I Don't Believe Hillary Clinton: Rare news conference doesn't address credibility gap.

I don't believe Hillary Rodham Clinton when she says—as she did at a brief news conference on Tuesday—that she has no control over the release of her State Department email. "They're not mine. They belong to the State Department."  

I don't believe her because a person's actions are more revealing than words: She kept her government email on a secret server and, only under pressure from Congress, returned less than half of them to the State Department. She deleted the rest. She considered them hers.

I don't believe her when she says, "I want those emails out. Nobody has a bigger interest in those being released than I do."

I don't believe her because I've covered the Clintons since the 1980s and know how dedicated they are to what former Clinton spokesman Mike McCurry called "telling the truth slowly." The fact is that she would rather delay the document dump until early 2016—and then have the email released on a single day to overwhelm the media and allow her to declare herself exonerated. That was her strategic choice, Clinton advisers confirmed for me, until a federal judge ordered the State Department on Tuesday to release the email in stages.

I don't believe her answer to this question: Is there a conflict of interest in accepting huge speaking fees from special interests seeking government action? "No," she replied.

I don't believe her because I saw how hard Clinton and her husband, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, worked to pass the state's first sweeping ethics initiative. I don't believe her because I've heard Clinton and her husband rail against GOP politicians who were guilty of less-obvious conflicts of interest. I don't believe her because there have been far too many credible news reports about the blurring of lines between family finances, the family foundation, and her political and government interests.

(RELATED: A Tough Question for 2016 Candidates) 

I believe the public has a right to know whether any of the deleted email involved correspondence about the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Foundation or its donors. I believe she's getting bad advice: The hide-and-attack tactics of the 1990s won't work as well—if at all—in a post-Internet era that honors transparency, authenticity, and accountability.  

I believe she wants us to take her at her word, but we can't—not even those people like me who've known the Clintons long enough to respect their service and appreciate their many virtues. It hurts to witness the self-inflicted wounds and hemorrhaging of her credibility. But this is no time for sentimentality.

Blind faith doesn't get you elected president.

Via: National Journal

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[VIDEO] Michelle’s Race-Baiting Shredded By Black Guy Who Gives Her A Must-See History Lesson

In a recent installment of Zonation, host Alfonzo Rachel reacted to Michelle Obama’s recent commencement address at Tuskegee University. As Western Journalism reported, the first lady used the forum to spread a message of victimhood among black graduates.

“I’m disappointed that the students at Tuskegee University didn’t get up and walk out on Michelle Obama’s speech,” Rachel said. “It’s like the graduates spent all that time at the college and didn’t learn anything worth a hard donut.”

He explained that the university’s founder, Booker T. Washington, railed against the type of race-baiting used by Obama in her speech. Even in Washington’s day, the former slave was able to recognize that self-serving instigators hoped to profit by maintaining discord within the black community.

“The sad part is that despite your supposed pro-black mentality,” Rachel said directly to Obama, “the black community doesn’t prosper for it. The black community is growing in discontent; and this is what you want.”

Diagnosing what he sees as the true impetus behind such divisive language, the host declared that Michelle Obama and her ilk will not be satisfied until every American is as miserable as they are.

Via: Western Journalism

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GOP Wants Review of Internet Governance Handover

The Obama administration’s plan to relinquish U.S. control of the Internet’s architecture to a group of international stakeholders isn’t going over well on Capitol Hill.

Republicans want to review any handover agreement, while members of both parties are saying the California nonprofit that manages the Internet’s addressing system needs to do a better job protecting American copyrights before President Barack Obama turns over control.

“Who’s going to be there when something goes wrong?” asked Rep. Joe L. Barton, a Texas Republican, at a House Energy and Commerce hearing last week. “I’ve yet to hear this vaunted multi-stakeholder process come up with an enforcement mechanism.”

In March 2014, the Commerce Department, which manages the contract with the California group, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, said it would surrender the contract to a group of corporate executives, nonprofit Internet experts and government officials. The handover would occur in September 2015, when the current contract runs out.

Before that happens, though, the stakeholder group that would assume the contract needs to develop a transition plan and no one thinks it will be ready in time.

The fallback plan is for the Commerce Department to extend the contract until the transition plan is ready.

