Dominicans Outraged Over Obama’s Gay Ambassador Pick

/12 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Foreign PolicyOpposition to President Obama’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic reached a fever pitch this week as religious organizers stage a “Lunes Negro” or Black Monday protest against James “Wally” Brewster.

If confirmed, Brewster will be the first openly gay ambassador to the country, a prospect that is not going over well with some segments of this conservative Christian country of 9 million people. Local reports indicate that church leaders are pressuring the government to reject Brewster’s nomination and calling on the faithful to dress in black on Monday in solidarity against him.

Praise Christian Church Pastor Sauford Medrano is quoted in Diario Libre as saying that Brewster could cause “the U.S. promotion of gender beliefs in the country.” That supposedly violates a general education law in the country that “all the Dominican education system is based on Christian principles.”

The report was flagged by Cable reader and Dominican expat Will Williams, an architect in New York City. He said he witnessed the animosity toward the ambassador in a visit last weekend. “I could confirm myself that the opposition has been even worse from what have been reflected in the news,” he said. “As a Dominican, I feel ashamed this is happening in my country … The evangelical church is convoking the general public to reject this ambassador … [It’s] asking the public to show a black band, black banner or ribbon on cars or dress showing rejection.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Fort Hood Terrorist Trial: Court Denies Nidal Hasan’s Motion to Access NSA Surveillance Evidence

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APBy Associated Press. The Army psychiatrist charged in the deadly mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, cannot access evidence obtained through secret electronic surveillance, a federal appeals court ruled.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans also denied Maj. Nidal Hasan’s motion to suppress the evidence the government plans to use against him. The court’s decision Wednesday upheld a lower court’s ruling issued before Hasan recently began serving as his own attorney.

Hasan faces execution or life without parole if convicted in the 2009 rampage that left 13 dead and nearly three dozen wounded on the Texas Army post. Jury selection in his court-martial started Tuesday at Fort Hood, and testimony in the trial is to start Aug. 3.

In his motion, Hasan’s attorneys had argued that without access to the evidence obtained through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, his legal rights would be violated. But the appeals court said “it cannot be said that this exclusion rises to the level of a constitutional violation.” The ruling said every appeals court that has considered a constitutional challenge to FISA has upheld the statute. Read more from this story HERE.

__________________________________________________________________________

Fort Hood massacre trial: Hasan goes on the defense

By Rick Jervis. Kimberly Munley has spent countless hours rehabilitating a shattered knee while trying to erase haunting images of a rampaging killer’s 10-minute onslaught here four years ago.

Now Munley faces another ominous challenge: the prospect of answering questions from her would-be murderer in a military courtroom.

Munley, 38, is one of several dozen survivors of the shooting assault by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist accused of opening fire on soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood in 2009. Hasan is charged with killing 13 people and injuring nearly three dozen more before police shot him, paralyzing him from the waist down. The American-born Muslim, who has acknowledged his role in the shootings, faces the death penalty in a case that spawned congressional hearings as well as an ongoing debate as to whether the shooting was a terrorist attack or “workplace violence,” as the Pentagon has classified it.

“It’s hard when the guy who tried to kill you is up there asking you questions,” said Munley, a federal police officer at Fort Hood at the time who was the first person to confront Hasan, exchanging gunfire with him. “That’s a whole different monster.” Read more from this story HERE.

Shocker: Liberal Host Bob Beckel Lets Loose With Anti-Muslim Tirade (+video)

/13 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: The BlazeBob Beckel, the liberal co-host of Fox News’ “The Five,” on Tuesday said that if it were up to him, there would not be any new mosques built in the U.S. until “we got it worked out who was not a terrorist.”

He was reacting to a story about a radical Islamic group called Boko Haram, a militant group suspected of killing dozens of children at a school in Nigeria recently.

Read more from this story HERE.

Where’s the Shame? Scandals May No Longer End Political Careers

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Alejandra VillaSex. Drugs. Cheating on a spouse. Those words used to add up to shame. Put them in the same sentence as a politician’s name, and they ended careers.

Not anymore. The latest batch of unlikely back-from-the-swamp hopefuls are Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer. Weiner resigned his New York City congressional seat two years ago after revelations that he’d tweeted a sexually suggestive picture of himself to a woman who was following him on Twitter. Spitzer left the state’s governorship in 2008 after reports surfaced that federal investigators had tagged him as “Client 9,” soliciting high-end prostitutes.

Each now has a decent shot at a big prize, Weiner New York’s Democratic mayoral nomination, Spitzer the city’s comptroller job. Spitzer led his closest rival by 9 percentage points in a Wall Street Journal-NBC 4-Marist poll released Thursday.

They join the growing roster of comebacks, or at least serious attempts, by scandal-tarred politicians:

Mark Sanford was elected to a South Carolina congressional seat in May, after admitting an affair in 2009 that resulted in the then-governor paying a large ethics fine and led state lawmakers to consider impeaching him.

Read about more scandals at this story HERE.

Lasers a Growing Concern for Aircraft Pilots (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThe pilot in the Asiana Airlines crash complaining of being temporarily blinded by a bright flash in the cockpit has revived concerns about the risks from people pointing lasers at aircraft.

Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said it wasn’t clear what could have caused the pilot’s problem when the plane was 500 feet in the air. Asked specifically whether it could have been a laser pointed from the ground, Hersman said she couldn’t say what caused it.

“We need to understand exactly what that is,” Hersman said. “It was a temporary issue.”

