Lincoln Chafee to run for president

(Photo: Win McNamee, Getty Images)

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ARLINGTON, Va. -- Former Rhode Island governor and ex-Republican Lincoln Chafee joined the Democratic presidential race Wednesday with a long-shot campaign focused so far on one major issue: Hillary Clinton's 2002 vote for the Iraq War.

"I enjoy challenges," Chafee said in an announcement speech at George Mason University in Arlington, Va.

A former senator himself — the only Republican in the chamber to vote against the Iraq resolution — Chafee has harped on Clinton's vote in preparing to challenge her for the 2016 Democratic nomination.

The war -- based on "false premises" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction -- killed too many Americans and cost the nation billions that could have been spent on education, infrastructure, health care and other domestic needs, Chafee said.

The result has been "destructive and expensive chaos in the Middle East and North Africa," the new candidate said.

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Six things to know about Lincoln Chafee

Chafee also raised questions about contributions to the foundation started by former president Bill Clinton. At one point, he said the integrity of the Secretary of State's office -- the job Hillary Clinton once held -- has been called into question.

Clinton, who served alongside Chafee in the Senate, has expressed regret for her Iraq vote, telling reporters last month that "what we now see is a very different and very dangerous situation" in Iraq.

"I made it very clear that I made a mistake, plain and simple," she said.

The issue hurt Clinton in her 2008 campaign, as she lost the Democratic nomination fight to Barack Obama.

While not mentioning Clinton by name in his initial remarks, Chafee said that senators who voted for the 2002 Iraq resolution did not do their "homework" on the George W. Bush administration's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Chafee said he did study the evidence at CIA headquarters, and found the case weak.

"'Flawed intelligence' is completely inaccurate," Chafee said. "There was no intelligence. Believe me I saw everything they had."

Via: USA Today

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Teachers Union Determined to Purge Koch Brothers from College Campuses

The National Education Association’s mission to drive Charles and David Koch, the two wealthy philanthropist brothers from Kansas, into the sea is showing no signs of slowing down. According to its latest Labor Department filing, the nation’s biggest union gifted $150,000 (up from a mere $100,000 the year before) to the American Bridge, a leftist hit-PAC whose mission is to annihilate every politico whose politics run to the right of the late Joe Stalin. (Nothing new here: Over the years, NEA has lavished gifts on such leftist stalwarts as MALDEF, People for the American Way, Media Matters, ACORN, Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and Occupy Wall Street.)

The American Bridge’s latest gambit is to remove the Koch brothers’ influence from 250 campuses where they support educational initiatives in economics, philosophy, entrepreneurship, criminal justice and other disciplines. A recent case in point: Mississippi State will soon launch the Institute for Market Studies, which was made possible in part by a $365,000 grant from the Charles Koch Foundation. But before its launch, American Bridge filed an open-records request seeking emails between professors, and between the school’s faculty and the Koch foundation. This is nothing more than an intimidation tactic to discourage the faculty from participating in the venture.

Sadly the above is hardly an isolated incident. “UnKoch My Campus,” another group of NEA fellow travelers, is busy all over the country trying rid our schools of the dreaded brothers. From the NEA website,

Between 2005 and 2013, the billionaire Koch brothers spent at least $68 million on college and university campuses — to fund faculty, research and publications, and to spread their anti-worker gospel to generations of students.

Last week, NEA Higher Ed faculty and staff leaders sat down in a windowless room in Orlando, Fla., and pledged to shine a light on those Koch campus investments — as well as the pernicious effects of the broad ‘corporatization’ of public higher education.

‘This is about corporate interests trying to control higher education. The Koch brothers are just one of those interests,’ said Theresa Montano, president of NEA’s National Council for Higher Education, who called for greater transparency of where that money goes and what exactly it buys.

Via: California Political Review

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OBAMACARE_ What they offer v. what you get are so different

This is the story and next to it on the same web site is the ad!!!















WHOM ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE?????

WHITE HOUSE: PROPOSED HEALTH INSURANCE RATE HIKES IS PROOF OBAMACARE IS WORKING

Are you startled by the news that insurance companies are planning health insurance rate hikes of 10 percent or more in 37 states? Well that news, according to the White House, is one of the signs that Obamacare is working.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained to reporters that, thanks to Obamacare requirements, insurance companies are forced to report publicly any proposed rate hikes exceeding 10 percent for the coming period. State insurance regulators, he explained, would then conduct a review of the rate increases.