Republicans last week made clear they want to have a look at it before any handover. The House’s Commerce Department appropriation bill, for the second year in a row, includes a provision that would bar the department from spending any funds on the transition.

“We’ve said time and again that this is far too important to rush, and that we must carefully consider all of the consequences and outcomes before we ring a bell that cannot be unrung,” said Rep. Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology panel.

Via: Roll Call

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Hillary Shuts Down Reporter Trying to Ask Question

Ed Henry of Fox News dared to ask Hillary Clinton a question at an event today in Iowa.

"Wait, wait," Clinton said, interrupting the reporter. "Maybe when I finish talking to the people here. How's that?"

Clinton continued, "I might. I'll have to ponder it. I will put it on my list for due consideration."

Via: Weekly Standard

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BOMBSHELL: What Was Just Revealed About Benghazi Gives Gowdy EXPLOSIVE New Fuel To Grill Hill

Given the bombshell revelation about Benghazi that’s just been pried loose from the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton’s anticipated appearance before the House Select Committee investigating the deadly attack in Libya could prove to be even more explosive and potentially damaging for the Democrats’ leading presidential contender. Mrs. Clinton is expected to testify sometime this summer before the panel headed by GOP Rep Trey Gowdy, reportedly after the State Department has provided the committee with a number of requested documents relating to the former secretary of state’s tenure.

Now, a potentially damning new document from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) — a memo obtained by Judicial Watch after a court challenge to obtain its release — clearly shows that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not disclose to the public credible intelligence about terrorist planning for an attack on the Benghazi compound, even as she and other administration officials blamed the deadly assault on an amateur video. The Daily Caller provides details of the latest revelation showing that Clinton participated in an apparent coverup of believable intel while misleading the American people, and quite possibly congressional investigators as well.

Via: Western Journalism

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The True Black Tragedy: Illegitimacy Rate of Nearly 75%

Hustlers and people with little understanding want us to believe that today's black problems are the continuing result of a legacy of slavery, poverty and racial discrimination. The fact is that most of the social pathology seen in poor black neighborhoods is entirely new in black history. Let's look at some of it.

Today the overwhelming majority of black children are raised in single female-headed families. As early as the 1880s, three-quarters of black families were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black families were two-parent. One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all the children had the same mother and father.

Today's black illegitimacy rate of nearly 75 percent is also entirely new. In 1940, black illegitimacy stood at 14 percent. It had risen to 25 percent by 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" and was widely condemned as a racist. By 1980, the black illegitimacy rate had more than doubled, to 56 percent, and it has been growing since. Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks.

Much of today's pathology seen among many blacks is an outgrowth of the welfare state that has made self-destructive behavior less costly for the individual. Having children without the benefit of marriage is less burdensome if the mother receives housing subsidies, welfare payments and food stamps. Plus, the social stigma associated with unwed motherhood has vanished. Female-headed households, whether black or white, are a ticket for dependency and all of its associated problems. Ignored in all discussions is the fact that the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits since 1994.

Via: CNS News

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Bernie Sanders Wants Huge ‘Robin Hood’ Stock Tax To Make College Free

Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidate and self-proclaimed socialist who wants the United States to morph into a vast Scandinavia, is holding a Tuesday press conference to explain how he will soak the rich to make tuition at public, four-year colleges and universities free.

Sanders will propose legislation to fund his free-college scheme with massive new taxes on stock transactions, Bloomberg reports.

The Vermont senator’s bill, if passed, would add a 50-cent tax for every “$100 of stock trades on stock sales, and lesser amounts on transactions involving bonds, derivatives, and other financial instruments,” according to a press release from a group called Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street.

Via:Daily Caller

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Conservatives Blame GOP Leaders For Not Stopping ‘Fundamental Transformation of America’

(CNSNews.com) –  Republicans are not keeping the campaign promise they made to voters in 2014 to halt President Obama’s “fundamental transformation of America,” conservative and Tea Party leaders charged in an open letter to Congress on Monday.

On April 28, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) cited fast-track trade legislation and a bill requiring congressional review of the administration’s nuclear deal with Iran as the major accomplishments of the GOP-led 114th Congress so far.

Earlier that month, Obama praised what he called “some outbreaks of bipartisanship and common sense in Congress” over Iran and trade. The president also said he was holding bipartisan talks with the Republican leadership on transportation infrastructure issues as well.

