Year: 2014

Mail.com 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The deteriorating situation in Iraq is giving Congress pause about President Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, with fears that hard-fought gains could be wiped out by a resurgent Taliban.

Senior Obama administration officials insist Afghanistan is not Iraq, with a population far more receptive to a continued U.S. presence and the promise of a new unity government. But the officials could offer no assurances that Afghanistan won’t devolve into chaos after Americans leave, as Iraq has.   Continue reading “Iraq crisis stirs fears Afghanistan could be next”

Mail.com

PHOENIX (AP) — A teacher at an Arizona prison was alone in a room full of sex offenders before being stabbed and sexually assaulted by a convicted rapist, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press about an attack that highlighted major security lapses at the facility.

The attack occurred Jan. 30 at the Eyman prison’s Meadows Unit, which houses about 1,300 rapists, child molesters and other sex offenders. The teacher was administering a high school equivalency test to about a half-dozen inmates in a classroom with no guard nearby and only a radio to summon help. The Department of Corrections issued only a bare-bones press release after the attack, but the AP pieced together what happened based on interviews and investigatory reports obtained under the Arizona Public Records Act.   Continue reading “Left alone with a sex offender, a teacher is raped”

Mail.com

TENINO, Wash. (AP) — A deadly blast at a fireworks plant in Washington state came as workers were preparing shells for shipping, an Entertainment Fireworks official says.

The company produces professional fireworks shows around the region, Ken Julian, company operations vice president, said in a statement. After the explosion Wednesday morning, a 75-year-old man died of his injuries while awaiting an airlift to a regional trauma center.   Continue reading “ATF, Wash. investigate fatal fireworks explosion”

Mail.com

BAGHDAD (AP) — Sunni militants hung their black banners on watchtowers at Iraq’s largest oil refinery, a witness said Thursday, suggesting an ever-increasing stranglehold on the vital facility by insurgents who have seized vast territories across the country’s north. A top Iraqi security official and a militant fighting for control of the plant said the government still held it.

The fighting at Beiji, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, comes as Iraq has asked the U.S. for airstrikes targeting the militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. While U.S. President Barack Obama has not fully ruled out the possibility of launching airstrikes, such action is not imminent in part because intelligence agencies have been unable to identify clear targets on the ground, officials said.   Continue reading “Militants fly their black flags over Iraq refinery”

Mail.com

ST. LOUIS (AP) — With Florida carrying out the nation’s third execution in less than 24 hours, some death penalty states — particularly in the South — appear unfazed by the recent furor over how the U.S. performs lethal injections.

A botched execution seven weeks ago in Oklahoma amplified a national debate about the secretive ways many states obtain lethal injection drugs from loosely regulated compounding pharmacies. Before Tuesday, nine executions were stayed or delayed — albeit some for reasons not related to the drug question.   Continue reading “Concerns aside, executions persist in some states”

MassPrivateI

An attorney pursuing a lawsuit against alleged domestic United States military spying says during depositions in the case a civilian employee who worked for the Army admitted he was paid to attend activist meetings at private homes in the state of Washington. And a fusion center intelligence employee, who coordinated with the military, also considered civil disobedience to be “terrorism.” Continue reading “Army spied on activist’s meetings in their homes, call civil disobedience terrorism”

Breitbart – by Dan Riehl

Amid new reports claiming that Louis Lerner’s emails sought by Congress pursuant to claims the IRS targeted Tea Party groups are lost forever, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa issued a blistering statement alleging that such federal records can only disappear like this through deliberate destruction.   Continue reading “Darrell Issa: Records Like Lois Lerner’s Emails ‘Don’t Just Disappear… Unless That Was the Intention’”

National Review – by Eliana Johnson

Lois Lerner’s lost emails are most likely gone forever.

In the wake of the news that a computer crash destroyed over two years’ worth of Lois Lerner’s emails, House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa on Tuesday subpoenaed her hard drive. Unfortunately, according to a source in the IRS’ IT department, that subpoena is unlikely to turn up much.

As a matter of practice, says the source, the IRS discards damaged hard drives after wiping them of all data. ”If we can run them, we have to wipe them,” he says. If they will not run, the agency destroys them completely by magnetically degaussing them.   Continue reading “IRS Source: Lerner’s Hard Drive Likely Destroyed”

New York Times – by ERIK ECKHOLM

CLEVELAND — As cries of “shots fired” shrieked from police radios, a caravan that grew to 62 patrol cars chased an old blue Malibu through 20 miles of this city’s streets and highways. The vehicle and its two occupants were surrounded in a school lot, and in a disorienting jumble of sirens and strobes, officers fired 137 rounds at close range.

