Obama

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News/Politics 8-18-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The IRS is now contradicting sworn testimony, and the judge wants answers.

From TheDailyCaller  “U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan Thursday ordered the Internal Revenue Service to come up with new answers after IRS employees contradicted sworn testimony about damage to Lois Lerner’s hard drive.

Sullivan ruled that “the IRS is hereby ORDERED to file a sworn Declaration, by an official with the authority to speak under oath for the Agency, by no later than August 22, 2014″ on four issues: the IRS’ attempted recovery of Lerner’s lost emails after her computer allegedly crashed, bar codes that could have been on the hard drive, IRS policies on hard drive destruction, and information about an outside vendor who worked on IRS hard drives.

Recent documents from nonprofit group Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the IRS, which Sullivan is presiding over, showed that IRS technology officials contradicted sworn testimony about damage to Lerner’s hard drive.

Aaron Signor, an IRS technician that looked at Lerner’s hard drive in June 2011, said in IRS court filings that he saw no damage to the drive before sending it off to another IRS technician, leading some in the media to suggest that the lost emails scandal is basically over. But Signor’s statement, issued in response to the Judicial Watch lawsuit, does not jibe with sworn congressional testimony.”

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2. About that indictment of Gov. Perry…….

From NYMag  “They say a prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, and this always seemed like hyperbole, until Friday night a Texas grand jury announced an indictment of governor Rick Perry. The “crime” for which Perry faces a sentence of 5 to 99 years in prison is vetoing funding for a state agency. The conventions of reporting —  which treat the fact of an indictment as the primary news, and its merit as a secondary analytic question —  make it difficult for people reading the news to grasp just how farfetched this indictment is.”

“I do not have a fancy law degree from Harvard or Yale or, for that matter, anywhere. I am but a humble country blogger. And yet, having read the indictment, legal training of any kind seems unnecessary to grasp its flimsiness.

Perry stands accused of violating two laws. One is a statute defining as an offense “misus[ing] government property, services, personnel, or any other thing of value belonging to the government that has come into the public servant’s custody or possession by virtue of the public servant’s office or employment.” The veto threat, according to the prosecutor, amounted to a “misuse.” Why? That is hard to say.

The other statute prohibits anybody in government from “influenc[ing] or attempt[ing] to influence a public servant in a specific exercise of his official power or a specific performance of his official duty or influenc[ing] or attempt[ing] to influence a public servant to violate the public servant’s known legal duty.””

He’s not a lawyer, but this guy is. And he thinks even less of it.

From NewsMax   “Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz calls himself a “liberal Democrat who would never vote for Rick Perry,” but he’s still “outraged” over the Texas governor’s indictment Friday on charges of abuse of power and coercion.

The charges are politically motivated and an example of a “dangerous” trend of courts being used to affect the ballot box and politics, he told Newsmax on Saturday.

“Everybody, liberal or conservative, should stand against this indictment,” Dershowitz said. “If you don’t like how Rick Perry uses his office, don’t vote for him.””

Democrats can’t beat him at the ballot box, so they turn to the courts to do their dirty work for them, yet again.

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3. Boko Haram is at it again(still). And now they’re taking cues from ISIS.

From TownHall  “The death toll from Boko Haram’s takeover of the predominantly Christian town of Gwoza is nearly 1,000, not the 100 included in many reports, Nigerian relations expert Adeniyi Ojutiku told Baptist Press.

The Nigerian military abandoned their weapons and fled Gwoza as Boko Haram attacked Wednesday (Aug. 6), burning government buildings, killing residents and taking hostages. Some residents managed to flee to the mountains bordering Cameroon and are without food or water; others made it 85 miles north to Maiduguri, Associated French Press (AFP) and others reported.

News surfaced just today (Aug. 15) of a separate Aug. 10 attack on the remote village of Doron Baga in northeastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram kidnapped dozens of boys and men, leaving women, girls and young children abandoned there.

Boko Haram has escalated its attacks to a new level, capturing towns and hoisting Boko Haram flags instead of killing residents and fleeing, Ojutiku said. He compared them to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). As such, a concerted global effort is needed to conquer the rebels, he said.”

“”This is a new dimension in this crisis,” Ojutiku said. “A completely new dimension. Now they are following the strategy of ISIS. They attack, they occupy, they hold the town. Now that they have started adopting ISIS methodology, they should be receiving the type of treatment that ISIS is receiving.””

 

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4. Meanwhile ISIS continues it’s rampage.

From TheHuffPost  “The Islamic State militant group has executed 700 members of a tribe it has been battling in eastern Syria during the past two weeks, the majority of them civilians, a human rights monitoring group said on Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has tracked violence on all sides of the three-year-old conflict, said that reliable sources reported beheadings were used to execute many of the al-Sheitaat tribe, which is from Deir al-Zor province.

The conflict between Islamic State and the al-Sheitaat tribe, who number about 70,000, flared after Islamic State took over two oil fields in July.

“Those who were executed are all al-Sheitaat,” Observatory director Rami Abdelrahman said by telephone from Britain. “Some were arrested, judged and killed.”

They continue to take women as spoils of war.

From TheWashingtonPost  “Hundreds of Yazidi women who were captured by Islamic extremists during their sweep through the town of Sinjar are being incarcerated at scattered locations across northern Iraq in what increasingly looks like a deliberate attempt to co-opt them into service as the wives of fighters.

As the militants with the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State surged into the area from surrounding Arab villages two weeks ago, snaring those who had not managed to flee, they showed a marked interest in detaining women, notably the youngest and prettiest, according to witnesses, relatives and in some instances the women themselves.”

“Those who convert to Islam can be promised a good life, with a house of their own and — implicitly — a Muslim husband, because the extreme interpretation of Islam promoted by the Islamic State does not permit women to live alone.

Otherwise, they have been told, they can expect a life of indefinite imprisonment — or, they fear, death.”

It’s gotten so bad that some would rather die than accept the fate that awaits them.

