politics

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News/Politics 2-11-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The ObamaCare ruling may end civilization as we know it.

Or not.

From TheAmericanSpectator  “The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell three weeks from now, and the possibility that the justices might uphold the health care “reform” law as written has driven our liberal friends to the edge of lunacy. This is never a long journey for anyone on the left, of course, but they have arrived at the precipice with unusual alacrity this time. Their predictions about the outcome should the Court rule that “established by the state” actually means “established by the state” have gone from the merely portentous to the downright apocalyptic in only a few months.

When the Court agreed last November to hear this lawsuit, which challenges the IRS decision to ignore the text of the law and issue tax credits through federally created insurance exchanges, Obamacare advocates were clearly shocked. Still, they affected confidence that the plaintiffs had no prayer of prevailing. The justices, they said, would never rule against the government based on a “drafting error” in the statute. But when these people discovered that the typo argument was so thin that even the Obama administration had stopped using it, they began to show signs of alarm.

They started predicting that the Court would “cripple” Obamacare. But 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the law, so this didn’t exactly cause panic in streets. Next, they said that a ruling against the government could deprive many of taxpayer-funded insurance subsidies. The taxpayers were oddly unmoved. Now, they have resorted to claims so wild that even progressives will have trouble taking them seriously. Think Progress, for example, published a screed last week with the following title: “How King v. Burwell Threatens the Lives of Millions of Children.”

And DNC mouthpieces like Think Progress are by no means the only purveyors of such balderdash. The nominally independent Slate warns that “9,800 additional Americans will die each year” if the Court rules against the Obama administration. Even relatively respectable publications have joined this chorus. The Hill posted a story last Friday titled, “King v. Burwell will decide the Fate of Millions,” whose author solemnly warns that “the wrong outcome” would put “American lives in peril” and “erode some of the largest coverage expansions in decades.””

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2. Somehow I doubt this will calm ObamaCare’s left-leaning supporters.

From TheNYPost  “For five years, President Obama has ridiculed Republicans for not having “a meaningful alternative” to ObamaCare. The tables are turning.

Republicans announced a plan on Wednesday, just two weeks before the Supreme Court will hear a new, major challenge to the health law. If the president loses in court, he will have to deal with this GOP blueprint, not dismiss it.

The plan kills the major features of the Affordable Care Act, including mandates on individuals and employers, numerous taxes and the IPAB rationing board.

In their place, it offers tax credits for low-income citizens, more consumer choice, regulatory relief for employers and medical-malpractice reform to drive costs down.

Right now, it’s pie in the sky. Obama would veto it tomorrow.

But in a crisis, “the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable,” noted economist Milton Friedman. Whatever idea’s ready to go becomes the course of action.”

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3. Obama is putting forward his new authorization for military force against ISIS.

From BloombergView  “President Barack Obama will soon give Congress his proposal for a new authorization for the use of military force against Islamic State fighters, and it will place strict limits on the types of U.S. ground forces that can be deployed, according to congressional sources.

Almost six months after the president began using force against the Islamic State advance in Iraq and then in Syria, the White House is ready to ask Congress for formal permission to continue the effort. Until now, the administration has maintained it has enough authority to wage war through the 2001 AUMF on al-Qaeda, the 2002 AUMF regarding Iraq and Article II of the Constitution. But under pressure from Capitol Hill, the White House has now completed the text of a new authorization and could send it to lawmakers as early as Wednesday. 

If enacted, the president’s AUMF could effectively constrain the next president from waging a ground war against the Islamic State group until at least 2018. Aides warned that the White House may tweak the final details before releasing the document publicly. “

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4. How a family adoption trip led to a charge of criminal child neglect.

From MSNNews  “For three years, Jessica Smith’s son had been begging her for a little brother.

Then the orphanage in Mongolia that had given her Ziggy called to tell her that it had another young boy for her. At the time, Ziggy, whose given name is Zorigt, had just started second grade at a D.C. public school.

Smith had to make a decision. Should she and Ziggy fly to Ulaanbaatar and adopt the child they’d been seeking to make their family three? Or should she avoid the risk of too many classroom absences and give up on the child for which they had been longing and waiting?

The decision she made landed Smith in D.C. Superior Court last month on a charge of criminal child neglect. In a city battling a sky-high truancy rate, her story illustrates the absurd rigidity of the rules, which forbid excusing more than 10 absences without a doctor’s note, a court note or an emergency.”

