Showing posts with label CNS News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CNS News. Show all posts

Saturday, September 5, 2015

There Have Been More Jihadist Terror Cases in U.S. in 2015 Than in Any Year Since 9/11

There Have Been More Jihadist Terror Cases in U.S. in 2015 Than in Any Year Since 9/11(CNSNews.com) – The “Terror Threat Snapshot” for August 2015, released by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee, states the terror threat level in America is high and “getting steadily worse,” and that there have been “more U.S.-based jihadist terror cases in 2015 than in any full year since 9/11.”
The “Terror Threat Snapshot” also reported that the Islamic State “is fueling the Islamist terror” globally; that Islamist terrorists “are intent on killing law enforcement” officers and U.S. troops, as well as civilians; and that 25,000 fighters from 100 countries have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State.
In addition, more than 250 Americans have traveled, or attempted to travel, to Syria to fight with the Islamists.
“The terror threat level in the U.S. homeland is high, and the situation is getting steadily worse,” said the report. “There have been more U.S.-based jihadist terror cases in 2015 than in any full year since 9/11.”
In 2015 so far, there have been 30 U.S.-based jihadist cases, the committee informed CNSNews.com. In 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, there were only two U.S.-based jihadist cases uncovered that year, the committee said.
One of those cases involved Jose Padilla, also known as Abudullah al-Muhajir, a U.S. citizen convicted on multiple counts of criminal conspiracy related to jihadist terrorism; the second case was the Portland Seven, a group of American Muslims who were attempting to join Al Qaeda but were thwarted by the FBI.

For the August 2015 “Terror Threat Snapshot,” the majority staff of the Homeland Security Committee reported that, “In July alone, a terrorist murdered U.S. service members in Chattanooga, and authorities arrested extremists seeking to live-stream a terrorist attack on a college campus and planning to kill U.S. vacationers on the beaches of Florida.”
“The number of U.S. terrorist cases involving homegrown violent jihadists has gone from 38 in July 2010 to 122 today—a three-fold increase in just five years,” reads the Snapshot. 
For those 122 cases, 80 percent of them “have occurred or been disrupted since 2009,” said the report. “Authorities have arrested or charged at least 48 individuals in the United States this year – 63 since 2014 – in ISIS-related cases. The cases involve individuals: plotting attacks; attempting to travel to join ISIS overseas; sending money, equipment and weapons to terrorists; falsifying statements to federal authorities; and failing to report a felony.”
On July 29, for instance, Arafat Nagi was arrested after he attempted to travel from New York to join the Islamic State.
On July 16, Youssef Abdulazeez attacked two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tenn., and killed four Marines and a Navy sailor.
The Snapshot further reported that since early 2014, “there have been 55 planned or executed ISIS-linked terror plots against Western targets, including 14 inside in the United States.”
In addition, “[t]here have been nearly twice as many ISIS-linked plots against Western targets in the first seven months of this year (35) than in all of 2014,” reported the committee.
The “Terror Threat Snapshot” can be read in its entirety here

Friday, September 4, 2015

[VIDEO] Rand Paul on Clerk's Arrest: 'Absurd to Put Someone in Jail for Exercising Religious Liberty'

(CNSNews.com) -- In reaction to the arrest and imprisonment today of county clerk Kim Davis because she refused to grant marriage licenses to homosexual couples, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said it was "absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberty."  He added that the heavy-handed "bully force" step by the state in this case was "a huge mitake" and would set the "movement back" for those trying "to redefine marriage."
Kim Davis is a clerk for the state of Kentucky in Rowan County.  She has steadfastly refused to grant marriage licenses to homosexual couples because of her Christian beliefs. Federal District Court Judge David L. Bunning rejected Davis's appeal to her religious faith, saying it was "simply not a viable defense." Davis was arrested and imprisoned today, Sept. 3.
Asked by CNN's Brianna Keilar for his reaction to Davis's incarceration, Sen. Paul said, “I think it’s absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberty. If you want to convince people that same-sex marriage is something that’s acceptable, I would say try to persuade people."
"But if we’re going to use the federal government and we’re going to get involved in every state locality, you know what’s going to happen?" he said.  "It’s going to harden people’s resolve on this issue. They’ll be no open-mindedness on this."
"I think it’s a real mistake to be doing this," said Sen. Paul.  "I think what’s going to happen as a result of this is states and localities are just going to opt-out of the marriage business completely."
"This is really the problem when from on high, from the federal level, we decide to get involved in a situation that has always, throughout our history, been a local issue," said the senator.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Obama Pushes Solar Power--In Arctic Town That Sees Little Sun in Winter

