Heavy Campaigning For Booker, Lonegan Day Before N.J. Senate Vote (+video)

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Photo Credit: Nick.FisherThe New Jersey U.S. Senate race was in a fight to the finish Tuesday, a day before voters were set to head to the polls in a special election.

As CBS 2’s Christine Sloan reported, Democrat Cory Booker is hitting the Democrat-favoring communities of Belleville, New Brunswick, Hoboken and Newark, where he is mayor.

Republican Steve Lonegan is campaigning Tuesday in Basking Ridge, Flemington, Belvidere, Morristown and Middletown — all places where Republicans usually get the most votes. He’s also stopping in Jersey City.

Lonegan also received the endorsement of former Jersey City Acting Mayor Joe Rokawski. And Lonegan attacked Booker for his performance as Newark mayor.

“Two people were shot to death on the streets of Newark last night. Unemployment in Newark has gone from 8 to 14 percent,” Lonegan said. “Mr. Booker has failed Newark. That’s extreme. See, he’s an extreme failure.”

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Former San Diego Mayor Filner Pleads Guilty To Felony

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Photo Credit: APFormer San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, who resigned from the helm of California’s second-largest city after a string of sexual harassment allegations, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges of false imprisonment and battery involving three women, prosecutors said.

A former Democratic congressman who served only a brief mayoral tenure after being elected last year, Filner was charged with felony false imprisonment and two misdemeanor counts of battery, the San Diego Superior Court and state prosecutors said.

“This conduct was not only criminal, it was also an extreme abuse of power,” said state Attorney General Kamala Harris, who filed the complaint against Filner. “This prosecution is about consequence and accountability. No one is above the law.”

Under the terms of a plea agreement, Filner will serve three months of home confinement and will be on probation for three years, the attorney general said in a statement.

Filner resigned in August as part of a settlement with the city over how to handle a lawsuit filed by his former press secretary, Irene McCormack Jackson, who was among at least 18 women who accused the 71-year-old politician of making unwanted sexual advances. She is so far the only one to sue him.

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The Louisiana Heist

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Photo Credit: APOn Saturday, Louisiana’s “EBT” system malfunctioned, causing spending limits on users’ food-stamp cards temporarily to be lifted. In two counties at least, recipients noticed the error, spread the word, and set about trying to check out as much as they could fit into shopping carts. At Walmarts in the towns of Springhill and Mansfield, employees called corporate headquarters to ask what they should do. They were instructed to “keep the registers ringing.” This they did — and with a vengeance.

By the time that proper limits on the cards had been restored a couple of hours later, the shelves had been all but stripped bare. “Just about everything is gone, I’ve never seen it in that condition,” Anthony Fuller, a customer in Mansfield, told the press. Will Lyn, the chief of police in nearby Springhill, agreed, telling the Daily Mail that “it was definitely worse than Black Friday. It was worse than anything we had ever seen in this town. There was no food left on any of the shelves, and no meat left. The grocery part of Walmart was totally decimated.” One man even managed to spend $700.

“I saw people drag out eight to ten grocery carts,” Lynd reported. Those who did not manage to take advantage in time simply abandoned their hauls in the middle of the aisles.

“Contrary to rumors,” CBS proclaimed, “nobody was unruly or arrested and [the police] were mainly there to help prevent shoplifting and theft.” Given the circumstances, “preventing theft” is a rather peculiar way of describing the behavior of officers who stood and watched the incident. Whether or not local authorities had legal cause to arrest the shoppers on the spot, there really should be no doubt that widespread theft took place — or, perhaps, that widespread fraud took place. Neither that the beneficiaries evidently believe that they could get away with it, nor that the victim was the unsympathetically anonymous mass of Louisianan and federal taxpayers alters the plain fact. This was a crime.

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What to Do About America’s Low Sky Workforce

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Photo Credit: National Review Some bad news for America, not on the political front this time, but in what corporate executives call human resources.

It’s from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s report on adult skills, based on 166,000 interviews in 24 economically advanced countries in 2011 and 2012.