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5. Anybody shocked? They keep insisting there’s nothing there, yet they keep hiding documents.

From TheHill  “The Obama administration is refusing to publicly release more than 500 documents on the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups.

Twenty months after the IRS scandal broke, there are still many unanswered questions about who was spearheading the agency’s scrutiny of conservative-leaning organizations. 

The Hill sought access to government documents that might provide a glimpse of the decision-making through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The Hill asked for 2013 emails and other correspondence between the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The request specifically sought emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and Treasury officials, including Secretary Jack Lew, while the inspector general was working on its explosive May 2013 report that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to review the political activities of tax-exempt groups.

TIGTA opted not to release any of the 512 documents covered by the request, citing various exemptions in the law. The Hill recently appealed the FOIA decision, but TIGTA denied the appeal. TIGTA also declined to comment for this article.”

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6. HA! Finally the proof I needed to justify my afternoon nap. 🙂

From TheDailyMail  “Indulging in a power nap can repair the damage caused by a lack of sleep, new research today claims.

Having a 30-minute snooze can help relieve stress and bolster the immune systems by restoring hormones and proteins to normal levels.

Scientists hope their findings will help shift workers and those suffering insomnia, by mitigating the damage caused by too few hours sleep.

Sleep deprivation not only puts people at increased risk of suffering accidents, but they are also more likely to develop chronic diseases including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and depression.  

Dr Brice Faraut, of the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité, said: ‘Our data suggests a 30-minute nap can reverse the hormonal impact of a night of poor sleep.”

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News/Politics 2-10-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. So they won’t meet with Israel’s leader, and refuse to attend his speech to Congress, but they’ll go to Germany to meet with his opposition……

From IsraelToday  “Is the Obama Administration interfering in Israel’s upcoming elections? Recent statements and moves by America’s leaders sure would seem to suggest so.

Last week, both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry announced they would not be in attendance when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of the US Senate dedicated to the threat of a nuclear Iran.

The White House has been furious with Netanyahu over the planned appearance, which Obama officials insist had breached protocol by being organized without their approval and involvement.

Just days after letting everyone know they wouldn’t be on hand to greet and listen to Netanyahu, both Biden and Kerry met with Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany on Saturday. And this just a month before Israel’s March 17 elections.”

“In Herzog’s own description to Channel 10 News, the episode represents “a complete boycott [of Netanyahu]. Even if that’s not stated, that’s the story.””

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2. So Bibi’s reaction is as you’d expect.

From FoxNews  “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will travel to Washington to speak before the U.S. Congress next month despite calls to cancel his speech.

His remarks Monday at an election rally come amid an uproar over his planned speech about Iran before Congress next month.

Netanyahu said: “A bad deal with Iran is forming in Munich that will endanger Israel’s existence. … Therefore I am determined to go to Washington and present Israel’s position before the members of Congress and the American people.””

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3. A little judicial defiance in Alabama. Good. Let’s see how the federal judge enforces his ruling, or if he even can.

From TheWashingtonPost  “On the day that same-sex unions became legal in Alabama, local officials in dozens of counties on Monday defied a federal judge’s decision and refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, casting the state into judicial chaos.

Gay couples were able to get licenses in about a dozen places, including Birmingham, Huntsville and a few other counties where probate judges complied with the judge’s decision. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled early Monday that it would deny Alabama’s request to put the marriages on hold.

But in the majority of counties, officials said they would refuse to license same-sex marriages or stop providing licenses altogether, confronting couples — gay and heterosexual — with locked doors and shuttered windows.

Many of the state’s 68 probate judges mounted their resistance to the federal decision at the urging of the firebrand chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore. He is best known for refusing more than a decade ago to comply with a court order to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from the state Supreme Court’s offices.”

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4. Justice Thomas is pretty ticked off about the way this is playing out.

From AP/MyWayNews  “The Supreme Court is inappropriately signaling it intends to clear the way for gay marriage across the nation, Justice Clarence Thomas complained Monday in a stinging dissent to the court’s refusal to block the start of same-sex marriages in Alabama.

Bitterly objecting to Monday’s action, Thomas provided a rare insider’s perspective on the widely held view that the court’s embrace of gay marriage is a done deal.

