Senior Democratic Whip Announces Opposition To Iran Nuclear Deal

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D – Fla.) is the latest senior Democratic member of Congress to announce his opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran, the Palm Beach Post reportedtoday.

Hastings, a liberal Democrat who usually supports Obama, joins another Palm Beach County delegation member who’s normally a pro-Obama vote — Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton — in opposing the agreement. …

Both Hastings and Deutch say the deal allows Iran to remain a “threshold nuclear state.”

Their opposition stands in contrast to Obama’s efforts in a speech last week to cast the deal’s critics as partisan Republicans who are making “common cause” with Iranian hardliners.

Hastings, a Senior Democratic Whip in the House, made his announcement in an op-edpublished in the paper [non-paywalled version here]. Hastings observed that the deal “allows Iran to remain a nuclear a nuclear threshold state,” and that the billions of dollars Iran will gain in sanctions relief will allow it to increase its funding of terror groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Hastings also questioned whether sanctions could really “snap back” in the event of Iran violating the deal, given the increased commerce between Iran and the rest of the world that the deal will spur.

We must maintain a strong sanctions regime — to do otherwise is to give up our leverage. Sanctions are what brought Iran to the table, and they depend on large-scale international cooperation and compliance.

Companies from around the world have started lining up to invest in Iran. Should sanctions need to be re-imposed, it is not clear whether investment contracts implemented in the meantime would be voided. Indeed, many nations may no longer feel bound to U.S. sanctions once U.N. and EU-based sanctions are eased.

The provisions of the agreement that allow sanctions to “snap back” are of particular concern. This process could take well over two months and is limited to “significant” violations of the deal (the [deal] fails to define what qualifies as significant). Iran could undermine the agreement in ways that would be nearly impossible to stop.

Hastings also announced his intention to introduce legislation authorizing the “sitting president or his successors” to use military force in case Iran is about to develop nuclear weapons.

House Democrats Juan Vargas (D – Calif.), Grace Meng (D – N.Y.), Albio Sires (D – N.J.), and Kathleen Rice (D – N.Y.) were the first group to announce their opposition to the deal. Later, three high-ranking Jewish Democrats in the House—Representatives Steve Israel (D – N.Y.), Nita Lowey (D – N.Y.), and Ted Deutch (D – Fla.)—joined them in opposition. Representatives Eliot Engel (D – N.Y) and Brad Sherman (D – Calif.) also announced their opposition to the deal last Friday. Engel is the Ranking Member of theHouse Foreign Affairs Committee, of which Sherman, Sires, Meng, and Deutch are members.

Via: The Tower

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[VIDEO] Clinton aide Huma Abedin STILL hasn't sworn under oath that she's turned over all her State Department emails

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton declared Monday under penalty of perjury that she has given the State Department all of her work-related emails from her four years as secretary of state, but her trusted aide Huma Abedin has not yet taken that step – despite a request from a federal judge. 

Abedin's lawyer Karen Dunn told Politico on Thursday that the longtime Clinton insider, who served as deputy chief of staff at State, plans to turn over her work-related emails and other messages from her tenure there by August 28.

But Dunn declined to say whether or not Abedin will ink the same statment Clinton has signed.

Abedin enjoyed a rare but legal status as a 'Special Government Employee' during part of her time in government, allowing her to double-dip with a second paycheck in the private sector.

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TROUBLE COMING: Clinton aide Huma Abedin has yet to swear that she's turned over all her work-related emails and other materials to the State Department as an investigation swirls around Hillary

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SAFE FOR NOW? Clinton signed a statement under penalty of perjury, but there's no indication when or whether her top staffers will follow suit

That arrangement has led some Republicans to speculate that she might have exposed classified information to people who are not authorized to see it. 

Donald Trump told DailyMail.com on July 30 that it's reasonable to think Abedin may have shared information with her husband Anthony Weiner, including the contents of classified emails that passed through the former secretary of state's private home-brew server.

Weiner, a former Democratic congressman, resigned in 2011 amid lewd sexting scandals. 

Trump told DailyMail.com during a wide-ranging interview in his New York City Office that 'the person seeing [Clinton's] emails more than anybody else is Huma. And who's Huma married to? The worst deviant in the United States of America, right? Weiner!'

