Conservative Happenings

Sunday, August 2, 2015

[Commentary] How can we talk rationally about abortion?

“#PPSellsBabyParts” was the gut-punching hashtag that quickly sprang up on Twitter in response to the sting videos in which a Planned Parenthood official casually discusses the donation — or, some say, sale — of organs from aborted fetuses.

So far, the reactions have been along predictable partisan lines. Nonetheless, the videos may well be a new turn in the abortion war, pushing many in the ambivalent center closer to the anti-abortion position.

Is there any way to strive toward a middle ground in this emotionally charged debate?

Abortion-rights liberals and feminists have focused on attacking the messenger, pointing out the videos were made by anti-abortion advocates who engaged in deception (setting up a fake biomedical firm) to secretly record the footage. But it’s a fair bet that no liberals would raise the same objections if, say, anti-racism activists had used deceptive tactics to expose racist practices in hiring or apartment rentals. There are widespread claims the videos are “selectively edited,” yet the full footage of the conversations was made available at the same time.

For conservatives and other anti-abortion-rights folks, the videos confirm what they have long believed: The “abortion industry” is an evil enterprise that dismembers babies for profit. Republicans are planning to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funding (which accounts for up to 40 percent of its budget if you count Medicaid payments). State investigations are underway in Florida, Wisconsin and Louisiana.

Even many pro-abortion-rights commentators agree that, whether the financial discussions in the videos are about illegal organ sales or legitimate recouping of donation expenses, the videos are disturbing. The casual tone in which the Planned Parenthood staffers talk about better ways to “crush” the fetus to obtain more intact hearts and livers is appalling to anyone with a conscience. Some say battle-hardened doctors can sound equally callous when discussing other procedures. But the fact is that other medical procedures are intended to restore health or save lives; abortion ends, at the very least, a potential human life. To dismiss our revulsion as a mere emotional reaction is to deaden our moral instinct.

This is not to say that those who are anti-abortion have no agenda beyond “life.” Many are deeply hostile to sexual freedom and attached to a traditional view of motherhood as women’s calling. Conservatives assail the presumed hypocrisy of abortion-rights advocates for whom the difference between an unborn baby and disposable tissue is the mother’s intent. Yet those who want to ban abortion with an exception for pregnancies from nonconsensual sex are inconsistent: No one would advocate killing a baby born from rape or incest.

The moral muddle of abortion may be inevitable given the complexities of the issue itself. Abortion, at least past early pregnancy, is a repugnant procedure; feminists who call for “abortion without apology” could alienate far more people than they convert. But for many of us, forcing a person to go through with pregnancy and childbirth against her will is also repugnant.

While there is no persuading the committed activists on either side, polls show that most Americans are open to compromise solutions. Limiting post-first-trimester abortions to true medical necessity could be one such measure. Another way to de-escalate the conflict would be to stop taxpayer funding for organizations that perform elective abortions.

For Planned Parenthood, which offers many other women’s health services, this would mean either giving up taxpayer funds or stopping abortion services; low-cost abortions could be provided by new clinics relying on private donations.

A politician who could steer the way toward such a compromise would be a national hero.

Via: Palm Beach Post

[VIDEO] Unreal: Gun Used in Terror Attack on Mohammed Cartoon Contest Sold Through Operation Fast and Furious

On May 4, 2015 Nadir Soofi and Elton Simpson drove from Phoenix to Garland, Texas to carry out a terror attack against conservatives hosting a Mohammed cartoon contest. When they arrived on scene, they were immediately shot and killed by police after opening fire outside the building.

It turns out Soofi purchased his gun under the Holder Justice Department's Operation Fast and Furious back in 2010. As a reminder, Operation Fast and Furious was a program that ran from 2009-2010 in which federal agents purposely allowed the sale of thousands of weapons, including handguns, AK-47s and .50-caliber rifles, to known drug cartels. Agents deliberately allowed weapons to be trafficked and lost in Mexico. Now, Barack Obama's bloodiest scandal has hit home once again. Richard Serrano at the LA Times has the incredible details:

Five years before he was shot to death in the failed terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, Nadir Soofi walked into a suburban Phoenix gun shop to buy a 9-millimeter pistol.

