politics

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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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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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by

News/Politics 8-6-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

From CNSNews  “The federal government paid $2,007,358,200,000 in benefits and entitlements in fiscal year 2013 from government programs, according to data from the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s Monthly Treasury Statement.

The treasury statement summarizes the financial activities of the federal government, including data on government receipts, outlays, and surplus and deficit totals.  The September 2013 monthly treasury statement calculates these metrics for the entire fiscal year of 2013, which began on October 1, 2012 and ended on September 30, 2013.

According to the statement, the federal government’s total outlays, otherwise known as spending, for means-tested and non-means tested government programs — not including administrative expenses —  totaled $2,007,611,200,000 in fiscal year 2013.”

“According to the treasury statement, the federal government totaled $3,454,253,000,000 in outlays for fiscal year 2013. This number encompasses all government spending, including things like defense, highway and transportation costs, public education, immigration services and government worker salaries, to name a few.”

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2. Meanwhile, the new website for govt. transparency isn’t being very transparent and is not accounting for hundreds of billions of dollars spent.

From USAToday  “A government website intended to make federal spending more transparent was missing at least $619 billion from 302 federal programs, a government audit has found.

And the data that does exist is wildly inaccurate, according to the Government Accountability Office, which looked at 2012 spending data. Only 2% to 7% of spending data on USASpending.gov is “fully consistent with agencies’ records,” according to the report.”

“For more than 22% of federal awards, the spending website literally doesn’t know where the money went. The “place of performance” of federal contracts was most likely to be wrong.”

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3. A 2 star general has been killed in Afghanistan by an Afghan soldier.

From TheNYTimes  “For the first time since Vietnam, a United States Army general was killed in an overseas conflict on Tuesday when an Afghan soldier opened fire on senior American officers at a military training academy.

The slain officer, Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene, was the highest-ranking member of the NATO-led coalition killed in the Afghanistan war, and his death punctuated the problems vexing the Americans as they try to wind down the 13-year-old conflict, contending with a political crisis that has threatened to splinter the Afghan government and leave it unable to fend off the Taliban.

The general was among a group of senior American and Afghan officers making a routine visit to Afghanistan’s premier military academy on the outskirts of Kabul when an Afghan soldier sprayed the officers with bullets from the window of a nearby building, hitting at least 15 before he was killed.”

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4. Why am I not shocked?

From ThePoughkeepsieJournal  “The Rev. Al Sharpton, along with his nonprofit National Action Network and two for-profit firms, have $4.7 million in outstanding debt and liens, according to federal and state tax records, the New York Post reported on Sunday.

Among the debts include $806,875 that Sharpton owes the state, along with $2.6 million in federal liens against him for unpaid personal income taxes, the Post stated.

Recent filings showed the National Action Network owed $813,576 to the federal government at the end of 2012, and his company Rev-Al Communications owes $447,826 to the state, while the Bo-Spanky Consulting firm has $18.21 in outstanding debt, according to the Post.

Sharpton told the Post he’s paying down the debts according to negotiated agreements.

“It’s significantly less. It’s nowhere near the millions of dollars. We have totally lived up to our agreement with them,” Sharpton the Post. “It’s being paid down.”

Good, then after he pays this, maybe he’ll get around to paying the judgment against him from the Tawana Brawley case that he’s ignored for years.

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5. Why is A-Rod’s name not on the list? After all, he sought out, purchased, used, and benefitted from it most? He shouldn’t avoid prosecution just because he’s snitching now.

From FoxSports  “The former clinic owner accused of selling performance-enhancing drugs to Alex Rodriguez has agreed to plead guilty in what prosecutors called a wide-ranging conspiracy to distribute steroids to both major league ballplayers and high school athletes.

The charges filed Tuesday against former Biogenesis of America owner Anthony Bosch and six others marked one of the biggest salvos yet in a case that has dragged on for nearly two years. The case has sparked lawsuits, mudslinging and suspensions against numerous major leaguers, including Rodriguez.

Also charged was Yuri Sucart, 52, a cousin of Rodriguez who the New York Yankees third baseman has said provided him with steroids from 2000-03, when Rodriguez played for the Texas Rangers.

Sucart and the others are accused of acting as recruiters, setting up meetings between the athletes and Bosch, who introduced himself as “Dr. T,” authorities said. Professional athletes paid up to $12,000 a month for the drugs provided by Biogenesis, while high schoolers paid up to $600 a month. All the clients were promised that the substances would not be found through drug testing, prosecutors said.”

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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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