From TheDailyMail  “The call came in the early hours, the voice muffled, furtive and shaking with fear. ‘If they see me talking to someone they will kill me for sure, maybe kill all of us.’

This was Nisreen, a 17-year-old seized by the vicious Islamic State forces who have swept through Iraq and Syria spreading fear and panic.

She told how she was one of 96 Yazidi girls kidnapped when their towns and villages fell to the fanatics. Now these teenagers wait in terror to be sold into slavery or forced into marriage with militant Islamists.”

“The husband of another teenage woman, heavily pregnant, held  captive by the IS told me how she would rather the US bombed her prison – with her inside – than be handed out like a piece of property to an extremist fighter.

She said: ‘Let those jets come to bomb us and save us from this situation by killing all of us.’ She added death would be a better fate than to ‘be forced off with a strange man.’”

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5. And things are heating up again in Ukraine.

From Bloomberg  “Tensions flared in Ukraine yesterday as the government said its army destroyed part of a column of military vehicles that crossed the border from Russia, even as Vladimir Putin denies any military presence.

President Petro Poroshenko said Ukrainian forces destroyed part of a column that had arrived from Russia. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow rejected the statement and warned about a potential attack on another convoy that carries aid. Ukraine’s top diplomat, Pavlo Klimkin, said he will meet with his Russian, German and French counterparts tomorrow in Berlin.

The incident adds to the building unease over Russia’s plan to send about 275 trucks with what it says is humanitarian aid to rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine. Even with Ukraine saying it doesn’t see the armed vehicles as the sign of potential invasion, their arrival raised the stakes, said Volodymyr Fesenko, of the Penta research institute in Kiev.”

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by

News/Politics 8-15-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

UPDATE!

Well this changes the entire perspective of this case. With a Hat Tip to Kbells.

From TalkingPointsMemo  “Michael Brown, the African-American teen who was shot by Ferguson, Mo., police Saturday, was the primary suspect for an alleged robbery at the time of the shooting, according to reporters on the ground piecing through a police report released Friday.

Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson said officer Darren Wilson, a six-year veteran, was the officer who shot Brown. He gave a timeline of the shooting, which included a response to a 911 call from a convenience store shortly before the shooting around 12 p.m. Saturday.

The police also released an incident report about the robbery, which said that Brown was the “primary suspect,” according to reporters at the scene who had access to the physical copies. Brown had stolen cigars from the convenience store, the report stated, and had pushed an employee who asked him to pay for them.”

Photos from the store’s cameras confirm it was Brown roughing up the owner.

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1. It’s too bad the President’s supposed foreign policy theory of “Don’t do stupid stuff” doesn’t apply to his domestic policies too.

From TheHill  “The executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police criticized President Obama Thursday for his remarks about law enforcement in Ferguson, Mo.

“I would contend that discussing police tactics from Martha’s Vineyard is not helpful to ultimately calming the situation,” director Jim Pasco said in an interview with The Hill.

“I think what he has to do as president and as a constitutional lawyer is remember that there is a process in the United States and the process is being followed, for good or for ill, by the police and by the county and by the city and by the prosecutors’ office,” Pasco added.”

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2. Meanwhile the Missouri Highway Patrol have taken control in Ferguson.

From MSNNews  “The Missouri Highway Patrol seized control of a St. Louis suburb Thursday, stripping local police of their law-enforcement authority after four days of clashes between officers in riot gear and furious crowds protesting the death of an unarmed black teen shot by an officer.

The intervention, ordered by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, came as President Barack Obama spoke publicly for the first time about Saturday’s fatal shooting of Michael Brown and the subsequent violence that shocked the nation and threatened to tear apart Ferguson, a town that is nearly 70 percent black patrolled by a nearly all-white police force.”

“After a particularly violent Wednesday night, Nixon said local police would no longer be in charge of the area, although they would still be present. He said Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, who is black, would be in command.

The change was meant to ensure “that we allow peaceful and appropriate protests, that we use force only when necessary, that we step back a little bit and let some of the energy be felt in this region appropriately,” Nixon said.”

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3. Rand Paul, as did some of you, has made a good point. Enough already, the police shouldn’t be mini-militaries.

From Time  “The outrage in Ferguson is understandable—though there is never an excuse for rioting or looting. There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response.

The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action.

Glenn Reynolds, in Popular Mechanics, recognized the increasing militarization of the police five years ago. In 2009 he wrote:

Soldiers and police are supposed to be different. … Police look inward. They’re supposed to protect their fellow citizens from criminals, and to maintain order with a minimum of force.

It’s the difference between Audie Murphy and Andy Griffith. But nowadays, police are looking, and acting, more like soldiers than cops, with bad consequences. And those who suffer the consequences are usually innocent civilians.”

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4. Maliki is stepping down in Iraq. I doubt it helps, but it’s the right thing to do.

From CNN   “Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave up the fight Thursday to keep his post, clearing the way for a new leader that many hope can hold Iraq together as the country battles brutal extremist fighters.

In a televised address, al-Maliki withdrew his candidacy for a third term and endorsed the Prime Minister-designate, bringing to an end a political battle that just days ago saw him vow to hold onto power as he ordered tanks into the streets.

“I announce to you today that I am withdrawing my candidacy in deference to my brother, Haider al-Abadi, in the highest interest of the country,” he said.”

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5. Kirsten Powers is hitting the President for ignoring the plight of Christians in Iraq.

From USAToday  “It’s starting to seem as if the Obama White House operates on a time delay. In the case of Iraq’s religious minorities, the results have been deadly.

On June 10, the barbaric extremists called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) captured the city of Mosul. By mid-July, they issued an edict to the Christians who remained to “convert, leave or be killed.” The White House said nothing.

Beginning on July 22, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., took to the House floor six times to plead for attention from the Obama administration as a genocide threatened Iraq. Not a word from the president.

