The Problems Of The White Paper

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My, how the worm has turned.

Seems like only yesterday that Eric Holder was inveighing against sweeping executive war powers. These were the Bush years, when Holder could readily be found caviling about such odious practices as “secret electronic surveillance against American citizens” and “detain[ing] American citizens without due process of law.” Back then, Holder declared these Bush war crimes so “needlessly abusive and unlawful” that the American people (translation: the Bush-deranged Left) were owed “a reckoning” against the officials who conjured them up.

But once he became attorney general in a Democratic administration, the ever-malleable Mr. Holder decided there was actually no problem killing American citizens without due process of law, based on intelligence gleaned from secret surveillance.

The breathtaking hypocrisy of the Obama Democrats is what screams off the pages of the “white paper” Holder’s Justice Department has served up to support the president’s use of lethal force against U.S. nationals who align with our foreign terrorist enemies. It bears remembering that Holder, like his Gitmo Bar soul mates, once volunteered his services to the enemy. At the time, he was a senior partner at a firm that was among the Lawyer Left’s most eager to provide free legal help to al-Qaeda enemy combatants in their lawsuits against the American people. Holder filed an amicus brief on behalf of Jose Padilla, an American citizen turned al-Qaeda operative who was sent to the United States by Khalid Sheikh Mohamed in 2002 to attempt a post-9/11 “second wave” of mass-murder attacks.

Just so you get the gist of where Holder was coming from, an amicus (or “friend of the court”) brief is not something a lawyer has to file on behalf of a client. Padilla already had other counsel. Holder was a party crasher, gratuitously intervening — exploiting his status as a former Clinton deputy attorney general — to steer the court toward his desired policy.

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Amish Leader Gets 15 Years For Beard Attacks (+video)

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A leader of a breakaway Amish community in rural eastern Ohio was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for forcibly cutting the beards and hair of community members.

Samuel Mullet Sr., 67, and 15 followers were found guilty last year in connection with what authorities said were the religiously motivated attacks on several fellow Amish people. Mullet and others were convicted of conspiracy to violate a federal hate-crime law.

Prosecutors said the followers, at Mullet’s instruction, shaved the beards and cut the hair of Amish people who had left his group over various religious disagreements.
Five attacks happened in four eastern Ohio counties between September and November 2011.

Four of the followers were sentenced to seven years in prison, three were handed five-year sentences, two were sentenced to two years and six were sentenced to a year and a day, according to the Justice Department.

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Mike Huckabee Speaks On The Future Of Conservatism

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Photo Credit:Taylor Baucom Former Arkansas governor, 2008 Republican Presidential candidate and current talk show host Mike Huckabee spoke on campus about his views on conservatism in America.

Mike Huckabee knew plenty of people at Syracuse University would disagree with his views. Yet the well-known conservative figure said that’s the reason he enjoyed speaking not just here, but at all college campuses.

At a past visit to Cornell University, where his hosts said 100 students were against his visit, Huckabee recalled asking to be dropped off in front of the protestors. Much to their surprise, Huckabee thanked them for reminding him why he loves America, and felt the same way when visiting S.U.

“We don’t learn much when the only people we ever talk to are the people we agree with,” Huckabee said, “We learn something when we talk to the people with whom we think we have nothing in common.”

Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, 2008 candidate for the republican presidential nomination, and current host of the Sunday talk show “Huckabee” on Fox News, made this a major part of his message for the S.U. campus. Speaking and taking questions about “The Future of Conservatism” on Feb. 7 in an event organized by the SU College Republicans, he stressed while conservatives today should retain their core values, both sides must focus more on solving problems than disagreeing.

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Has China Quietly Joined the Currency War?

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesChina has been less vocal than other major economies in recent weeks in voicing discontent about a sharp slide in the yen, which means stronger currencies elsewhere. Yet, Beijing is taking action of its own to head off unwanted pressure on the yuan to appreciate.

The Chinese yuan, also known as the renminbi, fell on Thursday to its weakest level since late December. In fact, the yuan has been creeping down since January 14, when it hit a record high against the U.S. dollar at about 6.21, as China’s central bank steps up its intervention in the foreign exchange markets to curb yuan appreciation.