“To the extent the majority leader and the president are making nice, I’m happy. We need a lot more consensus in the federal government. There’s partisanship at every turn,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) said Monday.

But the 50 conservative leaders who signed the Citizens’ Mandate in January reminded McConnell and the rest of the Republican leadership that voters who gave them a landslide victory last November have much higher expectations for them, such as ending executive branch overreach and restoring the constitutional balance of power.

“The November election was a repudiation of President Obama’s dramatic expansion of government power both through legislative and executive actions,” stated the Citizens’ Mandate, which also has a Facebook page.

The GOP’s clear mandate is to “end Obamacare; stop executive amnesty; hold the executive branch accountable for its abuses of power and its national security failures both foreign and domestic; and put the interests of the United States of America and Americans first.”

However, instead of wielding its power as a co-equal branch of government to stop illegal immigration during the first 132 days they controlled both houses of Congress, Republicans wound up funding Obama’s executive amnesty and jeopardizing national security by failing to address the security risks posed by illegal immigration, the letter pointed out.

Via: CNS News

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The EPA Myth of “Clean Power”

There are many things I do not like about the Environmental Protection Agency, but what angers me most are the lies that stream forth from it to justify programs that have no basis in fact or science, and which threaten the economy.

Currently, its “Clean Power” plan is generating its latest and most duplicitous Administer, Gina McCarthy, to go around saying that it will not be costly, nor cost jobs. “Clean Power” is the name given to the EPA policy to reduce overall U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. It is requiring each state to cut its emissions by varying amounts using a baseline established by the EPA.

Simply said, there is no need whatever to reduce CO2 emissions. Carbon dioxide is not “a pollutant” as the EPA claims. It is, along with oxygen for all living creatures, vital to the growth of all vegetation. The more CO2 the better crops yields will occur, healthier forests, and greener lawns. From a purely scientific point of view, it is absurd to reduce emissions.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal on April 22,Kenneth C. Hill, Director of the Tennessee Regulatory Authority, said “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) set off a firestorm when he advised states not to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. Yet that advice isn’t as radical as his detractors make it sound. As a state public utilities commissioner who deals with the effects of federal regulations on a regular basis, I also recommend that states not comply.”

Noting its final due date in June, that refusal would impose a Federal Implementation Plan on states “that risks even greater harm,” said Hill. “But the problem for the EPA is that the federal government lacks the legal authority under either the Constitution or the Clean Air Act to enforce most of the regulation’s ‘building blocks’ without states’ acquiescence.”

As this is being written there is are two joined cases before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, State of West Virginia v EPA and Murray Energy v EPA. They are a challenge to President Obama’s “War on Coal” and the EPA efforts to regulate its use. Fifteen states, along with select coal companies, have sued for an “extraordinary whit” to prevent the EPA from promulgating the new carbon regulations found it the Clean Power plan.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Feds launch social media push to combat complaints about Michelle Obama’s lunch program

FILE - This Feb. 27, 2013 file photo shows first lady Michelle Obama and Food Network chef Rachel Ray discussing lunches with students from the Eastside and Northside Elementary Schools in Clinton, Miss. Moving beyond the lunch line, new rules ... more >

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is pushing back against a campaign criticizing First Lady Michelle Obama’s school lunch rules by showing one picture of a somewhat appetizing child’s lunch.

“They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in the digital age we have ample opportunity to document and broadcast every moment, meeting and meal,” wrote Deborah Kane, the national director of the USDA Farm to School Program, in a blog post Thursday. “We have all seen those unappetizing photos of food served at school that quickly go viral. A lonesome whole wheat bun atop a sad fish fillet; a mysterious-looking meat mixture served next to an apple. It’s natural to ask, ‘Is this what they serve for lunch!?’ No, it’s really not.”

The blog post, entitled “Photo Worthy Meals,” shows one image of a school lunch served in a New Orleans charter school. The photo stands in contrast to images of meager portions and unappetizing selections shared with the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama, a Twitter campaign started by students against the healthy eating law.

To read the full story at the Washington Free Beacon, click HERE

Via: Washington Times

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I’ve Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned.