On July 24, a resolution sponsored by Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., “condemning the severe persecution (of) Christians and other ethnic and religious minority communities … in Iraq” was introduced on the floor of the House. It called for the administration to “develop and implement an immediate, coordinated and sustained humanitarian intervention.” Crickets.

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6. Many of you may have already read Matt Walsh’s take on the Robin Williams suicide. He’s taken a lot of flack for his comments. If you haven’t read it, here it is.

From TheMattWalshBlog  “The death of Robin Williams is significant not because he was famous, but because he was human, and not just because he left this world, but particularly because he apparently chose to leave it. Suicide.”

“It’s a tragic choice, truly, but it is a choice, and we have to remember that. Your suicide doesn’t happen to you; it doesn’t attack you like cancer or descend upon you like a tornado. It is a decision made by an individual. A bad decision. Always a bad decision.

And that’s why I felt compelled to say something here. There are important truths we can take from the suicide of a rich and powerful man, yet I’m worried that we are too afraid to tackle the subject, or too blind to tackle it with any depth, so we only perpetuate the problem. But worse than the glossing over of suicide is the fact that we seem to approach it with an attitude that nearly resembles admiration.”

Over at The Federalist Bill McMorris agrees, and thinks this might be an opportunity to revive the stigma.

From TheFederalist  “Robin Williams is dead. It is a tragedy. The greater tragedy is that he committed suicide. The greatest tragedy is that we can’t talk about it, not honestly. When Christian blogger Matt Walsh attempted to do so, the purveyors of moral preening, both Right and Left, came out of the woodwork to exercise their lungs and position themselves as righteous. Their case amounted to this: how dare he suggest that eliminating the stigma of suicide isn’t the best suicide prevention technique.

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by

News/Politics 8-14-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Here comes more overreach.

From NationalReview  “Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) called for Americans to pressure their senators about voting against President Obama’s expected executive orders on immigration, which he described as a “chilling” plot with activists to undermine national laws.

“Recent developments suggest the president’s planned executive amnesty could be increasingly imminent and broad in scope. House Democrat Leader Pelosi — clearly one of the White House’s closest allies — has just urged the president to issue ‘the broadest possible’ executive actions,” Sessions said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Open-borders groups have grown bolder and louder in their unlawful demands, launching a campaign for the president to ‘go big,’ and demanding that he ‘stand up’ to Congress and ‘expand DACA,’” he added, citing an Associated Press report that administration officials were meeting with immigration activists and the Chamber of Commerce.

“It is chilling to consider now that these groups, frustrated in their aims by our Constitutional system of government, are plotting with the Obama administration to collect their spoils through executive fiat,” he said.”

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2. On a related note….

From TheHill  “The Obama administration is preparing the nation’s schools to accept thousands of new students who illegally crossed the southwest border and are now awaiting trials on their possible deportations.”

“It says all children in the United States “are entitled to equal access to a public elementary and secondary education, regardless of their or their parents’ actual or perceived national origin, citizenship, or immigration status.”

The prospect of tens of thousands of children mostly from Central American countries attending school as they wait for their immigration status to be decided has the potential to be explosive after this summer’s emotional public debate about the border.”

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3. Is California about to try to force two Catholic universities to pay for abortion coverage, even after giving them approval to eliminate such coverage?

From TheSFGate  “California has some of the nation’s strongest protections for abortion rights. But the recent decisions by two Catholic universities, Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount, to eliminate most abortion insurance coverage for their employees were cleared in advance by state agencies.

Now Gov. Jerry Brown‘s administration is taking another look.

The state Department of Managed Health Care is conducting “an in-depth analysis of the issues surrounding coverage for abortion services under California law,” said Marta Green, the department’s chief deputy director.

What the department is reconsidering, as first reported by California Lawyer magazine, is whether the universities are violating a 1975 state law that requires managed health plans to cover all “medically necessary” procedures. Until the current controversy arose, insurers in California had treated all abortions sought by women in their health plans as medically necessary.”

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4. Things continue to simmer in Ferguson, Missouri. Actions like these by police won’t help the public”s perception that the police are out of control and regularly harass people.

From STLToday  “Wesley Lowery, a reporter with the Washington Post, was arrested Wednesday evening along with Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post, Lowery relayed on Twitter.

He wrote that police came into the McDonald’s on West Florissant Road where the two were working, and tried “to kick everyone out.”

“Officers decided we weren’t leaving McDonalds quickly enough, shouldn’t have been taping them,” he tweeted.

“Officers slammed me into a fountain soda machine because I was confused about which door they were asking me to walk out of,” he wrote. He said that he was detained, booked, “given answers to no questions. Then just let out.”””

STL Today has been on this story from the start and offer a lot of details and a timeline of events.  I recommend it.

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5. Finally some good news out of Iraq.

From StarsAndStripes  “In a dusty camp here, Iraqi refugees have new heroes: Syrian Kurdish fighters who battled militants to carve out an escape route for tens of thousands trapped on a mountaintop.

While the U.S. and Iraqi militaries struggle to aid the starving members of Iraq’s Yazidi minority with supply drops from the air, the Syrian Kurds took it on themselves to rescue them. The move underlined how they – like Iraqi Kurds – are using the region’s conflicts to establish their own rule.

For the past few days, fighters have been rescuing Yazidis from the mountain, transporting them into Syrian territory to give them first aid, food and water, and returning some to Iraq via a pontoon bridge.“

““The (Kurdish fighters) opened a path for us. If they had not, we would still be stranded on the mountain,” said Ismail Rashu, 22, in the Newroz camp in the Syrian Kurdish town of Malikiya some 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the Iraqi border. Families had filled the battered, dusty tents here and new arrivals sat in the shade of rocks, sleeping on blue plastic sheets. Camp officials estimated that at least 2,000 families sought shelter there on Sunday evening.“

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by

News/Politics 8-13-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. For those wondering how this thing with ISIS got so out of hand, a little background.