“It is disappointing for anyone looking for yuan gains,” said Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac Bank in Sydney. “The leash on the yuan has been tightening, probably because of the decline in the yen and also the decline in the (South Korean) won and the Taiwan dollar and in that environment it’s tough for China to allow currency gains that would hurt its competitive edge.”

The yen has tumbled against all major currencies since the start of the year, falling roughly 10 percent against the dollar and the euro, amid growing expectations of aggressive monetary policy from Japan, now on a concerted bid to revive a weak economy and end years of deflation.

The won meanwhile has eased about 2.5 percent against the dollar since the start of 2013, while the Taiwan dollar is down about 2 percent.

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Video: Eric Holder – ‘Obama Decides Who’s ‘Entitled’ To Second Amendment Rights’

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Attorney General Eric Holder discusses gun violence at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia.

Consonant with Holder’s past statement’s regarding the second amendment, the Attorney General states clearly that gun rights can be qualified and restricted.

But it appears the AG is going further, intimating that he believes the second amendment is an entitlement that the President can extend to some and withhold from others.

While no new explicit groundbreaking statements were made, the language the AG chose to use is instructive of to his attitude and approach to the issue.

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FAA Releases New Drone Authorization List – See Who Applied To Have Them

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Photo Credit: Google MapsLast year, alarm was raised among some Americans regarding the Federal Aviation Administration’s expanding legislation for drone use over U.S. soil and the list of 63 authorized drone sites in the country. With more recent news that the Obama administration has approved drone strikes on some U.S. citizens, which some have said is “chilling” and the government saying “we can kill you,” the FAA has recently released an updated list of domestic drone authorization applicants.

The list was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The list shows 20 new applicants, mostly law enforcement and universities but also the first tribal entity, EFF noted.

Here are few of the new authorization applicants EFF called out:

The State Department
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Barona Band of Mission Indians Risk Management Office (near San Diego, California)
Canyon County Sheriff’s Office (Idaho)
Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office (Northwest Oregon)
Grand Forks Sheriff’s Department (North Dakota)
King County Sheriff’s Office (covering Seattle, Washington)
Medina County Sheriff’s Office (Ohio)
Ohio Department of Transportation (Ohio)
Sinclair Community College (Ohio)
Lorain County Community College (Ohio)
EFF’s Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney for the privacy advocacy organization, wrote the hope of the nonprofit in releasing this information is that people will ask their own local law enforcement about their plans for drone use.

“We also encourage people to ask hard questions of government officials about who is funding drone development in their communities and what policies the government will demand agencies follow if they fly drones,” Lynch wrote on the website. “We need greater transparency and citizen push-back to protect Americans from privacy-invasive domestic drone use.”

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Northeast Begins Dig-Out After Major Snowstorm, Thousands Without Power (+video)

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New Englanders began the back-breaking job of digging out from as much as 3 feet of snow Saturday and emergency crews used snowmobiles to reach shivering motorists stranded overnight on New York’s Long Island after a howling storm swept through the Northeast.

About 475,000 homes and businesses remained without power late Saturday night, down from a peak of about 650,000, and some could be cold and dark for days. Roads across the New York-to-Boston corridor of roughly 25 million people were impassable. Cars were entombed by drifts. Some people found the wet, heavy snow packed so high against their homes they couldn’t get their doors open.

“It’s like lifting cement. They say it’s 2 feet, but I think it’s more like 3 feet,” said Michael Levesque, who was shoveling snow in Quincy, Mass., for a landscaping company.

In Providence, where the drifts were 5 feet high and telephone lines encrusted with ice and snow drooped under the weight, Jason Harrison labored for nearly three hours to clear his blocked driveway and front walk and still had more work to do. His snowblower, he said, “has already paid for itself.”

At least five deaths in the U.S. were blamed on the overnight snowstorm, including an 11-year-old boy in Boston who was overcome by carbon monoxide as he sat in a running car to keep warm while his father shoveled Saturday morning.

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New York Times Calls For Menendez To Relinquish Committee Chairmanship

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Photo Credit: Glyn Lowe PhotoworksThe New York Times editorial board called on Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) Saturday to step aside as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee until questions about his relationship with a friend and donor under FBI investigation are resolved. The editorial is the latest blow in the broadening flap over Menendez’s relationship with Salmon Melgen, a Florida eye surgeon accused of overbilling the government millions for medical treatments.

