive accounting of what happened before, during and after the terrorist attacks in Benghazi is the Executive Branch itself.”

But Gowdy, who also has asked Clinton to appear before his panel, credits his committee with uncovering thousands of new emails and documents related to the administration’s handling of the attack that left four Americans dead.

Gowdy also said the panel wants to interview at least 60 more current and former officials, including Clinton, Susan Rice, Patrick Kennedy and three of Clinton’s top aides during her tenure as secretary of State: Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin.”

Good. Subpoena them and put ’em under oath. 

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3. The Clinton Foundation – the more we know, the worse it gets. 

From Breitbart  “Shocking revelations show that at least four Clinton Foundation board of directors have either been charged or convicted of financial crimes, including bribery and fraud.

This newest, startling revelation is just one more of many in Peter Schweizer’s bombshell book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, the book that has sent the Hillary Clinton campaign and the media scrambling.

The book shows that there are many problems with the Clinton charity. In fact, the Clinton Foundation is so unlike a real charity that even charity watchdog group Charity Navigatorrefuses to rate the Clinton Foundation because of its “atypical business model.”

One of those problems is the fact that the Clintons put big donors and close pals on the board for reasons that are hard to fathom. In fact, at least four of these “board members” have either been charged or convicted of serious financial irregularities, crimes including bribery and fraud.”

Hey, if you’re gonna run a scam foundation of this magnitude, you need experienced people who can hide the fraud best, right?

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News/Politics 4-9-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

Here’s a few I noticed. 

1. While I don’t really buy the “almost cost us Iraq” part of the story, it’s a good read anyway.

From FoxNews  “People who wonder why the war in Iraq went so wrong for so long, will need to read Judith Miller’s new book “The Story: A Reporter’s Journey.”  Miller details how special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald rigged the 2007 perjury trial of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in the Valerie Plame case, and in the process wrecked an early opportunity to reverse course in that strife-torn country. It may be one of the most disastrous cases of prosecutorial misconduct in history.

There’s a longstanding media myth that CIA employee Valerie Plame and her diplomat husband Joe Wilson were targets of a conspiracy led by Dick Cheney and Libby to blow Plame’s CIA covert identity as payback for an op-ed Wilson wrote for the New York Times in July 2003 saying the Bush administration lied about Saddam Hussein trying to get yellowcake uranium in Niger in order to build an atomic bomb.”

“We’ve known for some time that Wilson lied about Saddam’s search for yellowcake; that his op-ed was contradicted by his own report for the CIA; that Cheney had sent Scooter Libby out to talk to reporters like Judith Miller in order to refute Wilson’s lies, not to “out” anyone’s CIA employment; and that the man who actually did pass on Plame’s identity to columnist Robert Novak that fateful July was Undersecretary of State Dick Armitage—and that special prosecutor Fitzgerald knew that even before he began his three-year investigation into the so-called leak. Miller now reveals this was because Fitzgerald’s real quarry was Vice President Dick Cheney.

Fitzgerald obsessively pursued Libby for supposed misstatements to FBI and a grand jury in hopes that the vice president’s chief of staff would roll and say his boss sent him out to leak Plame’s CIA identity.  Twice, Miller says, Fitzgerald told Libby’s lawyers he would drop the charges if Libby would lie and rat out Cheney; each time they said no.

So instead Fitzgerald constructed a web of lies out of Miller’s testimony in the Libby trial in order to get a conviction, by withholding exculpatory evidence from her and from Libby’s lawyers.   Fitzgerald convinced her that four words in her notes from a conversation with Libby–“Wife worked at Bureau?”—had to refer to Plame working at the CIA, even though no one ever calls the CIA the Bureau. “

Read the rest. It’s no wonder Bush pardoned Scooter Libby.

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2. Obama’s attempt to restart his amnesty program has hit another bump.

From TheWashingtonTimes President Obama’s new deportation amnesty will remain halted, a federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday night in an order that also delivered a judicial spanking to the president’s lawyers for misleading the court.

Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who first halted the amnesty in February, just two days before it was to take effect, said he’s even more convinced of his decision now, particularly after Mr. Obama earlier this year said he intends for his policies to supersede federal laws.

Judge Hanen pointed to Mr. Obama’s comments at a February town hall when the president warned immigration agents to adhere to his policies or else face “consequences.”

“In summary, the chief executive has ordered that the laws requiring removal of illegal immigrants that conflict with the 2014 DHS directive are not to be enforced, and that anyone who attempts to do so will be punished,” Judge Hanen wrote.