When the shooting stopped that night in November 2012, a man and a woman, both African-American, were dead, riddled with bullets in the car’s front seat. There was no evidence that either had a gun. Investigations suggested that they had set out to purchase crack cocaine in a car that apparently backfired as it passed an officer, and then panicked when the police tried to pull them over.   Continue reading “As Justice Department Scrutinizes Local Police, Cleveland Is Latest Focus”

Breitbart – by Bob Price

UPDATE: Texas Governor Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, and Speaker Joe Straus today directed the Texas Dept. of Public Safety (DPS) to immediately begin law enforcement surge operations on the Texas/Mexico border. The DPS will attempt to combat the flood of illegal immigration into the state in the absence of adequate federal resources to secure the border. State leaders have authorized approximately $1.3 million per week to fund border security operations.    Continue reading “Texas Approves Border Security Surge”

Natural Society – by Christina Sarich

Wait – wasn’t the point of making genetically modified crops to make them pest resistant? At least that is what biotech companies tell us. Monsanto’s own website says, for example, that “Bt, or Bacillus thuringiensis, is a modern solution to insect control.” So why on earth would Brazil allow for GMO Mediterranean fruit flies (Ceratitis capitata), which have been planned to be unleashed on millions of acres of fruit trees?

While the experiment has yet to be given a release date in Brazil, the GM fruit flies are likely going to lead to GM maggots in fruit that will then be illegally exported to Europe and other countries. What could cause this?   Continue reading “Genetically Modified Maggots may Appear in Fruit Due to GMO Fruit Fly Experiment in Brazil”

Diogenes’ Middle Finger

Our nations First Lady wears many hats, and takes the responsibilities of her given position seriously, but sadly monetarily uncompensated. With the President on the road promoting his ‘Take Down America’ agenda, and the Vice president out doing whatever he does, she quietly takes the opportunity to sometime to do important work for the nation in their absents.   

Continue reading “Moochell Not Getting Paid For All The Hard Work She Does”

Natural Society – by Christina Sarich

While the battle to legalize medical or recreational marijuana rages on, with plans to treat pot like alcohol being introduced in 21 states and the District of Columbia this year alone, hemp, which is marijuana’s non-hallucinogenic cousin, is also gaining some much-deserved attention. In fact, annual retail sales for hemp are at approximately $581 million, growing by 24% annually.

The Marijuana Policy Project states that the entire country will soon be marijuana-friendly, but what of hemp? Annual retail sales of various hemp products from non-dairy milk to lotions and soaps made from the super-crop already amount to $581 million, and the growth rate for retail hemp is hovering around 24% before it has even been decriminalized by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration).   Continue reading “Annual Retail Sales for Hemp at $581 Million, Growing by 24% Annually”

Conservative Tribune

Illegal immigration is a serious problem in the U.S., and it’s also a major hot-button political issue that has stirred up waves of controversy for years.

Much of the problem with this issue focuses on the availability of welfare benefits for immigrants who’ve entered the country illegally and seem intent on staying here. These individuals typically don’t pay taxes, meaning they make no contribution to the system, draining economic resources.   Continue reading “Democrats Call for $1.9 BILLION in Welfare for Illegals”

BBC News

There is something particularly concerning about the “masked, sociopathic murderers” who fight for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), writes former state department official Andrew G Doran for the National Review.

Some of them, he says, are Western citizens who have traveled to Syria to fight President Bashar Assad’s government – and have passports or other immigration paperwork that would allow them to return to their home countries whenever they want.   Continue reading “ISIS militants with US passports?”

Common Dreams – by Sarah Lazare

As thousands of people in Detroit go without water, and the city moves to cut off services to tens of thousands more, concerned organizations have taken the unusual step of appealing to the United Nations to intervene and protect the “human right to water.”

“After decades of policies that put businesses and profits ahead of the public good, the city now has a major crisis on its hands, said Maude Barlow, founder of Blue Planet Project and board chair of Food & Water Watch, in a statement. “By denying water service to thousands, Detroit is violating the human right to water.”   Continue reading “Groups Appeal to UN for ‘Humanity’ as Detroit Shuts Off Water to Thousands”