Abedin holds a security clearance of the kind that typically comes with detailed guidance on what kind of information must be kept secret from family members, including spouses. 

Trump said Weiner's actions were 'shocking and disgusting' and questioned whether 'anyone that untrustworthy' should be 'anywhere around national secrets.'

'Huma knows all those emails,' Trump insisted, 'and she's married to a deviant who has a big

Via: Daily Mail

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MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch: Americans Are ‘Tired of Hillary Clinton’

MSNBC contributor Donny Deutsch said on Morning Joe that the greatest problem with Hillary Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign is that the American people are simply tired of her.

“The emails are actually just a symptom of the problem of Hillary,” Deutsch said. “Americans are just tired of Hillary Clinton. There comes a point in time where she comes on the TV — Hillary Clinton is very competent and very bright, just Americans have fallen out of like with her. It’s that simple.”

“Are you tired of her?” host Joe Scarborough asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “I think Hillary at this point, regardless of her skill set, would not be an effective leader because her fault or not, the country is polarized. She cannot lead effectively, because she’ll not be able to bring this country together.”

Deutsch, who identifies as a liberal, said he was basing his observation in part on his conversations with powerful New York City establishment Democrats. “That’s Democrats,” Scarborough pointed out. “That’s not Republicans. These are around the dinner table, around the lunch table powerful Democrats saying ‘We just can’t do this.’

Via: Mediaite

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EXCLUSIVE — DONALD TRUMP EXPECTS TO FACE VP JOE BIDEN IN GENERAL ELECTION: HILLARY CLINTON’S ‘BIG LEAGUE’ EMAIL SCANDAL WILL FORCE HER OUT

NEW YORK CITY, New York — Should billionaire and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump win the Republican primary in 2016—as he certainly wants to do—he expects he will face Vice President Joe Biden in the general election since he thinks the current email scandal plaguing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will eventually knock her out of the race.

When asked in a wide-ranging interview with Breitbart News in his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower if he could envision a general election with him at the top of the Republican ticket and Vice President Biden leading the Democratic ticket, Trump said, “I think so.”

“I think Hillary has got huge problems right now,” Trump said, adding:

Is she going to make it? I hear this thing is big league. Why did she do it? You use the server? Because they’re always looking to go over the edge, whether it’s Whitewater or anything else. They always want to go over the edge. I’m just looking at it saying what the hell was she doing? You know what she was doing. She was guarding from the president seeing what she doing.

Trump said he thinks this email scandal will take Clinton down.

“It just looks like Hillary is going to not be able to run. It looks to me like that’s what’s going to happen,” Trump told Breitbart News. He went on to say:

I think it’s unlikely if you look at what she’s done. What she’s done is ten times worse than what General Petraeus did—far more sensitive documents, top-of-the-line sensitive documents, far more of them. What she did is ten times worse. It destroyed him, so I don’t see how she’s going to possibly be able to run. It’s pretty conclusive right now, too.

Trump previewed some of his policy framework, too, which his campaign is in the process of preparing to roll out. He also explained that most of the policy papers from most of the politicians running against him for president will never see the light of day, and explained how things actually get done “in the real world.”

“Over the next number of weeks, once we get out of August, we’ll be talking about taxes and tax policy,” Trump told Breitbart News, also stating:

We’ll be talking about healthcare policy. We have some really excellent things to come out. I’m already discussing military and plans. With all of that being said, in the real world, you don’t just roll things out. You go out and you negotiate back and forth. It’s a tug of war back and forth with all of these different people you have to get on board. So rolling anything out is a lot different than going in and getting everybody together. It’s called leadership.

Trump compared how he would govern if elected President of the United States to how he’s achieved success in real estate deals.

“When I bought Doral in Miami—which was sought after by everybody, every developer in the country wanted it. I didn’t say, ‘Wow, I’m going to do a ten-point plan on how to buy Doral.’ I went down, and I just fought like hell, and I got it,” Trump said, adding:

I didn’t sit down and say, “Okay, I’ll make a phone call at 7 in the morning, and then I’ll do this, and then I’ll get on a plane.” It doesn’t work that way. I went down and met with the people. I had lunch. I had dinner. I didn’t leave. And I made a great deal. Same thing with Turnberry in Scotland, sold by people in Dubai. I met with them. I worked them. I didn’t do a 14-point plan that says I’m going to make a phone call at 10:30. It doesn’t work that way. So we have to get—as you know, we’ve had no leadership in the country—we have to get everybody on board. For doing that, you need compromise. You need back-and-forth. And it’s not about a plan. It’s about flexibility. You need flexibility. So you could put out a plan, but most of that plan comes back—and you need flexibility to get it done. It can be done beautifully and in harmony and without executive orders all over the place.