Thomas filed a dissenting opinion after his colleagues rejected Alabama’s plea to put a hold on same-sex marriages in the state until the Supreme Court resolves the issue nationwide in a few months.

He criticized his fellow justices for looking “the other way as yet another federal district judge casts aside state laws,” rather than following the customary course of leaving those laws in place until the court answers an important constitutional question.”

“”This acquiescence may well be seen as a signal of the court’s intended resolution of that question,” Thomas wrote in an opinion that was joined by Justice Antonin Scalia. “This is not the proper way” for the court to carry out its role under the Constitution, he wrote, “and, it is indecorous for this court to pretend that it is.””

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5. Welcome to the club Ben. Personally, I’d consider it an honor to make the list for the reasons he did. 🙂

From LegalInsurrection  “The Southern Poverty Law Center ceased long ago to be a neutral source of information.

As we have documented over the past years, SPLC has used the credibility it earned decades ago fighting the Klan to turn itself not only into a huge money-raising machine, but also to poison the political process:”

“Yesterday I noticed a name I was surprised to see on the list: Ben Carson, listed as “anti-LGBT.””

“If you read through the SPLC explanation, it boils down to Carson strongly supporting traditional marriage, and speaking in front of other groups that SPLC does not approve of.  The SPLC narrative is highly political.”

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by

News/Politics 2-9-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. It’s about time……

Now give their families the benefits they deserve.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The U.S. Army announced Friday that it will award the Purple Heart to the victims of the 2009 Fort Hood killings after years of pressure to designate the shooting as a terrorist attack.

Army Secretary John McHugh said presenting the Purple Heart to victims is “an appropriate recognition of their service and sacrifice.”

“The Purple Heart’s strict eligibility criteria had prevented us from awarding it to victims of the horrific attack at Fort Hood,” Mr. McHugh said in a Defense Department release. “Now that Congress has changed the criteria, we believe there is sufficient reason to allow these men and women to be awarded and recognized with either the Purple Heart or, in the case of civilians, the Defense of Freedom medal.”

Lawmakers have pushed for years for those injured or killed in the attack to receive the medal — as well as the accompanying lifelong medical and financial benefits — but only recently revised the definition of a terrorist attack to include Fort Hood in December’s annual defense policy bill.”

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2. The man gets Silver Star for bravery and now they’ve stripped it from him for questionable reasons.

From TheFreeBeacon  “Under heavy fire, Golsteyn, as Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post summarized this week, “ran about 150 meters to the trapped MRAP to retrieve a powerful 84mm Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, an anti-tank weapon. While moving under gunfire, he coordinated a medical evacuation for the wounded Afghan soldier and then opened fire with the Carl Gustav.”

Running through the open despite the fact that the Taliban had successfully pinned down the rest of his men, Golsteyn looked like he “was alone fighting 30 enemy fighters out in the poppy fields.” He then coordinated airstrikes from F/A-18 Hornets and a drone, silencing the enemy. The battle lasted four hours.

For his actions, Golsteyn was awarded the Silver Star, and was told that the medal would likely be upgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross (the Army’s equivalent of the Navy Cross, and second only to the Medal of Honor) after review by the Secretary of the Army. I can confirm that this was true because I was present at the ceremony where Golsteyn received his Silver Star, and personally overheard Lieutenant General John Mulholland, then the commander of the Army’s Special Operation’s Command, say that an upgrade was under consideration.

In fact, I know Golsteyn—now a major—well. I served alongside him in Marjah for months (though not on the 20th of February—I was among the thousands of Marines fighting elsewhere in the district that day) and can attest that he is one of the most courageous, dedicated, and honorable officers I encountered during my service in the military. He would give his life for the men he led without a moment’s thought—and he very nearly did, on several occasions. When we returned from our deployments and honors began to roll in for Golsteyn, I reflected that it is nice to see the good guys get recognized.

It didn’t last long. In 2011, shortly after a book by author and Marine Bing West came out that detailed Golsteyn’s heroism and quoted him making critical remarks about the American strategy in Afghanistan, I learned that the Army had launched a criminal investigation into his actions during the battle. (Again, full disclosure: I was also interviewed for that book, The Wrong War, and make a brief appearance in it.)