Obama Pushes Solar Power--In Arctic Town That Sees Little Sun in Winter
(CNSNews.com) – President Obama promoted solar energy to residents of Kotzebue, an Alaskan town located 26 miles north of the Arctic Circle that gets less than six hours of sunlight for 34 days in early December through early January.
“I know you guys have started putting up solar panels and wind turbines around Kotzebue. And because energy costs are pretty severe up here, for remote Alaskan communities, one of the biggest problems is high energy costs,” the president said in a speech he delivered during a three-day tour of the state in which he stressed the dangers of climate change.
“One of the reasons I came up here is to really focus on what is probably the biggest challenge our planet faces. If there’s one thing that threatens opportunity and prosperity for everybody, wherever we live, it’s the threat of a changing climate,” said Obama, the first president to venture north of the Arctic Circle.
“We are the number-one producer of oil and gas. But we’re transitioning away from energy that creates the carbon that’s warming the planet and threatening our health and our environment, and we’re going all in on clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar. And Alaska has the natural resources to be a global leader in this effort,” the president said. 
“So we’re going to deploy more new clean-energy projects on Native lands, and that’s going to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, promote new jobs and new growth in your communities,” he added.
Kotzebue – a town of about 3,000 residents that bills itself as the “Gateway to the Arctic” – is one of 15 major communities in Alaska’s Far North Region that are located north of the Arctic Circle, according to TravelAlaska.com, the state’s official tourism agency.
The Arctic Circle is the boundary for the “midnight sun”, a phenomenon caused by the tilt in the Earth’s axis in which the sun does not set in the summer or conversely rise in the winter.
On December 22, the winter solstice, the sun rises in Kotzebue at 10:12 am and sets at 3:42 pm – for a total of just five and a half hours of sunlight.  During the 34 days between December 3rd and January 6th, Kotzebue’s days are less than six hours long.
In Barrow, the northernmost town in Alaska which is located 330 miles north of the Arctic Circle, there are 67 winter days in which the sun does not shine at all, according to Alaska.org.


Saturday, August 29, 2015

Milwaukee County Sheriff Challenges Obama: 'Forego Your Secret Service Protection'

Milwaukee County Sheriff Challenges Obama: 'Forego Your Secret Service Protection'
(CNSNews.com) - "I am done asking people in my community to outsource their personal safety to the government," Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke told Fox News's Sean Hannity Thursday night.

The sheriff accuses Democrats of "exploiting misery and tragedy" to pursue a political, anti-gun agenda.

"But here's my challenge to the president of the United States, you think this is so easy. Forego your Secret Service protection, for you, for the first lady, and your children, and see what it is like to have to fend yourself.

"And then we'll sit down and have a conversation so you know what we here at ground level have to deal with on a daily base in terms of self-defense."



Clarke said the way to reduce "gun violence" and crime is to identify the bad guys, arrest them, adjudicate them, "and once they've convicted, you lock them up for the longest period allowed by law."

Clarke noted that President Obama is doing the opposite -- letting convicted felons "out the back door."

"He recently visited a federal prison and pardoned 46 federal prisoners, long time federal convicts. And he plans on doing more," Clarke said.

"So while the police and the community and the people are trying to get these individuals out of their community, he is pouring them back in. This was a chance for the president, Sean, to bring the country together, and once again the divider in chief goes out and further separates us."

Clarke said the Constitution does not prevent terrible things, such as this week's horrific murders near Roanoke, from happening.

"Well, look, Sean, as you know, terrible things happen in this world from time to time. We have to be a little more humble about our ability to prevent every horrific situation from happening.

"There are certain things we can do to reduce and prevent these sorts of things. Not messing with this document (the Constitution), no. But we can do things like better mental health screening, better background checks.

"The FBI allowed a guy to purchase a handgun that went down, we understand it, and committed a horrific act recently (in Charleston). So if we're trying to make this absolute, that none of these things will ever happen again, we're working on the wrong thing, because unfortunately the world we live in, with the evil that exists, it's going to happen."