Trump also told Breitbart News he’s pleased he remains the GOP frontrunner after a failed attempt by Fox News anchors to wipe him out in the recent debate. He will be going to Iowa on Saturday and will be in New Hampshire on Friday evening.

“So I’m so honored because I went up in all the polls,” Trump said when asked about the recent polls. “In Iowa, I was in second place; now, I’m in first place. Now, the new polls came out from CNN; two of them came out where I’m in first place. It’s such a great honor. I love the people of Iowa. Love the people of New Hampshire. I’m going to Iowa this weekend, and I’m going to New Hampshire on Friday—which is tomorrow.”

The real estate magnate just wrapped up a massively successful trip to Michigan, where thousands came out to see him speak—many of whom are not traditional Republicans. Trump thinks the big crowds that keep coming out to see him are coming because people want a leader like him to stop “incompetent politicians” from further destructing the economy of the United States:

People in this country are really smart. They’re tired of watching incompetent politicians. They get it. They get it. They’re tired of watching our country withering away under the leadership of incompetent people. They know I won’t let that happen. I’m not going to let China continue to destroy us. I’m not going to let Japan and Mexico and all of these countries continue to destroy us. They get it. I’m going to be great to women. You know, all the health issues with women which Jeb Bush has just punted on—which has been disgraceful—the women’s health issues are very important to me. I’m going to be so good on that. I say I’m going to win the women’s vote, and I’m going to win the Hispanic vote. Already you’re seeing Hispanics. That’s been amazing what’s going on. In Las Vegas, I won in the polls by a lot. It’s amazing. But I think more than anything else, they’re tired of watching incompetent people.

Trump told Breitbart News that the Rust Belt—places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and others—where blue collar American workers, many of them Ronald Reagan Democrats, are states he will certainly win if he wins the GOP nomination.

“Those are my states,” Trump said.

Trump also said since his appeal goes beyond politics, he expects that should he win the nomination, he’ll bring the GOP more states that Republicans traditionally haven’t had much luck in.

“I believe we will win states that the Republicans were never even thinking about winning,” Trump said.

Throughout the entire interview, which lasted about a half hour, Trump also kept pointing out that he thinks former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush isn’t doing very well as a candidate. For instance, he discussed his appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program—handing this reporter a printout of a Variety magazine article from the outlet’s senior editor, Rick Kissell, that laid out that Trump’s hour-long interview on the show earlier this week pushed it to a four-month-high in ratings, and said Bush would never be able to do that.

“Hannity won the entire evening with my interview the other night,” Trump said. “He’s not going to win it with Jeb Bush. You think he’s going to win it with Jeb Bush? He’s got $100 million, which means he’s a puppet. You know that, right?

Via: Breitbart

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'Script Won't Go According to Plan': Drip, Drip, Drip of Hillary Email Scandal Puts Dems In Near-Panic Mode

Democratic insiders haven't hit the panic button yet, but Hillary Clinton's burgeoning scandal over her use of a private email server while secretary of state is leaving them with a bad case of political heartburn.

In interviews Thursday, Democrats based in Washington insisted that their faith that Clinton would win the party's 2016 nomination and be elected president hasn't been shaken. But when a campaign holds an emergency conference call with party insiders and media surrogates to quell nerves and offer messaging guidance, as Team Clinton did late Tuesday evening, people are bound to worry that a situation dismissed as Republican shenanigans might be worse than feared.

"There's a little nagging worry in Democrats that probably won't go away and probably will only grow larger," Jimmy Siegel, a Democratic strategist who produced campaign ads for Clinton's 2008 presidential bid, told the Washington Examiner. The concern is "that somehow, some way, the script won't go according to plan."