The investigation, apparently, had nothing to do with the acts of bravery that earned Golsteyn his medal. Instead, according to the Washington Post, which cited officials familiar with the case, it concerned “an undisclosed violation of the military’s rules of engagement in combat for killing a known enemy fighter and bomb maker.” The investigation stretched on for nearly two years, during which time the Army effectively put Golsteyn’s career on ice. In 2014, Golsteyn and his lawyer were informed that the investigation was finally complete. No charges were filed, but Golsteyn still wasn’t released from administrative limbo.”

Click the link for more on this miscarriage of justice.

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3. So in the warped view of the NY Times Chris Kyle is insane, but Bruce Jenner is heroic for sharing his self-mutilation on reality TV. And they wonder why readership is down.

From WeaselZippers  “An American war hero suffering from PTSD after serving several combat tours is smeared as “insane,” while Jenner is praised for turning his life into a freak show for TV ratings. I’ll never understand how these people think.”

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4. If you like your internet…. prepare to pay more now that the govt. plans on fixing it.

And again, you have to pass it before we can see what’s in it. Looks like the internet is getting an ObamaCare style remake.

From TheDailyCaller  “Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai on Friday raised the first of many criticisms to come about FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aggressive net neutrality plan distributed to commissioners Thursday, which Pai described as “President Obama’s 332-page plan to regulate the Internet.”

In a statement released Friday, Pai lamented the fact that the 332-page plan, which he tweeted a picture of himself holding next to a picture of Obama, won’t be released to the public until after the commission votes on its implementation later this month. 

“President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet. It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works,” Pai said. “The plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband… These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay.”

In his initial cursory overview of the plan, the commissioner said it would hinder broadband investment, slow network speed and expansion, limit outgrowth to rural areas of the country and reduce Internet service provider (ISP) competition.”

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5. High horses and bull puckey.

From HotAir  “If Barack Obama missed the incongruity of lecturing today’s Christians about their attachment to the Crusades and slavery while dismissing connections between Islam and ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other present threats from Islamist terror groups, he may have been the only one who did. Noah skewered it as “Voxplaining Islamist fundamentalism,” but it’s worse than that — and plenty of people noticed. The Washington Post reports on the blowback, with critics arguing that the President of the United States has more important tasks than finger-wagging about events from 600 or more years ago … like developing a national strategy to fight the threats in this century:”

“To further that point, author Brad Thor sent a link to this concise explanation of the context of the Crusades. If the President wanted to argue comparative religious development, says Jeff Dunetz, that might have been useful:

The President wasted what could have been a valuable lesson. If he had gone on to say, “Yes Christianity had done horrible things but it learned and evolved, and now Islam must do the same thing,” it would have been a brilliant and relevant lesson. Instead he seemed to excuse the violence by radical Muslims today because of the violence of Christians six to ten centuries ago. …

If the President had started with the Christian massacres and ended with saying, they moderated and now teach peace, and now Islam should do the same he would have made a magnificent point. Instead he made a political point that is being ridiculed on both sides of the aisle.”

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6. More global warming fraud.

With a Hat Tip to Cheryl and her husband.

From TheTelegraph  “When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.

Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.

This was only the latest of many examples of a practice long recognised by expert observers around the world – one that raises an ever larger question mark over the entire official surface-temperature record.”

“Following my last article, Homewood checked a swathe of other South American weather stations around the original three. In each case he found the same suspicious one-way “adjustments”. First these were made by the US government’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), which use the warming trends to estimate temperatures across the vast regions of the Earth where no measurements are taken. Yet these are the very records on which scientists and politicians rely for their belief in “global warming”.”

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News/Politics 2-6-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Islamic State selling, crucifying, burying children alive in Iraq: UN

From ZeeNews  “Iraqi boys aged under 18 are increasingly being used by the militant group as suicide bombers, bomb makers, informants or human shields to protect facilities against U.S.-led air strikes, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

“We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities,” committee expert Renate Winter told a news briefing. “The scope of the problem is huge.”

Children from the Yazidi sect or Christian communities, but also Shi`ites and Sunnis, have been victims, she said.

“We have had reports of children, especially children who are mentally challenged, who have been used as suicide bombers, most probably without them even understanding,” Winter told Reuters. “There was a video placed (online) that showed children at a very young age, approximately eight years of age and younger, to be trained already to become child soldiers.””

Monsters are real.

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2. If the Obama admin is looking for someone to arm, these would be the ones, although it’s a little late.

