Obama’s Pick for Fed Chair Raises Brand-New Fears for U.S. Dollar

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Photo Credit: WNDRepublican lawmakers are balking at President Obama’s choice of Federal Reserve chairman, Janet Yellen, worried she will favor enhanced government intervention in the economy, including flooding the market with more dollars.

A review of her previous work finds she divined a theory that was a precursor to the current progressive campaign for the government to ensure “fair” pay to employees.

Yellen’s confirmation in the Democrat-controlled senate is all but a certainty after she was approved by the Senate Banking Committee 11 days ago.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., announced he plans to vote against Yellen, citing fears she will enact policies to the detriment of long-term economic growth.

“While Dr. Yellen is an accomplished individual, I will be voting against her nomination to chair the Fed because of her role as a lead architect in authoring monetary policies that threaten the short and long-term prospects of strong economic growth and job creation,” Rubio said in a statement.

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Report: How the US Gave Guns to Mexican Cartels

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Matt York

In September 2009, John Dodson, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was assigned to the ATF’s Phoenix office. What he found there shocked him. The bureau was encouraging gun dealers to sell weapons in bulk to known straw buyers, who would funnel those guns to Mexican drug cartels. Known as Operation Fast and Furious, it ended with the death of at least one American law enforcement officer. Dodson became a congressional whistleblower, and the investigation into the operation is ongoing. In this exclusive excerpt from his new book, “The Unarmed Truth,” Dodson explains how tragically inept Fast and Furious was.

‘It’s like the underwear gnomes,” my ATF colleague Lee Casa told me one time as we recounted the latest bizarre goings-on in Phoenix.

“What?” I asked.

“You ever watch ‘South Park’? There’s this episode where all the boys get their underwear stolen by these underwear gnomes. They track them down to get it back and one of them asks why they are stealing everyone’s underwear. The gnomes break out this PowerPoint and reveal their master plan: Phase One: Collect underpants . . . Phase Two: ? . . . Phase Three: Profit.”

“We’re doing the same thing,” he explained. “We know Phase One is ‘Walk guns’ and Phase Three is ‘Take down a big cartel!’ ” Both of us were laughing now; a more fitting and appropriate allegory could never be found. Casa concluded, “Just nobody can figure out what the f–k Phase Two is!”

What was happening did at times almost seem like a spoof. Letting guns “walk” was a tactic that I had never before seen or even contemplated. It simply wasn’t done.

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Sandy Hook Spurs States’ Mental Health Push

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Photo Credit: APIn the anguished days following the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, President Barack Obama called for a renewed national focus on mental health.

His plea went nowhere in Congress. But states from South Carolina to Oregon have taken up the challenge.

At least 37 states have increased spending on mental health in the year since Adam Lanza shot dead 20 children, six school employees and his mother in Newtown, Conn. It’s not just about money, either. States are experimenting with new — and sometimes controversial — ways to raise awareness about psychological distress, to make treatment more accessible for children and adults and to keep firearms away from those struggling with mental illness.

Nevada, for instance, is launching a pilot program to screen children in secondary schools for mental health concerns. Texas not only boosted mental health funding by a record $300 million over two years, but required public school teachers and students to be trained in recognizing mental illness. Utah will require school districts to offer parents an annual seminar on mental health, including depression and suicide. Colorado established a 24-hour crisis hotline.

The new initiatives don’t make up for the more than $4 billion cut from state mental health budgets during the lean years of the recent recession. And they weren’t universal: A half-dozen states cut funding on mental health this year, including Louisiana, Maine and North Carolina.

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Mother With Multiple Sclerosis Loses Her Health Coverage Due to Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Life News Please pray for Whitney Johnson. We shared her story on the Sean Hannity show on Friday and have been promoting her story nationwide. Today she sent us an update and prayer request, and she said we could share with you.

She’s a beautiful 26-year-old mother with M.S. and, due to ObamaCare, her health plan was canceled. The problems are getting worse. Please read and pray. This is happening to real Americans.