“This is not merely ineffective enforcement. This is total non-enforcement,” the judge continued, saying that Mr. Obama’s own descriptions of how he is carrying out his policies have hurt his case.”

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3. That’s gonna be a problem, because the next wave is already on the way.

Also from TheWashingtonTimes  “The second wave of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children has begun, with more than 3,000 of them surging across the Mexican border into the U.S. last month — the highest rate since the peak of last summer’s crisis and a warning that another rough season could be ahead.

Immigration officials warned that they expected another surge as the weather improved. Although the numbers are down some 40 percent compared with last year’s frenetic pace that sparked a political crisis for the Obama administration, fiscal year 2015 is shaping up to mark the second-biggest surge on record.

Authorities report having captured 15,647 children traveling without parents who tried to jump the border in the first six months of the fiscal year. Through this point in 2014, they had apprehended 28,579.

Just as worrisome is the rate of whole families — usually mothers with young children — who are crossing. So far this fiscal year, authorities have captured 13,911 “family units,” down 30 percent from last year.”

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4. Is Carly Fiorina the new Sarah Palin?

Well of course she is, because the media is already treating her the same way. Any republican woman can expect the same treatment. As this story shows, that will be the liberal line on Carly too.

From NewRepublic In 2008, Sarah Palin was an appealing running mate to John McCain because she offered a potential antidote to the GOP’s insufferable white-maleness. On paper she looked promising, and on television she looked great, but problems started when she opened her mouth. In The New Yorker’s October 27 issue that year, Jane Meyer chronicled Palin’s rise to fame within the party—and then nationally, of course—concluding that it had a lot to do with her gender and little to do with her track record. (At that point, she had been governor for less than two years.) In 2010, writing in her New York Times opinion column, Maureen Dowd called Sarah Palin the GOP “Queen Bee,” a reference to her status among other women in the GOP.

Five years later, it seems the GOP has finally found a new Queen: Carly Fiorina. In 1999, Fiorina became a household name—at least in a certain kind of household—when she was named CEO of Hewlett-Packard, making her the first female head of a Fortune 20 company. (She was fired in 2005 after a series of scandalous leaks.) In 2008, Fiorina was one of McCain’s chief economic advisors, and Palin and Fiorina supported one another over the years: Fiorina defended Palin against “sexist attacks” in 2008; later, in 2010, Palin endorsed Fiorina’s campaign for Barbara Boxer’s California Senate seat.

Fiorina has sought to distance herself from Palin and from other Tea Party conservatives of late, though, including during her California Senate run. As 2016 looms, the GOP, too, has begun to shift: In their quest to find more politically viable candidates to put forward, it’s no wonder Fiorina has recently become a household name. (Again, in a certain kind of household.)

At first glance, Fiorina can be seen as an upgraded Palin, and she occupies a similar position in the party: Fiorina is a charismatic woman with enough success and outsider-status to plausibly appeal to conservative voters—and to possibly even attract new ones. In fact, in 2008 there was even speculation that Fiorina might run with McCain.”

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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.

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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.

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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 2-27-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. It ain’t broke, but they “fixed” it anyway.

From MSN/Reuters  “U.S. regulators on Thursday imposed the toughest rules yet on Internet service providers, aiming to ensure fair treatment of all web traffic through their networks.

The Federal Communications Commission voted along party lines, with Democrats in favor, to approve new “net neutrality” rules that seek to restrict broadband providers’ power to control download speeds on the web, for instance by potentially giving preference to companies that can afford to pay more.

The vote starts a countdown to expected lawsuits from cable and telecoms providers which argue that the tougher regulatory regime will stifle investments, hurting consumers. Republicans see Thursday’s move as a government power grab.

The new regulations come after a year of jostling between cable and telecom companies and net neutrality advocates, which included web startups. It culminated in the FCC receiving a record 4 million comments and a call from President Barack Obama to adopt the strongest rules possible.

The agency sought new net neutrality rules after a federal court rejected their previous version in January 2014.”

Let’s hope the courts overturn this power grab as well.

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2. And speaking of power grabs….

From TheNYPost  “President Obama was grilled Wednesday by anxious immigrants concerned about the fate of their undocumented relatives after a court ruling and a clash with Congress have left them in the lurch.”

“Immigration activist Erica Andiola, whose mom could be deported, asked, “What’s going to happen to my family? Given the fact that immigration reform, it’s not going to happen anytime soon and we know that because of the politics in Congress. What’s gonna happen in the meantime when my mom — and my family if immigration enforcement comes to my house once again?”