At the time, Lone Wolf Trading Co. was known among gun smugglers for selling illegal firearms. And with Soofi's history of misdemeanor drug and assault charges, there was a chance his purchase might raise red flags in the federal screening process.

Inside the store, he fudged some facts on the form required of would-be gun buyers. What Soofi could not have known was that Lone Wolf was at the center of a federal sting operation known as Fast and Furious, targeting Mexican drug lords and traffickers. The idea of the secret program was to allow Lone Wolf to sell illegal weapons to criminals and straw purchasers, and track the guns back to large smuggling networks and drug cartels.

Soofi's attempt to buy a gun caught the attention of authorities, who slapped a seven-day hold on the transaction, according to his Feb. 24, 2010, firearms transaction record, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, the hold was lifted after 24 hours, and Soofi got the 9-millimeter.

In other words, ATF and the FBI pushed through a shady gun sale that ultimately was used in a terror attack against Americans on U.S. soil.

Not surprisingly the FBI has been stonewalling information about Soofi's firearm and the guns used during the Garland attack for months. They did the same when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed by Mexican drug bandits in Arizona on December 15, 2010. The guns used in his murder were also sold as part of Operation Fast and Furious. More from Serrano:

A day after the attack, the Department of Justice sent an "urgent firearms disposition request" to Lone Wolf, seeking more information about Soofi and the pistol he bought in 2010, according to a June 1 letter from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, to U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch.

Though the request did not specify whether the gun was used in the Garland attack, Justice Department officials said the information was needed "to assist in a criminal investigation," according to Johnson's letter, also reviewed by The Times.

The FBI so far has refused to release any details, including serial numbers, about the weapons used in Garland by Soofi and Simpson. Senate investigators are now pressing law enforcement agencies for answers, raising the chilling possibility that a gun sold during the botched Fast and Furious operation ended up being used in a terrorist attack against Americans.

Keep in mind not a single person involved in Operation Fast and Furious has been fired. In fact, many Department of Justice officials and ATF supervisors have been promoted. ATF agents who exposed the scandal, however, have faced extreme retaliation in addition to career and personal sabotage.

Via: TownHall

22 Quotes to Celebrate Milton Friedman Day

July 31 is known as a day to honor conservative economist Milton Friedman, as he would have been 103 years old if he were still living today.

Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in economics, specifically for “his achievements in the field of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.”

He served as an advisor to President Nixon in the White House and was the president of the American Economic Association before becoming a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Friedman was known for his defense of the free market and call for school choice through a voucher programs.

To honor this great man, here are 22 of his most notable quotes regarding the economy, government, and life.

The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed.

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”
“The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way.”
“Governments never learn. Only people learn.”
“Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”
“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
“I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstance and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.”
“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”
“If all we want are jobs, we can create any number—for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs—jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume.”
“The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.”
“When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in theSoviet Union—like public housing in the United States—look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.”
“Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.”
“The lack of balance in governmental activity reflects primarily the failure to separate sharply the question what activities it is appropriate for government to finance from the question what activities it is appropriate for government to administer—a distinction that is important in other areas of government activity as well.”
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”
“Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy.”
“I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse.”
“The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.”
“Underlying most arguments against the free marketis a lack of belief in freedom itself.”
“I think that the Internet is going to be one of themajor forces for reducing the role of government.”
“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.”
“Inflation is taxation without legislation.”
“Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.”

Via: Daily Signal

Bill O'Reilly: Gov't Killing People Over Traffic Stops, But Ignoring Federal Laws

Recently two Americans wound up dead after traffic stops.

In Texas, 28-year-old Sandra Bland was stopped when she failed to signal while changing lanes. She was taken into custody where she allegedly committed suicide.

