Feds Spend $150K to 'Embed' Russian Journalists in U.S. Newsrooms

Even as diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Russia remain decidedly chilly over the Ukrainian conflict, the State Department is reaching out to "up-and-coming" Russian journalists. A recent $150,000 grant offering from the U.S. embassy in Moscow seeks to establish a program to give Russian journalists an "intensive professional exchange experience in American newsrooms," plus "cultural experiences that allow them to learn more about the United States in general."

Although the program is tentatively named the "Russian Journalist Exchange Program," it involves only the placement of Russian journalists in American newsrooms and not vice versa. Although the State Department wishes to focus on relatively new journalists who are "showing promise" in their careers, grant recipients are reminded that "[e]very effort should be made to attract a large and diverse participant pool, including persons with disabilities, minorities, a balanced mix of male and female participants, etc." Grant recipients will carry out recruitment, but the U.S. embassy in Moscow reserves the right of final approval of all participants, as well as approval of the U.S. newsrooms where the visiting journalists will be working.

In addition to being "embedded" for a minimum a two-weeks in "reputable American newsrooms," participants are to be housed with American families to enhance their cultural experiences. While the Russians are expected to "work alongside American reporters" and interact with host families to get "a first-hand view of American family life with all its diversity," the State Department doesn't want the visitors to get too comfortable. Grant recipients are reminded they are not only responsible for arranging an American work, cultural, and family-life experience for the journalists, but also for "ensuring their return to Russia." All participating journalists must "[c]ommit to returning to Russian Federation after completion of the program."

However, the State Department has plans for a continuing relationship with the Russian journalists who participate in the program. One of the elements required of grant recipients is to "plan for post-program participant engagement that includes an outline of any proposed follow-on activities or initiatives and an articulated plan for utilizing Department of State and other alumni tools and social media outlets to provide continued support to program alumni." [emphasis added] A post-program evaluation is also desired using a now-familiar State Department metric: "The more that outcomes are “SMART” (specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and placed in a reasonable timeframe, the easier it will be to conduct the evaluation."

Development of the program, recruitment of participants (both Russian journalists and American news organizations), and selection of host families is expected to take until March 2016. The actual exchange experiences are then to take place from March through August 2016.

Via: The Weekly Standard

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Obama Fails To Recognize D-Day, The Democrats Recognize Day By Quoting…Barack Obama

Barack Obama failed to recognize the day at all today, not even with his traditional picture of himself.

One might give him an excuse, as he was delivering the eulogy for Beau Biden today. However, he did manage to have time for tweets on what was really important to him, that he “intended to keep doing everything he could” for illegal aliens

But the Democrats did manage to recognize the day on their Twitter account, by tweeting a quote of…Barack Obama from last year. Remember when he went to the D-Day ceremony and was caught chewing gum?

The Democrats are inheriting his narcissism by extension…

Via: Weasel Zippers

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I Still Blame the Communists

What explains the years of rage on campuses?

Maybe American higher education was never all that serious about, you know, the education portion of its name. After more than a decade of teaching in the Ivy League, the philosopher George Santayana dubbed Harvard and Yale the nation’s toy Athens and toy Sparta. He actually meant it as a compliment—as much a compliment, anyway, as he could muster. Santayana resigned his Harvard professorship in 1912 and moved to Europe.

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But something especially odd does seem to be happening on American campuses these days. I confess to a little schadenfreude about the widely reported situation of Laura Kipnis, the Northwestern University professor whose feminist essay in praise of faculty-student dating prompted her school to investigate her for violations of the antidiscrimination provisions of Title IX. Kipnis is a widely published controversialist, and over the years she fanned the feminist flames that have now tried to burn her. The revolution, as the old story goes, devours its children.

Still, from symbolic mattresses and op-eds against Ovid at Columbia, to students interrogated about their Jewishness at UCLA and Stanford, to the stories of lawsuits filed by the undergraduates accused by their colleges of rape, to the reports of the Boston University teacher who used her Twitter account for anti-white-male messages, to the creation of “safe spaces” lest a public lecture trigger a bad memory in someone, to . . . On and on it seems to go, each fresh day bringing some fresh account of militant outrage at American colleges. “Only the dead have seen the end of war,” Santayana once warned us. Certainly only the dead have seen the end of campus upset.

