EXCLUSIVE — KEVIN MCCARTHY PRESSURED BY REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE: WHAT’S THE RUSH ON OBAMATRADE PLANS WITH ITS ‘GLOBAL GOVERNANCE’ HIDDEN INSIDE?

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA)

67%

 is pressuring House GOP leadership, particularly Majority Leader 

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)

47%

, to delay plans to muscle Obamatrade through the House of Representatives quickly. In in a letter to McCarthy obtained exclusively by Breitbart News, he’s asking leadership to slow down and consider the ramifications of what it is doing.

“I write to you today to request that you delay any vote on fast-track authority for the Executive until the President has made public all text and information pertaining to the new economic union known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission, as well the ‘Living Agreement’ authority,” Hunter wrote to McCarthy, his fellow California Republican. “My concern is that this allows the President and the members of the union to change the agreement and its membership following adoption.”

Hunter’s concern is well founded.

Despite claims from some Obamatrade proponents to the contrary, if Congress approves Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) which would fast-track and all but ensure the approval of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Pacific Rim trade deal, the “Living Agreement” inside the TPP would allow President Obama and the other TPP nations to add China or any other country for that matter to the deal without seeking approval from Congress.

China, President Obama confirmed last week, has been in talks with top Obama administration officials already and is interested in becoming part of TPP. If the House approves TPA as the Senate did—thereby ensuring that TPP will approved—then that technically means, despite anything proponents of this deal say, it would be empowering China and undermining the United States.

Hunter’s letter continues by noting that the TPP Commission would create a new global governance, ceding U.S. sovereignty to foreign and global interests, something 

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

80%

 first revealed in a letter to President Barack Obama last week

Via: Breitbart

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Activists Want Black Host Who Blamed Teens For McKinney Pool Fight FIRED

Dozens of activists are calling on a Dallas-based video broadcast station to fire a black talk show host for blaming a group of mostly black teenagers for starting a fracas at a private swimming pool in McKinney, Tex. on Friday.

Benet Embry, who hosts an internet show on Deep Ellum on Air and lives in the neighborhood, has been accused by some for being a traitor to his race after he posted to his Facebook account to push back against what he called a false media narrative that has been crafted in the wake of the incident.

The Daily Caller confirmed with the CEO of Deep Ellum, Jedi Jantzen, that the station has received at least 25 phone calls and numerous emails and social media posts demanding Embry’s ouster. Jentzen said he has no plans to fire the host.

The outrage began with a seven-and-a-half minute video released over the weekend showing McKinney police officer Eric Casebolt throwing a 15-year-old black girl on the ground and pulling out his gun as he tried to detain a group of teenagers allegedly involved in the fracas.

But witnesses to the scene say that the video lacks context. They said that teens, many of whom did not live in Craig Ranch, began causing trouble at a concert held next to the pool. Pool-goers who do live in the neighborhood called police after some of the teens trespassed into the pool. Others were fighting. Police who first responded to the scene were reportedly unable to control the crowd of teenagers, who refused to comply.

The girl Casebolt forced to the ground said that she was not involved in any of the violence that had occurred at the pool.

Via: Daily Caller

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Green gambit: Enviro group's legal maneuver may kill coal mine

A Colorado coal mine is up against climate change and the clock, after an environmental group got a judge to order a federal agency to re-do the permit it issued eight years ago, setting such an "unrealistically" short deadline that backers fear the operation will be shut down for good on a technicality.

The Colowyo mine, which provides hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars to the economy of the town of Craig, has been open since 1977. But the expansion permit it sought and received from the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) in 2007 did not take climate change into account, according to a lawsuit brought by WildEarth Guardians. That, the environmental group said, violated the 2006 National Environmental Policy Act. A federal judge agreed and, on May 4, gave the agency 120 days to redo the review.

The company that owns the mine and many of the families of workers fear the agency won't complete the review in time, or, if it does, may reach a different conclusion. Either could mean the mine is shut down for good.

"At the end of the day, it’s the families of northwestern Colorado that will be hurting."

- Lee Boughey, Colowyo Mine Co.

"It would devastate my family,” Colowyo employee Jim Hatfield told Steamboat Today. "We’d probably be forced to move.”