You need to tell me what’s wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago,” a frustrated President Barack Obama recently complained about criticisms of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). He’s right. The public criticisms of the TPP have been vague. That’s by design—anyone who has read the text of the agreement could be jailed for disclosing its contents. I’ve actually read the TPP text provided to the government’s own advisors, and I’ve given the president an earful about how this trade deal will damage this nation. But I can’t share my criticisms with you.

I can tell you that Elizabeth Warren is right about her criticism of the trade deal. We should be very concerned about what's hidden in this trade deal—and particularly how the Obama administration is keeping information secret even from those of us who are supposed to provide advice.

So-called “cleared advisors” like me are prohibited from sharing publicly the criticisms we’ve lodged about specific proposals and approaches. The government has created a perfect Catch 22: The law prohibits us from talking about the specifics of what we’ve seen, allowing the president to criticize us for not being specific. Instead of simply admitting that he disagrees with me—and with many other cleared advisors—about the merits of the TPP, the president instead pretends that our specific, pointed criticisms don’t exist.

What I can tell you is that the administration is being unfair to those who are raising proper questions about the harms the TPP would do. To the administration, everyone who questions their approach is branded as a protectionist—or worse—dishonest. They broadly criticize organized labor, despite the fact that unions have been the primary force in America pushing for strong rules to promote opportunity and jobs. And they dismiss individuals like me who believe that, first and foremost, a trade agreement should promote the interests of domestic producers and their employees.

Via: Politico

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[VIDEO] KRAUTHAMMER: HILLARY ‘HAS TO COME OUT OF HER BUNKER SOMETIME’

On Monday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer sounded off on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s absence from media scrutiny, particularly as Republican presidential candidates are getting quizzed about the Iraq war and Clinton has avoided having to take on those answers.

“[T]he question for Hillary is, when you were in the Senate, you opposed the surge. You said it wasn’t working, and you implied in your questioning of David Petraeus during the surge that he was lying. Do you think that was a mistake? How about asking that.”

“And the second question is, when we decided to withdraw entirely from Iraq in 2011, as you indicated Bill, against the advice of the military, it was obvious what would be the result,” he continued. “You Secretary Clinton were the secretary of state in charge of our diplomacy. Did you oppose that? Was it a mistake, and would you now say so? She’s got to answer those. The press has to ask those questions and not just hector Republicans with questions about Iraq as if it is owned by Republicans.”

Krauthammer noted the scrutiny of “Clinton Cash” author of Peter Schweizer, whereas Hillary Clinton the political candidate has avoided direct scrutiny.

“She needs to be embarrassed and the Stephanopouloses of the world ought to be embarrassed into asking those questions and not just of people like Peter Schweizer,” Krauthammer added. “She has to come out of her bunker some time.”

Via: Breitbart

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Report: Hillary Clinton Had Second Secret Email Address While Secretary of State

A second secret email address used by Hillary Rodham Clinton while she was secretary of state was revealed Monday.

The email address, published by The New York Times, was used in exchanges between Clinton and longtime adviser Sydney Blumenthal, and is from the same private email server that was uncovered earlier this year.

“Fyi. The idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition should be considered,” Clinton wrote Blumenthal from the ­email address HRod17@clintonemail.com.

The two were discussing strategies to help the opposition rebels oust Moammar Khadafy in Libya as that country descended into chaos in 2011.

Clinton’s office insisted just two months ago that the only private email address used by the former secretary of state during her tenure was hdr22@clintonemail.com.

In a 2015 letter to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Clinton’s lawyer acknowledged that the HRod17 email address existed, but stated explicitly that it was “not an address that existed during Secretary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.”

The time stamps and content of the messages make clear that this statement was inaccurate, according to the Times report.

The first private email use was seen as a breach of protocol. Clinton’s advisers handed over 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department so they could comply with an investigation. But, according to Vice News, those emails will not be made public until 2016.

Via: New York Post

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Special Report: Agents Under Attack

Field training officer required multiple surgeries to repair damage

"They're buddies of mine. They're friends of mine, " said Randy De Leon. He's a Border Patrol agent, who is breaking his silence.

"They're my family. And anybody would do just about anything for family," he told CHANNEL 5 NEWS.

De Leon was raised in West Texas and is the third of four children. The all-star athlete moved to the Rio Grande Valley to be with his grandmother.