In Ohio, 43-year-old Samuel DuBose was shot dead by a police officer after being stopped for not having a license plate on the front end of his car.

The Ohio cop has been charged with murder. The Texas woman's case is being investigated by state authorities.

Talking Points does not know what precisely happened, so further comment will wait until the hard evidence is presented.

But the point is that laws -- no matter how trivial -- matter.

And we the people, including law enforcement, are expected to obey them … all of them.

Via: Real Clear Politics

[VIDEO] Krauthammer: Debate Is Going To Be All About Trump

MEGYN KELLY, KELLY FILE: An aide to Governor John Kasich (R-OH) came out and said [the upcoming FOX News Republican debate] is like a NASCAR driver mentally preparing for a race knowing one of the drivers will be drunk. You don't know what to expect.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Well, if you want to put it slightly more kindly, you could have just said erratic and unpredictable but everybody knows that in the lead-up to this debate it's going to be all about Trump. That will be the story, no matter what happens, otherwise in the debate that will be the story that's going to be carried out by the media. That's going to be the sound bite.

And the two questions are: will Trump act like a statesman or will he continue the anger and bluster show? And the second is: will anybody take him on, and who will it be? On the first I know he's getting advice from the media that he should play the statesman and that would propel him. I'm not sure that he's capable of doing that but assuming he is, I'm not sure that would be successful. He's had such incredible success with the bluster and the anger that he has tapped into that I suspect he'll continue on that.

The question is, will anybody challenge him? if you're a top-tier candidate, there's not that much advantage in doing that, particularly now early in the race. You get into a mud fight, the others will benefit rather than you. I suspect it could be somebody who is in the middle of the pack, say a number 9, 10, or 11 in any of the polls on the bubble of the debates, on the cusp, who might want to take him out in a way to be the dragon slayer and perhaps the candidate for that would be Rick Perry who took him on the most strongly after his remarks -- Trump's remarks about John McCain.

Via: Real Clear Videos

Obama set to announce steeper emissions cuts from US power plants

President Barack Obama will impose steeper cuts on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants across the country than previously expected, senior administration officials said Sunday, in what the president called the most significant step the U.S. has ever taken to fight global warming.

The Obama administration is expected to finalize the rule at a White House event on Monday, a year after proposing unprecedented carbon dioxide limits. Obama, in a video posted on Facebook, said the limits were backed up by decades of data and facts showing that without tough action, the world will face more extreme weather and escalating health problems like asthma.

"Climate change is not a problem for another generation," Obama said. "Not anymore."

Initially, Obama had mandated a 30 percent nationwide cut in carbon dioxide emission by 2030, compared to 2005 levels. The final version, which follows extensive consultations with environmental groups and the energy industry, will require a 32 percent cut instead, according to White House officials.

Opponents said they would sue the government immediately. The also planned to ask the courts to put the rule on hold while legal challenges play out.

The steeper version also gives states an additional two years to comply, officials said, yielding to complaints that the original deadline was too soon. The new deadline is set for 2022. States will also have until 2018 instead of 2017 to submit their plans for how they intend to meet their targets.

The focus on renewables marks a significant shift from the earlier proposal that sought to accelerate the ongoing shift from coal-fired power to natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide. The final version aims to keep the share of natural gas in the nation’s power mix the same as it is now.

The stricter limits included the final plan were certain to incense energy industry advocates who had already balked at the more lenient limits in the proposed plan. However, the Obama administration said its tweaks would cut energy costs and address concerns about power grid reliability.

The Obama administration previously predicted emissions limits will cost up to $8.8 billion annually by 2030, though it says those costs will be far outweighed by health savings from fewer asthma attacks and other benefits. The actual price is unknown until states decide how they’ll reach their targets, but the administration has projected the rule would raise electricity prices about 4.9 percent by 2020 and prompt coal-fired power plants to close.

In the works for years, the power plant rule forms the cornerstone of Obama's plan to curb U.S. emissions and keep global temperatures from climbing, and its success is pivotal to the legacy Obama hopes to leave on climate change. Never before has the U.S. sought to restrict carbon dioxide from existing power plants.

