REPORTS: ‘PRACTICING MUSLIM’ WHO KILLED 4 MARINES WORKED AT SUPERIOR ESSEX IN FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE

The Tennessean is reporting that Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, the 24-year-old “practicing Muslim” from Hixson, Tennessee who killed 4 Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee yesterday, was employed at Superior Essex, a manufacturer of wire and cables located in Franklin, Tennessee.

WWTN Radio in Nashville reported that Abdulazeez called in sick and did not report to work at Superior Essex on Monday and Tuesday.

Franklin, a suburb of Nashville, is located 120 miles northwest of Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Abdulazeez killed four unarmed Marines at a recruiting center yesterday. Abdulazeez was killed by law enforcement officials during the shootings.

Abdulazeez was born in Kuwait, and graduated from Red Bank High School in the Chattanooga area. In 2012 he graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a degree in electrical engineering. According to an online resume, he worked as an intern at the Tennessee Valley Authority, Mohawk Industries, and Global Trade Express before landing his job at Superior Essex.

Breitbart News contacted Superior Essex this morning and spoke with the security person who answered the phone.

“I have been instructed to say get off the property, no comment,” the security person told Breitbart News.

The security person advised Breitbart News to call back at 8 am central when “the powers that be” will be available for comment.

The Superior Essex voice mail system did not accept messages Breitbart News attempted to leave messages for senior management of Superior Essex.

According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Abdulazeez trained in mixed martial arts, and was arrested on April 20, 2015 when he failed a sobriety test:

Abdulazeez’s father, also named Youssuf Abdulazeez, works as a soil engineering specialist for the Chattanooga Public Works Department, city records show. A co-worker who asked to remain anonymous said he was a nice man, hardworking, never caused anyone any trouble.

The elder Abdulazeez has owned the family’s house at 1902 Colonial Way Circle since 2001, according to Hamilton County property records. On Thursday, he did not return a call on his cellphone.

The younger Abdulazeez, who had lived in the Chattanooga area since he was in elementary school, has one incident on his criminal record. He was arrested by Chattanooga police on April 20 for driving under the influence after he was seen swerving while driving on M.L. King Boulevard around 2 a.m.

The arresting officer noted the smell of alcohol and marijuana, and said Abdulazeez had a white powdery substance around his nose, according to the arrest report.

Abdulazeez told police he had been around friends that night who’d been drinking and smoking. But he failed a sobriety test, was arrested and released on a $2,000 bond.

Court records show that’s the only time Abdulazeez has been arrested in Hamilton County.

….

Abdulazeez, a practicing Muslim, would sometimes get in trouble with the wrestling coach for fasting during the season because of the sport’s strict weight requirements, Smith added.

Scott Schrader, one of the owners at Chattanooga Fight Factory who trained Abdulazeez in mixed martial arts, said the then-teenager would stop training every day at 6 p.m. to pray.

….

In Abdulazeez’s senior photo in a Red Bank yearbook, he sports a tux and smiles into the camera, clean shaven and without the beard he wore when arrested for DUI this year. Under is name is a senior quote, attributed to “Hijabman,” an American-Pakistani activist.

“My name causes national security alerts,” the quote reads. “What does yours do?

UPDATE: 

Breitbart News spoke with Superior Essex’s plant manager at its Franklin, Tennessee headquarters, Dave Marcaurele, Friday morning at 9:15 am central time to confirm details of Abdulazeez’s employment.

“We don’t have any comment at this point in time,” Marcaurele told Breitbart News

Via: Breitbart

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Daily Caller: Disgraced Planned Parenthood Official Works For White House Staff…Her 'Right-Wing' Hatred EXPOSED

Disgraced Planned Parenthood official Deborah Nucatola’s shocking personal work history is coming to light.

Records reveal that Nucatola was employed by a former White House staffer at the time that she was selling aborted baby fetus parts.

A staunch political advocate, Nucatola railed against the “right-wing” Bush administration. What’s more, she so enjoyed her work in the abortion industry that she touted a T-shirt celebrating a drug used in the practice.