The verdict on the United States: “weak in literacy, very poor in numeracy, but only slightly below average in problem-solving in technology-rich environments.”

On literacy, just 12 percent of U.S. adults score at the top two levels, significantly lower than the 22 percent in largely monoethnic and culturally cohesive Japan and Finland. American average scores are below those in our Anglosphere cousins Australia, Canada, England, and Northern Ireland.

One-sixth of Americans score at the bottom two levels, compared with 5 percent in Japan and Finland.

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SecureDrop Project Will Pay To Install WikiLeaks-Style Anonymous Submission Systems for the Media

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Photo Credit: Forbes In an age of pervasive surveillance that makes no exception for the media, the idea of a WikiLeaks-style secure submission system for anonymous whistleblowers may be more important than ever. Now one group believes in those leaking tools so strongly that it’s willing to pay for mainstream media to install them.

On Tuesday the non-profit Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) announced the launch of SecureDrop, a piece of open-source software designed to serve as an anonymous submission systems for media organizations. And to encourage news outlets to install it, the Foundation has offered to send one of SecureDrop’s creators, security consultant James Dolan, to willing news outlets to help install it, in some cases even paying for the necessary hardware.

“We want to take all the pain out of this process so that they have no excuse but to use this technology. The barrier has been cost and the technical ability,” says Trevor Timm, the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s executive director. ”So we’re actually going to physically fly [Dolan] around the country to major media organizations to install this.”

SecureDrop, which like WikiLeaks depends on the anonymity software Tor to hide leakers’ identities, was developed from the open-source software DeadDrop, initially created by the late coder and activist Aaron Swartz along with Dolan and Wired editor Kevin Poulsen. The system was initially created to serve as a leak submission system for Wired, but was dropped after a management shakeup at the magazine and adopted instead by fellow Conde Nast publication the New Yorker under the name Strongbox and launched in May. The code behind that system has remained free and open-source, allowing any other media outlet to adopt it.

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High Stakes for Obama: No Deal Means First Modern President to Default

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Photo Credit: APFor President Barack Obama, the outcome of this week’s fiscal fights with Republicans could have broad consequences for his stalled second-term agenda.

A favorable deal for the White House might give Obama an opening to marginalize the tea party Republicans who have tried to win concessions from him in order to reopen the government and raise the nation’s debt ceiling. But if no agreement is reached by Thursday’s debt limit deadline, Obama will become the first modern president to preside over a government default, a dubious distinction with potentially calamitous economic consequences that could consume the White House for the foreseeable future.

Another, perhaps more likely, option: Obama ends up signing short term bills that keep Washington in the never-ending cycle of deadline-driven budget battles. For Obama, that would mean fiscal issues would keep consuming the oxygen in the nation’s capital at a time when he is already watching his window for passing significant domestic legislation close.

“It’s a ticking clock,” Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Princeton University, said of presidential second terms. “He’s already into the red zone in terms of getting things done.”

On Monday, Obama and Senate leaders indicated they were optimistic that an agreement might be at hand to prevent a national financial default and reopen the government after a two-week partial shutdown. Officials in both parties were discussing a proposal to raise the debt ceiling through the spring, as well as a shorter deal to fund the government for several weeks.

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US Army Defines Christian Ministry as ‘Domestic Hate Group’

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Photo Credit: Fox News Several dozen U.S. Army active duty and reserve troops were told last week that the American Family Association, a well-respected Christian ministry, should be classified as a domestic hate group because the group advocates for traditional family values.

The briefing was held at Camp Shelby in Mississippi and listed the AFA alongside domestic hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam.

A soldier who attended the briefing contacted me and sent me a photograph of a slide show presentation that listed AFA as a domestic hate group. Under the AFA headline is a photograph of Westboro Baptist Church preacher Fred Phelps holding a sign reading “No special law for f***.”

American Family Association has absolutely no affiliation with the controversial church group known for picketing the funerals of American servicemembers.

“I had to show Americans what our soldiers are now being taught,” said the soldier who asked not to be identified. “I couldn’t just let this one pass.”