It wasn’t always thus. I’m not thinking of some supposedly idyllic moment in the 1840s, or the 1910s, or the 1950s. I mean that 20 years ago, in the mid-1990s, at least a small sense of relief was felt by a number of people. Back in 1987, Allan Bloom had out-Santayana’d Santayana with his bestselling lament, The Closing of the American Mind. In the early 1990s Roger Kimball and Dinesh D’Souza added widely read books on the radicalism of college faculty—even as the collapse of Soviet communism from 1989 to 1991 deflated the hopes of the Marxist professors they wrote about. 

It all seemed to add up to a slow but real generational retreat from an academic world still dominated by its proud memories of 1960s student protests. I remember the Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon explaining, around 1996, that she suspected the peak of political correctness had passed—since schools like Harvard and Princeton would feel embarrassed if they didn’t have one person on the faculty they could point to as a conservative. Not more than one, perhaps, but nonetheless, it seemed to mark a change that she imagined would soon filter from the Ivy League out into the rest of America’s schools. The poet Dana Gioia proposed something similar around that time, after he’d been approached by a major foundation for names of conservative authors it might support in order to blunt the charge of its being merely a subsidiary of liberalism.

Via: The Weekly Standard

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[VIDEO] IRS Mocks Lawmakers – Blows Off Congressional Request for Clinton Foundation Investigation

The IRS continued this week to prove it has become an armed extension of the Democratic Party.

The IRS sent an unsigned form letter to Congress in response to its request.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said the disrespectful response was unacceptable.

Congressman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) today called into question the ability of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to appropriately respond to concerns being raised by the American people in regards to allegations surrounding the Clinton Foundation’s tax status.

Last month Blackburn was joined by 51 of her House colleagues in sending a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen requesting a review of the Clinton Foundation’s tax-exempt status. Late Wednesday afternoon, Blackburn received an unsigned form letter addressed to “Sir or Madam” from the IRS in response to this request.

“The IRS response is not acceptable and lacking in the requisite tact that should accompany a Congressional inquiry. It is unbelievably disrespectful that Margaret Von Lienen couldn’t even take the few extra seconds needed to sign the letter. It begs the question – do they even take our request seriously? This is exactly why people don’t trust the IRS,”Blackburn said. “Members of Congress have an obligation to be responsive to the questions being raised by our constituents regarding these widely reported improprieties. 51 of my colleagues took the time to review this issue and joined me in sending the letter. We’d expect officials at the IRS, who also work for and are paid by the U.S. taxpayer, to take the same care and effort in crafting a response to our inquiry. The allegations swirling around the Clinton Foundation are very serious and raise issues of great public importance. They should be thoroughly vetted and we intend to continue our examination of the Foundation.”

Via Special Report:

Via: Gateway Pundit

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Making Amtrak Compete Would Benefit All

The recent Amtrak derailment outside of Philadelphia, which killed eight people and injured over 200, is a somber reminder that quick action by Congress is necessary to prevent another passenger rail catastrophe. Amtrak is the sole operator of trains on the Northeast corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston, and thus bears responsibility for providing safe passenger train travel. Yet, despite a posted 50-mph speed limit on that section of track, the train was traveling at 106 mph around a very tight turn. Amtrak’s contract to operate trains on the Northeast corridor should be terminated immediately. 

But wait. No such contract exists. Amtrak has an uncontested, indefinite monopoly on intercity train operations in the United States. The problem lies therein: Amtrak is unconstrained by the fear of losing its operational rights, and thus its revenue, regardless of safety or on-time performance. 

The corridor includes stops in such major population centers as Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, N.J., and New York. It is highly profitable, with the tight population densities, moderate distances, and concentrated central business districts that are critical for successful passenger rail. The NEC should be a showcase for how the United States can deliver a self-sustaining, reliable, safe, and affordable high-speed passenger rail. The barrier is not geography or insufficient taxpayer spending but appalling, outdated federal rail policy. 