Christopher Holmes, spokesman for the federal agency, told FoxNews.com the office intends to finish the process before the deadline, but completion does not guarantee the mine will stay open. The company that owns the mine, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, is appealing District Judge R. Brooke Jackson's order, even as it has asked for a stay of execution, claiming it will suffer irreparable harm if the mine closes because of an elapsed deadline.

Via: Fox News

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Obama admin: Illegal immigration lowest since 1972 (MORE PIPE DREAMS)

Illegal immigration across the southwestern border is on pace for the lowest year since 1972, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Monday, claiming success a year after the surge of illegal immigrant children and families exposed major holes in U.S. policy.

Mr. Johnson said there’s no guarantee that apprehensions — which he said are a direct indication of the total flow of illegal immigrants — will keep on that four-decade low pace, but said the signs are encouraging.

“The bottom line of all this is, in recent years the total number of those who attempt to illegally cross our southwest border has declined dramatically, while the percentage of those who are apprehended has gone up,” the secretary said at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. “Put simply, it’s now much harder to cross our border illegally and evade capture than it used to be — and people know that.”

Even with the successes, Mr. Johnson said they “are not — repeat, not — declaring mission accomplished,” saying he remains vigilant because the U.S. is still an attractive destination for the poor in Central America, and the improving economy here could draw more attempts.

Central American migration has become the biggest test of border security in the last several years, surpassing the flow of Mexicans, which had dominated for decades.

Last summer tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children traveling alone from Central America, and tens of thousands more mothers with young children, surged into Texas, with a huge spike in May and June.

Via: Washington Times

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Global Warming: The Theory that Predicts Nothing and Explains Everything

A lot of us having been pointing out one of the big problems with the global warming theory: a long plateau in global temperatures since about 1998. Most significantly, this leveling off was not predicted by the theory, and observed temperatures have been below the lowest end of the range predicted by all of the computerized climate models.

So what to do if your theory doesn’t fit the data? Why, change the data, of course!

Hence a blockbuster new report: a new analysis of temperature data since 1998 “adjusts” the numbers and magically finds that there was no plateau after all. The warming just continued.

Starting in at least early 2013, a number of scientific and public commentators have suggested that the rate of recent global warming has slowed or even stopped. The phenomena has been variably termed a “pause,” a “slowdown,” and a “hiatus.”…

 But as a team of federal scientists report today in the prestigious journal Science, there may not have been any “pause” at all. The researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) adjusted their data on land and ocean temperatures to address “residual data biases” that affect a variety of measurements, such as those taken by ships over the oceans. And they found that “newly corrected and updated global surface temperature data from NOAA’s NCEI do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus.’”
How convenient.

It’s so convenient that they’re signaling for everyone else to get on board.

One question raised by the research is whether other global temperature datasets will see similar adjustments. One, kept by the Hadley Center of the UK Met Office, appears to support the global warming “hiatus” narrative—but then, so did NOAA’s dataset up until now. “Before this update, we were the slowest rate of warming,” said Karl. “And with the update now, we’re the leaders of the pack. So as other people make updates, they may end up adjusting upwards as well.”

This is going to be the new party line. “Hiatus”? What hiatus? Who are you going to believe, our adjustments or your lying thermometers?

The new adjustments are suspiciously convenient, of course. Anyone who is touting a theory that isn’t being borne out by the evidence and suddenly tells you he’s analyzed the data and by golly, what do you know, suddenly it does support his theory—well, he should be met with more than a little skepticism.

Via: The Federalist

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Labor Unions’ Minimum Wage Push: A Shameless Scheme to Fatten Their Own Coffers

Protesters calling for pay of 5 an hour and a union march toward McDonald's headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill., Wednesday, May 20, 2015. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)

Utterly shameless. There really is no other way to describe what some unions are trying to pull when it comes to the minimum wage.

The issue, of course, has been in the news quite a bit lately, especially in Los Angeles, with supposedly incensed workers waving their “Fight for 15” placards. It’s all perfectly packaged for the media, an alleged David versus Goliath fight. Will those mean ol’ fast-food joints and other stingy employers finally start paying a “living wage”? Tune in for the dramatic video.

Never mind that a substantial hike in the minimum wage would price many unskilled workers right out of the market. Goodbye, entry-level jobs for men and women who will later become workers making a much better wage at a job with more responsibilities.

