Rudy Giuliani

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News/Politics 2-23-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Here’s the big story the liberal media is focused on.

From TheNYPost  “Rudy Giuliani doubled down on his claims that President Obama doesn’t “love America” in an interview with The Post Friday — claiming the commander-in-chief has been influenced by communists since his youth.

“From the time he was 9 years old, he was influenced by Frank Marshall Davis, who was a communist,” Giuliani said. The ex-mayor added that Obama’s grandfather introduced him to Davis, a writer and labor activist.

Giuliani also said another bad influence on Obama was Saul Alinsky, a community organizer whom the ex-mayor called a “socialist.””

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2. The only reason they’re focused on that is so it’s easier to ignore this one.

From TheFreeBeacon  “Donating large sums of money to the Bill, Hillary, & Chelsea Clinton Foundation is one of the many fun ways a corporation, billionaire, or foreign government can curry favor with the Clinton dynasty.

While the media was busy obsessively hyperventilating over Rudy Giulian’s comments about President Obama’s lack of love for America, the Wall Street Journal reported that, during her time as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton helped promote the interest of large U.S. corporations, many of which have donated larges sums of money to the Clinton Foundation:

Among recent secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton was one of the most aggressive global cheerleaders for American companies, pushing governments to sign deals and change policies to the advantage of corporate giants such as General Electric Co. , Exxon Mobil Corp. , Microsoft Corp. and Boeing Co.

At the same time, those companies were among the many that gave to the Clinton family’s global foundation set up by her husband, former President Bill Clinton. At least 60 companies that lobbied the State Department during her tenure donated a total of more than $26 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of public and foundation disclosures.”

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More here, from TheMiamiHerald  “More than 40 percent of the top donors to the Clinton family foundation are based in foreign countries, which could lead to conflict-of-interest questions for Hillary Clinton as she prepares to launch her campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

The charity that now bears Hillary Clinton’s name along with her husband and daughter has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments, businesses, individuals and nongovernment organizations around the globe, according to an analysis of 10 years of contributions by McClatchy. Many of them gave as recently as 2014.

The governments of Saudi Arabia and Norway each contributed $10 million to $25 million.

Mohammed Al-Amoudi, a billionaire businessman who lives in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia, retired German race car driver Michael Schumacher, and Denis O’Brien, the Irish chairman of Digicel phone company, each donated between $5 million and $10 million.”

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3. So the Obama conference on extremists, which refused to mention Islam, the ideology behind the largest group of extremists, was opened at least one day with a muslim prayer. They might have the first day too, but we don’t know for sure because the press wasn’t allowed in. How nice.

From CNSNews  “A Muslim prayer was recited at the start of the second day of the White House summit on “Countering Violent Extremism,” but no other religious text was presented during the portion of the event that was open to the press.

Imam Sheikh Sa’ad Musse Roble, president of the World Peace Organization in Minneapolis, Minn., recited a “verse from the Quran” following remarks by Obama administration officials and Democratic members of Congress.”

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4. Such childish behavior is unbecoming a president, but just what we’ve come to expect from Barry.

From APNews  ” In what is becoming an increasingly nasty grudge match, the White House is mulling ways to undercut Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming trip to Washington and blunt his message that a potential nuclear deal with Iran is bad for Israel and the world.

There are limits. Administration officials have discarded the idea of President Barack Obama himself giving an Iran-related address to rebut the two speeches Netanyahu is to deliver during his early March visit. But other options remain on the table.

Among them: a presidential interview with a prominent journalist known for coverage of the rift between Obama and Netanyahu, multiple Sunday show television appearances by senior national security aides and a pointed snub of America’s leading pro-Israel lobby, which is holding its annual meeting while Netanyahu is in Washington, according to the officials.

The administration has already ruled out meetings between Netanyahu and Obama, saying it would be inappropriate for the two to meet so close to Israel’s March 17 elections. But the White House is now doubling down on a cold-shoulder strategy, including dispatching Cabinet members out of the country and sending a lower-ranking official than normal to represent the administration at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the officials said.”

Yeah, an interview with one of your lap-dogs, that’ll show ’em… 🙄

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5. The Obama admin wants an emergency order to continue pushing his illegal amnesty program.

From TheHill  “The Obama administration will seek an emergency court order to move forward with President Obama’s executive action on immigration.

Officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) plan to seek what is known as an emergency stay that would essentially undo a Texas-based federal judge’s injunction from earlier this week. If the stay is granted, the government could restart a pair of executive programs that will shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said DOJ will file for the stay by “Monday at the latest.”

The emergency stay had been sought by immigrant rights advocates, who want to get the programs up and running as soon as possible while the appeals process plays out.”

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by

News/Politics 12-29-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread. Here’s a few to start things off.

1. The firing of the head of the Phoenix VA where the scandal started has been upheld. Funny thing though it was for receiving inappropriate gifts and not for the actual scandal itself. It seems the govt. didn’t provide enough info to find fault on those charges. Convenient, no?

From StarsAndStripes  ” The government agency charged with making sure federal employees are treated fairly upheld this week the Department of Veterans Affairs decision to “formally remove” Sharon Helman, director of the Phoenix Department of Veterans Affairs’ Health Care System and the leader at the center of the biggest scandal in the agency’s history.

But the ruling by the Merit Systems Protection Board could not substantiate that Helman knew or should have known that employees at her hospital lied about health-care wait times for former troops seeking treatment for everything from cancer to post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“In the ruling, Chief Administrative Judge Stephen Mish rejected the VA’s other charges, which said that Helman failed to see that veterans were waiting months or even years to get health care. But the judge said the VA failed to demonstrate any actions or inactions on the part of Helman that caused it.

“To phrase it more colloquially, an agency must connect the dots of fault from the identified failure by the subordinates back up the line to the manager,” the judge wrote. “The agency did not attempt to do so here. Accordingly, this specification is not sustained.”

Similarly, the VA said Helman failed to process 2,500 new claims that were found, which led hundreds of veterans to be without health care for more than a year. But the judge again said the VA did not provide enough information to the board.

The ruling also points out that linking Helman’s removal to the wait-times issue is complex. The report notes that the VA’s office of the inspector general did not interview Helman about wait times during their investigation into the issue.”

So it’s like the IRS scandal, where no one talks to the witnesses, victims, or the accused before deciding the case.

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2. They did it again. But this time it was cops from all over the country.

FromTheWashingtonPost  “The streets of this working-class neighborhood in Queens overflowed on Saturday with thousands of blue-uniformed police officers, state troopers, corrections officers and firefighters from across the country.”

“The outpouring — some estimates were of more than 20,000 officers — was about more than brotherhood and the New York Police Department’s long history of showing support to honor slain officers. This time, the solemn memorial turned into a kind of counter-protest.”

“Hundreds of officers watching the services outside Christ Tabernacle Church turned their backs on the screens when Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke. The mayor has been heavily criticized by New York police union officials, accused of causing a mood of mistrust that they say contributed to the killings of Ramos and Liu. Tensions between the mayor and police had already grown in recent months after de Blasio said he was worried about how police might treat his son, who is biracial.”

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3. Despite the reporter’s attempts to provide cover for Obama, Rudy raises some good points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nCIut7kydMU

More here from NationalReview

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