GOP Activists Target Priebus, Party Split On Re-Election Bid

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A postelection civil war is brewing among Republicans, with some conservative activists angry over the party’s poor performance this cycle gunning for party Chairman Reince Priebus and planning demonstrations at the Republican National Committee’s annual winter meeting in Charlotte, N.C.

The protesting activists adamantly oppose the re-election of Mr. Priebus to a second two-year term and say they have a suitcase full of gripes about him. Some are blaming Mr. Priebus and other top party officials for the misspending of GOP donors’ money in President Obama’s clear victory over GOP nominee Mitt Romney Nov. 6 and also for the Republicans’ badly outclassed get-out-the-vote efforts.

“Republicans want a change. They have had it with Priebus,” said Mike Karem, a Kentucky GOP strategist who has been involved in Republican presidential campaigns since Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election victory. “We lost the presidency; we lost House seats, Senate seats; we picked up only one governor; and we had 3 million fewer Republicans turn out for Romney and other Republican candidates than turned out in 2008.”

“If [Mr. Priebus] worked for you, would you keep him based on his record?” Mr. Karem added. “The answer is, ‘Hell, no!’”

Mr. Priebus, a former Wisconsin GOP chairman who won strong early reviews after taking over a dispirited and financially troubled RNC in 2011, is not without a strong base of support. Most of the RNC’s 168 voting members have pledged to support him for a second two-year term. He also has the support of SenateGOP leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John A. Boehner and is preparing a counterattack against his detractors for as early as Friday, a Republican close to the chairman’s office said privately.

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Dog Day Afternoon! The Great Dane Caught on Camera Doing Cannonballs in Owner’s Pool

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What do dogs get up to when their owners are at work?

They have a pool party of course. Well, this particular pet does anyway.

An amusing video has captured a Great Dane having a great time tumbling down a waterslide into its owner’s swimming pool, supposedly while they’re out for the day.

The footage, uploaded on Pawnation.com this week, is doing the rounds online, with dog lovers fawning over the pooch’s impressive party trick.

The huge black animal is seen on the tape bounding down the slippery slide, which is carved out of what look to be rocks on the side of the pool.

The canine then lands with a gigantic splash in the middle of the water.

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West Point Chapel Hosting First Homosexual Marriage

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The first same-sex marriage at the U.S. Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel at West Point will be celebrated Saturday as Brenda Sue Fulton and Penelope Dara Gnesin exchange vows.

The ceremony comes a little more than a year after President Obama ended the military policy banning openly gay people from serving.

Fulton, a veteran and the communications director of an organization called Outserve — which represents actively serving gay, lesbian and bisexual military personnel — confirmed in an e-mail to USA TODAY Friday night: “We will be the first same sex couple to wed at the Cadet Chapel at West Point.”

The wedding will be the second gay marriage West Point has hosted. The first was a small, private ceremony last weekend between two of Fulton’s friends in a smaller venue on the campus.

In September 2011, the Pentagon issued guidance stating that “determinations regarding the use of DOD real property and facilities for private functions, including religious and other ceremonies, should be made on a sexual-orientation neutral basis, provided such use is not prohibited by applicable state and local laws.”

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Egypt Draft Constitution Sparks Mass Protest (+video)

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CAIRO (AP) — More than 100,000 protesters took to the streets in Egypt vowing to stop a draft constitution that Islamist allies of President Mohammed Morsi approved early Friday in a rushed, all-night session without the participation of liberals and Christians.

Anger at Morsi even spilled over into a mosque where the Islamist president joined weekly Friday prayers. In his sermon, the mosque’s preacher compared Morsi to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, saying the prophet had enjoyed vast powers as leader, giving a precedent for the same to happen now.

“No to tyranny!” congregants chanted, interrupting the cleric. Morsi took to the podium and told the worshippers that he too objected to the language of the sheik and that one-man rule contradicts Islam.