And never mind how this minimum wage hike would make the price of fast food soar. A huge part of the draw for fast food, after all, is the fact that it’s relatively cheap. Take that away, and now it’s goodbye to the industry, which, of course, will hardly help the workers who are supposed to benefit from the wage increase.

Employers, after all, don’t have a bottomless safe in the backroom from which to pull vast reserves of cash for these salaries. They’ll react by cutting hours, for one thing. Labor expert James Sherk, for example, found that raising the minimum wage to $15 would cause a 36 percent drop in hours worked in fast food.

Think of what such a hike would mean for a major city such as Los Angeles. “If the effects are the same for all low-wage food-service occupations,” writes economist Salim Furth, “the ‘Fight for 15’ will cost more than 20,000 Angelenos their jobs in those occupations alone.” We can expect the same type of effect everywhere if such a drastic hike is enacted.

Of course, we don’t hear about any negative effects from much of the media or from breathless proponents of such “wage equality.” Or if we do, the effects are shrugged off as the scaremongering tactics of employers who just don’t want to pay up.

Via: CNS News

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Dow loses gains for the year; transports off 2%

U.S. stocks closed near session lows on Monday as investors weighed multi-month highs in bond yields amid greater expectations of tightening following Friday's strong jobs report. (Tweet This)

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down about 80 points, posting losses of 0.32 percent year-to-date. 

"I think everybody's a little unsettled about the way U.S. and European bond markets sold off in the last week," said David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds.

Analysts noted relatively less volatility in bond and currency markets in Monday trade. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield held slightly lower at 2.39 percent. The U.S. dollar pared recent gains, down about one percent against major world currencies with the euro rising to $1.1287. The stronger greenback has weighed on corporate earnings.

On Friday, a surge in bond yields to multi-month highs on a strong jobs report pressured equities, with U.S. stocks closing narrowly mixed. 

Nonfarm payrolls for May beat expectations with the addition of 280,000 jobs. Analysts also cheered a greater-than-forecast 8 cent increase in hourly wages and a 5.5 percent unemployment rate. Signs of continued strength in the labor market strengthened the case for the Federal Reserve to begin raising short-term interest rates in September.

"I think the market's trying to figure out if (Friday's employment report) is going to move the Federal Reserve to act in September," said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Boston Private Wealth. He also cited weakness in the Dow transports as weighing on stocks.

The Dow transports, led by a decline in airlines, closed down 2.06 percent for its worst day since January 6. The index posted its first positive week in four last Friday. 

JetBlue closed down 7.2 percent for its worst day since Sept. 15, 2014.United Continental, American, Southwest and Delta held below their 50 and 200-day moving averages.

Via: CNBC

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MSNBC: Tingles Says Hillary Can “Scold” Republicans In A Way Obama Couldn’t Because She’s White…

Because Obama has been so reserved in his attacks on Republicans?

Via: Weasel Zippers

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THIS IS THE MOST UNSHOCKING OBAMA VIDEO YOU’LL WATCH TODAY

In a press conference overseas, Obama admitted today that he still doesn’t have a complete strategy on taking down ISIS:

Told ya it was unshocking. After all, why would he have a complete strategy when he doesn’t want to take ISIS out?

Via: You Tube

‘Trust Us – We’re the Government’ Isn’t the Best Justification for These Huge New Power Grabs

We are deep into Year Seven of the Barack Obama Administration. It has not been a great time in the history of government transparency and accountability.

He at the outset sounded good.

We have to use technology to open up our democracy. It’s no coincidence that one of the most secretive administrations in our history has favored special interests and pursued policies that could not stand up to the sunlight….”

Then so quickly disintegrated.

Cronyism and ObamaCare: Another Challenge for Reformers

GREEN SCAM: 80% of Green Energy Loans Went to Obama Donors

Auto Bailout Czar: We Did It All for the Unions

The (Federal Communications Commission) FCC Delivers the Latest Dose of Obama Cronyism

He sounded SO good.

“I’ll let you participate in government forums, ask questions, in real time offer suggestions that will be reviewed before decisions are made. And let you comment on legislation before it is signed.…”

Then…not so much.

Where the Sun Don’t Shine

President Obama promised transparency and open government. He failed miserably.