Obama said, “We’re still going to make sure your mom is not prioritized for enforcement. She should feel confident about that. I want her to feel confident about that short-term. Long-term, we need to get a path to citizenship.””

So he’ll continue to ignore the laws of this country.

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3. Harry Reid just feeds his ego.

From CNSNews  ““The President has the right to determine who is to be deported” when it comes to illegal aliens currently living in the United States, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) stated during debate on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) funding bill on Monday.

“The President has the right to determine who is to be deported, and the families of these DREAMERS are way down the list,” Reid declared.

“DREAMers” refer to illegal aliens who were brought to the United States as children and are currently being granted temporary amnesty under President Obama’s 2012 executive action.

Reid also accused Republicans of “attacking families” that “pose no security risk” to the United States by not funding Obama’s amnesty programs, a plan Reid said is “destined to fail.””

Not a security risk? I’m willing to bet that the numerous victims of illegal alien identity theft would say otherwise.

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4. So of course a president that thinks he’s above the law would want yet another AG who thinks the same.

From NBCNews  “Yhe office headed by the woman poised to become the next attorney general has used an unusual method to keep many of its prosecutions hidden from the public, an NBC News investigation has found.

Federal prosecutors in New York’s Brooklyn-based Eastern District pursued cases against secret, unnamed “John Doe” defendants 58 times since Loretta Lynch became head prosecutor in May 2010. Two of the 58 are terrorism cases.”

“Federal prosecutors around the country use a variety of techniques to keep the identities of defendants secret, often to protect cooperating witnesses or to help secure a plea deal. Methods include filing cases under seal to keep them off court dockets, or sealing the identities of some secondary defendants who have become cooperating witnesses.

The Eastern District’s use of John Doe, however, is conspicuous. None of the nation’s 93 other federal district courts has charged more than eight “Does” during the same time period, and the national average is under four. * In the two federal districts with similar pending criminal caseloads (approximately 3000 cases) — Arizona and the Southern District of California — there is only one case involving a “John Doe” defendant.”

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5. Walker wows ’em.

From NationalReview  “The governor, considered a top contender in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, got a quick standing ovation for his response — one of a number he got during his address.

After spending some time touting his strong domestic record as governor of Wisconsin, Walker sharply criticized the Obama administration for its ineffective strategy in the fight against the Islamic State, and its disapproval of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address before Congress.

Looking to shore up his own bona fides on foreign policy, Walker went out of his way to tell the audience that, as governor, he receives FBI briefings about potential threats to his state. And he pointed to his 2011 face-off with public-employee unions as preparing him for these sorts of situations.

“If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world,” he said.

Walker’s speech, one of the most anticipated of the conference, capped off the first day, and had the auditorium filled to capacity, including crowds standing alongside the walls.”

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6. Ben Carson was pretty good as well.

From TheDailyMail Dr. Ben Carson grabbed the Democratic Party’s third rail with both hands Thursday morning, launching a political attack based on his complaint that liberals are ‘making people dependent’ in majority-black American inner-cities.

Race politics have been the near-exclusive domain of the Democrats since the civil-rights era of the 1960s, and Barack Obama’s successful White House bid in 2008 solidified their position.

But Carson – the most prominent black Republican in the 2016 presidential picture – told the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, D.C. on Thursday that the Democrats now see African-Americans’ support as an entitlement – choosing to ‘keep them suppressed and cultivate their votes.'”

“Matthew Brown, a New York college student attending the conference, told Daily Mail Online that Carson is just hitting his stride.

‘He’s shaking people up and freaking people out,’ Brown said. ‘The days of a lily-white GOP are starting to fade, and the only people who seem to oppose this energetic and thoughtful black guy are the Democrats. That should tell you something.'”

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News/Politics 2-24-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The internet is about to transform into Obamanet.

From ComputerWorld  “Congressional Republicans are demanding to know how much the White House influenced the Federal Communications Commission while the agency crafted net neutrality rules.

The FCC has until Monday afternoon to produce unredacted email messages, focused on net neutrality rules, between FCC staff and officials with the Obama administration, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz said in a letter to the FCC Friday. The Utah Republican is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.”

Chaffetz’s committee is “investigating the potential involvement of the White House” in the creation of proposed net neutrality rules that the FCC is scheduled to vote on next Thursday, he said in the letter. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will propose regulations that would reclassify broadband as a regulated telecommunications service instead of a lightly regulated information service.

An FCC spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for a comment on Chaffetz’s letter.”

Of course they didn’t respond. They’re too busy meeting with “activists,” ‘cuz that’s what community organizers do.