He earned a criminal justice degree from UTPA and was honored, after he and his brother pulled an elderly woman from a home that exploded.

He met his wife Luisa and they have four children.

The Border Patrol is part of their family. The field training officer said, "I believe in what I do. I really do. I believe in the badge I wear, the patches I wear, the uniform I wear…"

"There's a saying in the Border Patrol: One man, one river. And I try to be that one man sometimes."

While De Leon fought on the frontline for eight years, one day in 2010 will stay with him forever.

"I remember that night clearly. I was working the evening shift. I was training," recalls De Leon.

The Border Patrol agent and a trio of trainees were near Hidalgo on March 29, 2010. They heard drug smugglers were on the move and split up. De Leon parked his unit near the river.

"Within 20 minutes, the vehicle was coming down to load up," he said.

He remembered 10 to 15 drug mules were packing drugs into a vehicle. "They loaded up roughly… I'd say roughly 1,000 pounds in a matter of seconds," De Leon said.

He approached the vehicle head on. "When he saw me, he did a U-turn and went back to the river," he told us..

Via:KRGV.com

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Oopsie, CA Democratic Party Native American Caucus Rips Both Democratic Candidates

Via: Weasel Zippers

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CARTOON: Indebted Class of 2015

Steve Sack, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

Via: California Political Review

The GOP Is the Strongest It's Been in Decades

Last fall, RCP Election Analyst David Byler and I put together an index of party strength.  While most journalists look at presidential performance as a measure of party strength (see the ubiquitous “Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six elections”), we take a broader view of party strength.  Rather than look simply at presidential performance, we look at party dominance at the federal, congressional, and state levels.  One need only look at fights over voter identification laws, redistricting, food stamp benefits, Obamacare expansion, and a multitude of other battles from the last few years alone to understand the importance of non-federal elections. We therefore believe this approach gives a more complete measure of party strength.

In this article, we do three things.  First, we recap our methodology.  Second, we update the methodology for 2014, and we look forward to 2016.  Finally, we run some diagnostics on our index, answering various objections that have been raised.

Our index is the sum of five parts: presidential performance, House performance, Senate performance, gubernatorial performance and state legislative performance. The first is measured by the party’s performance in the previous presidential popular vote (NB: In this, and all other measurements, third parties are excluded). 

House performance is the average of the popular vote for the House and the average of the share of the House won by the party. This helps mitigate the effects of gerrymandering.  Senate performance is the share of the Senate held by the party.

Gubernatorial performance is the party’s share of governorships (again, with third party candidates excluded). We do not weight for population, for reasons explored further below.  For state legislatures, we average four numbers: the share of state Houses and state Senates held by each party along with the share of state House seats and state Senate seats held by each party.

This gives us five metrics, all of which run on a scale from 0 to 100.  Adding them together gives us a scale from 0 to 500.  We then subtract 250 from the total.  All this does is assign a score of zero to a situation where the parties are evenly matched, rather than 250. A positive score then means that the Republican Party is stronger while a negative score means the Democratic Party is stronger.

Via: RCP

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Senate fight looms as law allowing NSA to collect Americans’ phone data set to expire

A major supporter of the National Security Agency’s anti-terrorism surveillance program, which allows the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, is pushing for an extension of the program, setting up a battle with critics who argue that Congress must fix the current law or let it expire.

"This has been a very important part of our effort to defend the homeland since 9/11," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday while defending the program in an interview on ABC's “This Week.” "We know that the terrorists overseas are trying to recruit people in our country to commit atrocities in our country."

McConnell, R-Ky., introduced a bill Thursday night that would temporarily renew the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act for two months.

The renewal would buy time for the Senate to debate, specifically, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which authorizes the government to collect personal records without a warrant and has been the target of controversy since NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that it was being used by the NSA to capture and retain millions of Americans’ personal phone records.  

The provisions are currently scheduled to sunset on June 1.

Meanwhile, the House on Wednesday passed the USA Freedom Act, a bipartisan bill lawmakers said would end the NSA’s ability to use Section 215 for that type of data collection. Instead, it would allow private telecom companies to keep the records. Federal law enforcement would have to get a court order proving a link to a specific criminal investigation to collect such phone record data, and must use specific search terms to get permission to pore through the information.

Via: Fox News

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