By clamping down on power plant emissions, Obama is also working to increase his leverage and credibility with other nations whose commitments he's seeking for a global climate treaty to be finalized later this year in Paris. As its contribution to that treaty, the U.S. has pledged to cut overall emissions 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025, compared to 2005. Other major polluting nations have also stepped up including China, which pledged to halt its growth in emissions by 2030 despite an economy that's still growing.

Power plants account for at least one-third of all emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming in the U.S. Obama’s rule assigns customized targets for each state, then leaves it up to the state to determine how to meet their targets.

More than a dozen states have already made plans to fight the rule, even before it was revealed. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has urged some Republican governors to refuse to comply, setting up a confrontation with the EPA, which by law can force its own plan on states that fail to submit implementation plans.

Yet in those states, power companies and local utilities have started preparing to meet those targets. New, more efficient plants are replacing older ones have already pushed emissions down nearly 13 percent since 2005.

In Congress, lawmakers have sought to use legislation to stop Obama's regulation, and McConnell has tried previously to use an obscure, rarely successful maneuver under the Congressional Review Act to allow Congress to vote it down.

The more serious threat to Obama's rule will likely come in the courts. The Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which represents energy companies, said 20 to 30 states were poised to join with industry in suing over the rule.

The Obama administration has a mixed track record in fending off legal challenges to its climate rules. Earlier this year, a federal appeals court ruled against 15 states and a coal company that tried to block the power plant rule before it was finalized. The Supreme Court has also affirmed Obama's authority to regulate pollution crossing state lines and to use the decades-old Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gases — the legal underpinning for the power plant rule.

But the high court in June ruled against his mercury emissions limits, arguing the EPA failed to properly account for costs. Federal courts have also forced Obama to redo other clean air standards that industry groups complained were too onerous.

With the end of Obama's presidency drawing nearer, his climate efforts have become increasingly entangled in the next presidential election. The power plant rule won't go into effect until long after Obama leaves office, putting its implementation in the hands of his successor. Among other Republican critics, 2016 candidate and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has said he would drastically scale down the EPA if elected and shift most of its duties to state regulators.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Via: Fox News

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[OPINION] Carr: You might be a liberal if ... you’re delusional

MOONBAT-MANIA: Secretary of State John F. Kerry attempted to avoid Massachusetts taxes on his yacht by mooring it in Rhode Island.

You may be a liberal if you believe that allowing working people to keep a few more of the dollars they earned themselves is a “boondoggle” and a “gimmick.”

You may be a Massachusetts liberal if you think that the annual sales tax holiday weekend “diverts” money from “education,” by which you mean teachers unions, and from “the MBTA,” by which you mean handouts for T hacks who retired with full pensions at age 41.

By this definition of diversion, every time you drive past a bank and don’t rob it, you have “diverted” the money inside by not stealing it from its rightful owners.

The annual sales tax weekend in Massachusetts was approved by the Legislature last week, but not without some more absurd rhetoric from the hackerama. The solons’ gripe is that not grabbing that extra $25 million from taxpayers to give to non-taxpayers is “throwing it out the window.”

Remember, this is the state that two years ago admitted to annually handing out at least $1.8 billion in welfare to illegal aliens. That of course is money well spent, because it’s for non-working, non-English-speaking non-citizens. What could possibly be fairer than that?

The website American Thinker recently ran a piece headlined, “You May Be a Liberal if….” The point was that moonbat rhetoric is increasingly diverging from reality. I think after this week I can make a few additions to their list.

You may be a liberal if you want to string up the dentist who shot Cecil the Lion, but you think the ghouls at Planned Parenthood all deserve Profiles in Courage awards.

You may be a liberal if you feel you have to apologize for saying “All Lives Matter.”

You may be a liberal if you oppose funding charter schools for inner-city kids even as you send your own children to private schools.