Thursday, August 27, 2015

Planned Parenthood Business Partner Wants ‘50 Livers a Week’ – As For Aborted Baby Heads: ‘Lab Techs Freak Out’

(CNSNews.com) – In the latest undercover investigative video of Planned Parenthood, a biotech CEO says her company could handle delivery of  “another 50 livers a week” taken from aborted babies and then, while discussing the shipment of intact baby heads and brains, the CEO laughs about making sure the child’s eyes are closed and says, “Tell the lab it’s coming!”
This conversation occurs during a luncheon meeting with StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer and the “buyers” (actors) representing a fetal tissue procurement company, and one other unidentified man at the table. The undercover video was made by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) and it is the eighth video to be released since mid-July.
Planned Parenthood Business Partner Wants ‘50 Livers a Week’ – As For Aborted Baby Heads: ‘Lab Techs Freak Out’The CEO of StemExpress, shown in the video, is Cate Dyer. Her older sister, Charlotte Ivancic is the outgoing health policy adviser to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
During the lunch conversation, which took place on May 22, 2015, one of the “buyers” asks Dyer, “What would make your lab happy?”
“Another 50 livers a week,” Dyer responds. “We’re working with almost like triple digit number clinics,” she explains, “and we still need more.”
Dyer added that, “Planned Parenthood has volume, because they are a volume institution.”
StemExpress, in Placerville, Calif., acted as a middleman between Planned Parenthood abortion clinics and research institutions looking for aborted baby parts. The company cut ties with Planned Parenthood on Aug. 14, following the outcry over the investigative videos that were released in late July and which named StemExpress.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Charlie Daniels' Open Letter to Congress: 'You've Betrayed Your Country'

I am a proud American who believes that America has held – and still holds – a very sensitive and special place in the affairs of mankind on Planet Earth. I believe that America has been divinely blessed and protected in our two centuries plus of existence.
I believe that America has been a counter balance that has cancelled out a lot of tyranny, evil and conquest, and admittedly, we have made a lot of mistakes. But on balance we have exerted a certain Pax Americana in the international affairs of mankind.
It took a lot of old fashioned guts for the Continental Congress to stand up to the world's mightiest military and tell them that we demanded our independence, even at the peril of going up against a far superior force on land and sea, and with only a ragtag army of untrained citizens, many of whom had to supply their own firearms.
It took courage above and beyond for Abraham Lincoln to push the country into a Civil War that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt would divide this nation for decades.
It took guts to give the order for American troops to storm the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, straight into the face of artillery and machine gunfire, wave after wave being cut to ribbons by German shore emplacements.
The history of this nation is written in the blood and courage of men who stood in the face of overwhelming odds – politicians, soldiers, statesmen and ordinary citizens who sought to do the right thing regardless of the cost or the consequences.
Well, ladies and gentlemen of the United States Congress, it seems that that particular pen has run out of ink. The courageous politicians that once championed this nation have been replaced, for the most part, by a breed of milksop, politically correct, scared of their own shadow, pushover, pathetic excuses for public servants who are supposed to be representing a constituency of citizens who have to live with the circumstances of their timid folly.
You don't even have the courage to face down an out of control president, even when he makes a deal with the devil. Don't you bunch of timid capons even care what kind of world you're leaving to your children and grandchildren, not to even mention the rest of us? Are you really party partisans before your parents and grandparents or even human beings?
Be honest with yourselves a minute. Go into the bathroom and look in the mirror and ask the person you see this question: "Do I really believe that Iran will not use the money we're releasing to them to finance terrorists to kill Americans, and, when, not if, but when, the Iranians develop their nuclear device, will they really use it against America and Israel?"
You can’t hide from the truthful answer to that question forever, an answer will be required of you one day.
You have allowed Obama to tilt the Supreme Court so far to the left that they're little more than a shameful extension of the Executive Branch.
You have talked for decades about the porous southern border but have done absolutely nothing about it.
You have allowed cities in this nation to declare themselves sanctuary cities where they protect the worst of the worst criminal aliens, and American citizens are paying an awful price for your silence.
You watch an impossible National Debt balloon completely out of control, knowing full well that a day of reckoning is coming that will seriously curtail the quality of life for coming generations.
You allow corrupt government agencies like the IRS to run over the very people you are sworn to protect and allow the entitlement society to expand exponentially. All the while, you are actually entertaining the idea of raising taxes on those who still work and shoulder the burden.
You compose a third of the constitutionally mandated ruling system,and you shirk your duty
and allow this nation to move a little closer to the edge every day.
Your ratings are in the single digits; your morals are in the gutter; your minds are on self-preservation; and somewhere along the way, you’ve traded your honor for political expediency.
You've violated your oaths; you've betrayed your country; you've feathered your nests; and you've sat on your hands while an imperial president has rubbed your noses in the dirt time after time.
You're no longer men. You're puppets, caricatures, jokes, a gaggle of fading prostitutes for sale to anybody who can do you a political favor.
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
What do you think?
Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem.
God Bless America
Charlie Daniels
Charlie Daniels is a legendary American singer, song writer, guitarist, and fiddler famous for his contributions to country and southern rock music. Daniels has been active as a singer since the early 1950s. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 24, 2008.