Whitney’s request, “Pray for me this morning, I actually just found out moments ago that in order to be added to my husband’s insurance (which is the route I thought I was going to be able to go) it is going to cost me $900 per month, and the insurance is awful. It doesn’t cover my treatments, and I have to pay $5k out of pocket before any co-insurance even picks up! We simply can not afford $900 per month for my health care alone. I also got word that my friend with type 1 diabetes just got quoted a premium of $600 per month with a $14,000 deductible!!! This is just outrageous. I trust The Lord will provide for me and my family or just heal my body so I no longer need treatments. I ask for you to pray.” #teamwhitney

Here is Whitney’s original letter to us at CWA:

I am one of the Americans that have already been affected by the Affordable Care Act. I am one of many who have been lied to over and over again by our president. I am one of many other fellow countrymen who have preexisting conditions. I am one who has already received my termination of coverage letter from my current insurance company. The letter informed me, as of December 31, I no longer have medical insurance coverage through my current provider because my plan “does not conform to the Affordable Care Act.” I too, as well as you, sat and listened to Obama promise that if “you like your current insurance, you can keep your current insurance.” We also heard him tell us as a nation that we would save on average of $2,500 per household. So when I opened my letter I received from my insurance company, I felt like I was living what Nancy Pelosi said back in 2010, that “we have to pass the Healthcare bill so that we can find out what is in it.” When I opened my letter I did indeed find out firsthand what was in ObamaCare — lies, lies, and more lies. Before you tune me out and accuse me of being a radical conservative, understand that I’m neither a democrat nor republican; I’m an American. An American that wants to see our country restored to its original intent. A country for the people, by the people. A country that once again can stand up and say, “In God we trust!” I want my little boy to be raised in an America where he still has opportunities. Where he learns to work hard for what he earns; not stand in line and wait for a hand out.

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Study Finds Increased Risk of Breast Cancer after Abortion in Chinese Women

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Photo Credit: LifeSiteNewsPro-abortion advocates have relentlessly denied a link between abortion and breast cancer, but a new study has emerged from China that seems to show that such a link not only exists, but that the risk rises with each abortion a woman has.

Dr. Joel Brind, professor of endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York and a director at the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, called the findings a “real game changer” for deniers of the so-called ABC link.

The study, titled “A meta-analysis of the association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk among Chinese females” was published this week in Cancer Causes and Control, a peer-reviewed international cancer journal.

The research was conducted by Yubei Huang et al. from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital.

The researchers say they were initially puzzled by their findings, stating that Chinese women “historically” have had lower rates of breast cancer compared to women from western countries such as the US.

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Obamacare Website-Maker Runs Failed Army Human Terrain System Program

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Larry DowningThe company that earned the no-bid contract to build the failed Obamacare website also runs the Army’s disastrous Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has been accused of fraud, sexual harassment and racism.

The much-maligned Human Terrain System (HTS), launched in 2007, sends academics from social science fields like anthropology and linguistics into war zones to help soldiers understand the local population. The Army spent $58 million on the program in 2013, down from $114 million in 2011.

CGI Federal, the U.S. arm of the Canadian CGI Group and the designer of the failed Obamacare website, attempted a failed turnaround in HTS during the Obama administration. The young company, which employs Michelle Obama’s former Princeton classmate and Christmas guest Toni Townes-Whitley as a top executive, received eight figures from the Army in 2013 for the project, records reveal.

Oberon Associates, a CGI Federal subsidiary that joined the CGI portfolio in 2010, earned the $227 million contract to run HTS in 2011 in a deal that insiders said reeked of cronyism due to former HTS director Colonel Sharon Hamilton’s rumored friendship with an Oberon co-founder.

The HTS contract was one of CGI’s first big gets in the United States, as CGI Federal was only formed to bring the CGI Group into the federal contracting business in 2009.

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NYC Train Derailment Kills 4, Hurts More Than 60

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Photo Credit: AP/Craig RuttleBy Associated Press.

A New York City commuter train rounding a riverside curve derailed Sunday, killing four people and injuring more than 60 in a crash that threw some riders from toppling cars and swiftly raised questions about whether excessive speed, mechanical problems or human error could have played a role.

Some of the roughly 150 passengers on the early morning Metro-North train from Poughkeepsie to Manhattan were jolted from sleep around 7:20 a.m. to screams and the frightening sensation of their compartment rolling over on a bend in the Bronx where the Hudson and Harlem rivers meet. When the motion stopped, all seven cars and the locomotive had lurched off the rails, and the lead car was only inches from the water. It was the latest accident in a troubled year for the nation’s second-biggest commuter railroad, which had never experienced passenger death in an accident in its 31-year history.

Joel Zaritsky was dozing as he traveled to a dental convention aboard the train. He woke up to feel his car overturning several times.