Let’s break it down:

Works for a White House staffer

Nucatola is currently employed at Sexual Health Innovations, founded by former Obama White House staffer Jessica Ladd. Senior Obama administration officials sit on the board of the abortion activist group, including Praveen Basaviah of the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and Kyle Bernstein of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The IRS-approved 501(c)3 tech nonprofit is a major Obama administration contractor.

The group works on issues including “abortion access,” according to its website. But the group’s biggest project right now is Callisto, an online “third-party sexual assault reporting system” for girls on college campuses. The property in development counts Google as its investor.

Sexual Health Innovations provides “original websites, apps, and software systems that will advance sexual health and wellbeing.” The group did the design work on The Sex Pact, described in literature as “a CDC-funded initiative to increase condom usage among 14-18 year-old African American males in Washington, DC.”

Sexual health and wellbeing issues especially affect populations with less political power and financial resources, such as youth, racial and gender minorities, women, and GLBTQ communities,” the group has stated. “Their lack of influence, combined with the stigmatization of sexual health topics, makes it hard for them to access high-quality sexual health education, services, and support.”

The Daily Caller has inquired as to the level of compensation that Nucatola currently earns at the nonprofit.

 Jessica Ladd 

is the Founder and CEO of Sexual Health Innovations. She previously worked in the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, as a Public Policy Associate at The AIDS Institute, and as a sexual health educator and researcher for a variety of organizations. Ms. Ladd also founded The Social Innovation Lab in Baltimore and a chapter of FemSex at Pomona College. She received her Masters in Public Health at Johns Hopkins and her BA in Public Policy/Human Sexuality at Pomona College.

Deborah Nucatola

is Senior Director of Medical Services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA)…”SexualHealthInnovations.org

Hated Right-Wingers

Nucatola railed against the “right-wing” Bush administration in a California local newspaper op-ed in 2007.

Responding to the Bush administration’s global gag rule preventing advocacy groups from counseling women to have abortions, Nucatola wrote, “Despite recent advances, women in the United States and abroad continue to suffer the consequences of a right-wing U.S. administration that has put politics before health and ideology before science…The policies of the Bush administration do not represent America at its best, nor do they represent the values that the majority of Americans hold dear.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Jeb Bush Hails Uber In San Francisco, Doesn’t Win Driver’s Vote

Eric Risberg—AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, puts on his seat belt getting into an Uber car after speaking at Thumbtack, an online startup in San Francisco.

The Uber driver who picked up Jeb Bush Thursday on a San Francisco street corner doesn’t normally vote and didn’t recognize the Republican frontrunner. But the experience of driving a man who could be President, and talking about it with a reporter, may get him to the polls this year.

He said he will probably pull the lever for Hillary Clinton.

Bush is traveling around San Francisco Thursday using the ride-sharing app, the latest embrace by the Republican of the company, which has fought taxi regulations and has come under fire from some Democrats for the scant benefits it offers its network of independent drivers. The GOP has emerged as the company’s staunchest defender, as the party tries to align itself with the hip, and liberal, Bay Area culture as they appeal for younger voters and top donors.

Munir Algazaly, 35, an immigrant from Yemen who has been driving Ubers for a year and a half, said “I had no idea,” that the 6’4″ passenger riding shotgun was the Republican presidential candidate.

Algazaly drove Bush to Thumbtack, a company that matches independent and small-business professionals with consumers—a startup founded by former aides to President George W. Bush that appeals to the GOP’s free-market sensibilities. Bush tweeted that he gave his driver a five-star rating, the highest possible, after the ride.

Via: Time

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Federal Judge Block’s Obama’s New Fracking Rules

In a legal setback for the Obama administration's environmental agenda, a federal judge in Wyoming sided with the Attorney Generals of Colorado, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming,  temporarily blocking implementation of the administration’s regulations for hydraulic fracturing on federal land, hours before they were set to take effect. 

On June 23, the U.S. District Court of Wyoming issued a preliminary stay to Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) planned June 24th launch of the administration’s first major rewrite of fracking regulations on energy companies that lease federal land. 

Oil-and-natural-gas-heavy Colorado, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, sued to stop the rule, along with did two industry associations. 

In remarks, presiding Judge Scott Skavdahl said the stay was necessary to give the federal government more time to explain how it developed the rule and how it considered public comments. 