Sunday, August 23, 2015

US airman says train attacker 'ready to fight to the end'

PARIS (AP) — Three American travelers say they relied on gut instinct and a close bond forged over years of friendship as they took down a heavily armed man on a passenger train speeding through Belgium.
U.S. Airman Spencer Stone, recounting for the first time on Sunday how a likely catastrophe was averted two days earlier, said the gunman, an assault rifle strapped to his bare chest, seemed like he was "ready to fight to the end." But he added, "So were we."
Without a note of bravado but a huge dose of humility, the three described Friday's drama on an Amsterdam-to-Paris fast train.
His arm in a sling, Stone, 23, said he was coming out of a deep sleep when the gunman appeared.
One of his friends, Alek Skarlatos, a 22-year-old National Guardsman recently back from Afghanistan, "just hit me on the shoulder and said 'Let's go.'"
French President Francois Hollande and a bevy of officials are presenting the Americans with the prestigious Legion of Honor on Monday. A French citizen who first came across the gunman near a train bathroom and a British man who joined to help tie up the assailant also are being honored with the award, according to the president's office.
The gunman, identified as 26-year-old Moroccan Ayoub El-Khazzani, is detained and being questioned by French counterterrorism police outside Paris. French and Spanish authorities say El-Khazzani is an Islamic extremist who may have spent time in Syria. El-Khazzani's lawyer said on Sunday that he was homeless and trying to rob passengers on the train to feed himself.
Authorities in France, Belgium and Spain, where he once lived, are investigating the case. French authorities can legally hold him for questioning until Tuesday, when they must charge him or free him.
His case raises questions about train security as well as how a man who had been on the radar of all three countries managed to board the train unbothered and loaded with weapons.
Skarlatos said El-Khazzani "clearly had no firearms training whatsoever," but if he "even just got lucky and did the right thing he would have been able to operate through all eight of those magazines and we would've all been in trouble, and probably wouldn't be here today, along with a lot of other people."
Armed with an arsenal of weapons and apparently determined, he presented a formidable challenge to the vacationing friends who snapped into action out of what Skarlatos said was "gut instinct."
His and Stone's military training "mostly kicked in after the assailant was already subdued," he said, noting the medical care Stone provided and checking cars for weapons elsewhere.
"We just kind of acted. There wasn't much thinking going on," he said, at least on my end." Stone replied with a chuckle, "None at all."
Stone and Skarlatos moved in to tackle the gunman and take his gun. The third young man, Anthony Sadler, 23, moved in to help subdue the assailant. "All three of us started punching" him, Stone said. Stone said he choked him unconscious. A British businessman then joined in the fray.
Stone, of Carmichael, California, spoke at a live news conference at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Paris along with Sadler, a senior at Sacramento State University in California, and Skarlatos, of Roseburg, Oregon.
Stone is also credited with saving a French-American teacher wounded in the neck with a gunshot wound and squirting blood. Stone described matter-of-factly that he "just stuck two of my fingers in his hole and found what I thought to be the artery, pushed down and the bleeding stopped." He said he kept the position until paramedics arrived, apparently in Arras.
El-Khezzani boarded in Brussels with what France's interior minister said was an arsenal of weapons that included an automatic pistol, numerous loaded magazines and the box cutter. He was subdued while the train traveled through Belgium, but was taken into custody in the northern French town of Arras, where the train was rerouted.
El-Khezzani's lawyer said her client doesn't understand the suspicions, media attention or even that a person was wounded. For him, there were no gunshots fired, Sophie David said.
"He is dumbfounded that his action is being characterized as terrorism," she said.
He described himself as homeless and David said she had "no doubt" this was true, saying he was "very, very thin" as if suffering from malnutrition and "with a very wild look in his eyes."
He claims to have found the weapons in a park near the Brussels train station where he had been sleeping, stashed them for several days and then decided to hold up train passengers.
"He thought of a holdup to be able to feed himself, to have money," she said on BFM-TV, then "shoot out a window and jump out to escape."
Spanish authorities said El-Khazzani had lived with his parents in the southern city of Algeciras until last year and had a police record for drug-dealing. Spanish newspapers El Pais and El Mundo both reported that he had lived in the relatively poor neighborhood of El Saladillo, which has around 6,000 inhabitants and an unemployment rate close to 40 percent.
It was unclear how long he was in Spain.
However, Spain notified French intelligence in February 2014, and he was placed on a watch list of potentially dangerous individuals, Cazeneuve has said.
There were discrepancies between French and Spanish accounts of the gunman's travels.
An official linked to Spain's anti-terrorism unit said the suspect lived in Spain until 2014, then moved to France, traveled to Syria, and returned to France. That official spoke on condition anonymity because he wasn't authorized to be identified by name.
A French official close to the investigation said a watch list signal "sounded" on May 10 in Berlin, where El-Khazzani was flying to Turkey. The French transmitted this information to Spain, which advised on May 21 that he no longer lived there but in Belgium. The French then advised Belgium, according to the official close to the investigation, but it wasn't clear what, if any, action was taken after that.
He didn't escape the Americans as easily.
"When most of us would run away, Spencer, Alek and Anthony ran into the line of fire, saying 'Let's go.' Those words changed the fate of many," U.S. Ambassador Jane Hartley said.
Asked if there were lessons, Sadler had one for all who find themselves in the face of a choice.
"Do something," he said. "Hiding, or sitting back, is not going to accomplish anything. And the gunman would've been successful if my friend Spencer had not gotten up. So I just want that lesson to be learned going forward, in times of, like, terror like that, please do something. Don't just stand by and watch."