Crowds of protesters marched from several locations in Cairo, converging in central Tahrir Square for the opposition’s second mass rally in a week against Morsi. They chanted, “Constitution: Void!” and “The people want to bring down the regime.”

Senior opposition leader Hamdeen Sabbahi took the stage before the crowd and vowed protests would go on until “we topple the constitution.”

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Former GM Engineer, Husband Convicted of Stealing Trade Secrets for Possible Use in China

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DETROIT (AP) — A former General Motors engineer with access to the automaker’s hybrid technology was convicted Friday along with her husband of stealing trade secrets for possible use in China.

Shanshan Du won a transfer within GM in 2003 to be closer to the technology and then copied documents until she accepted a severance offer and left the company in 2005, prosecutors said.

Du, 54, and Yu Qin, 51, were found guilty Friday by a federal jury in Detroit after a trial that lasted weeks. Qin also was convicted of wire fraud and attempting to obstruct justice by shredding documents. They shook each other’s hand after the verdict but declined to comment, as did their attorneys.

Du faces up to 10 years in prison, while her husband faces up to 30. No sentencing date has been set.

Prosecutors told jurors that GM trade secrets were found on at least seven computers owned by the Oakland County couple. The government doesn’t believe the information ever made it to China, although Qin had set up his own company, Millennium Technology International, and claimed to have made contact with GM competitors overseas.

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Lock Your Doors & Load Your Guns: Calif. City Attorney Tells Residents to Be Self-Reliant Following Cuts to Police Force (+video)

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The bankrupt city of San Bernardino, Calif. is so cash-strapped it has been forced to slash public safety budgets just to stay afloat. That includes downsizing the police force.

During a city council meeting this week, Jim Penman, the city Attorney of San Bernardino, told residents to “lock your doors and load your guns” because they will need to start protecting themselves due to the diminishing number of cops on the streets, CBS Los Angeles reports. It is the perfect example of why self-reliance is so important — because when the government can’t protect you anymore, you have be able to protect yourself and your family.

Penman has been criticized by some for his brutally honest statement but he is standing by it.

“You should say what you mean and mean what you say,” he said.

The comments came after about 150 concerned residents attended a city council meeting to express their concerns about a number of recent crimes in the area, including the murder of an elderly woman last week.

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US Government Releases Once-Secret Watergate Files

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Watergate Judge John J. Sirica aided the prosecution in pursuing the White House connection to the Democratic headquarters break-in by providing the special prosecutor information from a probation report in which one of the burglars said he was acting under orders from top Nixon administration officials, according to once-secret documents released Friday by the National Archives.

One newly public transcript of an in-chambers meeting between Sirica, the U.S. District Court judge in charge of the case, and then-Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in July 1973 shows the judge revealed secret probation reports indicating that E. Howard Hunt had cited orders from officials high up in the Nixon administration. Several of Hunt’s co-defendants had previously denied any White House involvement in court testimony, and Sirica told Cox and other prosecutors that he felt the new information “seemed to me significant.”

The government released more than 850 pages from the Watergate political scandal, providing new insights on privileged legal conversations and prison evaluations of several of the burglars in the case. A federal judge had decided earlier this month to unseal some material, but other records still remain off limits.

The files do not appear to provide any significant new revelations in the 40-year-old case that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon and criminal prosecutions of many of his top White House and political aides. But the files provide useful context for historians, revealing behind-the-scenes deliberations by Sirica, the U.S. District Court judge in charge of the case, along with prosecutors and defense lawyers.

The documents stem from the prosecution of five defendants arrested during the June 1972 Watergate break-in and two men, Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, who were charged as the burglary team’s supervisors. All seven men were convicted.

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Have You Heard About the Quietly-Released Obama Memo on ‘Insider Threat Policy’?

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In what some might consider an increasingly growing trend of releasing information just before holidays or the late on Friday afternoon, the White House has yet again quietly published a memo from President Barack Obama, laying out guidelines for executive agencies to establish “effective insider threat programs.”