“It is too important an issue” for a quick ruling, Skavdahl said. 

Associations, States, Applaud Decision

Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of government affairs at the Western Energy Alliance, one of the two industry associations which sued to stop the rule, issued a statement saying, “BLM was ill-prepared to implement an extremely complex rule in a short period of time. We highlighted how the BLM Washington office has not given sufficient guidance to the state and field offices that are implementing the rule, and as a result they were issuing confused instructions to companies on how to comply. 

Sgamma continued, “The judge agreed that it makes no sense to implement an ill-conceived rule which could ultimately be overruled in court.” 

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead (R) applauded Skavdahl’s decision on Twitter, saying, “We appreciate the court is taking its time to carefully consider this important decision.” 

Lawsuits were filed challenging the new rule within an hour of the BLM publishing them in  March. 

The standards addressed well construction, wastewater storage and fracking chemical disclosure.

The four states involved in the suit argued their own fracking regulations are sufficiently protective of public health and the environment and ought to supersede federal rules.

The Interior Department indicated it will comply with the judge’s order while considering its next step. 

BLM, Congress Reviewing Next Steps

The Hill (6/23/15) reported, Interior Department spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw said, "The BLM is consulting with the Office of the Solicitor and the Department of Justice about the decision of the U.S. District Court in Wyoming to temporarily stay implementation of the hydraulic fracturing rule. While the matter is being resolved, the BLM will follow the court's order and will continue to process applications for permit to drill and inspect well sites under its pre-existing regulations.” 

Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, told the June 24, Denver Business Journal, “We are pleased the court agreed that the new BLM regulations present serious and difficult questions that justified a stay of these rules’ effective date." 

"We believe these rules intrude on Colorado’s sovereign right to responsibly and safely regulate the oil and gas industry within our borders," said Coffman. 

Judge Skavdahl required the federal government to provide documents necessary for him to rule more fully on the injunction by July 22.

In the meantime, the Senate Interior Department appropriations bill, passed out of committee, would rescind the new federal standards and instead require the BLM to defer to state fracking regulations.

Via: American Spectator

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Trump would end 'gun free zones' on military bases

Donald Trump was unfortunately proven right on another one of his top issues Thursday: "gun free zones" at military bases.

Indications that Thursday's shooting at two military bases in Chattanooga, Tenn., occurred at or near "gun free zones."

In an interview with the website AmmoLand.com, Trump decried the zones on military bases, suggesting that they left highly-trained gun operators without a weapon to fire at attackers, with the exception of military police.

A photo from the scene taken from a local Fox station showed 29 bullet holes around a "gun free zone" sign.

Here's our earlier story:

Pistol-packing GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump ripped a policy implemented by former President Bill Clinton making military bases "gun free zones," declaring that as president bases would no longer be defenseless against terror attacks.

"As Commander-in-Chief, I would mandate that soldiers remain armed and on alert at our military bases." he told the website Ammoland.com.

"President Clinton never should have passed a ban on soldiers being able to protect themselves on bases. America's Armed Forces will be armed," he added to the website closely watched by gun rights groups and the National Rifle Association.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Clinton’s Campaign HQ Features Picture Of Hillary As Mao

PHOTO GALLERY: After a three-month period in which Hillary Clinton’s Brooklyn campaign headquarters was considered “off the record” to visitors, POLITICO was given access Thursday to tour and photograph the space. Click the arrow on the right of the photo to view more images from the tour.

Via: Politico

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The Iran Nuclear Negotiations: U.S. Concession After U.S. Concession

Abstract

The Obama Administration is negotiating a bad deal in the Iran nuclear negotiations. It has violated every rule of good negotiating practice, making concession after concession on both major and minor issues. With each abandoned redline—whether enrichment, ballistic missiles, verification, or sanctions relief—the Administration has resorted to twisted logic and intellectually disingenuous explanations to justify its concessions. A good deal would deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability, prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon in a short amount of time, extend the breakout time, be verifiable, include phased relief of sanctions and guaranteed snap-back provisions. The Administration’s proposed deal fails on all counts.

