Obama Set To Force Iran Deal On Congress

President Barack Obama is poised to bypass a congressional majority and voter opinion as he implements the Iran deal.

Obama secured the votes he needs to stop Congress from interfering Wednesday, which is a huge victory that means the deal will almost certainly be implemented. But the lack of support for such a critical matter of national security within and without Congress is striking.

A recent Quinnipiac poll found voters 55 percent of voters oppose the deal, compared to just 25 percent who support the deal. Another survey found deep skepticism of the deal among U.S. active-duty military and civilian government employees in national-security jobs. Only 26 percent of those surveyed by Defense One said the deal is good for the U.S., while 66 percent said the deal is not good for the U.S.

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More than 50 senators, including Democrats Chuck Schumer, who is the senior senator, and Robert Menendez, who is the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, do not support the deal. Not a single Republican supports it, and many Democrats remain undecided.

Just 34 senators — all Democrats — openly support the deal.

Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski deliberated for weeks before announcing support of the deal, saying it’s “not perfect” but “is the best option available” to stop Iran from making a nuclear bomb.

Congress will vote on a resolution in the coming weeks condemning the deal, and Obama apparently doesn’t have enough support in Congress to block the resolution. With Mikulski’s support he has just barely scraped together the 34 votes he needs to prevent what would be an embarrassing veto override.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called support for the deal in Congress “tepid, restricted and partisan,” in a statement Wednesday, and said the fight ahead “will require a bipartisan Congress.”

Supporters of the deal argue it’s the best and only option to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but critics say lifting sanctions will dangerously bolster Iran’s government and are skeptical Iran will live up to its side of the bargain.

Via: Daily Caller

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New National Poll: Trump At All Time High with Ben Carson Catching Up Big

Here’s the breakdown from the poll of all candidates. Note that Jeb Bush has indeed fallen, just as Trump said in his press conference:

 

I’m glad to see Ted Cruz in third, tied with Jeb, but I do wish his numbers were higher. At least he has been consistent throughout the year, even adding 2 points from that last poll. Perhaps he will explode to the top at some point. There’s still a lot of time and many debates left.

As always, here’s the lowdown on the poll:

The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from August 31 to September 2, 2015 with 1,009 adults in the United States. This release is based on a sample of 366 registered voters who identify themselves as Republicans or lean toward the Republican Party. This voter sample has a margin of error of +5.1 percent. The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ.

Via: The Right Scoop

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Plan targets health care bias against transgender people

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mirroring a shift in society, the Obama administration proposed Thursday to ban discrimination against transgender people throughout the health care system.

Once the proposed regulations are final, they should expand insurance coverage for gender transition and prohibit health care facilities from denying transgender people access to restrooms that match their individual gender identity.

The new protections are part of a broader rule from the Department of Health and Human Services to carry out anti-bias provisions of President Barack Obama's health care law. In a first, the law specified that sex discrimination is prohibited in health care, and the regulation carries it a step further, clarifying that "gender identity" is included under that protective umbrella.

"This is a huge step," said Michael Silverman, director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York. "It covers a lot of ground."

The new transgender policy comes as social attitudes about sexuality and gender are undergoing major changes. The Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry, and the gender transition of Olympian Bruce Jenner from male to female — Caitlyn — has brought new awareness about a group often ostracized by society.

The long-delayed rule amounts to a manual for carrying out the health law's prohibition against medical discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. Those underlying provisions already are in effect.

Jocelyn Samuels, head of the HHS Office for Civil Rights, said the rule does not explicitly require insurers to cover gender transition treatment, including surgery. But insurers could face questions if they deny medically necessary services related to gender transition by a man who identifies as a woman, or a woman who identifies as a man.

"It is basically a requirement that insurers use nondiscriminatory criteria," Samuels told reporters.

Advocates for transgender people note that insurers already pay for services such as hormone treatments and reconstructive surgery, but decline to cover them when they're part of a gender transition.

"What the rule says is they cannot exclude transgender people from the services that other people have," said Harper Jean Tobin, policy director for the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Currently, 10 states plus Washington, D.C., require private insurers to cover transgender health care, while six states plus the nation's capital cover such services through their Medicaid programs, according to advocates.

The new requirements would have impact throughout the health care system because service providers who accept federal dollars would have to comply.

Medicare and Medicaid are the cornerstone of hospital finances. That means transgender people could not be restricted from access to bathrooms or hospital wards consistent with the gender that they identify with, Samuels said.

Most doctors would be covered. Insurers that offer plans through HealthCare.gov would have to comply with the requirements in their plans off the health insurance exchange as well.

The regulation may not be final for many months. The public comment period extends through Nov. 6, and officials are seeking comment on a range of difficult issues, including religious conscience protections for service providers and whether sexual orientation — whether a person is a gay man or a lesbian — should also be protected.