We can do better. One appealing solution is a public-private operating partnership, or PPOP. Under this approach, the NEC would be separated from the rest of Amtrak’s routes. The NEC already differs fundamentally from the rest of the passenger rail system. Amtrak owns most of the tracks and rights of way on the NEC, but utilizes freight train tracks in the rest of the country. 

A 2013 report from the Brookings Institution notes that the NEC routes, which carry some 11.4 million people each year, earn an operating profit of about $205 million annually. The rest of Amtrak’s nationwide network, however, hemorrhages cash. 

Under a PPOP, the right to maintain and operate NEC trains would be bid out at regular intervals of, say, 10 to 15 years. A PPOP concession contract would specify key aspects of service, such as rates, service frequency, and safety standards. Bidding would occur on the basis of the largest upfront concession payment an operator is willing to make for an exclusive operational right subject to the pre-set terms of service.  

Via: Real Clear Politics

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White House Staff Tells All: Inside The Private Lives Of First Families

A new book released this week gives readers an unprecedented look at life inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, from the perspective of the traditionally reticent White House staff. In her book, The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, Kate Andersen Brower brings together their stories from the administration of JFK to the current day.

Brower’s research was extensive, including interviewing over 100 former White House staff. She spoke to retired butlers, ushers, bakers, florists, maids, and doormen among others. Some staff members werereluctant to participate in Brower’s project at first, due to an unwritten tradition of silence about their work; but the writer was persistent and persuaded some to share their stories, and the momentum built from there.

Not surprisingly, one of Brower’s discoveries was that life inside the White House became tense between the Clintons following the revelation of President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Bill was relegated to the proverbial couch in the residence for months. Staff also recalled profanity-laced shouting matchesbetween the couple that only intensified following the affair. Staff suspected that Hillary threw one of her bedside books at him, hitting his face and leaving blood-stained sheets for the staff to replace.

Bill and Hillary were the most private occupants of the White House in recent decades, according to Brower. “I’ve had staffers say that the Clintons were definitely the most paranoid first family that they ever had to work with,” she said.

A very poignant moment, which Brower opens the book with, follows the assassination of John F. Kennedy as seen through the eyes of doorman Preston Bruce. He recalled a tearful hug with Bobby and Jackie Kennedy when they arrived back at the White House at 4 am, immediately after JFK’s death. Jackie, still in her bloodstained pink woolsuit and clutching Bobby’s arm, said to him softly, “Bruce, you waited until we came.” He replied, “You knew I was going to be here, Mrs. Kennedy.”

Brower writes:

Exhausted, Bruce spent what was left of that night sitting upright in a chair in a tiny bedroom on the third floor. He took off his jacket and bow tie and unbuttoned the collar of his stiff white shirt, but he wouldn’t let himself give into exhaustion. “I didn’t want to lie down, in case Mrs Kennedy needed me.” He refused to go home for the next four days, seeing the Kennedys through the funeral and its aftermath.

Mrs. Kennedy thanked Bruce by giving him a tie that JFK had worn on the flight to Dallas. Bobby Kennedy gave him the gloves he wore to his brother’s funeral.

Via: Western Journalism

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Only Democrats Are to Blame for ObamaCare Chaos

If the Supreme Court were to decide not to allow retroactive legislating and uphold Obamacare as written, terrible things would happen to America. We might, for instance, find out what health insurance in fabricated, state-run “marketplaces” actually costs.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the 37 states that have declined to set up exchanges would see an average spike of 287 percent should the King v. Burwell decision not go the Obama administration’s way. It would be 650 percent in Mississippi — an amount that only proves that exchanges have not made insurance markets more competitive or more affordable as promised. Actually, the cost of insurance in federally run exchanges is already 287 percent higher. The difference is picked up by taxpayers.

And you know who’s to blame for that, right?

Here is Vox: “What a Supreme Court ruling against Obamacare would look like, in 3 maps.”

Here is The Washington Post: “Map: Health-care premiums could spike as much as 650 percent if this Obamacare challenge succeeds.”