ObamaCare Architect: Lack of Transparency Was Key Because ‘Stupidity Of The American Voter’ Would Have Killed ObamaCare

Influence Peddlers Seem to Know More About the Trans-Pacific Partnership Than Congress

FOIA Backlog Soars Despite Obama Pledge of Transparency

Speaking of fake transparency.

The FCC Wants to Hear Your Comments on Its New Net Neutrality Plans – May 15, 2014

The FCC Received 3.7 Million Net Neutrality Comments – September 16, 2014

This “record number of comments” was ceaselessly touted.

The Left wasn’t pleased with the Net Neutrality order as it was then written.

FCC Proposed Net Neutrality Change Sparks Internet Rage – August 8, 2014

Concerns for the new rules center around “fast lanes” and “slow lanes”….

President Barack Obama wasn’t pleased – and big-footed the whole process by saying so.

President Obama Wants the FCC to Abandon Plans for Tiered ‘Net Neutrality’ – October 10, 2014

Then after the landslide, Less Government 2014 election – the President made it official.

President Obama to FCC: Reclassify Broadband Service as Title II to Protect Net Neutrality – November 10, 2014

Then this happened.

FCC Chief Tom Wheeler Suggests That He Will Back Strict (Title II) Net Neutrality Rules

Then – it happened. The President’s FCC gave him exactly what he wanted.

Via: Red State

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Curtailing Voting Rights vs. Curtailing Vote Fraud

Perhaps to distract attention from her own scandals, Hillary Rodham Clinton charges that Republicans want to curtail young people’s and minorities’ voting rights.  The charge that Republicans engage in vote suppression has been in Democrats’ playbook for years.  (By regurgitating this hoary claim, Mrs. Clinton lends credence to Marco Rubio’s observation that some pols may be antiquated.)


We need to investigate her assertion that GOP concerns about election fraud are overblown.
Given America’s dependence on elections, it is essential to the nation’s well-being that citizens have confidence in elections’ honesty and integrity.  People must be able to assume that candidates and parties declared the winner of an election won honestly.  Vote fraud saps people’s trust and confidence in government itself.
Sadly, the U.S. has a long history of vote fraud. 

Unless efforts to thwart fraudulent voting are successful, Americans should expect even more in future elections.  It is conceivable that, unless preventative action occurs, Americans may endure more contested elections that will make the 2000 fiasco in Florida look like an episode of good government.

Election fraud takes many forms: “voting the graveyard,” stuffing ballot boxes, “repeater” voting – sometimes in separate states – noncitizens casting ballots, preventing citizens from exercising the franchise, and miscounting election results, just to list a few.

In the late 19th century, most states introduced requirements that citizens register in person at designated locations before Election Day in order to prevent, or at least minimize, the kinds of fraudulent practices then in vogue.  Requiring people to register in person and in advance of Election Day had salubrious effects, at least for a time.

Via; American Thinker

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The U.S. State Department’s ‘Become-Liars-Like-Us School-of-Journalism’

The country infamous for its running dog-mainstream media cheering anything Obama in a cacophony of barks,  including the “fundamental transformation” of their own country,  is now branching out through its State Department to the world.

Bureaucrats of the U.S. State Department, who have already taken it upon themselves to teach “ethics” to the “up and coming journalists” of India, are going to “embed” up-and-coming Russian journalists in American newsrooms. Having gained control of the mainstream media on home turf,  why not try for world media control?

“The U.S. State Department is looking to design and facilitate a media ethics course for journalists in India, and has even proposed appropriating the name of Robin Thicke’s 2013 hit “Blurred Lines” as a title for the course. (Weekly Standard, April 20, 2015)

“The U.S. consulate general in Hyderabad, India, is looking for a non-profit to co-develop the course to help Indian journalists gain a “baseline understanding of the international industry standards,” including “accuracy, honesty, transparency, impartiality, and accountability,” and is willing to spend $20,000 - $25,000 on it.

“The grant documents note that credibility is a key part of journalists’ jobs to “keep their readership informed, hold us all accountable, filter fact from fiction, and unmask false narratives masquerading as truth.” To that end, the State Department would like a full-time faculty member to propose curriculum content and develop a syllabus tailored to communicate journalistic standards to an Indian university audience. Additionally, the grant calls for a “U.S.-based, university-level journalism professor,” suggested by the non-profit subject to approval by the State Department, to act as consultant in the development of the course.