From Alarabiya  “Several Iraqi Christian armed forces will “soon” join the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in an attempt to regain control of their in the northern Ninveh Plain after they were seized by the militant group last year, a Christian lawmaker said Wednesday.

“The objective is to liberate their land in Nineveh Plain and to take charge of security in these areas afterward,” said Yaco Jacob, a Christian parliamentarian at the Kurdistan Parliament.

Jacob is member of the political bureau of the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), which is one of the country’s Christian political parties, with two deputies in the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad and two representatives in the Kurdistan parliament in Erbil.

The ADM has operated paramilitaries since the 1980s, when it allied with the Kurds to wage an insurgency against Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Christian force currently has 2,000 men who volunteered to fight ISIS.

Christian groups began rebuilding their armed forces in August 2014, a week after the Ninevah plain exodus, seen by some as the worse disaster to have ever affected the Iraqi Christians.”

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3. The president is coming after retirement accounts, and he has other middle class hurting proposals in his budget.

From MSN  “President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2016 budget was unveiled Monday to the American public, along with the Department of Treasury’s Greenbook, which provides further explanation and details of the proposals in the president’s budget.

In truth, the president’s budget is really more of a wish list than anything else, but it’s a good indication of where the administration is headed.

This year’s version of the budget includes a number of provisions targeting retirement accounts. That’s no surprise, as provisions aimed at retirement accounts have been a regular feature in budgets in recent years. What is a surprise, however, is how many proposals are targeting retirement accounts and how many new proposals there are. All told, this year’s budget features over a dozen provisions that, if they were to become law, could directly impact your retirement savings.”

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4. And there’s a college loan bomb hidden in his budget too.

From Politico  “In obscure data tables buried deep in its 2016 budget proposal, the Obama administration revealed this week that its student loan program had a $21.8 billion shortfall last year, apparently the largest ever recorded for any government credit program.

 The main cause of the shortfall was President Barack Obama’s recent efforts to provide relief for borrowers drowning in student debt, reforms that have already begun to reduce loan payments to the government. For more than two decades, budget analysts have recalculated the projected costs of about 120 credit programs every year, but they have never lowered their expectations of repayments this dramatically. The $21.8 billion revision—larger than the annual budget for NASA, or the Interior Department and EPA combined—will be tacked onto the federal deficit.

“Wow,” marveled Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “Whether or not it’s good policy to help borrowers with their payments, it’s obviously costly for taxpayers.”

The 40 million Americans with student loans are now saddled with more than $1.2 trillion in outstanding debt. And with higher education costs rising much faster than inflation, the already massive program has been growing at a spectacular clip; direct government loans alone increased 44 percent over the last two years despite an aura of austerity in Washington. The Obama administration has tried to ease the burden for some borrowers by reducing their payments to 10 percent of their income and forgiving their loans after 20 years; this year, the Education Department plans to make all borrowers eligible for that “pay-as-you-earn” relief.”

22 billion shortfall in just one year.

More here, from HotAir

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5. Some charities are refusing donations from Bill Clinton’s disgusting pal.

From TheDailyMail/Reuters  “Some charities that have received money from U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein said they are reviewing their relationships with him or will decline to accept any future gifts from him in the wake of recent allegations he forced an underage girl to have sex with Britain’s Prince Andrew and other powerful men.

Epstein, 62, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring an underage girl for prostitution and served a year in a Florida jail, has long burnished his reputation as a philanthropist through a series of foundations that he says have given millions of dollars to institutions ranging from Harvard University to a New York junior tennis league.

The allegations involving Epstein became a tabloid sensation on both sides of the Atlantic after lawyers for one of Epstein’s accusers made them in a court filing just over a month ago. It prompted strong denials from Prince Andrew and from prominent U.S. lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who was also accused of having sex with the girl.

The filing has also renewed questions about Epstein’s once close links to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, though there are no allegations of any wrongdoing by Clinton.

In interviews with Reuters, three recipients of Epstein’s money said they would accept no more gifts, at least while the recent allegations are under review. They are a cancer researcher at New York City’s Mount Sinai hospital who with colleagues received $50,000 in seed funding; a mentoring program for young Swedish businesswomen that got $30,000; and Ballet Palm Beach in Florida, which declined to say how much Epstein gave.”