From CNSNews  “The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS,) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was formerly held by the U.S. military at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq from 2005 to his release in 2009.

Why such a dangerous man was slated for release in 2009, or who made the decision is not known. The Telegraph offers that “one possible explanation is that he was one of thousands of suspected insurgents granted amnesty as the US began its draw down in Iraq.”

In 2010, shortly after his release, al-Baghdadi was announced as a new al-Qaeda leader. When bin Laden was killed in 2011, Baghdadi pledged to revenge his death “with 100 terrorist attacks across Iraq” – but with al Qaeda leaders dropping like flies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, no one took him seriously.”

Read the rest, and much more background on it’s leader at the link.

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2. Releasing him was the first mistake. Underestimating him was the second.

From TheWeeklyStandard  “On June 29, 2011, John Brennan, who was then a senior adviser to the president and is currently the CIA director, explained the Obama administration’s counterterrorism strategy.  

“Our strategy is…shaped by a deeper understanding of al Qaeda’s goals, strategy, and tactics,” Brennan claimed. “I’m not talking about al Qaeda’s grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen. We are not going to elevate these thugs and their murderous aspirations into something larger than they are.””

“Three years later to the day, on June 29, 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) announced that it now ruled large swaths of Iraq and Syria as a caliphate.”

The Obama strategy is to ignore the obvious. Clueless seems an apt description.

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3. In case you’re wondering why the Obama admin has stopped touting their “8 million enrollee ObamaCare success story,” here’s why.

From InvestorsBusinessDaily  “ObamaCare exchange statistics should clear up any doubt as to why the Obama Administration has been tight-lipped about enrollment since celebrating 8 million sign-ups in mid-April.

Reality, evidence suggests, could require quite a come-down from those lofty claims.

The nation’s third-largest health insurer had 720,000 people sign up for exchange coverage as of May 20, a spokesman confirmed to IBD. At the end of June, it had fewer than 600,000 paying customers. Aetna expects that to fall to “just over 500,000” by the end of the year.

That would leave Aetna’s paid enrollment down as much as 30% from that May sign-up tally.”

Yeah…..

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4. Operation Choke Point continues to rack up victims among legitimate businesses.

From TheDailySignal  “With no explanation, Brian Brookman last month lost the bank account for his pawn shop.

He had no idea why. Brookman says his store in Grand Haven, Mich., never had been in trouble with federal or state officials. And being in the pawn industry, he was required by law to get a city license every year.”

“After researching his case on the Internet, Brookman says he concluded that his banker, JP Morgan Chase, closed the account because two of his business activities — dealing in vintage coins and selling firearms — were labeled “high risk” by federal bureaucrats as part of an Obama administration initiative called Operation Choke Point.

Critics say Operation Choke Point, so dubbed by Department of Justice officials, seeks to weed out businesses that the White House considers objectionable.

The Justice Department contends the goal of the program is to combat unlawful mass-market consumer fraud, although recent evidence suggests otherwise.”

This operation is punishing business owners who’ve done nothing wrong, and who’ve broken no laws. Read the rest. It should frighten all business owners when the govt abuses it’s power like this.

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by

News/Politics 8-12-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The intelligence community has decided to push back against Obama’s attempts to throw them under the bus for the situation in Iraq.

From TheHill  “The U.S. intelligence community Monday pushed back at reports that the White House was not warned about the growing strength of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) ahead of the group’s recent offensive.

“The job of the Intelligence Community is to warn. We did that,” said a U.S. intelligence official. “In short, this was not U.S. intelligence failure. It was an Iraqi military failure.”

“U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal in a report published Monday that American intelligence agencies “often have underestimated the group’s ability to make rapid operational gains.” 

An intelligence official, though, pushed back against that characterization, saying that analysts have been closely tracking ISIS and its predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq, for years. 

“Throughout the past year, the Intelligence Community has repeatedly warned that ISIL was on the march, gaining strength and picking up growing Sunni support, while the Iraqi Security Forces looked vulnerable,” the official said, using ISIS’s alternative name, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.”

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2. Obama also now says it wasn’t his decision.

From NationalReview  “President Obama refused to take responsibility for the lack of U.S. troops in Iraq, saying that American soldiers had to pull out due to political pressure from Iraqi leaders.

“This issue keeps on coming up as if this was my decision,” Obama retorted when asked if he had any second thoughts, in light of the terrorist force taking over regions of Iraq, about having pulled all American troops out of the country. “The reason that we did not have a follow-on force in Iraq was because a majority of Iraqis did not want U.S. troops there and politically they could not pass the kind of laws that would be required to protect our troops in Iraq,” he said.

A report in The New Yorker showed how President Obama failed to secure the status of forces agreement necessary to leave the troops in place after 2011.”

“When Obama announced the withdrawal, he portrayed it as the culmination of his own strategy.

“After taking office, I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all of our troops by the end of 2011,” he said. “So today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.”

That’s funny, considering how many times he’s taken credit for it in the past.

Yeah…..

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3. Rioting continued last night in Ferguson, Missouri.

From TheAP  ” Police in riot gear fired tear gas to try to disperse a crowd in a St. Louis suburb where an unarmed black teenager had been fatally shot by a police officer over the weekend.

Between two nights of unrest, a community forum hosted by the local NAACP chapter Monday drew hundreds to a sweltering church in Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot multiple times.”

“Authorities used tear gas and rubber bullets Monday night to try to disperse a crowd at the site of a burned-out convenience store damaged a night earlier, when many businesses were looted. Police said at least five people were arrested.”

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4. Holder has announced a federal investigation into the shooting which set off the riots.

From TheHill  “The Justice Department has launched a federal investigation into the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teenager in a St. Louis suburb over the weekend, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday.

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will participate in the probe, along with FBI agents from the St. Louis field office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Holder said.

“The shooting incident in Ferguson, Missouri, this weekend deserves a fulsome review,” Holder said.