“Once the course preparation is complete, the journalism professor will visit India at least three times: to meet with the coordinating university in India and “observe existing on-the-job training in various media houses,” to conduct a three day seminar for other stakeholders, and to participate in first offering of the newly-designed course. The grant specifies that both the accommodations for the professor and the venue for the seminar must be a four-star hotel.”

Via: Canada Free Press

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Press Fails to Note That Weak First-Quarter Economies Have Been a Democrat Phenomenon

The business press has gotten really excited about the possibility — some of them are even treating it as a probability — that the first-quarter's recently reported annualized economic contraction of 0.7 percent will go positive if it gets revised for so-called "residual seasonality.

" "Residual seasonality" is "the manifestation of seasonal patterns in data that have already been seasonally adjusted." (Supposedly, the way to fix this is add more "seasoning.") On April 22, CNBC's Steve Liesman contended that it's been a chronic 30-year problem. As far as I can tell, no one in the press has followed up on that claim. If they had, they would have found that it has not been a 30-year "problem," and that it's a "problem" remarkably unique to the presence of Democratic Party presidential administrations and policies:

 There was virtually no net first-quarter GDP underperformance from 1985-1992, i.e., the first eight of the 30 years Liesman claimed the trend has been present. He certainly should not have included those years, which "just so happen" to have had GOP presidential administrations (Ronald Reagan from 1985-1988 and Bush 41 from 1989-1992). 

Via: Newsbusters

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AP: Abortions decline in almost every state

Abortions have declined in nearly every state, according to a recent nationwide Associated Press survey.

In states both red and blue, in places where Republican-led initiatives against abortion have succeeded and in states where abortion rights remain protected, the number of abortions nationwide has declined by about 12 percent since 2010.

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In terms of percentage, Hawaii experienced the biggest decrease, at 30 percent. In 2010, there were 3,064 abortions performed in the state, compared to 2,147 last year. New Mexico followed, with 24 percent, along with Nevada and Rhode Island at 22 percent and Connecticut at 21 percent.Five of the six states with the biggest drop in abortions have not passed any laws restricting abortion clinics or providers, the AP reports.

States that have recently passed more anti-abortion legislation — like Missouri, Oklahoma and Indiana — have seen a drop of more than 15 percent, while blue states like New York, Washington and Oregon also had similar declines. Approximately 70 abortion clinics have closed in the U.S. since 2010, the AP reports, citing state officials and advocacy groups.

Abortions only rose in two states tracked by the AP. In Michigan, abortions increased by 18.5 percent between 2010 and 2014; in Louisiana, there was an increase of 12 percent.

A major factor in the decrease, the AP reports, is an overall decline in the national teen pregnancy rate, which reached its lowest rate in decades when it was last measured in 2010.

Ben Clapper, the executive director of Louisiana Right to Life, suggested to the AP that the increase in his state was partly owed to new abortion restrictions in neighboring Mississippi and Texas.

Via: Politico Europe

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Obama: Notice You Haven’t Heard Any Obamacare Horror Stories Lately?

In a round of questions following his remarks on the G7 Summit in Germany Monday morning, President Barack Obama dismissed the King v Burwell Supreme Court case as a tortured misreading of the law, and added, “Anyway, the thing’s working!”

“Part of what’s bizarre about this whole thing is we haven’t had a lot of conversation about the horrors of Obamacare because none of them have come to pass,” Obama said, citing significantly higher insured rates and lower health care costs. “None of the predictions about how this wouldn’t work have come to pass.”

The King case questions whether the federal premium subsidies were meant to be part of the law; an ambiguous sentence suggests they might have been withheld to pressure states into creating their own exchanges. But most involved in the writing and passing of the Affordable Care Act say it was a vestigial idea long abandoned by the time the law was passed.

If the subsidies were overturned, however, it would wreak havoc in the health care industry, if not the economy in general. One reporter asked why Obama didn’t have a Plan B in this event.

He responded that the ACA was a complex and interconnected piece of legislation that would be difficult to untangle, though he added that Congress could just fix the ambiguous sentence.

“This would be hard to fix,” he said. “Fortunately, there’s no reason to have to do it. It doesn’t need fixing.”