More on that here, from TheDailyCaller 

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2. DHS would like you wing nuts to know that you’re more dangerous than ISIS.

From HotAir  “The Department of Homeland Security has a lot on their hands lately. It seems as if some days they don’t know where to look first when dealing with a variety of threats. Whether it’s al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram or sympathizers for any of a variety of terrorists groups, they are dealing with a dangerous world. But for some reason, CNN reports that the big threat this year is probably… sovereign citizens.

On second thought, maybe that whole defunding the DHS thing isn’t looking that bad.

A new intelligence assessment, circulated by the Department of Homeland Security this month and reviewed by CNN, focuses on the domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists and comes as the Obama administration holds a White House conference to focus efforts to fight violent extremism.

Some federal and local law enforcement groups view the domestic terror threat from sovereign citizen groups as equal to — and in some cases greater than — the threat from foreign Islamic terror groups, such as ISIS, that garner more public attention.​

The Homeland Security report, produced in coordination with the FBI, counts 24 violent sovereign citizen-related attacks across the U.S. since 2010.”

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3. Bill Whittle nails it, again.

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4. Does Muslim immigration pose a serious national security threat?

From InvestorsBusinessDaily  “France, Belgium and now even liberal Denmark regret letting in so many immigrants from Muslim countries. Their swelling Islamic communities have become breeding grounds for terrorists. So why is the U.S. opening the floodgates to foreign Muslims?

The threat Muslim immigrants pose to homeland security was not addressed during the White House’s three-day summit on terrorism. Instead, Vice President Joe Biden assured Muslim groups gathered during one session that the “wave” of Muslim immigration is “not going to stop.” Wave? More like a tsunami.

Between 2010 and 2013, the Obama administration imported almost 300,000 new immigrants from Muslim nations — more immigrants than the U.S. let in from Central America and Mexico combined over that period.”

“Many of the recent Muslim immigrants are from terrorist hot spots like Iraq, where the Islamic State operates. From 2010-2013, Obama ushered in 41,094 Iraqi nationals from there.

Now the State Department says it will quadruple the number of refugees brought here from Syria, where IS is headquartered.”

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5. Meanwhile on the southern border…..

From CNSNews  “”We all saw what happened on the Texas border last summer, but we need to understand that the problem is not going away,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told CBS’s “Face the Nation” with Bob Schieffer on Sunday.

“Already this calendar year, since January 1, we have had more than 20,000 people come across the border, apprehended, unauthorized. And so we have an ongoing problem on the border that Congress must step up and solve.”

All told in fiscal year 2014, U.S immigration officials removed 213,719 individuals apprehended while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States.)

Schieffer reminded Abbott that there are some 800,000 illegal aliens living in Texas right now.”

Oh, and DHS is requiring caretakers of unaccompanied illegal children to provide them with abortion inducing drugs. Nice huh?

Also from CNSNews  “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is advancing federal regulations that require federally funded organization caring for illegal alien minors who are in the United States without their parents (Unaccompanied Children or UC) and who may have been sexually abused access to “emergency contraception” services.

“Emergency contraception” includes abortion-inducing drugs.

These care providers currently include Catholic and other faith-based organizations that oppose abortion, according to the Center for Family and Human Rights or C-FAM, a Catholic advocacy group.

The Interim Final Rule was published in the Federal Register on Dec. 24, 2014, and was open to public comments until today, Feb. 23, 2015. Providers must comply with the rule by June 24, 2015, according to the Federal Register.”

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6. Nuclear armed Iran. Scary thought, but that’s the Obama plan.

From YahooNews  “Edging toward a historic compromise, the U.S. and Iran reported progress Monday on a deal that would clamp down on Tehran’s nuclear activities for at least 10 years but then slowly ease restrictions on programs that could be used to make atomic arms.

Officials said there were still obstacles to overcome before a March 31 deadline, and any deal will face harsh opposition in both countries. It also would be sure to further strain already-tense U.S. relations with Israel, whose leaders oppose any agreement that doesn’t end Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to strongly criticize the deal in an address before Congress next week.

Still, a comprehensive pact could ease 35 years of U.S-Iranian enmity — and seems within reach for the first time in more than a decade of negotiations.”

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News/Politics 2-5-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. NBC’s Brian Williams has been exposed for falsely claiming he was in a chopper hit by RPG fire in Iraq in 2003. This was a long-standing lie he discussed many times. Now, in his apology that really isn’t one, he claims to just have mis-remembered it, for 12 years, and while repeatedly telling the story…

He must have went to the Dan Rather “fake but accurate” school of journalism.