Friday, August 21, 2015

Oversight Committee Blasts IRS Commissioner Koskinen in GIF-Filled Press Release

The House Oversight Committee has just issued a press release: “How IRS Commissioner Koskinen Has Failed in 12 GIFs.” Using GIFs - animated images from films and television - the release outlines the case against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who has been under fire for his response to investigations into the IRS treatment of conservative non-profit groups.
Koskinen, the press release says, failed to: comply with a congressional subpoena; preserve and produce Lois Lerner’s emails; implement internal preservation as ordered by the IRS Chief Technology Officer; ensure that documents were properly preserved; produce thousands of emails that are relevant to the case; acknowledge missing emails; testify truthfully. 
Next to each item is an appropriate GIF: Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory” tossing papers in the air, George Costanza winking, Rachel Maddow crying FAIL!, Ryan Gosling shrugging.
“The GIFs convey that wrongdoing was done but clearly they don’t care,” M.J. Henshaw, the Press Secretary for House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), told CNS News. “No one’s going to read a bunch of text, but they will read something with a picture of Ryan Gosling. This is a cohesive, simple and easy to understand way for people who may not fully understand all the details. Our biggest challenge is to take these hugely complicated investigations and dwindling them down so that people who may not be as involved can understand them.”
In July Rep. Chaffetz called for Koskinen to be fired. 