Via: Mediaite

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California’s Drought is a Communications and Policy Issue

Photo Credit: The International Rice Research InstituteIn the face of California’s crippling drought, public agencies will have to employ wide-ranging strategies and tactics to educate, motivate, enforce, and reinforce messages about drastic water cutbacks.

Their success or failure hinges on how they communicate to diverse audiences about managing water, a precious natural resource. In their dilemma, there are also communications lessons.

On Tuesday, California’s State Water Resources Board said residents used 13.5 percent less water against an April 2013 benchmark. This is a significant improvement over previous months, but it also shows a major gap in achieving the mandatory average 25 percent reduction in urban water use ordered by California Governor Jerry Brown. 

The drought has generated thousands of media stories and an unending stream of tweets and posts and sparked intense debate on what needs to be done. Water agencies, city managers, and other local elected officials will have to make major decisions, large and small, about how to urge residents to use much less, and conserve much more, water.

In this highly charged atmosphere, carefully developed communication strategies will be essential to get the public informed and accepting of the solutions required. Organizations will have to engage from the top down at the state level to coordinate messages and from the bottom up at the local level to make relevant, persuasive arguments.

Via: California Political Review

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TSA FAILED TO IDENTIFY 73 AVIATION WORKERS WITH ‘LINKS TO TERRORISM’

The Transportation Security Administration granted access to secure airport areas to 73 aviation workers with “links to terrorism,” according to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.

The audit, released Monday, reveals that TSA was unable to vet out 73 individuals with terror-related category codes because the agency did not have enough access to terror list information.

“According to TSA data, these individuals were employed by major airlines, airport vendors, and other employers. TSA did not identify these individuals through its vetting operations because it is not authorized to receive all terrorism-related categories under current interagency watchlisting policy,” the redacted report reads.

“TSA acknowledged that these individuals were cleared for access to secure airport areas despite representing a potential transportation security threat,” it added.

The new audit comes on the heels of another damaging Inspector General report on TSA’s security measures, which found the aviation security body was unable to detect fake bombs and weapons in 95 percent of trial runs. Revealed last week in an ABC News report, the OIG’s findings resulted in the Acting TSA Administrator, Melvin Carraway’s, removal from the post.

In addition to the threats posed by aviation workers with terror-ties, Monday’s report also took issue with the TSA’s handing of aviation workers’ potential criminal pasts and/or immigration issues, noting the agency’s controls on criminal histories and immigration statuses were “less effective” than its terror-vetting.

“In general, TSA relied on airport operators to perform criminal history and work authorization checks, but had limited oversight over these commercial entities. Thus, TSA lacked assurance that it properly vetted all credential applicants,” the report reads.

Via: Breitbart

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Obama’s Slap in Britain’s Face

London — Two weeks ago, we went to Washington to argue for the immediate release of Shaker Aamer, a detainee at Guantánamo Bay. Mr. Aamer’s wife and four children live in London but he has yet to meet his youngest child, Faris, who is now 13.

We are unlikely political bedfellows from the left and right of British politics. The four of us agree on almost nothing, with this exception: Mr. Aamer, a British permanent resident, must be freed and transferred to British soil immediately.

Mr. Aamer was picked up by the Northern Alliance in November 2001 in Afghanistan, where he was doing charity work, and sold for a bounty. He was taken to the notorious Bagram Prison, where he was brutally tortured, before being sent to Guantánamo in February 2002. In 2007, under President George W. Bush’s administration, he was cleared for release. In 2010, under President Obama, he was cleared for release again — after an arduous process requiring unanimous agreement by six agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Departments of State and Defense.

We should never have had to make the trip to Washington. Earlier this year, during his visit to the United States, Prime Minister David Cameronasked Mr. Obama to release Mr. Aamer. The president promised to pursue the matter. On March 17, the House of Commons passed an unusual unanimous motion calling for Mr. Aamer’s immediate release and transfer to Britain. Since that time little, if anything, has been done by the United States.

We heard during our visit that “Congress has prevented transfers”; yet, under current legislation, Mr. Obama could give notice to Congress and then transfer Mr. Aamer 30 days later, as the British government has requested. We heard that there may be “security considerations.” Any suggestion that Britain does not have the legal structures, the security and intelligence skills, or the care capacity to address any issues with Mr. Aamer is deeply insulting.

Via: New York Times

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