Whether at fault in the crash Saturday in San Francisco, lasers have been a persistent, growing concern for pilots, airlines and federal regulators. While they look relatively harmless, lasers pointed at a cockpit can temporarily blind pilots and distract them while they are taking off or landing a plane.

In 2012, there were 3,482 laser incidents, slightly down from the 3,591 the year before but a stark contrast to the 1,527 incidents in 2009, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The 2012 figure was roughly the same as the total number of reports from 2006 through 2009.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gas Prices Expected to Surge Again Soon

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Grant Hindsley APGas prices are heading up again.

Rising crude oil prices and a fall in U.S. supplies are driving wholesale gas prices up sharply. That has yet to be fully reflected at the retail level.

Prices at the pump — up 4 cents the past week to a national average of $3.52 a gallon — could climb another 15 cents or higher over the next two weeks. A year ago, the national average was $3.38.

“It’s getting ugly,” says Patrick DeHaan, senior analyst for GasBuddy.com. “First and foremost, the political problems in Egypt are driving crude oil prices, but there has also been a sharp drop in oil supplies the past two weeks. This is coming at a time when demand is at its annual July peak.”

Egypt is not a major oil supplier, but ongoing political woes threaten Middle Eastern shipments and were the catalyst behind crude oil prices rising to 15-month highs earlier this week. Benchmark West Texas crude oil eased 1.5% to $104.91 a barrel Thursday. Wholesale gas prices — up 30 cents to 50 cents a gallon on some markets since late June — rose 0.8% to $3.04 a gallon for mid-August delivery. Typically, pump prices are about 75 cents higher.

Read more from this story HERE.

State Department Official Grilled Over Benghazi at Confirmation Hearing (+video)

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox NewsThe debate over the Benghazi terror attack flared once again Thursday as senators grilled a diplomatic nominee over her role in massaging the Obama administration’s initial story-line on the attack.

Republican senators repeatedly challenged Victoria Nuland, nominated as chief U.S. envoy for Europe, during her confirmation hearing before a Senate panel. The post typically would not receive this much scrutiny, but Nuland’s prior job was as the top spokesperson in the State Department — she was the face of the department in the days and weeks following the Benghazi attack.

Republicans say the full truth has not yet been told, and prodded for answers on the role Nuland played in pushing to change the so-called “talking points” after the attack. Those notes were ultimately used by then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to give a faulty account to the public about the nature of the attack.

“It is pretty remarkable how sanitized they really were,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said of the talking points.

He accused Nuland of being more interested in protecting her bosses’ image than getting the truth out.

Read more from this story HERE.

Man Swims 5 Hours To Save Family Who Clung To Boat

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: WBOCA family of four clung to a capsized boat in the Tangier Sound, hanging on for their lives, as 46-year-old John Riggs, of Salisbury, swam five hours against strong waves in the middle of a storm for help.

“It wasn’t an option, it just had to be done because they had been out there all night,” said Riggs. He told WBOC, he swam because the lives of his father, sister and young niece and nephew depended on it.

“Just not knowing what’s going on with them while I was gone,” said Riggs. He added, “It was getting nasty and blowing harder. And not knowing if we [rescue crews and Riggs] would be able to find them when we got back out there.”

So he did what instinct told him to do, and didn’t look back.

“It’s an amazing story,” said Deal Island Fire Chief Donald Ford. “The man’s a hero. He swam from Haines Point and ended up, when he came to shore, at Hall Point.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Egypt’s Christians Face Backlash for Morsi Ouster

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APWith a mob of Muslim extremists on his tail, the Christian businessman and his nephew climbed up on the roof and ran for their lives, jumping from building to building in their southern Egyptian village. Finally they ran out of rooftops.

Forced back onto the street, they were overwhelmed by several dozen men. The attackers hacked them with axes and beat them with clubs and tree limbs, killing Emile Naseem, 41. The nephew survived with wounds to his shoulders and head and recounted the chase to The Associated Press.

The mob’s rampage through the village of Nagaa Hassan, burning dozens of Christian houses and stabbing to death three other Christians as well, came two days after the military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi from power. It was no coincidence the attackers focused on Naseem and his family: He was the village’s most prominent campaigner calling for Morsi’s removal.

Some Christians are paying the price for their activism against Morsi and his Islamist allies in a backlash over his ouster last week.

Since then, there has been a string of attacks on Christians in provinces that are strongholds of hard-liners. In the Sinai Peninsula, where militant groups run rampant, militants gunned down a priest in a drive-by shooting as he walked in a public market.

Read more from this story HERE.

Union Prevents Commissioner From Canceling IRS Bonuses as Promised

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Daily CallerActing IRS commissioner Danny Werfel’s promise to suspend taxpayer-funded bonuses to IRS officials might not be fully realized because it will violate a contract between the scandal-plagued agency and a public-employee labor union.

“In this unprecedented budget situation, I do not believe the IRS should pay performance awards this year to employees, managers or executives,” Werfel wrote in an email to IRS employees this week.

“This is not a reflection of the quality or performance of the work done by you and your colleagues, but rather an unfortunate byproduct of the difficult budgetary situation we find ourselves in,” Werfel wrote. The IRS is currently under fire after revelations that it improperly targeted the tax-exempt nonprofit status of conservative groups.

But due to a union contract Werfel will not be able to successfully halt all bonuses this year. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS employees, said that bonuses already promised to unionized IRS workers must be paid, because the bonuses represent work done in 2012, before Werfel canceled bonuses.

Read more from this story HERE.