Because these rate increases are now public, Earnest appeared optimistic that the proposed rate increases would not ultimately stand.

“The result typically has been that after that state review is conducted, that insurance companies would slash their rates,” he explained.

When asked if rate increases were contrary to Obama’s promise to reduce health care costs through Obamacare, Earnest focused more on the law’s ability to slow down spiking health care premiums.

“Our goal of this has been to slow the growth in health care costs, and that has been our mantra,” he said. “And we have seen, as our economists can demonstrate to you, that since the health care law went into effect — since the Affordable Care Act went into effect health care costs in this country have grown at the slowest rate in recorded history, the slowest rate in 50 years.”

The rate hikes won’t be officially set until October.

Via: Breitbart

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Boston terror suspects plotted to behead police officers, source says

The dead suspect, 26-year-old Usaama Rahim, was under surveillance by the Joint Terrorism Task Force when he was shot at about 7 a.m. near a CVS in the city's Roslindale neighborhood, when he brandished the blade at police. Later Tuesday, authorities arrested another suspect, David Wright, in connection with the case, police said.

"We believe the intent was to behead a police officer," one official told The Boston Globe. "We knew the plot had to be stopped. They were planning to take action Tuesday."

Rahim was shot outside a CVS Pharmacy in Roslindale, Mass. at approximately 7 a.m. Tuesday.

Boston Police Commissioner William Evans told reporters that members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force approached Rahim to question him about "terrorist-related information" they had received when he moved toward officers with the knife.

Evans said officers repeatedly ordered Rahim to drop the knife but he continued to advance. He said task force members fired their guns, hitting Rahim once in the torso and once in the abdomen. Rahim was taken to Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Via: Fox News

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37 Straight Gallup Polls—Majority: Abortion Should Be Illegal in All or Most Cases

In 37 straight surveys conducted over the course of 21 years by the Gallup polling company, a majority of Americans have said that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances or in all but a few circumstances.

In the most recent survey, conducted May 6-10, a combined 55 percent of respondents said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances or in all but a few circumstances.

Specifically, 29 percent said abortion should be legal “under any circumstances,” 13 percent said it should be legal “under most circumstances,” 36 percent said it should be "legal only in a few circumstances,” and 19 percent said it should be illegal “in all circumstances.” Two percent said they had no opinion.

The 36 percent who said it should be legal in “only a few circumstances” and the 19 percent who said it should be illegal “in all circumstances” equaled 55 percent of all those surveyed.

In a data sheet released with the May 6-10 survey, Gallup provided the results for this question in 37 surveys it has conducted dating back to September 1994. In every one of these surveys, the combined percentage of respondents who said abortion should be illegal “in all circumstances” or in all but “a few circumstances” exceeded 50 percent of those surveyed.

The lowest these combined answers have ever been was 51 percent—the level it was at in September 1994, the date of Gallup’s first data on the combined answers, and September 1995, the date of the third survey with data on the combined answers.

Via: CNS NEWS

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Journalists Tell Oversight Committee: Bureaucrats Make FOIA Process ‘Useless

U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) (L) speaks with Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC) (R) during "The Security Failures of Benghazi" hearing on Capitol Hill, Washington D.C. October 10, 2012. Diplomatic security in Libya was drawn down ahead of last month's fatal attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi and U.S. officials did not have enough protection, the former head of a U.S. security team in Libya told lawmakers on Wednesday. REUTERS/Jose Luis Magana (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTR38ZVU

Members of a House oversight committee were outraged during a bizarre hearing Tuesday in which congressmen listened to journalists discuss how government agencies intentionally botched formal requests for information.

The reporters told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of numerous instances where agencies needlessly delayed, denied or redacted Freedom of Information Act requests. The FOIA guarantees the public access to all government documents, subject only to nine exemptions such as for privacy, commercial privilege and national security.

The journalists also suggested that government employees who violate the FOIA law should be prosecuted. There are currently no consequences to bureaucrats who don’t abide by the statute that has been on the books since 1966.

FOIA is a “pointless, useless shadow of its former self,” said former CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson

“Our role of objectively reporting the facts has been increasingly blocked,” said Newsweek Finance Editor Leah Goodman. “There is a motive for unresponsiveness and unaccountability.”

Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, noted that President Obama promised at the outset of his first term that his administration would champion an unprecedented level of openness in the federal government.

Chaffetz held up an April 2009 memo that ordered agencies to allow the White House to review any requested documents that involved “White House equities.” There is no provision in the FOIA for the assertion of such a White House privilege.

“I don’t care who’s in the White House, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong,” Chaffetz shouted.

Via: Daily Caller

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‘It’s heartbreaking:’ Denver school board members get a taste of Michelle O lunches

DENVER – School district administrators in Denver recently got a taste of what students have been complaining about: a school lunch with a cold chicken patty on a rock-hard burnt bun, frozen strawberries and a “really hard” pear.

That was the meal served to school board member Rosemary Rodriguez at Kepner Middle School in Denver May 12, after Kepner student Stephanie Torres took her complaints about the food to the school board, Chalkbeat.org reports.

Aside from the unappetizing offerings, the cafeteria at Kepner ran out of at least one food item during the visit, which also included representatives from Padres & Jovenes Unidos – a social services organization.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Padres health justice organizer Monica Acosta said of the lunch prepared under federal food guidelines championed by first lady Michelle Obama. “That’s the type of food Kepner students have been having all year long.”

The visit, however, did spur changes in Kepner’s cafeteria. Food workers now thaw the fruit, and no longer serve expired milk. School officials also plan to offer more choices in the future.

Kepner Middle School and others in the district have also experienced a wave of negative feedback on the “Breakfast after the Bell” program implemented in 2013. That program is also subject to food nutrition laws imposed on schools in the National School Lunch Program as part of Obama school food overhaul.

Since the new limits on calories, fat, sugar, sodium, whole wheat, and other nutritional elements went into effect in 2012, at least 1.2 million students nationwide have dropped out of the National School Lunch Program in favor of packed lunches from home.

The changes also spawned massive food waste – roughly $1 billion per year – because of regulations that stipulate that all students must receive a fruit or vegetable each day, which most simply toss in the trash.

The waste has been a serious problem in many school districts, one of many reasons hundreds of U.S. schools have ditched the National School Lunch Program to serve students food they’ll actually eat.

“We’re trying to waste less food,” Greater Johnstown School District board president Paul VanDenburgh recently told the Leader Herald.

The district removed its Jansen Avenue School from the federal lunch program effective June 30 over complaints about waste, as well as the tight nutrition restrictions that have run the school’s lunch program into the red.

Greater Johnstown superintendent Robert DeLilli told school board members in a recent meeting the plan is to see how the Jansen lunch program improves without the federal restrictions before considering the move for other schools, as well.

“It’s kind of like a pilot to see how it works,” he said, according to the Leader Herald. “We’ll wait and see how it goes.”

Other schools are turning to recommended recipes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help prepare nutritious and tasty foods under the federal rules, but a recent survey shows those recipes don’t seem to be much help.

Via: EAG News

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Marijuana church given tax-exempt status in Indiana: ‘Somebody at the IRS loves us’

Bill Levin, who founded the First Church of Cannabis to test Indiana’s controversial religious freedom law, was notified last week that the Internal Revenue Service has incorporated the church as a tax-exempt religious organization. (MSNBC) more >

The IRS has incorporated an Indianapolis marijuana-smoking church as a tax-exempt religious organization.

Bill Levin, founder of the First Church of Cannabis in Indianapolis, was notified of the approval last week, which will now allow donors to deduct contributions on their taxes, the CNHI Indiana Statehouse Bureau reported Saturday. IRS documents provided by Mr. Levin confirmed the agency’s approval, CNHI said.

“Somebody at the IRS loves us because we got it back in less than 30 days,” Mr. Levin told Tax Analysts’ David van den Berg.

The church is currently in negotiations for two spaces in Indianapolis and plans to “proselytize the wonderfulness of the gift that this plant is to our human nature,” Mr. Levin said.

So far, more than 600 members have paid amounts ranging from $4.20 to $1,000 to join the church, Mr. Levin said. Fundraising is being conducted partly on gofundme.com, where the church has raised over $10,800.

The church’s first service is scheduled for July 1 — the day the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act goes into effect.

Via: Washington Times

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[VIDEO] NYT Report: Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Has Grown 20% Over Last 18 Months Of Negotiations, State Department’s Harf “Totally Perplexed”…

International inspectors report that Iran's stockpile of nuclear fuel has increased about 20 percent over the past 18 months of negotiations, according to The New York Times.