From StarsAndStripes, who broke the story  “NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years.

Williams repeated the claim Friday during NBC’s coverage of a public tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier that had provided ground security for the grounded helicopters, a game to which Williams accompanied him. In an interview with Stars and Stripes, he said he had misremembered the events and was sorry.

The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.

“I would not have chosen to make this mistake,” Williams said. “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”

Williams told his Nightly News audience that the erroneous claim was part of a “bungled attempt” to thank soldiers who helped protect him in Iraq in 2003. “I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” Williams said. “I want to apologize.””

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2. ISIS has picked a fight with someone they shouldn’t have, someone who has the resolve to fight them all out.

From FoxNews  “Jordan’s King Abdullah, himself a former general, angrily vowed to pursue ISIS until his military runs “out of fuel and bullets,” in a closed door meeting with U.S. lawmakers that followed the release Wednesday of a grisly video showing a captured Jordanian airman being burned alive in a cage by the terrorist army.

The pledge preceded the hanging of two Al Qaeda terrorists early Wednesday in Jordan, a swift response to the video that could be a mere harbinger of coming retribution from the Arab kingdom in the wake of the sadistic slaughter. King Abdullah’s words were echoed by military leaders, who vowed an “earth-shaking” response, proportionate to the magnitude of the tragedy of all Jordanians.” But it was the words of their visibly shaken king, who commanded his nation’s special forces before assuming the throne in 1999, that could foreshadow what is in store for the black-clad terrorist army whose atrocities have shocked the civilized world.

“He said there is going to be retribution like ISIS hasn’t seen,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr., R-Calif., a Marine Corps veteran of two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, who was in the meeting with the king. “He mentioned ‘Unforgiven’ and he mentioned Clint Eastwood, and he actually quoted a part of the movie.”

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3. No good deed goes unpunished…

From TheWashingtonExaminer Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady is facing a $60,500 bill from the IRS just for winning the game, according to a new report.

Americans for Tax Reform said he will have to pay $42,000 on his share of the $97,000 for playing in the championship, and another $18,500 for giving away the red Chevy Colorado pickup truck he won for being MVP to fellow player Malcolm Butler, who caught the game-winning interception.

They said Brady will have to pay about $13,000 in income tax on the prize, and then another $5,000 “gift tax” for doing a nice thing in giving Butler the keys.

“That’s a $5,000 gift tax on top of a $13,500 income tax on the truck, for a combined federal tax hit of $18,500,” said ATR, headed by Washington tax foe Grover Norquist.”

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4. But bad deeds could produce a cash windfall…

From TheWashingtonTimes IRS Commissioner John Koskinen confirmed Tuesday that illegal immigrants granted amnesty from deportation under President Obama’s new policies would be able to get extra refunds from the IRS for money they earned while working illegally, as long as they filed returns during those years.

Illegal immigrants who are granted the amnesty will be given official Social Security numbers, which means they can go back and amend up to three years of previous tax forms to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, potentially claiming billions of dollars in additional payments they were ineligible for before the amnesty.

Mr. Koskinen said they will have to have already filed returns for those back-years, and there’s a statute of limitations that governs how far they can go back, but said the agency’s current interpretation of laws would allow them to claim the EITC credit retroactively.”

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News/Politics 2-3-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. In my best Gollum voice…..

Stupid hobbits……..

From TheNYDailyNews  “Tolkien lore led a Texas boy to suspension after he brought his “one ring” to school.

Kermit Elementary School officials called it a threat when the 9-year-old boy, Aiden Steward, in a playful act of make-believe, told a classmate he could make him disappear with a ring forged in fictional Middle Earth’s Mount Doom.

“It sounded unbelievable,” the boy’s father, Jason Steward, told the Daily News. He insists his son “didn’t mean anything by it.”

The Stewards had just watched “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” days earlier, inspiring Aiden’s imagination and leading him to proclaim that he had in his possession the one ring to rule them all.”

Wait until you read about this little troublemakers other infractions. 🙄

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2. It’s a good thing our economy is booming….. 🙄

From NationalReview  “More than 5.46 million foreign nationals have received work permits from the federal government since 2009, according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies. Data uncovered from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency reveal that approximately 982,000 work permits were given to illegal immigrants and other foreign nationals unqualified for admission, most of whom crossed the border without inspection. USCIS is the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for issuing work permits and processing applications related to President Obama’s executive action on immigration. On Tuesday, the Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill that funds DHS, while blocking funding that would allow USCIS to implement the president’s executive action. 