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But at least one Rutgers professor thinks it’s no big deal. These people are sick.

From TheDailyCaller  “A Reuters exclusive published Monday explores the conundrum faced by nonprofits that have received money from Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier arrested and convicted for child prostitution.

But buried in the report is an insane statement from a Rutgers professor saying that he didn’t think he should return the money… because he didn’t think Epstein did anything all that bad.

Professor Robert Trivers told Reuters that Epstein was “a person of integrity who should be given credit for serving time in prison” and for settling civil lawsuits brought by underage girls. ”Did he get an easy deal? Did he buy himself a light sentence?” Trivers asks. “Well, yes, probably, compared to what you or I would get, but he did get locked up.”

But more to the point, Trivers didn’t see what the fuss was all about, since girls mature earlier nowadays. ”By the time they’re 14 or 15, they’re like grown women were 60 years ago, so I don’t see these acts as so heinous.””

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6. Hackers have infiltrated the system of the US’s  second largest insurer. Millions of people’s personal info has been breached.

From Cleveland/CBSLocal  “Health insurer Anthem said hackers infiltrated its computer network and gained access to a host of personal information for customers and employees, including CEO Joseph Swedish.

The nation’s second-largest health insurer said it was contacting customers affected by the “very sophisticated” cyberattack and was working to figure out how many people were affected.

The company said information the hackers gained access to included names, birthdates, email address, employment details, Social Security numbers, incomes and street addresses of people who are currently covered or have had coverage in the past.

CBS News reports hackers may have stolen up to 80 million records.”

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by

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 2-4-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. There’s a reason they call him “Dirty Harry.” But he isn’t the only dirty one here.

From ABCNews  “Officials overseeing a federal program that offers an immigration short-cut to wealthy foreign investors have ignored pointed warnings from federal agents and approved visas for some immigrants suspected of having committed fraud, money laundering, and even one applicant with alleged ties to a child porn website, an ABC News investigation has found. The shortcomings prompted concerns within the Department of Homeland Security that the boutique immigration program would be exploited by terrorists, according to internal documents obtained by ABC News.

“It is shocking,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican. “Particularly when you have F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies that are saying national security could be compromised or is being compromised — that’s enough for us to be concerned.”

Five different Homeland Security whistleblowers spoke with ABC News about a range of cases where visas were approved despite numerous red flags. They said objections were often ignored because the immigration program is so popular within the Obama Administration and with members of Congress from both parties. Known as the EB-5 visa program, foreigners who are willing to invest $500,000 in an American business can jump to the front of the line and obtain legal status to live in the U.S. for two years. If the investment is shown to create at least 10 jobs, the investors can receive a “Green Card” — permanent residency.”

“In 2013, then-Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was accused by political opponents of trying to prod federal officials to approve visas for investors in an electric vehicle start-up venture he ran. He denied that he sought undue influence. In 2014, questions about an EB-5 investment scheme in South Dakota became grist for political ads targeting then-U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rounds, who was attacked for his role in oversight of investment projects while he was governor. Rounds called the attacks political and “inaccurate” and “defamatory.”

Questions about the SLS Hotel project in Las Vegas first gained attention when an article in The Washington Times revealed that Homeland Security expedited the processing of investor visas after Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (D) and his staff began prodding the department to move faster. Reid aides said their push to eliminate longstanding bureaucratic hurdles with the program and was aimed at creating local jobs.”

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2. Anybody shocked? These folks deserve better.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “President Obama’s 2016 budget blueprint proposes rolling back a program that gives veterans the right to receive faster care outside of the long waitlists at the troubled Veterans Affairs medical system.

Obama signed the Veterans Choice Program into law in August following months of partisan wrangling on Capitol Hill that finally led to a compromise measure to overhaul the agency. The Veterans Choice Program was a key GOP provision in the deal.

Authored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the measure provides “choice” cards to veterans that can be used to obtain medical care at designated facilities outside of the VA system.

But Obama announced Monday he’ll send a legislative proposal to Congress that would allow the VA to raid the program’s funding, now set at $10 billion.”

“Democrats have pushed for additional money for the VA to pay for new hospitals and more doctors, but Republicans contend that waste and mismanagement are the primary problems facing the VA, and the Choice Program gives vets a chance to escape the dysfunction by allowing them to receive outside medical care.