Now, technically, King v. Burwell isn’t a “challenge” to Obamacare. It’s a challenge to uphold Obamacare rather than allow the administration to implement the law in any manner it sees fit. There are compelling arguments on both sides, but the case is well within the purview of the U.S. Supreme Court. The coverage of the debate, though, has already been irrevocably distorted.

In the past few years, any SCOTUS decision that potentially disrupts liberal policy aims has been depicted as an unprecedented and extraordinary partisan overreach that threatens civic order and the norms of democracy. If the president is willing to berate SCOTUS for protecting the First Amendment, you can imagine what we’re in for should something unpleasant happen to the signature achievement of the new progressive era.

So SCOTUS can issue pro-same-sex marriage opinions that “challenge” over 200 years of American law and upend a traditional institution, but ending a concocted subsidy that’s only been around for a few years would, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest, create bedlam:

“We continue to be very confident in the legal case we have to make. What’s also true is that if the Supreme Court were to throw the health care system in this country into utter chaos, there would be no easy solution for solving that problem, because it would likely require an act of Congress in order to address that situation.”

Via: The Patriot Post

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[CARTOON]: Fracking Fool

Via: California Political Review

DEA Releases Photos Of Baltimore Pharmacy Looters…

“You’re Honor at the time of the looting my client was returning from singing in the church choir, after he taught the homeless illiterate how to read and in his spare time builds houses for the poor.”

The Drug Enforcement Agency released photographs Thursday of nine people officials say are connected with looting prescription drugs from Baltimore pharmacies during the April unrest related to the death of Freddie Gray.

The move came a day after Baltimore police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts revised the estimate of how many drugs were stolen to more than 175,000 units, or doses.

“That amount of drugs has thrown off the balance on the streets of Baltimore,” Batts said.

DEA Special Agent Gary Tuggle said even more drugs were stolen than initially reported. About 40 percent of the looted pharmacies have not finished counting losses, he said.

Twenty-seven pharmacies and two methadone clinics were looted when rioting erupted April 27, the day of Gray’s funeral.[…]

harmacy and law enforcement officials said they have seen no evidence that personal information found on stolen prescriptions has been used for fraud. Nevertheless, Rite Aid hired Kroll, a risk management firm, “to alert impacted customers via a letter of notification and share with them the proactive measures it has taken to guard against identity theft.”

Via: Baltimore Sun

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If Supremes slap ObamaCare, it’s health insurers who lose

Photo: Reuters

This week health insurers announced they will hike premiums on ObamaCare plans by double digits in 2016. Yet it’s not ObamaCare buyers who are getting gouged.

For the most part, what consumers have to pay is calculated based on their income.

They don’t pay the sticker price. It’s you — the taxpayers — who get taken to the cleaners, because you foot the bill for the subsidies paid directly to the insurers.

That makes the Supreme Court ruling in King v. Burwell, expected this month, even more consequential. It will determine the fate of these subsidies in 37 states.

Without subsidies, ObamaCare buyers in those states will have to pay the actual — and unaffordable — sticker price of ObamaCare. And you — taxpayers — will not have to fork over hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize insurers over the next decade.

But the dirty secret is that insurers stand to lose the most from King v. Burwell.

The Affordable Care Act compels the public to buy their product, and forces taxpayers to subsidize it. What a sweetheart deal.

The giant players — United Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna, Anthem and Humana — have seen stock prices double, triple, even quadruple since the law was passed in 2010. The coming ruling threatens to put an end to their gravy train.

Democrats are predicting disaster if the court rules against President Obama.

Republicans will “rue the day” they let millions of people lose their subsidies, says Nancy Pelosi. That’s crazy talk.

No one will lose their coverage immediately, the poor will be unaffected and the biggest losers will be insurance companies.

Employers, job-seekers and taxpayers actually stand to win here.

In addition, most Republicans in Congress are inclined to compromise with the president to provide some type of financial help for insurance buyers. If the Supremes gut ObamaCare, there will be many more winners than losers. Here’s how it shakes out:

Via: New York Post

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Another accomplishment -- Obama first President to have a Triple Crown winner since Carter

 

Dan Pfeiffer‏@danpfeiffer

Another accomplishment -- Obama first President to have a Triple Crown winner since Carter

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3:59 PM - 6 Jun 2015