"It is concerning to watch the drip-drip-drip of the story, with the 'it's nonsense' response from the campaign," added a Democratic operative backing Clinton. "It feels terrifyingly similar to the partisan dynamics of the Swift Boat mess of 2004. I really hope I'm wrong."

Via: Washington Examiner

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Obamacare: An Alarming Checkup

OK, Obamacare. Up on the table. It’s time for your annual physical.

Three years old, eh? Well, with any luck, you’ll leave here with a clean bill of uh-oh. I can see one problem already. Have you seen these tax hikes?

Let’s see — five, 10, 15, 18 tax hikes in all. That hardly seems wise, considering the fragile health of the economy, but there they are.

There’s the tax on individuals who don’t purchase health insurance. That will cost $55 billion over the next decade. I also see a 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health plans costing more than $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. It’ll be $111 billion for that between 2018 and 2022. Several smaller ones, such as limiting the amount people can set aside in their flexible spending accounts: $4.5 billion there from 2011 to 2022.

It all adds up, Obamacare. It’s not healthy.

Hate to tell you this, but it gets worse. See this? That’s the number of people who are going to lose their current health insurance because of you. Not thousands, but 7 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This isn’t guesswork; it’s already happening.

Take Universal Orlando, which recentlyannounced that it won’t continue to cover its part-time workers. Why? Not because they’re coldhearted, but because they can’t afford it. Your prohibition of annual benefit limits beginning next year is making Universal’s health plans too expensive. The word is, this will affect about 500 Universal employees.

Or consider the American Veterinary Medical Association in Illinois. “[M]edical coverage will end for some 17,500 association members and thousands of their dependents at year’s end,” the group says in a news release. There are many more to come, from other employers. Ouch.

Wait. Obamacare, didn’t you say that nobody who liked his current plan would lose it? Yes. You promised it, in fact — repeatedly. I’d better note that in your chart.

You may be getting uncomfortable, but we’re not done yet. Over here, there’s another serious problem: You’re hurting hiring — and right at a time when the economy could use all the help it can get to reduce unemployment.

You don’t believe it? Look at the “Beige Book,” a report that the Federal Reserve publishes eight times a year detailing the economic activity in the Fed’s 12 regions. According to its most recent report: “Employers in several districts cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff.”

“Affordable Care Act.” That’s you.

There’s more. It’s a good thing you’re sitting down. It turns out you’re making it more difficult to access Medicare services.

You can be as skeptical as you want, but this is right from the Congressional Budget Office and Medicare’s own trustees. They’ve shown what you don’t want to admit: You’re raiding Medicare to pay for other new programs.

Payment rates for Medicare Advantage: down $156 billion over the next decade. Home health services: down $66 billion. Hospice services: down $17 billion. The biggest one is hospital services, which you cut by $260 billion. What’s that? No, the cuts do not target medical institutions or organizations suspected of waste, fraud or abuse. Nice try.

Finally, I see that insurance premiums are going to skyrocket under you. It’s those coverage mandates you put in place; they’re the culprit. According to a congressional report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, some premiums are set to rise in every state. Yes, every state, and not by small amounts. In many states, they’re primed to go up by more than 50 percent; in others, by more than 100 percent. It’s all as a result of changes you’ve introduced.

This despite your claim that your law would “cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.” That sure isn’t working out, is it?

You can pay the receptionist on your way out. No, I’m afraid we don’t accept that insurance plan anymore.

-Ed Feulner is president of the Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).

First appeared in The Washington Times.

Via: Heritage Foundation

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No means no: Keep Gitmo jihadists out of America!

No means no: Keep Gitmo jihadists out of America!

by Michelle Malkin

Creators Syndicate

Copyright 2-15

Get off that late-summer snooze button, America. The Obama administration is plotting to break a major promise made under oath — and jeopardize our nation in the name of social justice.

This week, top White House officials floated renewed plans to close down Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Pentagon and Justice Department bureaucrats have been powwowing over how to shutter the facility and import up to hundreds of detained jihad suspects into the U.S. It’s a longtime legacy promise President Obama wants to fulfill to progressives before he rides off permanently to Martha’s Vineyard and Hawaii’s lushest golf courses.