“At every step, we will work with the local investigators, who should be prepared to complete a thorough, fair investigation in their own right. I will continue to receive regular updates on this matter in the coming days.””

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5. And Anonymous is getting in on the act and promising retaliation against Ferguson’s websites.

From KSDK.com  “Thousands of threats have been made against the Ferguson Police Department and the city council, and the hacker group Anonymous allegedly took down the city’s internet and phone capabilities.

According to Captain Rick Henke of the Ferguson Police Department, calls have flooded the police station and city hall, with threats being made against the department and city council. No one has specifically been threatened, he said.

The police department conducted morning roll call to inform officers of these latest developments.”

“Henke said the city’s website had been down for several hours. The police and fire department email system was disrupted as well.”

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by

News/Politics 8-11-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. As if they didn’t have enough problems, it looks like a coup is underway in Iraq.

From HotAir  “This was popped up in the headlines, and details are still sketchy, but something potentially big is afoot in Iraq. (And for once, we’re not talking about their being under attack by ISIS.) We were first tipped off on Twitter as well as a quick draw compilation of tweets from inside Iraq provided at Pundit Press. Here are a few, along with Pundit Press’s summary, keeping in mind that this isn’t confirmed yet:

Iraq’s parliament just chose a new President who refused to rename Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki to a third term. Maliki declared the move unconstitutional and his own State of Law Party pulled support from him. Now his forces are seizing government buildings in Iraq, have closed the airport, and are surrounding the Green Zone.

His speech refusing to step down occurred at midnight and was followed by the military action.”

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2. Gee, who didn’t see this coming….

From NationalReview  “he Department of Justice does not have receipts for more than half of the unaccompanied alien children apprehended at the southwest border by Border Patrol since the start of fiscal year 2013, government records show.  

U.S. Customs and Border Protection data show more than 85,000 total apprehensions of unaccompanied alien children during fiscal year 2013 and fiscal year 2014 through June. Information from the same time period provided to National Review Online by the DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review shows 41,592 total receipts marked as juvenile in immigration courts. Kathryn Mattingly, spokesperson for EOIR, tells NRO the receipts refer to new Notices to Appear (NTA) — the document the Department of Homeland Security uses to charge an illegal immigrant with being removable from the United States.

EOIR has recorded 20,814 receipts marked as juvenile in fiscal year 2014 as of June 30, but Border Patrol recorded 57,525 apprehensions of unaccompanied alien children during the same time frame. This means immigration courts have receipts for fewer than four out of every ten unaccompanied alien children apprehended by Border Patrol this fiscal year. Mattingly said EOIR stands behind the numbers of receipts it has recorded, but would not speak about the difference between the number of juvenile receipts and CBP’s apprehension data.”

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3. Meanwhile border agents say they’ve been handcuffed at every turn.

From FoxNews  “The vice president for the National Border Patrol Council criticized Washington Friday for restricting agents’ actions over the last two decades, saying they were “handcuffed at every turn.”

Shawn Moran’s remarks came amid growing outrage over the recent murder of off-duty agent Javier Vega Jr.

Moran, appearing on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” slammed the U.S. government for gutting enforcement actions by the Border Patrol in the midst of an immigration crisis.

Moran detailed how Border Patrol actions have been restricted over the last 15 to 20 years, saying agents are “handcuffed at every single turn.””

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4.  Stop me if you’ve heard this one before….

From NationalReview  “The revelation that Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Marilynn Tavenner did not retain her e-mails means that more than 20 witness in the Obama administration to lose or delete e-mails without notifying Congress, according to the top House investigator.

“The Obama administration has lost or destroyed e-mails for more than 20 witnesses, and in each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said of Tavenner’s lost e-mails.

“It defies logic that so many senior Administration officials were found to have ignored federal recordkeeping requirements only after Congress asked to see their e-mails,” he continued. “Just this week, my staff followed up with HHS, who has failed to comply with a subpoena from ten months ago. Even at that point, the administration did not inform us that there was a problem with Ms. Tavenner’s e-mail history. Yet again, we discover that this administration will not be forthright with the American people unless cornered.””

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5. This seems to be a preferred tactic with this administration.

From FoxNews  “A key ObamaCare official involved in the rocky rollout of Healthcare.gov likely deleted some of her emails that are now being sought as part of an investigation into the problems by a House committee, Fox News confirmed Thursday.

The Department of Health and Human Services informed House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa in a letter Thursday that some of the emails belonging to Marilyn Tavenner, who leads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, may not be “retrievable.”

The missing emails belonging to Tavenner, whose agency runs the ObamaCare exchanges, were first reported by msnbc.com.

Issa, whose committee is also dealing with a missing email problem in its probe into the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups, said it “defies logic” that multiple Obama administration officials are “ignoring” federal rules on records-keeping.”

And they’ll keep using this tactic until you do something about it Mr. Issa.

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6. Here we go again….

From TheState  “The fatal shooting of a black teenager by police sent hundreds of angry residents out of their apartments Saturday in a St. Louis suburb, igniting shouts of “kill the police” during a confrontation that lasted several hours.

A St. Louis County chapter of the NAACP called for the FBI to look into the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, a predominantly black suburb a few miles north of downtown St. Louis.”

“By early Saturday night, dozens of police cars remained parked near the shooting scene as mourners left votive candles, rose petals, a large stuffed animal and other remembrances at a makeshift memorial in the middle of the street. At the height of the post-shooting tensions, police at the scene called for about 60 other police units to respond to the area in Ferguson, a city of about 21,000 residents, about two-thirds of whom are black.”

And then things went downhill quickly. There were reports of rioting, looting, and even attacking off duty police officers in their homes, leading to shoot outs.

Pics and videos here, from WeaselZippers 

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News/Politics 8-7-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The suspects in the murder of an off duty border patrol agent had been arrested and deported numerous times prior.  This is yet another reason why securing the border is necessary.