Delivered July 7, 2015

Good afternoon. It’s always great to be back at Heritage. Let me begin by thanking the organizers for the invitation to speak on the very important and timely topic of the Iran nuclear negotiations.

I have been speaking and writing on this subject for more than two years and have watched our negotiating position evolve in one direction. This has not been a matter of compromise—the give and take of diplomatic negotiations. This is a matter of concession after concession on both the major and minor issues being negotiated.

Since the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) was announced in November 2013, the outcome was clear: Iran would be recognized and accepted as a nuclear weapons threshold state. Of course, Iran’s ballistic missile force—the largest in the region—would not be limited in any way. These were explicit concessions acknowledged by the White House, but explained away in the most convoluted fashion.

No longer would Iran be compelled to abandon its enrichment program. It would only be constrained so as to extend the breakout time for the mullahs to build the bomb that they could then deliver by ballistic missile. And even these constraints would be removed after the agreement expires.

In the subsequent rounds of nuclear talks, other concessions on key issues have been signaled in the media by Secretary John Kerry and other named and anonymous Administration officials, most often through friendly reporters.

You are likely familiar with most of these:

• Relegating what the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) calls possible military activities to an implementation detail. No longer would Iran have to come clean on these activities before an agreement goes into effect. Remember, Mr. Yukiya Amano, head of the IAEA, described these 12 weaponization activities as “alarming.”
• Abandoning the demand for unfettered, anywhere, anytime inspections once considered essential for effective verification. Instead, there will be managed access and a dispute resolution mechanism that will allow Iran to delay inspections of suspect sites and permit Russia and China to obstruct action in the Security Council.
• The phasing of sanctions relief and the so-called snap-back provisions that the Administration emphasized as a guard against Iranian cheating have been shown to be more words than substance. The President has talked about a huge signing bonus of up to $150 billion, and Moscow has been very direct: There will be no automatic reimposition of sanctions.

I could go on, but let me just say that the only real barrier to an agreement is the yet to be determined willingness of Iran to take yes for an answer.

Yes, the Iranians will agree to certain conditions, such as not building buildings that they have never intended to build. Instead of no enrichment, Iran will be limited to operating 5 or 6 thousand centrifuges under the agreement, but they will also be allowed to maintain in storage thousands of other machines that could be brought on line relatively quickly. And R&D and designing ever more advanced centrifuges will go on.

Yes, it is better that these centrifuges are not going to be connected during the tenure of the agreement, but that doesn’t make this a good deal. In fact, this is unquestionably a bad deal. And this important distinction sometimes gets lost in the rhetoric.

Everyone wants a negotiated outcome, including—and perhaps more than anyone—Israel’s leaders. Polls cited by the Administration show that a large majority of Americans want a diplomatic outcome. Of course they do. But the next question is would the same majority support a bad deal. The answer is likely a resounding NO.

So what are the metrics to judge the outcome—to judge whether this is a good or bad deal. I think they are straightforward. Here are five:

1. Does the agreement deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability—the longstanding declared goal of the United States and the international community?
2. Does the agreement, once the constraints expire, prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon in a short amount of time?
3. Does the agreement extend the breakout time in a meaningful way?
4. Is the agreement effectively verifiable?
5. And is there a meaningful phased relief of sanctions and are there guaranteed snap-back provisions?

The answer to each of these questions is NO—a reality that is becoming apparent across party lines.

So how did we get into this mess? The answer is clear:

• The Administration has violated every rule of good negotiating practice—the basic tenets of negotiating 101.
• Instead of increasing pressure on Tehran through more sanctions, they relieved sanctions to, in their words, keep Iran at the table, but it was these very sanctions that brought them to the table.
• Instead of making clear to Iran that Iran needed an agreement more than we, the Administration has demonstrated just the opposite: that it is desperate for an agreement—a desperation that Iran’s negotiators have exploited to the fullest, as seen today with Iran’s last minute insistence on ending the arms embargo.
• Instead of insisting that a deadline actually means a deadline, the Administration has allowed Iran to squeeze further concessions each time the latest deadline approaches and passes.
• Most important, instead of holding the line on those key issues that would determine whether the agreement is good or bad—whether it advances our security interests or undermines them—the Administration made concession after concession.