“It is unclear whether the Senate Ethics Committee has initiated a formal inquiry into Mr. Menendez’s conduct, but a prompt and thorough review is surely called for,” the editorial read. “In the meantime, Mr. Menendez needs to relinquish his leadership role, at least temporarily.”

Menendez, who assumed the chairmanship after Secretary of State John Kerry was confirmed late last month, first came under fire over a pair of flights on Melgen’s private jet he accepted in 2010 for vacations to the Dominican Republic. The New Jersey senator sent Melgen a personal check for $58,500 in January, acknowledging he had not properly reported the flights as gifts.

Since then, reports have questioned Menendez’s efforts to help Melgen revive a port security contract for a firm that he partially owned and phone calls the senator placed to federal health officials over the accusations of overbilling Medicare.

Earlier this month, federal agents raided Melgen’s Florida home and office, although the government has not indicated the focus of their investigation.

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Inside Highclere Castle, The Set And Real-Life Muse For Downton Abbey

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Photo Credit: ForbesPinnacles jutting into the sky, Highclere Castle is a place millions of Americans are familiar with — even if they haven’t heard the name before. The sprawling British estate is where Downton Abbey is shot, the wildly popular PBS series that depicts daily life in a British mansion during the early 20th century. But Highclere isn’t just a backdrop, it’s a real-life muse for the series, one of the last operational ‘great houses’ still occupied by lord and lady and accompanying staff.

“It’s possibly the most important Victorian House still lived in in England today,” says Lady Fiona, the charming 8th Countess of Carnarvon (and real-life equivalent of Downton’s Lady Cora Crawley). With her husband, the 8th Earl of Carnarvon George Herbert, the couple call Highclere home, employing a roster of domestic staff, hosting royal guests (as well as commoners) and gleaning income from the surrounding farmland.

Located in England’s southern county of Hampshire, Highclere Castle is the seat of the Earl of Carnarvon, owned by the Herbert family since 1679. The property’s history goes back 1,300 years, when it was owned by the Bishops of Winchester (hence the term ‘abbey’). Since the 17th century, the great house has gone through several architectural incarnations: it was renovated in Elizabethan style, converted to a classical Georgian home, and then underwent an extensive expansion in the 19th century under the direction of Charles Barry, a Renaissance revival architect who added the soaring tower and bath stone exteriors that grace the castle today. The accompanying gardens were sculpted by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, an 18th century landscape architect who designed more than 170 gardens including those of the royal palace.

Surrounded by 1,000 private acres of parkland, the castle itself is huge, boasting as many as 300 rooms – the inhabitants say they don’t know how many exactly. (As Lady Carnarvon wryly told the Telegraph in 2010, “I suppose if you know how many rooms you’ve got, you haven’t got a very big house.”) Between 50 and 80 of these spaces are bedrooms, an estimate based on the constantly changing designations of rooms due to remodeling. The Countess says the family regularly uses different rooms “because it’s good to move around.” There are three main staircases including the hand-carved Oak Staircase, the “Red Staircase” that leads to the second-floor bedrooms and nurseries, and a stone servant staircase running from the main floors down to the bottom levels that was once used by house staff in much the same way depicted on Downton Abbey.

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Carhart Patient Dead From Horrific 33-Week Abortion Injuries

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Photo Credit: lifesitnews.comA 29-year old woman died yesterday as the result of fatal complications suffered during an abortion at 33 weeks performed by LeRoy Carhart at Germantown Reproductive Health Center (GRHC) in Germantown, Maryland. According to the pro-life organization Operation Rescue, the information about the incident comes from an extremely credible anonymous source.

The woman, who came for a third trimester abortion from out-of-state, arrived at GRHC on Sunday and was seen by pro-life activists every day through Wednesday. Eyewitnesses said she appeared “pale and weak.”

Early Thursday morning, the woman began suffering chest pains and other discomforting symptoms. Her attempts to reach Carhart were unsuccessful.

The woman was taken by her family from her hotel to a nearby hospital emergency room at approximately 5:00 a.m. Efforts by hospital staff to contact Carhart or get informational assistance from the abortion clinic were unsuccessful.

The patient suffered massive internal bleeding into her abdominal cavity. She slipped into a Code Blue condition approximately six times before finally succumbing to her injuries at around 9:30 a.m. The case has been placed with the Medical Examiner for further investigation.

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