From FoxNews  “Two illegal immigrants from Mexico who were charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent in front of his family in Texas have been arrested and deported numerous times, police sources told FoxNews.com.

One suspect has been arrested no fewer than four times for entering the U.S. illegally, according to federal court records. The other has been deported twice after entering the U.S. illegally, sources said.

Gustavo Tijerina, 30, and Ismael Hernandez, 40, were arraigned Tuesday afternoon inside the Willacy County jail library. They were ordered held without bail after being charged with capital murder of a peace officer, attempted murder, and a variety of lesser charges.”

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2. Show you’re economic patriotism!

Or maybe we could just change the high tax laws so they have no incentive to leave. But that won’t happen with tax loving Democrats in charge.

From TheHill  “A trio of Senate Democrats is urging President Obama to use his executive powers to crack down on companies that shift operations abroad to avoid a U.S. tax bill.

Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Jack Reed (R.I.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) told Obama in a letter Tuesday that he should do all he can to discourage “inversions,” in which companies that do work in the United States shift their headquarters elsewhere to avoid U.S. tax rates. While Democrats are prepping legislation to crack down on the growing practice, they called on the president to act now.

“Corporations that renounce their U.S. corporate citizenship should not be able to reap all the benefits that American tax dollars provide,” they wrote. “We urge you to use your authority to stand up for American companies which are proud to be part of our nation and reduce U.S. incentives for others corporations which would abandon their responsibilities to their country for a nod of approval from Wall Street.”

The senators warned that 47 corporations have inverted operations in the last decade, with over a dozen more announcing plans to do the same. If the government does not act soon, the U.S. could lose billions of dollars in tax revenue from companies that enjoy perks provided here, they cautioned.”

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3. Journolist 2.0 – How liberal media stays unified and makes sure everyone is using the same Democrat talking points.

From EAGNews  “A prominent CNN commentator, the top two political reporters for The Huffington Post, a Reuters reporter, the editor of The Nation magazine, a producer for Al Jazeera America television, a U.S. News & World Report columnist, and approximately two dozen Huffington Post contributors are among the more than 1,000 members of Gamechanger Salon.

Founded by leftwing activist Billy Wimsatt, the group is a secretive digital gathering of writers, opinion leaders, activists and political hands who share information, ideas and strategy via a closed Google group.

The group’s existence was discovered by Media Trackers through an open records request filed with a University of Wisconsin professor who happened to be a member of the network. Sally Kohn, formerly a Fox News contributor, now works for CNN reliably echoing pro-Obama Administration talking points and championing leftwing ideas as a network commentator. Kohn is also a member of Gamechanger Salon, and e-mails show that she occasionally approached the group’s membership and asked them to promote her television appearances.”

“Amanda Terkel, the “Senior Political Reporter and Politics Managing Editor at The Huffington Post,” is a member of Gamechanger Salon along with The Huffington Post’s Washington bureau chief, Ryan Grim.

In mid-July, Terkel and Grim jointly wrote a piece about a leftwing effort to push Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) to run for president. The pair of reporters heavily quoted Erica Sagrans, a fellow member of Gamechanger Salon and leading organizer of the “Ready For Warren” effort, and cited Billy Wimsatt’s support for the project. Wimsatt’s work as founder of Gamechanger Salon and the reporters’ own membership in the group, along with Sagrans’ membership, went unreported.”
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4. Further evidence of Hamas’ tactics of using schools, hospitals, and churches to launch their attacks on Israel.

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5. Personally I don’t see how this would appeal to western women, but I guess some must have fallen for it.

From TheDailyBeast  “The self-proclaimed Islamic State, formerly known by the acronym ISIS, is actively recruiting Western women and girls. And in the process this “caliphate” that now occupies large swathes of Syria and Iraq is showing, once again, that it’s almost as shrewd with social media as it is ruthless on the battlefield.

The tweets and blogs apparently are written by Western women married to jihadi warriors. They aim to persuade would-be “sisters” in Europe and the United States to travel to the Middle East to help this al-Qaeda spinoff build its extremist vision of an Islamic society. 

Potential caliph-ettes (as one is tempted to call them) are told their main contribution to the Islamic revolution will be through matrimony, not martyrdom; child-bearing, not gun-toting. One blogger called “Bird of Jannah” purrs: “Women are not equal to men. It can never be. Men are the leaders & women are [so] special that Allah has given them entire chapter in the Qur’an.”

The propaganda usually eschews the gore and barbaric images often included in the general fare of jihadist online posts, such as the beheadings last month of dozens of Syrian army soldiers after a base was overrun in the northern Syrian province of Raqqa.”

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News/Politics 8-5-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Wow. Who didn’t see this coming? 🙄

From NationalReview  “The Department of Justice has begun ushering unaccompanied alien children to the front of the line for immigration court proceedings — but the children still fail to appear in court.

In one day at a Los Angeles immigration court last week, Judge Ashley Tabaddor heard the cases of nearly 40 illegal immigrant minors, but none of the children appeared in court, according to the Los Angeles Times. In each case, the illegal immigrant minor was thought to have settled elsewhere, and the judge reportedly decided not to deport the children in absentia. Instead, Tabaddor — who declined to speak with National Review Online, citing Justice Department policy — reportedly issued change-of-venue orders in each case.

Only after the Department of Health and Human Services notifies ICE that the unaccompanied juvenile has been placed with a sponsor, or 60 days elapse, will ICE attorneys file immigration-court proceedings for unaccompanied alien children, an ICE spokeswoman tells National Review Online. “We want these youths, these children, to have access to due process, but we’re also encountering issues where when we were filing the cases immediately, most of the children were being relocated or placed in locations outside of the jurisdiction where they were originally sheltered,” says Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for ICE. “So it was resulting in a significant number of venue changes.”