Other advocates were disappointed with a separate section of the rule addressing discriminatory insurance benefits. That can happen, for example, when an insurer requires patients to pay a large share of the cost for all drugs used to treat a given condition.

The AIDS Institute and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network said the regulation was not specific enough, and the final version needs to provide examples of benefit designs that would be considered discriminatory.

Via: AP

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Professors threaten bad grades for saying ‘illegal alien,’ ‘male,’ ‘female’

 Washington State students risk a failing grade in one course if they use any common descriptors professor considers “oppressive and hateful language.”

In another class, students will lose one point every time they use the words “illegal alien” or “illegals” rather than the preferred terms of “‘undocumented’ migrants, immigrants, persons.”

Multiple professors at Washington State University have explicitly told students their grades will suffer if they use terms such as “illegal alien,” "male," and “female,” or if they fail to “defer” to non-white students.

According to the syllabus for Selena Lester Breikss’ “Women & Popular Culture” class, students risk a failing grade if they use any common descriptors that Breikss considers “oppressive and hateful language.”

"Students will come to recognize how white privilege functions in everyday social structures and institutions.”    Tweet This

The punishment for repeatedly using the banned words, Breikss warns, includes “but [is] not limited to removal from the class without attendance or participation points, failure of the assignment, and— in extreme cases— failure for the semester.”

Breikss is not the only WSU faculty member implementing such policies.

Much like in Selena Breikss’s classroom, students taking Professor Rebecca Fowler’s “ Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies” course will see their grades suffer if they use the term “illegal alien” in their assigned writing.

According to her syllabus, students will lose one point every time they use the words “illegal alien” or “illegals” rather than the preferred terms of “‘undocumented’ migrants/immigrants/persons.” Throughout the course, Fowler says, students will “come to recognize how white privilege functions in everyday social structures and institutions.”

In an email to Campus Reform, Fowler complained that “the term ‘illegal alien’ has permeated dominant discourses that circulate in the news to the extent that our society has come to associate ALL unauthorized border crossings with those immigrants originating from countries south of our border (and not with Asian immigrants, for example, many of whom are also in the country without legal documents and make up a considerable portion of undocumented immigrants living in the country).”

“The socio-legal production of migrant illegality works to systematically dehumanize and exploit these brown bodies for their labor,” Fowler continued.

White students in Professor John Streamas’s “ Introduction to Multicultural Literature” class, are expected to “defer” to non-white students, among other community guidelines, if they want “to do well in this class.”

In the guidelines in his syllabus, Streamas elaborates that he requires students to “reflect” on their grasp of history and social relations “by respecting shy and quiet classmates and by deferring to the experiences of people of color.”

Streamas—who previously generated controversy by calling a student a “ white shitbag” and declared that WSU should stand for “White Supremacist University”—also demands that students “understand and consider the rage of people who are victims of systematic injustice.”

Later in the syllabus, Streamas goes even further and accuses Glenn Beck of being an “insensitive white.”

Several other WSU professors require their students to “acknowledge that racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and other institutionalized forms of oppression exist” or that “ we do not live in a post-racial world.”

Ari Cohn, a lawyer with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, told Campus Reform he considers such requirements to be contradictory, even given the sensitive nature of the courses.

"It is notable that one of the syllabus provisions warns: ‘The subject material of this class is sensitive and controversial. Strive to keep an open mind.’ How are students supposed to approach these sensitive and controversial materials at all, let alone to keep an open mind, if they have to fear that a misconstrued statement, or one that unreasonably offends a classmate will lead to a grade reduction or even removal from class?"

Neither Breikss nor Streamas replied to Campus Reform’s request for comment.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @peterjhasson

Via: Campus Reform

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[VIDEO] CNN: DNC Not Backing Iran Deal ‘Big Embarrassment’ for Obama

President Obama suffered an “embarrassment” with the Democratic National Committee not passing a resolution over the weekend in support of his Iran nuclear deal, CNN panelists said Sunday.

According to the Washington Post, party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) blocked the resolution at the summer meeting in Minnesota.

“The Obama-controlled DNC could not pass a resolution this weekend expressing support for President Obama’s Iran deal,” New York Timesreporter Jonathan Martin said. “It’s a bit of an embarrassment for the administration seeing as it’s how his party, he appointed Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and it’s revived the sort-of latest round of eye-rolling among Democratic operatives about the state of the party.”

CNN host John King said Martin was being diplomatic, saying it was a “big embarrassment for the president.”