There’s one teeny-tiny problem: the promise former Attorney General Eric Holder swore to Congress after the last time his stubborn boss tried to dump the detainees on American soil. Somehow, as they busied themselves with the nitty-gritty details of transferring Islamic enemy combatants to Gitmo North, key members of Team Obama suffered a disturbing bout of national security amnesia.

Promise? What promise?

Let’s refresh their leaky memories. In 2009, the White House first floated the idea of using the Thomson Correctional Center, a high-security prison in Illinois, to house Gitmo denizens. Family members of 9/11 victims, God bless them, raised anational uproar. Debra Burlingame, sister of American Airlines Flight 77 pilot Chic Burlingame, blasted the feckless president’s assertion that no one would be put in danger by his Gitmo relocation program.

Citing convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid’s successful push (backed by liberal ACLU lawyers) to proselytize about Islam at the supermax facility here in Colorado, where I live, Burlingame cut through the bullcrap. “Mr. Obama has repeatedly suggested that the security challenge of bringing more than 100 trained and dangerous terrorists onto U.S. soil can be solved by simply installing them in an impenetrable fortress. This view is either disingenuous or naive,” she wrote.

“The militant Islamists at Guantanamo too dangerous to release believe that their resistance behind the wire is a continuation of holy war. There is every reason to believe they will continue their jihad once they have been transported to U.S. soil where certain federal judges have signaled a willingness to confer upon them even more rights.”

And don’t forget the legions of jihadi-lovin’ lawyers out there ready, willing and able to abet them. Remember Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in 2005 of helping World Trade Center bombing mastermind terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman — the murderous Blind Sheik — smuggle coded messages of Islamic violence while behind bars to outside followers in violation of an explicit pledge to abide by her client’s court-ordered isolation? The Obama administration released her from prison in January 2014, citing “compassion” for her health.

The breast cancer-surviving terrorist helper, who remains defiantly unapologetic about her service to jihad, is alive — and more than a year and half later has beenhappily kicking our country in the gut on the far-left America-bashing speech trail.

But I digress.

After citizens and public officials in Illinois, Michigan and Kansas (where another Gitmo North alternative, Fort Leavenworth, is located) staged vocal protests against Obama’s sneaky plans three years ago, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department’s budget, moved to block the administration from using unspent Justice Department funds for the Thomson deal. With bipartisan support, Congress passed a law barring the transfer of Gitmo detainees to Thomson or any other civilian prison.

As I reported at the time, the message was clear: Taxpayers don’t want manipulative Gitmo detainees or their three-ring circuses of transnationalist sympathizers and left-wing lawyers on American soil. Period.

Insolent as ever, the White House went ahead and acquired Thomson for $165 million as part of its Gitmo gambit. The backlash forced Holder to vow to Capitol Hill in 2012: “We will not move people from Guantanamo, regardless of the state of the law, to Thomson. That is my pledge as attorney general.”

And if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. This will be the most transparent administration in history. We will do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from producing an atomic bomb. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

For those who are awake now, I ask:

Do you want Gitmo jihadists in your backyard? Or your front yard?

Do you know what, if anything, your representatives in Washington are doing to ensure America’s safety?

Do you trust the administration that brought you the bloody Fast and Furious mess, Benghazi, the healthcare.gov debacle, the deadly Veterans Administration scandal, last year’s reckless illegal alien border surge and last week’s massive EPA pollution of Colorado’s Animas River to prevent Gitmo’s bottom-of-the-barrel goons from wreaking havoc behind bars here?

Anyone? Anyone?

Via: Michelle Malkin

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Lerner Rages Against 'Evil and Dishonest' Republicans, Will Nets Report?

Lois Lerner’s utter contempt for Republicans was on full display in a newly uncovered email in which she railed: “They called me back to testify on the IRS ‘scandal,’ and I too[k] the 5th again because they had been so evil and dishonest in my lawyer’s dealings with them.”

The question has to be asked, will Lerner’s use of such inflammatory language be enough to wake the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network evening and morning shows out of their IRS scandal coverage slumber? 

So far, they have yet to report on any of the recent IRS scandal revelations such as Lerner setting her sights on Bristol Palin, her glee when she found out instant messaging emails were not automatically archived, and the IRS’s targeting of donors to conservative organizations.