Let me conclude by saying that one didn’t need to be prescient to know even two years ago how this would turn out. The Administration still clings to its talking points: that it will not accept a bad deal, that it will walk away if Iran doesn’t meet its demands, and of course that no one yet knows how this will turn out because nothing is agreed until all is agreed.

Via: Heritage.org

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Democrats Want To Outlaw ‘Unfair’ Work Schedules

In the name of fairness, congressional Democrats introduced a bill Wednesday that would put significant restrictions on how employers schedule their employees.

“This bill is about basic fairness,” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. “A single mom should know if her hours are being canceled before she arranges for daycare and drives halfway across town to show up at work.”

Nearly 80 lawmakers out of the House and Senate introduced the measure. The Schedules That Work Act will add restrictions on how employers can schedule their employees. If passed, it would ban employers from putting their employees on call, splitting their shifts, sending workers home with no pay, or punishing them for requesting schedule changes.

“Someone who wants to go to school to get an education should not be able to get fired just for asking for a more predictable schedule,” Warren continued. “A worker who is told to wait around on-call for hours with no guarantee of work hours should get something for his time. It’s time to end unfair scheduling practices that hurt workers and families.”

“This bill is extraordinarily intrusive in how it would direct employers to run their operations,” Marc Freedman, an executive director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said according to law firm Seyfarth Shaw’s Employment Law Lookout.

“It will not create new jobs, open up opportunities, nor spur economic growth,” he continued. “In fact, one potential consequence is that employers will cut back on the number of part time and other non-full time employees they carry.”

 The measure is backed by a variety of labor unions, like the Communications Workers of America and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

“Too many hardworking Americans face difficult situations due to erratic employer scheduling,” AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler said in a statement. “Especially women and low-wage workers.”

Democrats have tried to pass similar measures in the past. Just last year, former Democratic Rep. George Miller tried to pass his version of the bill but it failed to make it out of the Republican-controlled House. At the time, business leaders argued the policy would be unfair to employers and could have adverse consequences for employees.

Via: Daily Caller

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LAX Set to Become Largest US Airport to Allow Ridesharing Services to Do Pickups

It's becoming a common complaint at L.A. International Airport: Where's my Uber? Ridesharing companies are allowed to operate freely around the rest of the city, but they are still banned from picking up passengers at LAX. In fact, since 2013, airport cops have issued about 500 tickets to Uber and Lyft drivers for making illegal pickups.

Travelers will soon be able to call an Uber or Lyft after arriving at LAX under a decision Thursday by Board of Airport Commissioners.

 (Reed Saxon / Associated Press)

That may soon change. Mayor Eric Garcetti has ordered LAX to draft new rules that would allow Uber and Lyft to operate. In a letter sent last fall, Garcetti urged the airport commission to create a "level playing field" for ridesharing companies and taxis.

But that's a lot harder than it sounds. Taxis are subject to a byzantine set of regulations, which have been in place for decades. Airport officials are now considering imposing some of those rules on Uber and Lyft, while eliminating others for taxis. Neither is an easy task.

For their part, the taxi companies have seen their revenue shrink by 25-40 percent since Uber and Lyft launched in L.A. The airport represents their last stronghold, and they are fighting tooth and claw to hold onto it.

"It's not broken," says Rick Taylor, a spokesman for L.A. Yellow Cab. "Don't be messing with something that's not broken."

One of the key taxi regulations at LAX is the rotation system. L.A. allows only 2,300 cabs, from nine companies, to operate within city limits. Each cab is assigned a letter from A to E, and each is allowed to pick up passengers at LAX only on days assigned to their letter — that is, one of every five days.

The taxi companies like this system because it ensures that cabs have a short wait time between fares. Airport fares are lucrative. If all 2,300 drivers were allowed to go to LAX at any time, driver wait times would increase and each driver's income would go down. The system also forces drivers to serve the rest of the city on off days.

Via: LA Weekly

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Uber faces $7m fine and suspension in California over refusal to share business data

Another day, another hurdle. Uber has been fined $7.3 million by a California judge over its refusal to share business data, including ride logs and accident details, reports The Los Angeles Times.