The presidential memorandum issued on Nov. 21 — the day before Thanksgiving — is called “National Insider Threat Policy and Minimum Standards for Executive Branch Insider Threat Programs.” Here’s what the relatively short memo said (Note: Emphasis added):

“This Presidential Memorandum transmits the National Insider Threat Policy and Minimum Standards for Executive Branch Insider Threat Programs (Minimum Standards) to provide direction and guidance to promote the development of effective insider threat programs within departments and agencies to deter, detect, and mitigate actions by employees who may represent a threat to national security. These threats encompass potential espionage, violent acts against the Government or the Nation, and unauthorized disclosure of classified information, including the vast amounts of classified data available on interconnected United States Government computer networks and systems.

The Minimum Standards provide departments and agencies with the minimum elements necessary to establish effective insider threat programs. These elements include the capability to gather, integrate, and centrally analyze and respond to key threat-related information; monitor employee use of classified networks; provide the workforce with insider threat awareness training; and protect the civil liberties and privacy of all personnel.

The resulting insider threat capabilities will strengthen the protection of classified information across the executive branch and reinforce our defenses against both adversaries and insiders who misuse their access and endanger our national security.”

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Video: Newt Says ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Is A Political Invention

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VAN SUSTEREN: All right, tell me, why are you telling House Republicans to, quote, “get a grip”?

GINGRICH: Well, I think this whole fiscal cliff language is designed to maximize a sense of fear that’s nonsense. The very same people, the Congress and the president, who invented the fiscal cliff — this is all an invention — could break it down into 12 foothills, or 15 foothills or 20 foothills. They could tackle one problem at [a] time.

I agree with what I understand Senator Jeff Sessions has said — and I think he’ll be on your show later — this ought to be out in the open. We’re rushing towards a secret deal made in secret meetings where nobody will know what’s going on, and then people will be told, Boy, if you don’t vote for this, we’ll go over the cliff.

Well, I think there are a lot worse things than going over a man-made cliff that I think is entirely artificial. And I think the reality is, the President of the United States has not come forward with any serious spending cuts. What the Democrats are proposing is to take the tax increase now, and then sometime next year, eventually, possibly, we might have some kind of entitlement reform. That’s a really bad deal for the American people.

Read full transcript HERE.

Steyn: Kindly Note the Impending Bankruptcy

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Previously on The Perils of Pauline:

Last year, our plucky heroine, the wholesome apple-cheeked American republic, was trapped in an express elevator hurtling out of control toward the debt ceiling. Would she crash into it? Or would she make some miraculous escape?

Yes! At the very last minute of her white-knuckle thrill ride to her rendezvous with destiny, she was rescued by Congress’s decision to set up . . . a Super Committee! Those who can, do. Those who can’t, form a committee. Those who really can’t, form a Super Committee — and then put John Kerry on it for good measure. The bipartisan Super Committee of Super Friends was supposed to find $1.2 trillion dollars of deficit reduction by last Thanksgiving, or plucky little America would wind up trussed like a turkey and carved up by “automatic sequestration.”

Sequestration sounds like castration, only more so: It would chop off everything in sight. It would be so savage in its dismemberment of poor helpless America that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that over the course of a decade the sequestration cuts would reduce the federal debt by $153 billion. Sorry, I meant to put on my Dr. Evil voice for that: ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THREE BILLION DOLLARS!!! Which is about what the United States government currently borrows every month. No sane person could willingly countenance brutally saving a month’s worth of debt over the course of a decade.

So now we have the latest cliffhanger: the Fiscal Cliff, below which lies a bottomless abyss of sequestration, tax-cut-extension expiries, Alternative Minimum Tax adjustments, new Obamacare taxes, the expiry of the deferment of the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate, as well as the expiry of the deferment of the implementation of the adjustment of the correction of the extension of the reduction to the proposed increase of the Alternative Minimum Growth Sustainability Reduction Rate. They don’t call it a yawning chasm for nothing.

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