Via; WFB

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[OPINION] Women deserve same chance as men to serve in combat

U.S. Army First Lt. Shaye Haver, center, and Capt. Kristen Griest, right, pose for photos with other female West Point alumni after an Army Ranger School graduation ceremony on Aug. 21 at Fort Benning, Ga. Haver and Griest became the Army's first female graduates of the rigorous Ranger School.

In America, all boys and girls should grow up confident in the knowledge they are free to pursue the dreams of their choice provided they are ready and able to perform the work.

For girls, in our view, this should include the dream of serving their nation on the field of battle.

The historic graduation of the first two female soldiers to complete the Army's rigorous, nine-week Ranger School (the Army opened Ranger School to women for the first time this year) - 1st Lt. Shaye Haver of Copperas Cove, Texas, and Capt. Kristen Griest of Orange, Conn. - on Aug. 21 in a ceremony at Fort Benning, Ga., focuses renewed attention on the issue of whether women in America's armed forces should serve in direct combat roles.

We believe women who wish to put their life on the line in defense of our country deserve nothing less than the same opportunities afforded men.

On Jan. 24, 2013, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted a ban on female soldiers serving in combat positions, thus setting in motion a three-year review and transition for each branch of America's armed services.

"Everyone is entitled to a chance," Panetta said at the time.

Under the ban, women were excluded from some 300,000 jobs. Today, some 240,000 positions, largely in infantry and armor units, remain closed to women. According to a June Military Times story, leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines this year must eliminate gender restrictions for all jobs or request, by Jan. 1, formal waivers from Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

"We've really tried to give them the time that they need to finish their studies," Juliet Beyler, the Pentagon's director of officer and enlisted personnel management who is overseeing the transition, said for the Military Times story.

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In our minds, the first graduations of female soldiers from Army Ranger school and the opening of all combat jobs to women are natural next steps in the evolution of women's roles in our nation's military.

Today, more than 200,000 women serve in America's armed forces, more than 35,000 of them as officers. Women have, in fact, distinguished themselves in combat-support positions, such as helicopter pilots and medics. Some 300,000 women served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan; more than 150 of them were killed and hundreds more were injured.

We do not wish to see the nation's defense diminished, so we do not support lowering of standards for combat positions, but if a woman can prove herself equal to men in completing the necessary training, then we believe she is entitled to the honor of wearing America's uniform into battle.

In nearly all professions and walks of life, we as a nation have moved beyond outdated, gender-based concerns and stereotypes to proper acceptance of equal opportunities for women. Because we have absolute confidence America's military is up to whatever task or challenge it might face, we believe it more than capable of breaking down remaining barriers to women in combat and making the new rules work.

Via: Sioux City Journal

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[VIDEO] Univision’s Jorge Ramos: Kate’s Law Is Unfair To Illegal Aliens

Guess what? Law is not decided on whether it is fair to illegal aliens, people who are already breaking the law, law is based on what is in the best interests of the citizens of the United States.

Via: Weasel Zippers

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[EDITORIAL] High schools should offer early U.S. history classes

It's hard to believe that high school students in South Dakota do not study the framing of the Constitution, the events preceding the Revolutionary War or anything of substance about the early days of the Civil War.

But that's true, and it could continue that way since the state Board of Education declined to require the study of early American history in its newly adopted history standards. In this rewriting of 2006 standards, schools only are required to cover recent American history – events from the Civil War and beyond. Teachers are allowed to add lessons in early-American history, but they don't have to.

We urge the board to step back and take another look at this.

Currently, early American history is being taught in middle school classes. But we agree with a coalition of college professors who say an eighth grade history lesson doesn't prepare a student for college-level course work.

The group of 18 college and university history professors from South Dakota schools lobbied the board to broaden the history requirement during nearly a year-long series of hearings on the proposed new standards.

They wrote a letter to the board of education detailing their concerns, beginning with the fact that students are not prepared for college level work in U.S. history courses and are challenged when asked to think historically.

Ben Jones, dean and associate professor of history at Dakota State University, has said he and his colleagues are "astounded by the level of ignorance" of U.S. history that they see in freshmen.

But there are other important reasons to teach high school students about our nation's early history.

Constitutional topics are common in today's political debate and students without a solid understanding and who do not have the appropriate level of context for these discussions are at a disadvantage. As citizens, we need to understand our rights and duties as well as appreciate how they came to be.

The Constitution is referenced in nearly every important election campaign. The separation of church and state, religious and press freedoms, the 2nd Amendment and gun rights are all popular political topics of our time. But without an understanding and appreciation of the early debates on these matters, young citizens are not able to accurately assess Constitutional protections and threats. Rhetoric and misinformation can easily fill the void.

Board of Education President Don Kirkegaard said last month that the decision not to require the early history instruction was a compromise that allows local school administrators and teachers to make the decision on what to include in history instruction.