The increase in Iran's stockpile was based on a report issued Friday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors nuclear programs for the United Nations.

The report also said Iran had stopped producing certain types of highly enriched uranium since January, 2014 and halted work on facilities capable of producing nuclear bombs.

The Times noted that should negotiators finalize a deal before a June 30 deadline, Tehran would have to reduce its stockpile by more than 9 tons within months.

The newspaper also reported that Western officials and experts were unsure how or why Iran's stockpile had increased. Some have speculated it was to give them leverage in talks.

The Obama administration has long maintained that Tehran's nuclear program has been "frozen" as international negotiators work to secure a deal with new limits.

A deal brokered between the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China with Iran would lift some sanctions on Iran in exchange for new limits on its nuclear program.

A framework outlined April 2 would force Iran to reduce its nuclear stockpile to 300 kilograms, or about 660 pounds.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who has led U.S. talks to secure a deal, met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Saturday in Geneva.

Kerry cut short his trip and returned to Boston on Monday after a cycling accident in France over the weekend left him with a broken leg.

The State Department maintains the June 30 deadline remains set.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest described the report from international inspectors as just a "snapshot in time" amid ongoing talks.

Via: The Hill

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WikiLeaks offers $100,000 bounty for Asian trade pact pushed by Obama

By Krista Hughes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Whistleblower website WikiLeaks offered a $100,000 bounty for copies of a Pacific trade pact that is a central plank of President Barack Obama's diplomatic pivot to Asia on Tuesday.

WikiLeaks, which has published leaked chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiating text before, started a drive to crowdsource money for the reward, just as U.S. unions launched a new push to make the text public.

"The transparency clock has run out on the TPP. No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let's open the TPP once and for all," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement.

Nine hours after the campaign was launched, WikiLeaks' website was showing $25,835 pledged by more than 100 people.

The text of the TPP, which is still under negotiation and would boost the flow of goods between 12 nations from Japan to Chile, is a classified document. The U.S. Trade Representative has increased availability of the text to lawmakers, but critics complain there is still not enough oversight.

Union group AFL-CIO led a march on the USTR office in Washington to demand to read the text, but said it found the doors locked.

Under legislation awaiting approval from the House of Representatives, the text of the TPP will be publicly available for 60 days before it is signed by the president.

But it is still unclear when the House will debate so-called fast-track legislation granting the White House power to speed trade deals through Congress, although House majority leader Kevin McCarthy has said a vote is likely this month.

Via: Yahoo News

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Washington Times: Bill Clinton's Foundation Cashed in as Sweden Lobbied Hillary on Sanctions

Bill Clinton’s foundation set up a fundraising arm in Sweden that collected $26 million in donations at the same time that country was lobbying Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department to forgo sanctions that threatened its thriving business with Iran, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Times.

The Swedish entity, called the William J. Clinton Foundation Insamlingsstiftelse, was never disclosed to or cleared by State Department ethics officials, even though one of its largest sources of donations was a Swedish government-sanctioned lottery.

As the money flowed to the foundation from Sweden, Mrs. Clinton’s team in Washington declined to blacklist any Swedish firms despite warnings from career officials at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm that Sweden was growing its economic ties with Iran and potentially undercutting Western efforts to end Tehran’s rogue nuclear program, diplomatic cables show.

“Sweden does not support implementing tighter financial sanctions on Iran” and believes “more stringent financial standards could hurt Swedish exports,” one such cable from 2009 alerted Mrs. Clinton’s office in Washington.

Via: Washington Post

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U.S. marketplace health plan enrollment falls to 10.2 million

Roughly 1.5 million Americans lost their marketplace health coverage between February and March as national exchange enrollment fell from 11.7 million to nearly 10.2 million, the Obama administration reported Tuesday. In photo, Nurse practitioner Blen Abdi prepares a second set of injections for her patient at the Minute

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/06/02/268588/us-marketplace-health-plan-enrollment.html#storylink=cpy

- Roughly 1.5 million Americans lost their marketplace health coverage between February and March as national exchange enrollment fell from 11.7 million to nearly 10.2 million, the Obama administration reported Tuesday.