“Judge Tue Phan, a former immigration judge in San Francisco who retired in 2012 and is running for Congress as a Republican, says the venue changes allow the unaccompanied alien children the opportunity to avoid detection. “If you transfer a case to New York, and it’s China, people from China, then they disappear forever,” Phan says. “Then you will see a notice to appear, the children will not appear. There will be a motion to reopen [a] few years down the road.” Phan says the motion to reopen will be granted because the children will claim to lack control over their fate and seek to attach themselves to an “uncle,” who will often not be related by blood. This process contributes to the large immigration-court backlog, he says.”

You had to know when Obama said most would be returned to their country of origin that he was lying.

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2. I’m sure the press will love this. Only approved propaganda will get top ratings.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The FBI is hiring a contractor to grade news stories about the agency as “positive” “neutral” or “negative,” but the agency won’t say why officials need the information or what they plan to do with it.

FBI officials wouldn’t even reveal how they will go about assigning the grades, which were laid out in a recent contract solicitation. The contract tells potential bidders to “use their judgment” in scoring news coverage as part of a new “daily news briefing” service the agency is seeking as part of a contract that could last up to five years.

In a statement of work, the agency says its public affairs office needs a contractor to help monitor “breaking news, editorials, long-form journalism projects and the larger public conversation about law enforcement.”

But the lack of clear public methods and goals raises “troubling questions,” said Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University.”

Yet another reason they dispensed with those pesky propaganda rules, huh?

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3. Gee, I wonder what rating this story would get from Yet another unprecedented achievement by the Obama admin.

From HotAir  “Since day one, the Obama administration has enjoyed patting itself on the back for sundry “unprecedented” actions and ambitions — even as they often fail to follow through on said unprecedented-ness, and even though that word more often applies to them within a pejorative context.  Behold, another unprecedented ‘achievement:’

The total federal debt of the U.S. government has now increased more than $7 trillion during the slightly more than five and a half years Barack Obama has been president. That is more than the debt increased under all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton combined, and it is more debt than was accumulated in the first 227 years of this nation’s existence–from 1776 through 2003. The total federal debt first passed the $7-trillion mark on Jan. 15, 2004, after President George W. Bush had been in office almost three years.

By the numbers:

When President Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the total federal debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08. As of the close of business on July 30, 2014, it had risen to $17,618,599,653,160.19–up $6,991,722,604,247.11 from Obama’s first inauguration day. By the close of business on July 31, 2014, it had risen to $17,687,136,723,410.59—up $7,060,259,674,497.51 since Obama first inauguration day. As of June, there were 115,097,000 households in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The $17,687,136,723,410.59 in debt the federal government had accumulated as of the end of July equaled $153,671.57 per household. The $7,060,259,674,497.51 in new debt that the federal government has taken on during Obama’s presidency equals $61,341.82 per household.

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News/Politics 8-4-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. This should be interesting. Now maybe Congress can see what they’ve been hiding. Pretty sad that a private group had to do their job for them though.

From TownHall  “Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit pursued against the Department of Justice by government watchdog Judicial Watch, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled a list of documents being withheld from Congress under President Obama’s claim of executive privilege must be turned over. Obama made the claim on the same day Attorney General Eric Holder was voted in criminal and civil contempt of Congress in June 2012.

“This order forces the Obama DOJ, for the first time, to provide a detailed listing of all documents that it has withheld from Congress and the American people for years about the deadly Fast and Furious gun running scandal,” Judicial Watch released in a statement.”

“The documentation DOJ is required to now turn over is a “Vaughn index” of “all requested Fast and Furious materials from a June 2012 Judicial Watch FOIA request.” 

““Once again, Judicial Watch has beat Congress to the punch in getting key information about another Obama scandal – this time, the Fast and Furious outrage,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “A federal court has ordered the Obama administration to produce information that could, for the first time, provide specific details who in the administration is responsible for Fast and Furious lies to Congress and the American people. This is a battle that put Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, saw Nixonian assertions of executive privilege by Barack Obama, and a hapless Congress in face of all this lawlessness. Finally, we may get some accountability for Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the countless others murdered as a result of the insanely reckless Obama administration program.””

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2. Is the IRS planning a crack down on churches and pastors? Yes, but I’m sure it will only be conservative ones.

From TheBlaze  “The Internal Revenue Service has settled a lawsuit brought by a secular activist group, reportedly agreeing to adopt standards for determining and investigating whether churches and religious organizations have violated restrictions on political activity.

The precise terms of the settlement are still unclear, as is how the IRS will amend its policies to enforce tax law on churches in a way that is palatable to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has long decried “rogue political churches.”

The IRS and the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a joint motion for dismissal July 17, though the court has not officially closed the case, according to Christianity Today.”

““FFRF was asking that the Johnson Amendment be enforced against churches. The IRS has been enforcing the Johnson Amendment against churches since it was passed by Congress in 1954,” Erik Stanley, an attorney at Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal firm, told TheBlaze. “The agency took a brief break from enforcing the law against churches in 2009 after its procedures for auditing churches was declared unlawful by a federal district court in Minnesota.””

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3. The CIA head is taking fire for snooping on the Senate. Even some Dems are calling for his resignation.

From Politico  “Two Democratic senators demanded that Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan resign on Thursday after revelations that the CIA snooped on Senate computers.

Administration officials briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee’s membership on Thursday afternoon about an inspector general report that revealed CIA officials improperly accessed computers used by Senate staffers to research a 6,700-page report on the agency’s Bush-era interrogation and detention practices.

And while Brennan called Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to apologize for the CIA’s actions, that mea culpa wasn’t enough for Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), a civil libertarian locked in a difficult reelection campaign against GOP Rep. Cory Gardner, and freshman Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).”

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4. The Army is forcing out 550 Majors. Some will again be notified while serving in combat. Nice way to thank them for their service.

From FoxNews  “About 550 Army majors, including some serving in Afghanistan, will soon be told they have to leave the service by next spring as part of a budget-driven downsizing of the service.

Gen. John Campbell, the vice chief of the Army, acknowledged Friday that telling troops in a war zone that they’re out of a job is a difficult task. But he said some of the soldiers could join the National Guard or the Army Reserve.