“Then I saw the gravel coming at me, and I heard people screaming,” he told The Associated Press, holding his bloody right hand. “There was smoke everywhere and debris. People were thrown to the other side of the train.”

In their efforts to find passengers, rescuers shattered windows, searched nearby woods and waters and used pneumatic jacks and air bags to peer under wreckage. Crews planned to bring in cranes during the night to right the overturned cars on the slight chance anyone might still be underneath, National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener said.

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Photo Credit: Fox News Victims of deadly NY train derailment identified as NTSB seeks cause of accident

By Fox News.

Authorities on Sunday night identified the four people killed in an early morning train derailment as federal authorities say they are just beginning to search into what caused the accident.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department identified the deceased as Ahn Kisook, 35, of Queens, N.Y., Donna L. Smith, 54, of Newburgh, N.Y., James G. Lovell, 58, of Cold Spring, N.Y. and James M. Ferrari, 59, of Montrose, N.Y. More than 60 others were injured in the derailment, at least 11 critically.

Federal authorities said in an afternoon press conference they will examine factors ranging from the track condition to the crew’s performance. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the track did not appear to be faulty, leaving speed as a possible culprit for the crash.

The speed limit on the curve is 30 mph, compared with 70 mph in the area approaching it, National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener said. Weener said investigators had not yet spoken to the train conductor, who was among the injured.

Authorities did not yet know how fast the train was traveling but had found a data recorder, he said. One passenger, Frank Tatulli, told WABC-TV that the train appeared to be going “a lot faster” than usual as it approached the sharp curve near the Spuyten Duyvil station.

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Report: Waitress in Tip Tale, a Former Stony Point Resident, ‘Lies About Everything,’ Ex-Coworkers, Friends Say (+video)

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Photo Credit: Dayna Morales / Courier NewsA North Rockland High School alumna accused of making up a story about being denied a tip at a New Jersey restaurant due to her sexual orientation has a reputation for lying, former colleagues and friends said.

Dayna Morales, 22, formerly of Stony Point, told reporters last week that a family at the Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater, N.J., stiffed her out of a tip on a nearly $100 bill because she was gay. She produced a receipt with a note that said: “I do not agree with your lifestyle and how you live your life.”

Morales, now of Bedminster, N.J., had posted a picture of the receipt and complained of the injustice on a gay-friendly Facebook page called “Have a Gay Day.” She said she publicized the incident online because “others need to be informed this is still going on.”

She didn’t contact media outlets but journalists began reaching out to her and reporting on the post after several blogs wrote about it. Eventually, national news outlets picked up the story.

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Wage Strikes Planned at Fast-Food Outlets

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Photo Credit: Fabrizio Costantini for NYTSeeking to increase pressure on McDonald’s, Wendy’s and other fast-food restaurants, organizers of a movement demanding a $15-an-hour wage for fast-food workers say they will sponsor one-day strikes in 100 cities on Thursday and protest activities in 100 additional cities.

As the movement struggles to find pressure points in its quest for substantially higher wages for workers, organizers said strikes were planned for the first time in cities like Charleston, S.C.; Providence, R.I.; and Pittsburgh.

The protests have expanded greatly since November 2012, when 200 fast-food workers engaged in a one-day strike at more than 20 restaurants in New York City, the first such walkout in the history of the nation’s fast-food industry.

“There’s been pretty huge growth in one year,” said Kendall Fells, one of the movement’s main organizers. “People understand that a one-day strike is not going to get them there. They understand that this needs to continue to grow.”

The movement, which includes the groups Fast Food Forward and Fight for 15, is part of a growing union-backed effort by low-paid workers — including many Walmart workers and workers for federal contractors — that seeks to focus attention on what the groups say are inadequate wages.

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New Low for Congress: Just 6 Percent Approve, Finally Lower than Car Salespeople

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner The public’s approval rating for Congress has finally hit rock bottom: For the first time, America has a higher opinion of car salespeople.

A new Economist/YouGov.com poll put the approval rating of Congress at a historic low of 6 percent. A December 2012 Gallup poll comparing Congress’ approval ratings to other occupations had car salespeople at the bottom at 8 percent and Congress at 10 percent. Now Congress is the cellar dweller.

The nation’s bad opinion of Congress, impacted by inaction, budget fights and the battle over the filibuster, has also spread to Senate leaders…

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