You may be a liberal if you support higher taxes but have directed the trustees of your own trust fund to buy only municipal bonds — tax-free munis, that is.

You may be a liberal if you want to ban Christmas trees from the public square as you simultaneously demand prayer rooms for the new Muslim “refugees” in public schools.

You may be a liberal if you dismiss the coldest, snowiest winter on record as “weather,” but truly believe that two days with temperatures over 90 degrees represent “climate change.”

You may be a liberal if you believe that felons and illegal aliens should be allowed to vote, but not the military.

You may be a liberal if you believe in confiscating legally registered guns from law-abiding citizens, but agree with Barack Obama and Eric Holder that existing federal firearms laws should never, ever be used against inner-city gang-bangers who are actually committing crimes with illegal weapons.

You may be a liberal if you support Obamacare for everyone else, but are outraged when it’s suggested that you yourself might have to eventually give up your own gold-plated health insurance.

You may be a liberal if you believe that George Stephanopoulos and Brian Williams are “journalists.”

You may be a liberal if you support open borders, but live in a gated community.

You may be a liberal if you didn’t care when John Kerry’s second wife’s first husband’s trust fund bought him a $7.5-million yacht, after which he evaded paying Mass. sales taxes or town excise taxes on it, but when Sen. Marco Rubio spent $80,000 on a fishing boat, that was an “extravagant purchase” of a “luxury speedboat,” as the New York Times fulminated.

You may be a liberal if whenever some nut shoots up a movie theater, you automatically believe some lying liberal media outlet like ABC News or the Daily Beast when they falsely report that the perp was a member of the Tea Party.

You may be a liberal if you haven’t attended a candlelight vigil against war and those genocidal CIA drones of George W. Bush since Jan. 20, 2009.

You may be a liberal if you think it’s a front-page hate crime for a cop to defend himself against a charging thug, but when an unemployed drug-dealing Mexican burglar guns down three Native Americans in cold blood on an Indian reservation in Montana — nothing to see here folks, move along.

You may be a liberal if you think John Kerry deserves a Nobel Peace Prize of his own, just like Yasser Arafat and Barack Obama, for giving the mullahs $150 billion to develop their own nuclear weapons.

You most assuredly are a Massachusetts liberal if, after bloviating about how unfair it is to give bitter clingers a sales-tax holiday, you now plan to spend the weekend of Aug. 15-16 shopping till you drop, instead of driving to New Hampshire to beat the sales tax the way you do the other 51 weekends of the year.

Listen to Howie 3-7 p.m. every weekday on AM 680 WRKO.

Via: Boston Herald

What’s happening to this heroic Navy officer from the Chattanooga shooting will make your blood BOIL

never like to be reactionary and follow anything that may just be hyperbole or conspiracy theory. That’s why I held off on addressing this issue until I got confirmation — which came Friday afternoon via text message.

There are things which make you just upset, like the liberal progressive left and media accomplices’ rage over the shooting of a lion in Africa but abject disregard and disdain reference Planned Parenthood dismembering babies and selling their body parts.

But this story has me dog fighting mad and seriously pissed off.

As reported ten days ago by Western Journalism, “A Navy officer and Marine reportedly returned fire at the shooter who killed five service members in Chattanooga, Tenn., even though current policy does not permit military members to carry firearms on facilities such as those where the attack occurred.

The cold-blooded assault killed four Marines and one active-duty Navy reservist. The center’s commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Timothy White, used his personal firearm to engage the shooter during the attack, according to sources quoted in the Navy Times. A report from The Washington Post said that one of the Marines killed in the shooting might have been carrying a 9 mm Glock and possibly returned fire on the shooter.

At the time, Western Journalism wrote, Lt. Cmdr. White could face disciplinary action for violating policy about possessing a weapon on the facility that was supposedly a gun-free zone. The investigation into the attack is ongoing, and authorities will not know if White or the Marine hit the shooter until an autopsy and a ballistics report have been completed.