The remarkable number of work permits granted by the federal government to law-breaking aliens better explains how all net jobs growth since 2007 has gone to immigrants. The government issued approximately 1.7 million work permits since 2009 to aliens whose status was not known, not recorded, or not disclosed by USCIS, according to the report. The report says employment is not authorized by law for approximately 1.2 million immigrants who collected work permits while having a temporary visa status. And the data show that approximately 1,200 new work permits went to unlawful entrants who were denied asylum, were suspected of using fraudulent documentation, were stowaways, or were refused at a port of entry.”

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3. So how are things working out with all of the criminal illegals that ICE has released to re-offend? Exactly as you’d expect.

From CNSNews  “When President Obama announced his expanded executive amnesty last November, he said he would prioritize the deportation people who threaten national security and public safety. “Felons, not families — criminals, not children” would be deported, Obama said on Nov. 20.

But under Obama’s prosecutorial discretion policy, illegal aliens who commit lesser crimes are allowed to stay in the country — free to re-offend, as it turns out.

According to the Homeland Security Department (DHS), 36,007 criminal aliens were released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in Fiscal Year 2013, and of that total, 1,000 have since been convicted of new crimes, ranging from assault with a deadly weapon and lewd acts with a child to aggravated assault, robbery, and hit-and-run.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced on Friday that he has received a 38-page document from DHS listing the crimes committed by the one-thousand re-offenders released from ICE custody in FY 2013.”

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4. And yet this fraud has the president’s ear and is considered legit by the media….

From NationalReview  “So far, every for-profit enterprise started by Al Sharpton and known to National Review Online has been shut down in at least one jurisdiction for failure to pay taxes, a review of public records in New York and Delaware reveals.

Records show that Sharpton’s beleaguered for-profit entities often overlap and intertwine, some sharing ties with the reverend’s nonprofit organization, National Action Network. Their financial records are copious, confusing, and sometimes outright bizarre, and together, they depict persistent financial woes for Sharpton, who also personally owes New York State nearly $596,000, according to active tax warrants.

“He clearly appears — based on the information that’s available to us — to have a history of noncompliance with tax obligations,” says Bernadette Schopfer, the director of taxation at New York’s Maier Markey & Justic, a certified public-accounting firm that has had no dealings with Sharpton or National Action Network. “It appears that [Sharpton] does not file [taxes for his businesses], and then opens up something else. At all the entities we see he has opened up, he has not been compliant with the obligations of the owner of a business. . . . He’s either willful in his behavior, or he’s just sloppy.”

Sharpton, who was traveling internationally, was unavailable for an interview, despite NRO’s numerous queries over several days.”

Sharpton has nothing to say? That’d be a first…

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News/Politics 2-2-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Lot’s to cover today.

1. Meet with your buddies in the Obama admin, two days later declare open jihad. Must be more of those “moderates” they keep raving about…..

From TheFreeBeacon  “The Muslim Brotherhood called for “a long, uncompromising jihad” in Egypt just days after a delegation of the Islamist group’s key leaders and allies met with the State Department, according to an official statement released this week.

Just days after a delegation that included two top Brotherhood leaders was hosted at the State Department, the organization released an official statement calling on its supporters to “prepare” for jihad, according to an independent translation of the statement first posted on Tuesday.”

““It is incumbent upon everyone to be aware that we are in the process of a new phase, where we summon what is latent in our strength, where we recall the meanings of jihad and prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and whoever marched on our path to a long, uncompromising jihad, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom,” it states.”

“The Brotherhood’s renewed call for jihad comes at a time when current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is cracking down on the group and imprisoning many of its supporters, who notoriously engaged in violence following the ouster of Brotherhood-ally Mohamed Morsi.”

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2. About time. It’s amazing what you can do without Reid obstructing things, huh?

From TheWashingtonTimes Senate Republicans on Thursday asked President Obama to turn over all communications he and his aides have had with the IRS since 2010, hoping to find out whether the tax collection agency shared private taxpayer information with political operatives at the White House.

The request, made in a letter obtained by The Washington Times, is signed by Senate Finance Chairman Orrin G. Hatch and all 13 other Republicans on the committee, and is addressed specifically to Mr. Obama, saying they want to see if his employees broke the law by acquiring or sharing private information.

“We have an obligation to conduct oversight of the federal government’s administration of our tax laws,” the lawmakers wrote. “As part of this oversight, we are seeking to determine the degree to and manner in which the Internal Revenue Service shares taxpayer information with the Executive Office of the President.””