Thursday, August 20, 2015

[VIDEO] Sen. Blumenthal (D-CONN) Defend Planned Parenthood, Make It Federal Crime to Maim Animals

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)--who vigorously defended Planned Parenthood on the Senate floor in July--now wants the federal government to make it a federal felony to maim animals.
Blumenthal is co-sponsor of a bill that describes what is called animal "crushing"--the "actual conduct in which one or more non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians is intentionally crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled or otherwise subjected to bodily injury."
WFSB-TV reported the Connecticut Democrat discussed the proposed Prevent Animal Cruelty and Torture Act at an animal care center in South Windsor on Monday.
Blumenthal said, “This bipartisan bill--the first to outlaw animal cruelty at the federal level--states emphatically that these heinous acts are inhumane, illegal and intolerable in a civilized society.”
"My proposal would make it a felony punishable by seven years in prison to engage in acts of maiming and torturing animals," Blumenthal continued.
"Very simply, anyone who does those practices, as well as making videos of them, ought to be punished criminally under federal law."
Blumenthal has previously stated that he “will continue to stand” with Planned Parenthood. The Senator fought against recent efforts by lawmakers to end Planned Parenthood's federal funding after the release of a series of videos showing the organization’s role in harvesting the organs of babies by The Center for Medical Progress.
"I am proud to join with my colleauge from Washington State...and others such as she who are championing this cause of defending Planned Parenthood," Blumenthal said in a July 29 speech on the Senate floor.
“Planned Parenthood is under attack," he said. "It is under siege from a sensationalistic and disingenuous kind of publicity that are based on undercover videos. People are offended by them, and Planned Parenthood has in fact spoken to the merits of them. I encourage Planned Parenthood to continue speaking to those videos."
“Planned Parenthood needs no defense from us because the American people support it," he said.
"I am proud to stand and urge my colleagues to reject this attack from the most extreme members of the anti-choice movement, which seeks to undermine critical access to healh care through Planned Parenthood," he said.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Obama's Toxic Environmental Pollution Agency by Michelle Malkin

Obama's Toxic Environmental Pollution Agency
Here in my adopted home state of Colorado, orange is the new Animas River thanks to the blithering idiots working under President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency.

It's just the latest man-caused disaster from an out-of-control bureaucracy whose primary mission is not the Earth's preservation, but self-preservation.

As always, the government cover-up compounds the crime — which is why the agency's promise this week to investigate itself has residents across the Rocky Mountains in stitches. Or tears.

After the EPA and officials and their contract workers accidentally spilled three million gallons of pent-up toxic sludge on August 5 from a defunct mine in San Juan County that hadn't operated since 1923, EPA apparatchiks delayed notifying residents for more than 24 hours. They vastly underestimated the volume and spill rate of gunk. Then, while refusing to release data, EPA head Gina McCarthy flew to the glowing river to fecklessly declare that the water "seems to be restoring itself."

The cleanup costs for the Colorado spill alone are estimated at $30 billion. Small farmers, ranchers and tourist-related businesses will be reeling for years to come — yet the EPA is simultaneously pushing forward with Draconian ozone regulations (based on cherry-picked junk science) that will punish the state's residents with no discernible health benefits.

If only Mother Nature could help wash away the institutionalized corruption that has been leaching from Obama's EPA headquarters since Day One:


—BP oil spill data doctoring. Former White House Director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy Carol Browner and the EPA suffered no consequences after they repeatedly lied and cooked the books in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. Browner, who pulled the puppet strings of then-EPA head Lisa Jackson, misled the public about the scope of the disaster by falsely claiming that 75 percent of the spill was "completely gone from the system." Then she falsely claimed that the administration's initial report on the disaster was "peer-reviewed."

The Interior Department inspector general also singled out Browner for misrepresenting the White House's blue-ribbon science panel, which opposed a six-month drilling moratorium, and exposed how she butchered their conclusions to justify the administration's preordained policy agenda.

Browner, an inveterate left-wing crony lobbyist/activist, left office without so much as a wrist slap. Brazen data doctoring and destruction are her fortes. As EPA head during the Clinton administration in the 1990s, she was held in contempt by a federal judge after ordering a staffer to purge and delete her computer files. Browner had sought to evade a public disclosure lawsuit by conservative lawyer and author Mark Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation.

—Email evasion and transparency trouncing. While Browner was doing her dirty work as Obama's unaccountable eco-czar, Jackson busied herself creating sock-puppet email personalities to circumvent public disclosure rules as the agency crafted radical climate-change policies in secret. She learned the tricks of the trade from Browner. Jackson admitted to using the pseudonym "Richard Windsor" on one of at least two separate secret government accounts. Competitive Enterprise Institute fellow Christopher Horner discovered the elaborate ruses in 2012. The agency had stonewalled Horner's FOIA requests on the use of alias accounts at the agency; CEI sued to force the administration to comply.