Ladies and gents, resulting from the text message I received yesterday, I can confirm that the United States Navy is bringing charges against Lt. Cmdr Timothy White for illegally discharging a firearm on federal property.

The text message asked if it would be possible for Lt.Cmdr White to reach out to me. To wit I replied, affirmative.

What kind of freaking idiots are in charge of our Armed Forces — pardon me, our “unArmed Forces”? What would they prefer that Abdulazeez had been able to kill all the Marines and Sailors at the Naval Support Reserve Center? Let me draw an interesting contrast: Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus is more concerned about lifting the ban on transgendered Sailors. Mabus has a problem in that for the first time since 2007 the US Navy will not have a Carrier Battle Group operating in the Persian Gulf. But this knucklehead has no problem with the Navy seeking to destroy the career of a Sailor, a commander of an installation, returning fire against an Islamic jihadist attack. I do not care if it was his personal weapon, he deserves a medal for facing the enemy.

Folks, this has become the Obama military that will not implement policies for our men and women in uniform to be protected — but will punish them if they do protect themselves. What ever happened to the Navy of John Paul Jones, Farragut, Halsey, and Nimitz? What has happened in our America where we believe that our men and women in uniform — especially the commanders — are just targets for these damn Islamic jihadists?

Can you imagine the message this sends to ISIS and all the enemies of America? We are going to end his career and court-martial a man who drew his sidearm to protect his command, and the assigned Sailors and Marines.

What is the difference between Lt. Cmdr White and the reserve officer in Moore, Oklahoma who went to his vehicle and armed himself to prevent a second woman from being beheaded? Is it that we expect less from our uniformed warriors? Are they just supposed to sit and be butchered, gunned down, until local law enforcement come along? Let’s be very clear here, I can attest that there are many reserve and National Guard troops who are carrying concealed during their drill periods…why? Because they are lions, not sheep, like the imbeciles who are making the decision to punish Lt. Cmdr White.

Doggone, what does it take? Here we have a known deserte,r Bowe Bergdahl, out getting picked up smoking marijuana, or at a house growing marijuana. According to Susan Rice, he served with honor and distinction. The real men of honor such as Army 1LT Clint Lorance, and now it seems Lt. Cmdr White, are forced into jail.

Ponder this, Obama will pardon drug dealers, but men who fight the enemy are imprisoned? Now, can someone, any one of you inane characterless liberal progressive trolls explain that to me? Explain it to us that you would rather have had more Sailors and Marines die than for this Navy Commander to draw his personal weapon in defense of his command. That’s what the Naval Support Center was for Lt. Cmdr White — his responsibility to defend, protect.

Here we have a president and secretary of state sitting down with a sworn enemy in Iran who holds four Americans hostage, and we’re going to bring charges against an American Naval Commander who returned fire against the enemy.

This is indeed FUBAR!

Here’s what needs to happen. Flood the phone of SecNav Ray Mabus and SecDef Carter and ask them whose side they’re. Demand the charges being brought against Lt.Cmdr White be immediately dropped. If those charges are not dropped, I will personally lead the charge to have Carter and Mabus removed from their positions.

America, this cannot be tolerated and must not be allowed to stand. I guess the life of an African lion means more to these liberal progressives than one of our brave Sailors. It is beyond belief that the Navy would embark upon this folly — they could simply issue a “local letter of reprimand” that would not enter into Lt. Cmdr White’s permanent personnel file — then immediately pin a medal upon his chest and fast track him for promotion to Commander.

White exemplifies the highest and finest of character and tradition of the US Navy. Those who would bring charges against him are indeed cowards and need be exposed.

Lieutenant Commander Timothy White, I await your call, and I will not rest until these charges against you have been dropped. You stay strong. You showed that you are Steadfast and Loyal. And we will not allow you to be abandoned to the perfumed princes of the Pentagon…and the White House. America shall rally to your cause!

This is just another in the long line of reasons why we must NEVER allow a progressive socialist to be commander-in-chief.