But no compromise was needed here. History should be taught comprehensively, not fragmented by eras.

Recently, there was a national push to give every high school student the U.S. citizenship test to pass in order to graduate. The effort was championed by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

South Dakota lawmakers embraced the notion but fell short of requiring the exam. They said students needed to learn the material before graduation but didn't have to take the test.

We should require more of our young people.

We think the college professors summarized it well, in urging the board to add early American history instruction to the first half of the 11th grade year, in addition to the 8th grade history lesson. They said the state should re-engage "the more mature student with increasingly complex material that builds upon their existing knowledge. By doing so, we hope that students will have greater success understanding their history and ultimately employing it as a citizen."

Via: Argus Leader

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[VIDEO] CHRISTIE SAYS WE SHOULD TRACK FOREIGNERS LIKE FED EX TRACKS PACKAGES!!

Chris Christie got a little bit of criticism for saying that we should bring in Fed Ex to track foreigners who come into America on a VISA just like the company tracks packages in order to prevent their staying to become illegal aliens.

Via: THE RIGHT SCOOP

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[COMMENTARY] Rebuilding infrastructure will help California thrive

California is the epicenter of innovative technologies. We take pride in being the home of Silicon Valley and the birthplace of groundbreaking products.

But most of us forget that we need strong infrastructure systems to ensure we can continue such success and keep pushing the envelope.

I know — in our digital era of smartphones being able to broadcast our every selfie, the methodical process of climbing out of our infrastructure deficit is not the sexiest of topics.

But here’s the thing: The majority of California’s transportation and other infrastructure systems were built between the 1950s and the early 1970s — when California only had a population of 27 million and a much smaller, less diverse economy.

Today, California is home to more than 38 million people and projections show the population will grow to 50 million by 2040 — all of whom travel our roads, rails and airways for work, vacation and other activities. Californians currently register nearly 32 million vehicles per year and drive 324 billion miles annually.

These millions of Californians and much of the nation also rely on California’s infrastructure systems to quickly get local products such as fruits and vegetables to their supermarkets as well as import and export products through our state’s ports.

This is not to say that our state cannot accommodate growth — we can. But we need to ensure that our transportation, water delivery and freight systems are updated and strong enough to not only accommodate California’s residents, but also help them thrive.

Fortunately, Gov. Jerry Brown knows the critical status of our infrastructure and set aggressive goals to improve the existing deficit, such as pushing forward the nation’s first high-speed rail system, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, and encouraging the Legislature to tackle the deferred maintenance of our roads and bridges by convening a special session.

The Legislature has started to make progress in the special session on a deal to tackle the billions in deferred roadway maintenance costs — which are currently estimated at $59 billion. With California being an international trade gateway, we must be able to move billions of dollars worth of goods and services across a massive state and through our international ports without our roadways and bridges falling apart.

Right now, the state’s current fuel excise tax — on which much of transportation funding depends — is sufficient to fund only $2.3 billion of work annually, leaving $5.7 billion in unfunded roadway repairs each year. California needs to find more reliable funding streams to repair and build out transportation corridors. By broadening the revenue streams and moving toward a model where all road users equitably pay their fair share, we will ensure our roadways are repaired, upgraded and expanded in a timely manner.

Via: Daily News

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STUDY: CHICAGO CRIMINALS AVOID GUN SHOWS, INTERNET SALES, BUY GUNS ON STREET

A new study conducted by the University of Chicago Crime Lab, inmates in the Cook County jail said they get they guns on the streets from “personal connections” rather that outlets like guns shows and the internet.

The study focused on “inmates who were facing gun charges or whose criminal background involved gun crimes.”

According to the Chicago-Tribune, Crime lab co-director Harold Pollack said the study shows that “some of the pathways [regarding guns] people are concerned about don’t seem so dominant.” He said very few inmates indicated using gun shows or the internet. Rather, they get the guns in undetectable ways on the street. He said the inmates know they run the risk of being caught by police but “were less concerned about getting caught by the cops than being put in the position of not having a gun to defend themselves and then getting shot.”

The vast majority of the inmates used handguns to commit their crimes or protect themselves, very few cited using “military-style assault weapons.” And they said their habit was to get rid of a gun after one year because of the “legal liability” of being caught with a gun that could be linked to crimes they or others committed.”

As for specifics regarding sources for purchasing guns, some of the inmates indicated that gangs have individuals with a Firearm Owners Identification Card who buy guns then sell them to gang members. Others indicated using “corrupt cops” who seize guns then “put them back on the street.”

The inmates made clear they do not walk into gun stores to buy guns. Which proves a point Breitbart News, Gun Owners of America, and other gun rights groups have made for years; namely, that background checks place a burden on law-abiding citizens which criminals easily avoid.

Via: Breitbart

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