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3. Also new legislation to deal with the Obama policy of releasing criminal illegals on US streets.

From TownHall  “The Department of Homeland Security currently has a policy in place known as “catch and release,” meaning violent illegal aliens are arrested, processed and put back onto American streets if their home countries won’t take them back.

According to Judicary Comimittee Chairman Chuck Grassley’s office, the policy was “created by a 2001 Supreme Court decision (Zadvydas v. Davis), which prohibits immigrants who had been ordered removed from being detained for more than six months. The Court expanded this decision to apply to all illegal immigrants in Clark v. Martinez in 2005.”

This catch and release policy is not only demoralizing to Immigration and Border Patrol Agents, but it’s dangerous and deadly. There are countless examples of violent assault and murders committed by illegal aliens after being arrested and released by federal authorities. “

“According to Grassley’s office, more than 36,000 criminally convicted illegal aliens were released in 2013. Since their release, 1,000 of these criminal aliens have been convicted of crimes like assault with a deadly weapon, child-rape, rape, participating in street gangs, aggravated assault, robbery, DUI, terroristic threats and more.

“The Zadvydas decision ties the hands of the federal government, forcing law enforcement to release dangerous criminals onto our streets because their home country won’t allow them back. The Obama administration has relied upon this ruling to release thousands of criminally convicted aliens, yet they’ve done nothing to fix the problem. This legislation corrects a very real problem with serious public safety implications,” Grassley said in a statement.”

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4. Ted Cruz is seeking an investigation and documents about the White House’s interfering in Israel’s elections.

PDF of the letter, From Cruz.Senate.Gov 

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5. Control the message, and the messengers….

From Politico  “Reporters covering the House Democrats’ retreat in Philadelphia this week are having a much different experience than when they’re on their home turf on Capitol Hill. 

Reporters are being escorted to and from the restroom and lobby and are being barred from entering the hotel outside of scheduled events, even if they’ve been invited by a member of Congress. 

During Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks at the retreat Friday, reporters were required to have a staff member, usually a junior member of the press team, escort them when going to the bathroom or to the lobby. The filing center for reporters was at a separate hotel from where the retreat was taking place, so access was limited to members of Congress specifically made available to the press.”

“It was a police state. It was absurd how heavy handed the capitol police and Democratic staff were in trying to control everywhere the press went,” New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters said in an interview.

Peters said at one point he was also barred from entering the hotel where the retreat was taking place, despite the fact he had an invitation to eat breakfast with a member of Congress.”

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6. African nations are sending in peacekeepers to deal with Boko Haram.

From TheAP  “African leaders agreed to send 7,500 troops to fight the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria, an African Union official said Saturday, as the international community, including long-time foes the U.S. and Iran, rallied in support of Nigeria against the militants.

The move came after the council urged heads of state to endorse the deployment of troops from five West African countries to fight the terror group, said the head of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, Samil Chergui.

African leaders who are members of the 54-nation African Union are meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for a two-day summit that ends Saturday.”

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7. John Podesta violates ethics? I didn’t know he had any….

From TheDailyCaller In 2013, John Podesta was paid $87,000 by a shadowy foreign billionaire whose passion is preventing energy exploration on American land.

Just two years later, Podesta is a member of President Obama’s inner circle, and the driving force inside the White House to block 12 million acres of land in Alaska’s Artic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling.

 The circumstances suggest Podesta may have run afoul of Obama’s highly-touted ethics pledge, which requires political appointees to disqualify themselves in matters relating to the interests of a former employer or client.

Podesta — who is preparing to leave the White House to take a top position with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign — has largely avoided public scrutiny during his time as a White House Counselor.”

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News/Politics 12-8-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. What’s really going on with Holder’s “civil rights” crusade against police depts. It’s a long piece, but worth the time.

From NationalReview  “Holder and his constitutional-scholar boss are not banging the civil-rights drum because they believe these are prosecutable cases. It is just a pretext for unleashing Justice Department community organizers on state and municipal police departments.

The government cannot win a standalone loser of a civil-rights prosecution by crying, “Disparate impact!” Individual cases that have been demagogued by the racial-grievance industry become high profile. Once public attention is riveted, the legal and logical flaws become obvious. When people start looking long and hard, the “institutionalized racism” canard is exposed. For guys like Sharpton, that’s bad for business.

But the Justice Department civil-rights investigations Holder is fond of announcing are not like public trials. They occur out of the public eye, where feverish Justice Department claims are not aired and scrutinized. More significant, they happen with the air of extortion created by the nearly $28 billion in funding Congress keeps giving Justice every year, no matter how many congressional investigations it obstructs, how many false statements its officials make, and how much it politicizes law enforcement. The investigations are taxpayer-funded jihads that states, cities, and towns know they lack the resources to fight off.