Veterans groups were angered by the move to divert funding from the program, noting that Obama had touted the legislation to reform the VA in the months leading up to the November election and did not express opposition to the choice cards.”

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3. The legacy of debt interest.

From TheWallStJournal  “The U.S. has come a long way since the days of trillion-dollar deficits, just a few years ago. The White House projects 2016 will have the smallest budget deficit in eight years. Yet the budgetary impact of the debt that’s been accumulated–$18 trillion in total, $13 trillion of that owed to the public–will reassert itself.

Currently, the government’s interest costs are around $200 billion a year, a sum that’s low due to the era of low interest rates. Forecasters at the White House and Congressional Budget Office believe interest rates will gradually rise, and when that happens, the interest costs of the U.S. government are set to soar, from just over $200 billion to nearly $800 billion a year by decade’s end.”

“By 2021, the government will be spending more on interest than on all national defense. according to White House forecasts. And one year later, interest costs will exceed nondefense discretionary spending–essentially every other domestic and international government program funded annually through congressional appropriations. (The largest part of the budget is, and will remain, the mandatory spending programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Mandatory spending is over $2 trillion and is set to double to $4 trillion by 2025.)”

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4. Manufacturing is down for the fourth month in a row.

From HotAir  “For the fifth straight month, US manufacturing sector has slowed, according to the Department of Commerce. Overall orders for manufacturing dropped 3.4% in December, led by a steep drop in transportation. Even without that, orders fell by 2.3%, and the overall decline in November was adjusted downward to 1.7%:

New orders for manufactured goods in December, down five consecutive months, decreased $16.4 billion or 3.4 percent to $471.5 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. This followed a 1.7 percent November decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 2.3 percent. Shipments, down four of the last five months, decreased $5.3 billion or 1.1 percent to $488.2 billion. This followed a 1.0 percent November decrease. Unfilled orders, down following ten consecutive monthly increases, decreased $9.4 billion or 0.8 percent to $1,166.9 billion. This followed a 0.2 percent November increase. The unfilled orders-to-shipments ratio was 6.69, down from 6.81 in November. Inventories, down following eighteen consecutive monthly increases, decreased $2.0 billion or 0.3 percent to $653.9 billion. This followed a slight November increase. The inventories-to-shipments ratio was 1.34, up from 1.33 in November.

Durable goods dropped as well, by 3.3%:

New orders for manufactured durable goods in December, down four of the last five months, decreased $8.0 billion or 3.3 percent to $230.6 billion, revised from the previously published 3.4 percent decrease. This followed a 2.2 percent November decrease. Transportation equipment, also down four of the last five months, led the decrease, $6.7 billion or 9.1 percent to $66.8 billion. New orders for manufactured nondurable goods decreased $8.5 billion or 3.4 percent to $240.8 billion.”

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5. The Big Lie: 5.6% unemployment.

From Gallup  “Here’s something that many Americans — including some of the smartest and most educated among us — don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.

Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is “down” to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.

None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job — if you are so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking over the past four weeks — the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed. That’s right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news — currently 5.6%. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast “falling” unemployment.”

“There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.”

“Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America’s middle class.”

They’ve been fudging things for years. But it’s nice to see others finally catching on to it.

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6. And since we’re on the subject of big lies…..

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The chairman of a special House committee created to investigate the 2012 Benghazi tragedy on Monday instructed his staff to review secretly recorded tapes and intelligence reports that detail Hillary Rodham Clinton’s role in advocating and executing the war in Libya, opening the door for a possible expansion of his probe.

Rep. Trey Gowdy’s decision to seek a review of the materials, first highlighted in a series of Washington Times stories last week, carries consequences for the 2016 election in which Mrs. Clinton is expected to seek the presidency. It could also move the committee to examine the strained relationship between the State Department and Pentagon, which sharply disagreed over the 2011 war in Libya and the response to the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi a year later.

The Times reported last week that U.S. intelligence did not support Mrs. Clinton’s story of an impending genocide in Libya that she used to sell the war against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. The newspaper also unveiled secretly recorded tapes from Libya that showed that the Pentagon and Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich so distrusted her stewardship of the war that they opened their own diplomatic channels with the Gadhafi regime.

The tapes included candid conversations and allegations that Mrs. Clinton took the U.S. to war on false pretenses and was not listening to the advice of military commanders or career intelligence officers.”

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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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by

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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