Chief administrative law judge Karen V. Clopton of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) contended that Uber had not complied with state laws designed to keep passengers safe, even after being given a year to do so. She also recommended that the service be suspended until the company falls in line.

Of course, Uber doesn’t agree with the decision. A company spokeswoman said:

We will appeal the decision as Uber has already provided substantial amounts of data to the California Public Utilities Commission, information we have provided elsewhere with no complaints. Going further risks compromising the privacy of individual riders as well as driver-partners.

The proposed fine is chump change for Uber, which has raised nearly $6 billion in funding since its inception. Still, the company will have to take the charge seriously, as being suspended on its home turf would certainly not bode well for the service.

Uber has been struggling to stay out of trouble across the globe. The company’s UberPOP service was suspended in France earlier this month and was named in a sexual harassment case in New Delhi in June.

We’ve contacted Uber for more information and will update this post when we hear back.

➤ Uber should be suspended in California and fined $7.3 million, judge says[The Los Angeles Times]

Via: TNW News

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Battenfeld: Deval Patrick was flying high on taxpayers’ dime

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and his wife put taxpayers on the hook for nearly $17,000 in airfare on a single trade mission to Israel, part of an often lavish worldwide tour funded by a tucked-away trust the Patrick administration never revealed to the public, 
new records obtained by the Herald reveal.

State records tracking the trade mission costs also showed Deval and Diane Patrick took a three-day trip to Colombia in 2013 on the taxpayer dime, ringing up a $8,342 bill for flights that far exceeded what other state officials paid.

Patrick’s airfare on other overseas junkets sometimes tripled that of his traveling contingent, such as a round-trip flight to Ireland reported in state records as costing $5,751. The former governor also racked up a $2,400 tab for a three-day stay at the five-star Merrion Hotel, which bills itself as the most “luxurious” hotel in the city, according to records.

Patrick saved the most expensive flight bill for his last trade mission — $12,356 for just a five-day trade mission to France, Denmark and England, according to records compiled by the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, which oversaw the travel trust fund.

The records also list a one-way flight from Hong Kong to Singapore under Patrick’s name costing a hefty $1,640.

One of Patrick’s traveling companions on several trips was Richard Davey, former Department of Transportation chief and current CEO of the Boston 2024 Olympic bid.

Records show Davey’s airfare totaled $6,962 on a 2013 trip to Asia, while his hotel tab in Singapore and Hong Kong came to $2,829.

The former governor’s 10 international trade missions have come under new scrutiny by government watchdogs and lawmakers since the Herald first reported that the Patrick administration funneled $27 million from state quasi-public government agencies into trust funds kept separate from budgetary constraints and hidden from public scrutiny.

The Herald first reported that one of the trusts, funded by Massport and the Mass Tech Collaborative, paid for the $1.4 million trade mission costs from 2009 to 2014.

A former Patrick administration aide, Alec Loftus, said the trips were well worth the cost, citing new international flights that the former governor pushed for in the countries he visited.

“Massachusetts greatly benefitted from the trade missions,” Loftus said, adding that one report showed the state got an “over 1,000 times return-on-investment in economic activity.”

The travel expenditures provided to the Herald under a public records request reflect a “tracking system” kept by the trust and do not show receipts or invoices for flights or hotels. Patrick aides say the governor flew business class and not 
first class.

Patrick was accompanied on trade missions by advance staff and in several cases press aides, including former Department of Transportation flack Cyndi Roy Gonzalez. The records kept by the Patrick administration were not detailed for several trade missions and didn’t list what the governor or other state officials were charged. Sometimes the hotel and flight costs are bundled together.

The $21,141 hotel bill for the Colombia trip was simply charged to a “state credit card,” according to records.

But it’s clear that the former governor and his aides traveled in style. In Tel Aviv, Patrick bedded down at the InterContinental and was charged $1,005, while the room for Richard Elam, the former executive director of the international trade office, cost $1,550, according to 
records.

Even a quick trip across the border to Toronto and Montreal ended up with steep traveling costs, with round trip flights for some in Patrick’s traveling party costing nearly $2,500 each. Elam was charged $1,133 for a one-way trip from Montreal to Boston, according to records.

Via: Boston Herald

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