Here is how the game works. Holder streams in behind a tragedy that Sharpton and Obama have demagogued. He announces a civil-rights investigation. Eventually, he backs down from the threat of an indictment in the individual case, never conceding that the supporting evidence was not there, usually citing some strawman injustice that has nothing to do with the matter at hand — in Florida, for example, it was “stand your ground” gun laws that purportedly needed reforming. But, the attorney general is pleased to add, the original civil-rights probe of the non-crime has metastasized into a thoroughgoing civil-rights probe of the state or local police department’s training, practices, and . . . drumroll . . . institutional racism.

You never get to see what that investigation turns up. States and their subdivisions know they cannot afford to go toe-to-toe with the Beltway behemoth. Big cities, moreover, are governed by Democrats sympathetic to the Obama/Holder race obsessions — they’re happy to have the feds come in and hamstring police with “social justice” guidelines that would be a hard sell politically. So the Justice Department makes the locals an offer they can’t refuse: A consent decree that makes the Treaty of Versailles look like a slap on the wrist. This device is the license by which the Obama administration is remaking state law enforcement in its own image.”

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2. ObamaCare is impacting the primary care doctor shortage.

From YahooNews  “The Papas were among the 6.7 million people who gained insurance through the Affordable Care Act last year, flooding a primary care system that is struggling to keep up with demand.

A survey this year by The Physicians Foundation found that 81 percent of doctors describe themselves as either over-extended or at full capacity, and 44 percent said they planned to cut back on the number of patients they see, retire, work part-time or close their practice to new patients.

At the same time, insurance companies have routinely limited the number of doctors and providers on their plans as a way to cut costs. The result has further restricted some patients’ ability to get appointments quickly.

One purpose of the new health law was connecting patients, many of whom never had insurance before, with primary care doctors to prevent them from landing in the emergency room when they are sicker and their care is more expensive. Yet nearly 1 in 5 Americans lives in a region designated as having a shortage of primary care physicians, and the number of doctors entering the field isn’t expected to keep pace with demand.

The Association of American Medical Colleges projects the shortage will grow to about 66,000 in little more than a decade as fewer residency slots are available and as more medical students choose higher-paying specialty areas.”

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3. How the nation is failing today’s troops and veterans, and how morale is worsening because of it.

From MilitaryTimes  “A Military Times survey of 2,300 active-duty troops found morale indicators on the decline in nearly every aspect of military life. Troops report significantly lower overall job satisfaction, diminished respect for their superiors, and a declining interest in re-enlistment now compared to just five years ago.

Today’s service members say they feel underpaid, under-equipped and under-appreciated, the survey data show. After 13 years of war, the all-volunteer military is entering an era fraught with uncertainty and a growing sense that the force has been left adrift.

One trend to emerge from the annual Military Times survey is “that the mission mattered more to the military than to the civilian,” said Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who studies the military. “For the civilian world, it might have been easier to psychologically move on and say, ‘Well, we are cutting our losses.’ But the military feels very differently. Those losses have names and faces attached to [them].”

“According to the Military Times survey, active-duty troops reported a stunning drop in how they rated their overall quality of life: Just 56 percent call it good or excellent, down from 91 percent in 2009. The survey, conducted in July and August, found that 73 percent of troops would recommend a military career to others, down from 85 percent in 2009. And troops reported a significant decline in their desire to re-enlist, with 63 percent citing an intention to do so, compared with 72 percent a few years ago.”

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4. Something to keep in mind as Obama continues his amnesty push.

From CNSNews  “Aliens illegally holding jobs in the United States outnumber all unemployed people who are not in management, professional or related occupations as well as all unemployed who are 25 and older and who do not have a college degree, according to an estimate of “unauthorized workers” published by the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration and employment data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The BLS only counts as “unemployed” people who have actively looked for a job in the past four weeks.

“We estimate that the number of unauthorized workers grew from 4.8 million in 2000 to 8.0 million in 2007, the peak of the last business cycle,” the Office of the Chief Actuary of Social Security said in an analysis published in April 2013.

“The economy then fell into a recession and the estimated number of unauthorized workers declined to 7.0 million in 2010,” said the Chief Actuary. “We project that the economy will recover and that the number of unauthorized workers will rise to 9.6 million in 2020.” “Unauthorized workers” are aliens living in the United States who do not have a legal right to work here.”

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