On Thursday, Politico’s Katy O’Donnell, in article headlined “Lerner Slammed ‘evil and dishonest’ GOP Inquisitors,” reported on a “Politico examination of thousands of pages of emails and other material recently released by the Senate Finance Committee” that uncovered  particularly spiteful emails Lerner had sent to a friend:

When she was under investigation by Congress, she offered a blistering critique of her inquisitors. In a March 6, 2014, email, Lerner told a friend: “They called me back to testify on the IRS ‘scandal,’ and I too[k] the 5th again because they had been so evil and dishonest in my lawyer’s dealings with them.”

In June 2014, Lerner told the same friend that an unflattering picture of her appearing before Congress kept surfacing because “it serves their purposes of hate mongering to continue to use those images. I was never a political person — this whole fiasco has only made me lose all respect [for] politics and politicians. I am merely a pawn in their game to take over the Senate.”

These emails come on the heels of new evidence that Lerner’s IRS was holding up approval of conservative groups. 

On August 11, Americans for Tax Reform’s Alexander Hendrie reported that Lerner’s IRS granted only one conservative group non-profit status in three years:

Lois Lerner’s political beliefs led to tea party and conservative groups receiving disparate and unfair treatment when applying for non-profit status, according to a detailed report compiled by the Senate Finance Committee.

Because of Lerner’s bias, only one conservative political advocacy organization was granted tax exempt status over a period of more than three years:

“Due to the circuitous process implemented by Lerner, only one conservative political advocacy organization was granted tax-exempt status between February 2009 and May 2012. Lerner’s bias against these applicants unquestionably led to these delays, and is particularly evident when compared to the IRS’s treatment of other applications, discussed immediately below.”

As the report notes, Lois Lerner became aware in April or May of 2010 that the IRS Exempt Organizations (EO) division had begun receiving a high number of applications from Tea Party organizations. But as the backlog of applicants increased, Lerner added “more layers of review and raised hurdles for applicants to clear.”

Via: Newsbusters

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War Vets Are Getting Screwed Thanks To A VA Computer Glitch

More than 35,000 combat veterans are being denied access to their healthcare by the Department of Veterans Affairs, with many waiting for years, because of a glitch in the agency’s computer system. The findings are based on internal documents obtained by the Huffington Post that show how the former troops—almost all of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan—were mistakenly placed in a “pending” list for failing to to provide certain financial information, even though combat troops are not required to do so.

The revelation comes just months after a separate series of leaked VA documents showed how more than 238,000 veterans have died over the years while waiting for their healthcare applications with the agency to be approved. About 16,000 of the 35,000 combat vets currently in limbo have been waiting for more than five years to receive healthcare from the VA, the Huffington Post reported.

Vocativ analyzed the data behind the VA’s current computer error and found that the combat vets affected live in all 50 states. Twenty-one states have 500 or more vets who have been denied healthcare because of the glitch, with eight states exceeding 1,000. Here’s a breakdown of the numbers.

Here are the numbers of vets affected in the remaining 40 states.

Alabama: 922

Virginia: 910

South Carolina: 880

North Carolina: 864

Missouri: 858

Georgia: 769

Mississippi: 762

Arizona: 759

Lousiana: 721

Colorado: 695

Washington: 585

Maryland:485

Kansas: 481

Indiana: 474

Oregon: 455

Arkansas: 448

Massachusetts: 439

Minnesota: 414

Oklahoma: 406

Nevada: 401

Wisconsin: 372

New Jersey: 372

West Virginia: 331

Iowa: 316

Hawaii: 301

New Mexico: 289

Kentucky: 287

Utah: 272

Nebraska: 254

Alaska: 222

Wyoming: 219

Delaware: 189

Connecticut: 165

New Hampshire: 141

North Dakota: 121

Rhode Island: 119

Idaho: 119

South Dakota: 109

Montana: 92

Vermont: 51

Maine: 51

Via: VOCATIV

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Trump Releases New Ad: Politicians Having Fun On Our Dime While The World Is Burning

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump posted a video to Instagram on Thursday that bizarrely tried to show Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton dancing while Benghazi burned.

The short video was filled with ominous music. It began by showing an Islamic State militant holding a knife, then cut to a photo of President Obama smiling while sitting in a golf cart.