Officials expect the enrollment to fall to 9.1 million throughout the year as people drop coverage for a variety of reasons, including nonpayment of premiums, relocation and changes in employment and marital status.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the 10.2 million enrollees through March is consistent with their target enrollment goals for 2015.

The Congressional Budget Office had originally projected marketplace enrollment would reach 13 million in 2015, 24 million in 2016 and a “steady rate” of 25 million in 2017 as the program is fully implemented.

That aggressive growth assumed a significant decline over the next two years in both employer-based insurance and non-marketplace individual coverage. But a subsequent HHS analysis found the CBO projections were unrealistic.

Senior administration officials said there was “mixed evidence” and “considerable uncertainty” about the CBO’s expectation of a large two-year movement away from job-based coverage and individual coverage purchased outside the marketplace.

In 2014, 8.1 million people initially signed up for marketplace coverage during the extended enrollment period that ended in May. But total enrollment fell to 6.3 million by the end of the year.

Of the 10.2 million plan members in 2015, about 85 percent, or 8.7 million, are receiving federal subsidies, or tax credits, to help pay for their coverage. The average 2015 tax credit was $272 per month, HHS reported.

Via: McClatchy DC

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/06/02/268588/us-marketplace-health-plan-enrollment.html#storylink=cpy

Obama Boasts: 'I Am the Closest Thing to a Jew that Has Ever Sat' in the Oval Office

President Obama once confided to a top adviser that he believes he is “the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office.”

In an interview by an Israeli TV station, former Obama adviser David Axelrod recalled the president venting in a moment of contemplation about criticisms that he doesn’t support Israel strongly enough, JPupdates.com reported.

“You know, I think I am the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office,” the president told Mr. Axelrod. “For people to say that I am anti-Israel, or, even worse, anti-Semitic, it hurts.”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest endorsed the sentiment Tuesday, saying Mr. Obama gave a heartfelt speech at a Jewish synagogue in Washington last month that expressed “the kinds of common bonds and common values that are embodied in his administration that are [also] advocated by the Jewish community.”

“The president does feel that kind of kinship,” Mr. Earnest said.

The TV report came out in advance of an exclusive interview that Mr. Obama conducted with Channel 2’s Ilana Dayan, which will be broadcast later Tuesday.

Mr. Axelrod also was critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has had a frosty relationship with Mr. Obama.

“The world of politics everywhere is divided into two categories: the first and more common is the people who run for public office because they want to be somebody,” Mr. Axelrod said. “A smaller group is made of respectable people who run for public office because they want to do something – something positive. Shape the future in a positive way. I think Benjamin Netanyahucompletely falls in the first category. He is a great politician. He knows what he needs to do to get through the next election. But it seems to me that Israel has to think about what they need to do to get through the next generation.”

Martin Indyk, U.S. special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from 2013 to 2014, told Ms. Dayan that “Israelis are ungrateful to this president.”

“They never appreciated his rule whereby nothing will harm the security of Israel,” Mr. Indyk said. “Obama did not manage to get that statement out so that the Israelis can really feel it. You are an emotional nation, not a rational nation. You work from your gut and not your mind. “

He said of Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress this spring, which the White House opposed: “The prime minister really stuck his finger in President Obama’s eye, and this is a disturbing development.”

Via: The Washngton Times

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FBI, Boston Police Kill Terror Suspect Who Came At Them With Knife…Update: Radicalized By ISIS, May Have Planned Attack On Police

An armed man in his 20s being surveilled by the FBI counterterrorism unit was shot and killed by an FBI agent and a Boston police officer in Roslindale this morning, according to Boston Police Commissioner William Evans.

“He was on foot, under surveillance,” Evans said. “The officers have been surveilling him and again they wanted to speak to him … and he turned and our officers gave several commands for him to drop the weapon and unfortunately he came at the officers and they did what they were trained to do and that’s never an easy decision for any officer to make.”

One FBI agent and one BPD officer fired, FBI Special Agent in Charge Vincent B. Lisi said.

Evans said the suspect was wielding a large military-style black knife that he could have “done a lot of damage” with.

“I think our officers tried their best with the FBI to try to convince him to put down the knife but he didn’t leave us a choice,” Evans said. “It’s an active investigation with the joint terrorism task force … It’s very fluid it’s ongoing, but we have one male shot and as you can see it is a very active scene.”

The suspect was declared dead at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Evans said.

Via: Weasel Zippers

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