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As Washington Crumbles, This Senator’s Rise To The Presidency Is Almost Assured

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Photo Credit: Standard CompliantToday is a rainy, gloomy day in Washington.

And as John Boehner is up at the White House negotiating the unconditional surrender of House Republicans, I unexpectedly ran into Senator Ted Cruz outside of Washington’s Omni Shoreham Hotel.

Cruz was smiling and said he was invigorated by the outpouring of support for his campaign against Obamacare.

Of course, you may be wondering why Cruz is happy while the Republican leaders around him are groping for a lifeline from Obama and a way to settle the dispute.

The reasons are simple…

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Senate Deal to End Government Shutdown, Raise Debt Limit Appears Near (+video)

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Photo Credit: Charles Dharapak/APA planned meeting between President Obama and congressional leaders Monday afternoon was postponed right as the meeting was supposed to take place – but that may actually be a sign that an end is in sight to the debt-limit negotiations as well as the two-week-old government shutdown.

Leadership from both parties expressed optimism that they were nearing an agreement that could end the standoff before Thursday’s deadline for raising the debt ceiling, and the White House, while it did not set a new date for the meeting, said in a statement that the meeting was postponed to “allow leaders in the Senate time to continue making important progress towards a solution that raises the debt limit and reopens the government.”

Earlier on Monday, Mr. Obama had warned lawmakers that if they don’t reach a resolution, the US has “a good chance of defaulting” – which could have devastating economic repercussions.

The Senate has been making steady progress toward a deal, and the current one gaining traction reportedly would fund the government through the end of the year and raise the debt ceiling until mid-February. It would also call for new budget negotiations to happen before the next round of sequestration cuts takes effect, and might make some minor concessions on the Affordable Care Act, including a delay of the tax on medical devices.

Senate leaders from both parties spoke on the Senate floor Monday afternoon, sounding the most optimistic they have since the shutdown began.

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Republicans Can Say “We Told You So” as Obamacare is Inflicted on America

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Photo Credit: Irish Central President Obama and his Democrat colleagues must take all of the credit as Nancy Pelosi’s promise: “we will find out what is in Obamacare after it is passed,” starts to become reality.

Since not one Republican voted for Obamacare and Republicans were shut out of putting any input into Obamacare, the credit and or blame will fall appropriately

The President made all kinds of promises as he sold Obamacare to the people of the United States.

But Seems like most of them have fallen by the wayside as promises face the dawning of reality.

Were these claims the President made, honest miscalculations? Or were they cynical lies designed to get a gullible public to accept a government takeover of our healthcare system?

According to the latest estimates, Obamacare will cost around $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years, nearly $1.7 trillion more than Obama’s initial promise of $900 billion.

President Obama’s claim that if you like your existing healthcare plan, you can keep that plan is proving utterly false as Obamacare gets unveiled. Millions of Americans are getting rude shocks as employers start to drop their plans and force employees into the new healthcare exchanges.

He also promised if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor…Period! But of course that whopper has fallen to the wayside as people are kicked off their existing healthcare plans and new plans don’t include their doctor.

President Obama claimed the average healthcare premium savings would be 2,500 per family. That claim is proving to be bogus as families get sticker shock from the new healthcare plans with Obamacare mandates. To add insult to injury, many of these plans have huge deductibles that must be paid before the insurance kicks in.

Most Americans will soon forget this latest budget impasse and the resultant government “shutdown.” The negativity directed toward the Republicans who tried to block or make changes to Obamacare before it gets implemented will swiftly pass in the coming weeks and months.

But in a little over a year, the all important midterm elections will occur; with House and Senate seats up for grabs…

The quotes below from two naive supporters of Obamacare just discovering huge increase in healthcare premiums may prove ominous for Democrats trying to retain their seats:

“Of course, I want people to have health care I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.” Or: “I was laughing at Boehner until the mail came today.”

What will be fresh on American workers and voters minds as the November elections arrive, will be who has raised their taxes and who is responsible for the huge increases in their healthcare costs…..They will also remember who tired to keep their taxes lower and tried to warn them about Obamacare.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.