From there, it moved on to video showing the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya burning following a terror attack in 2012. Then it cut to a video of Clinton dancing with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, at what appears to be a New Year's Eve celebration.

The Instagram video ended with text that read: "Politicians are having fun on our dime while the world is burning," followed by Trump's campaign logo and slogan.

Trump, whose financial disclosures showed he owns at least 15 golf clubs which generate about $190 million in revenue, posted a message on Instagram alongside the video that said simply: "Not under my watch."

Via: Fox News

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Not News: Unarmed White Teen Killed by Cop; Two White Cops Killed by Blacks by Larry Elder

The media enthusiastically remind us that it's the first anniversary of the death of Ferguson's Michael Brown, a death that spawned the so-called Black Lives Matter movement.

In a September speech at the United Nations, President Barack Obama said, "The world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri -- where a young man was killed, and a community was divided."

Never mind that both a grand jury and the federal Department of Justice exonerated the officer who shot and killed Brown. Never mind that neither the physical evidence nor eyewitness testimony corroborated the assertions that Brown had his hands up or that he said, "Don't shoot."

Never mind that cops, fearing false accusation of racial profiling and police brutality, are increasingly reluctant to engage in proactive policing -- to look for suspicious activity in an effort to prevent crime. As a result crime has gone up, particularly in cities with high-profile cases of alleged racial profiling.

Call it the "Ferguson effect."

In New York City a black man, Eric Garner, was killed by police in 2014 as he resisted arrest. A grand jury found insufficient grounds to indict any of the officers involved. Still it became a cause celebre. In New York City, shootings rose 20 percent during the first half of 2015, compared to the previous year.

In Baltimore, Freddie Gray, a black man who resisted arrest, was placed in a police van, slipped into a coma shortly after arriving at the station and died a week later. Days of riots followed and six officers were indicted in connection with Gray's death. During the riots, Baltimore's mayor told the police, as she put it, to give "those who wished to destroy space to do that." Cops got the message. As in New York, they backed off, doing little more than responding to radio calls -- no more proactive policing. As a result, Baltimore is experiencing crime levels unseen in decades. Murders have increased 48 percent in the first six months of 2015 -- with most of the homicides occurring after Freddie Gray's April 19 death.

Never mind, according to the Centers for Disease Control, police shootings of blacks are down almost 75 percent over the last 45 years, while police shooting of whites remained level. And never mind that the media engages in selective concern.

Selective concern?

In just the last two weeks, two cops, who happened to be white, were killed by two suspects, who happened to be black. And an unarmed white teen was killed by a cop.

In Tennessee, Memphis police Officer Sean Bolton approached an illegally parked car, apparently interrupting a drug deal that was taking place inside. The car's passenger got out, engaged Bolton in a physical struggle and shot the officer multiple times. Bolton, a 33-year-old Marine vet who served in Iraq, died at the hospital. After a two-day manhunt, the murder suspect, on a supervised release following a bank robbery conviction, turned himself in.

In Louisiana, Shreveport Officer Thomas LaValley was dispatched to investigate a potential prowler, an armed man reportedly threatening a family member inside a house. When LaValley arrived, he was shot multiple times, and pronounced dead at the hospital. The alleged shooter, wanted on an attempted second-degree murder charge for a shooting three weeks earlier, was captured the next day.

In South Carolina, an unarmed teenager was shot and killed by a cop. Zachary Hammond, 19, was out on a first date when he was fatally shot by a Seneca police officer during a drug bust. His date, who was eating an ice cream cone at the time of the shooting, was later arrested and charged with possession of 10 grams of marijuana. The shooting is under investigation. But the police claim Hammond was driving his car toward the police officer who was attempting to make the stop, an act that resulted in the officer firing two shots, striking Hammond in the shoulder and torso.

The Hammond family wonders why so little national attention has been focused on their son's death. "It's sad, but I think the reason is, unfortunately, the media and our government officials have treated the death of an unarmed white teenager differently than they would have if this were a death of an unarmed black teen," said Eric Bland, the family's attorney. "The hypocrisy that has been shown toward this is really disconcerting. The issue should never be what is the color of the victim. The issue should be: Why was an unarmed teen gunned down in a situation where deadly force was not even justified?" 

COPYRIGHT 2015 LAURENCE A. ELDER

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Via: Real Clear Politics

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