Via: Allen B. West

[VIDEO] We Now Know Where Lois Lerner's Emails and Backup Tapes Were Destroyed

There have been dozens of questions surrounding the disappearance of emails belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner, the woman at the center of the IRS targeting scandal. Some of Lerner's emails have been recovered, after IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said under oath they were lost forever. Thousands are still missing. But perhaps the most compelling questions that have been asked since the IRS targeting scandal broke in May 2013 are 1) Exactly where were Lerner's emails and backup tapes destroyed? 2) Who destroyed them?

Now, we have an answer. According to Americans for Tax Reform, Lerner's hard drive was destroyed by the IRS "Midnight Unit" in West Virginia:

Backup tapes containing as many as 24,000 Lois Lerner emails were destroyed by an IRS entity officially known as the "Media Management Midnight Unit" located in Martinsburg, West Virginia, according to documentation released this week by the House Oversight Committee. In all, 422 backup tapes holding the emails were magnetically "degaussed" despite an agency-wide preservation order and congressional subpoena. Degaussing is a process whereby powerful magnets are used to erase data on a storage tape.

The preservation order came from IRS Chief Technology Officer Terence Millholland in response to Congressional subpoenas over Lois Lerner's emails. However, the agency completely failed to ensure the order was followed or understood. According to the House Oversight report:

-"The IRS failed to ensure compliance with the preservation order at each turn. The IRS failed to confirm compliance with the preservation order in February 2014, upon learning of the gap in emails; failed to ensure the Media Management Midnight Unit, the team that destroyed the backup tapes, properly understood the preservation order; and failed to make certain that individuals who ordered the destruction of the specific media, in this instance the backup tapes, properly understood the preservation order."

Keep in mind Lerner's hard drive didn't simply "crash" on its own, but instead hadphysical damage. According to one Treasury Inspector General, the hard drive likely crashed due to "an impact of some sort." The question is who damaged the hard drive and whether it was done on purpose to destroy evidence.

New documentation released by the House Oversight Committee this week again raises questions on how Lois Lerner's hard drive was physically damaged and whether there was some kind of deliberate act to destroy data on it.

The House Oversight Committee report cites an officially transcribed interview with John Minsek, senior investigative analyst with the IRS Criminal Investigations (CI) unit. Minsek examined the Lerner hard drive in 2011. In the transcribed interview, he notes Lerner's hard drive contained "well-defined scoring creating a concentric circle in the proximity of the center of the disk."

Earlier this week a federal judge threatened to "haul into court the IRS Commissioner to hold him personally into contempt," for ignoring court orders and refusing to turn over emails belonging to Lerner by deadline.

Via: Townhall

[VIDEO] Police find person of interest after Memphis police officer killed during traffic stop

Memphis Police said Sunday they have apprehended a person of interest in the search for the gunman who shot and killed an officer during a traffic stop the previous night.

Officials told Fox News that no charges have been filed against the person of interest and that the investigation into the shooting of Officer Sean Bolton, 33, is still ongoing.

Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said during a news conference that police were alerted about 9:18 p.m. Saturday that an officer had been shot multiple times. Armstrong said the officer was transported in critical condition to a hospital, where he died.

In a statement Sunday morning, Memphis Police said that a civilian had used Bolton's radio to notify police about the shooting. No further details were released.

Armstrong said police are using all available resources to find the shooter and that officers are grieving, adding that "this is just a reminder of how dangerous" the job is.

"Sadly to say, we've been here before," he said.

Bolton is the third Memphis officer to be fatally shot in slightly more than four years. Officer Tim Warren was killed while responding to a shooting at a downtown Memphis hotel in July 2011. In December 2012, Officer Martoiya Lang was killed while serving a warrant.

Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton Jr. said Bolton's death "speaks volumes about the inherent danger of police work" and asked others to "pray for the family and pray for our city."

"The men and women in blue have certain rules of engagement that they have to follow, but at any given minute in a 24-hour day they're dealing with folks who have no rules of engagement."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Via: Fox News

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