The decision to cut Army majors comes on the heels of a move to slash nearly 1,200 captains from the ranks. Army leaders were criticized at the time for giving 48 of them the bad news while they were deployed to Afghanistan.

The Army declined to say how many majors will be notified while they are at the battlefront.”

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5. Something to keep in mind next time you hear a story on the Israeli bombing supposed hospitals and schools. Things aren’t always what the press would like you to believe.

From IsraelNationalNews  “New details have emerged about the booby-trapped clinic explosion that killed three IDF Maglan unit soldiers in Gaza earlier this week – Sergeant First Class Matan Gottlieb, 21, from Rishon LeZion; Sergeant First Class Omar Chai, 21, from Savion; and Sergeant First Class Guy Algranati, 20, of Tel Aviv, hy”d. 

Over eighty kilograms of explosives were built into the UN-funded hospital’s walls themselves, it was cleared for publication Thursday – revealing that the clinic itself was built to mask, and perform, potential acts of terror on the IDF. 

Moreover, the clinic was built over tens of terror tunnels, according to the report. 

The UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) has yet to respond to the revelations, and has still not responded to the deaths of the Israeli soldiers Wednesday.”

Of course they didn’t. They’re already aware though, because this couldn’t happen without them knowing it.

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News/Politics 7-31-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Revolt?

From TheWashingtonPost  “Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), an influential tea party leader, will meet with a group of House Republicans Wednesday to urge them to oppose House Speaker John A. Boehner’s plan to stem the flow of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to several House members who plan to attend the 7 p.m. gathering at Cruz’s office.

Cruz’s huddle is the latest example of the combative freshman senator wading into House affairs and serving as an informal whip against the leadership’s immigration position. It is also a direct shot at Boehner’s effort to pass his legislative package, hours before the bill is scheduled to come to the House floor on Thursday.

On Friday, the House adjourns for a five-week recess, leaving Boehner little time to cobble together the votes necessary to pass his proposal. “I think there is sufficient support in the House,” Boehner (R-Ohio) said after a meeting of the House Republican Conference on Tuesday. But he added, “We have a little more work to do.””

The other side too?

From TheHill  “Democratic senators facing tough reelections want to put the brakes on President Obama’s plan to reform the nation’s immigration enforcement system through executive action.

Two of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents, Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), say Obama should not act unilaterally to reduce deportations, arguing it’s Congress’s job to change the law.

Slowing or halting deportations of otherwise law-abiding residents who came to the country illegally could produce a backlash in red states where Obama has low approval numbers. Furthermore, the crisis at the southern U.S. border complicates any move to ease deportation laws.”

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2. LANGUAGE WARNING!!!!

Lois seems to really hate conservatives, which is surprising since the IRS is so non-partisan and all. 🙄

From TheBlaze  “New emails uncovered by the House Ways and Means Committee indicate that former IRS employee Lois Lerner has a strong dislike of some conservatives, and at one point called them “&%@&%@%$” in an email exchange.

The committee released an email Lerner received in November 2012 complaining about the “whacko wing of the GOP.” The person mocked conservatives for believing there are “too many foreigners sucking the teat” and that it is “time to hunker down, buy ammo and food, and prepare for the end.” The person added that the “right wing radio shows are scary to listen to.””

“Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said this exchange shows the has a “deep animus towards conservatives,” which may have explained her efforts to target conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

“This email shows that Ms. Lerner’s mistreatment of conservative groups was driven by her personal hostility toward conservatives,” Camp wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. ”This new evidence clearly demonstrates why Ms. Lerner not only targeted conservatives, but denied such groups their rights to due process and equal protection under the law.””

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3. The House has voted to proceed with a lawsuit against the President.

From TheWashingtonPost  “House Republicans voted to proceed with a lawsuit against President Obama on Wednesday, saying that his executive actions are so extreme that they violate the Constitution.

The nearly party-line vote — all Democrats voted against it, and all but five Republicans voted for it — further agitated an already polarized climate on Capitol Hill as both parties used the pending suit to try to rally support ahead of the November elections.

Halfway across the continent, Obama almost gloated at the prospect of being sued.

“They’re going to sue me for taking executive actions to help people. So they’re mad I’m doing my job,” Obama said in an economics speech in Kansas City, Mo. “And by the way, I’ve told them I’d be happy to do it with you. The only reason I’m doing it on my own is because you’re not doing anything,” he said of Congress.”

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4. 840 million and counting.

From NationalJournal  “The Obama administration has spent roughly $840 million on HealthCare.gov, including more than $150 million just in cost overruns for the version that failed so badly when it launched last year.

The Government Accountability Office says cost overruns went hand-in-hand with the management failures that led to the disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov and the 36 state insurance exchanges it serves.

 GAO’s report, prepared for a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Thursday, details a long series of management, oversight, and contracting problems that plagued the entire process, from risky contracting practices in 2011 through the botched launch last October.”

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5. Someone call Mikey Weinstein. He’s gonna wanna know about this. I’m sure he’ll attack it with the same ferocity he would if it were done for Christians. 🙄

From FoxNews  “The brigade commander sent an email to military personnel at the facility last month – just before the start of Ramadan – advising them to show respect to Muslim colleagues.”

“This is a period of great personal restraint and commitment in addition to renewed focus on worship,” Brigade Commander Col. Kevin Glasz wrote. “I’d like to encourage you to learn just a little more about this religion, but more importantly, I’m asking you to be considerate and do not consume food or drink in front of our Muslim colleagues; it is a simple, yet respectful action.”

“The brigade commander also provided a link to a website about Islam, and specifically Ramadan.”

““I respect the intention behind this email, but note that there is no similar call honoring other faiths,” one Marine told me. “There is no similar invitation for non-Jewish colleagues to refrain from eating leavened products during Passover, or non-Christian colleagues to refrain from eating meat during Lent.””

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