In December 2012, Jackson resigned amid multiple investigations. Not a wrist slap. Not a scratch. In March of this year, a federal judge blasted the agency for avoiding a separate FOIA request by Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation related to sock-puppet email accounts created by Jackson and others "who may have delayed the release dates for hot-button environmental regulations until after the Nov. 6, 2012, presidential election."

Apple Computer hired Jackson in 2013 (and all of her multiple personalities). Two months ago, the company proudly announced that it was promoting Jackson to "vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives" and head of the company's "global government affairs and public policy teams."



—Enabling sex predators and porn addicts. Last month, the EPA inspector general finally testified on Capitol Hill about the agency's chronic mismanagement of alleged sexual perverts on the payroll. One employee "engaged in offensive and inappropriate behavior toward at least 16 women, most of whom were EPA co-workers," the IG reported. Supervisors "were made aware of many of these actions and yet did nothing."

Well, not exactly "nothing." The employee was actually promoted to assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Homeland Security — a position he used to harass six more women.

Two other EPA workers were caught binging on porn during work hours; one was observed getting his X-rated fix by a minor who was at the office during Bring Your Child To Work Day. EPA allowed one perv to retire with full benefits; the other is still on leave collecting a $120,000 yearly salary.

Double standards. Data destruction. Imposition of radical job-killing regulations. Law-breaking with impunity. Only in Washington does a rogue government agency with an $8 billion budget get away with such serial incompetence and criminality in the name of the "public good." Protecting the environment has become a full employment racket for green crooks and cronies.



Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Poll: Only 40% of Teachers Support Common Core

Poll: Only 40% of Teachers Support Common Core
(CNSNews.com) – Less than half of Americans (49 percent) now say they support Common Core State Standards (CCSS). 
Public support dropped 4 percent since last year and 16 percent since 2013, when 65 percent of Americans were in favor of the national education standards, according to the ninth annual Education Next poll released Tuesday.
Only 5 percent of Americans say that Common Core has had a “strongly positive” impact on their local schools, with 19 percent characterizing the impact as “strongly negative.”
The greatest change in opinion was among teachers. Although 76 percent said they were in favor of the Common Core standards in 2013, that percentage “collapsed” to just 40 percent in 2015, a 36-point difference, pollsters reported.
“While support for standardized testing remains strong, the debate over the Common Core State Standards continues to divide both teachers and the general public,” according to the poll, which was conducted in May and June by Paul Peterson and Martin West of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Among teachers and parents, the two groups most directly impacted by CCSS, “respondents who believe the standards have had a negative effect on schools (51%) exceed those who think they have had a positive effect (28%),” researchers noted.
Support for Common Core is down among both Republicans and Democrats. In 2013, 57 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of Democrats said they supported CCSS. But by 2015, that percentage had dropped 20 points for Republicans (to 37 percent) and seven points for Democrats (to 57 percent).
Now exactly half (50 percent) of Republicans responding to the survey say they oppose Common Core, compared to just 16 percent of Republicans who were against it in 2013.
Among Democrats, who are the most likely to support Common Core, opposition over the last two years rose consistently, from 10 percent in 2013, to 17 percent in 2014, to 25 percent in 2015.

Monday, August 17, 2015

CBP: 135 Unaccompanied Children Caught At U.S. Border Per Day in July

CBP: 135 Unaccompanied Children Caught At U.S. Border Per Day in July
(CNSNews.com) - About 135 unaccompanied children, on average, were caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border each day in July, according tothe latest data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

That is a monthly record for unaccompanied children (UC) apprehensions so far in Fiscal Year 2015.

According to the updated numbers, 30,862 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended at the border so far in FY 2015, which began on Oct. 1. The CBP’s latest numbers run through July 31.

CNSNews.com previously reported that 26,685 unaccompanied children had been apprehended as of June 30, as CBP data showed at the time. This means another 4,177 were caught during the month of July alone, making it the month with the highest number of UC apprehensions so far in FY 2015.

On Monday, Customs and Border Protection released a statement accompanying the release of its updated numbers, which were delayed by website glitches late last week. In the statement, CBP blamed the uptick of UC apprehensions on “poverty and violence” that “continue to worsen” in Central America, as well as smugglers who “often use misinformation about current immigration policies and practices” to convince people to cross into the United States illegally.
“In July, we experienced a slight increase over June in the number of unaccompanied children and family units apprehended,” CBP said.
“Conditions in Central America continue to worsen, especially the poverty and violence in these countries that are the primary push factors. We are aware that smugglers, or ‘coyotes,’ often use misinformation about current immigration policies and practices to lure illegal migrants to employ their services,” the statement continued.
Despite the increase in apprehensions in July, border apprehensions "remain at near historic lows," CBP added, promising to "continue to monitor the situation closely."

Saturday, August 15, 2015

[VIDEO] House Foreign Affairs Chair: Russia And Iran ‘Already Violating’ Nuclear Deal

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. must call both Russia and Iran to account for “already violating” the nuclear agreement, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said Thursday. He was responding to a reported trip to Moscow by Iran’s Qods force commander, who is subject to U.N. travel sanctions.
“[Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani] is the chief commander for Iranian foreign forces outside of Iran who carry out their assassinations and carry out their attacks,” Royce told CNN.
“And the fact that he would violate the sanctions prior to it being lifted upon him, by jumping the gun – this gives us the opportunity to call the Russians to account, and the Iranians to account, for already violating this agreement,” he said. “And we should do so.”
As a P5+1 partner, Russia – a U.N. Security Council permanent member -- is supposed to help enforce the nuclear agreement which the six powers negotiated with Tehran.
Following reports that Soleimani traveled to Moscow last month and met with President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Iran deal critics are asking: If Russia gets away with hosting him, what does that say about its likely response to any future Iranian cheating on the nuclear agreement?
Although the Obama administration agreed as part of the nuclear deal that U.N. sanctions against Soleimani and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force will be lifted, it says that will only happen in “phase two” of the agreement’s implementation – in about eight years’ time.
Any travel abroad by him ahead of that point would be in violation of the U.N. travel ban, under which all member states are required to deny him entry.
In a letter to President Obama, Royce has requested “a determination of whether the travel of Soleimani took place, its purpose, and whether it was in violation of United Nations sanctions.”
“Since the Iran agreement was signed, senior administration officials have testified that there would be no relaxing of sanctions against Iran for terrorist activity,” he wrote. “The reported free travel of Qassem Soleimani and the continuing arming of Iranian proxies throughout the Middle East is a direct challenge to that commitment.”
State Department spokesman John Kirby told a press briefing Thursday that Secretary of State John Kerry in a phone conversation with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “raised concerns about the travel to Moscow by IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani.”
Later in the briefing, however, Kirby revised his wording, saying he could not independently confirm that the visit had indeed taken place, but that Kerry “has seen the reports of the travel and expressed his concerns [to Lavrov] about those reports.”
Fox News first reported on the alleged visit last week, citing unnamed Western intelligence sources.
Then Reuters reported that an “Iranian official, who declined to be identified,” confirmed that the trip had taken place, saying Soleimani had discussed “regional and bilateral issues and the delivery to Iran of S-300 surface-to-air missiles and other weapons.”
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, however, quoted a Kremlin spokesman as denying the claim (although the report’s wording left open the possibility that the denial was specifically in relation to a Soleimani-Putin meeting, rather than about whether the visit took place at all.)
Soleimani’s name appears on a list of Iranian individuals and entities in line for sanctions relief, annexed to the nuclear agreement.
Hours after the deal was announced in Vienna on July 14, a senior administration official, briefing reporters on background, was asked about Soleimani’s inclusion.
“IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani will not be delisted at the United Nations at phase one; he will be delisted at the U.N. at phase two when the underlying designation authority terminates,” the official said.
That would only occur “after eight years into the deal, so sanctions are not being lifted early on Qassem Soleimani,” the official said.
Since then, Kerry has stressed that U.S. sanctions – as opposed to U.N. ones – against Soleimani will “never” be lifted.
Soleimani is accused of directing Shi’ite militias that carried out deadly attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq during the war there. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman nominee Gen. Joseph Dunford, he was responsible for the deaths of at least 500 U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq.

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