CIA Whistleblower: Hollywood Megastar Asked Government For $50K Of Cocaine To Act As Secret Agent

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Photo Credit: Amazon

Photo Credit: Amazon

Hollywood double agents might want to watch their backs.

In an utterly unprecedented move, 34-year CIA employee John Rizzo is breaking the organization’s code of silence to expose the government organization’s darkest secrets for the very first time.

Chief among his bombshell revelations is the suggestion that Hollywood and Washington are much closer than anyone has previously thought: exchanging money, information — and in one staggering case — a request for $50,000 of cocaine!

In his new book, Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA, whistleblower Rizzo, who served as the acting general counsel for the entire CIA, admits, “the CIA has long had a special relationship with the entertainment industry, devoting considerable attention to fostering relationships with Hollywood movers and shakers: studio executives, producers, directors and big-name actors.”

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Report: Postal Service Ordered to Reinstate Purple Heart Recipient Fired for ‘Excessive Military Leave’

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Photo Credit: LA Times

Photo Credit: LA Times

Sgt. Maj. Richard Erickson was serving overseas with U.S. special forces when he received a letter from his civilian employer, the U.S. Postal Service.

In the 2000 notice, the agency informed him that he was being fired from his job as a postal clerk in Florida for taking too much time off to serve with the National Guard.

“I thought it was a joke,” Erickson said this week from Ft. Bragg, N.C., where he serves with the Army’s Special Operations Command.

But when he called the Postal Service, he was told that he had been terminated for taking “excessive military leave.”

Last week, after a seven-year legal battle, Erickson was awarded reinstatement and back pay. A federal board denied a Postal Service appeal and ordered the agency to restore his job and give him 14 years of back pay and other benefits that could total about $2 million.

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DOJ Wants to Know ‘Race, Sex, Disability, Age and English-Learner Status’ of Misbehaving Students

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Obama administration, concerned that “zero tolerance” policies are sending too many students to court instead of the principal’s office, on Wednesday urged schools to back off — particularly in the case of minority students and other federally protected groups.

“Racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem today,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who joined Attorney General Eric Holder in speaking about the new guidance. Holder said “students of color and those with disabilities” often receive “different and more severe punishment than their peers.”

While the nation’s schools are under local control, they must follow federal civil rights and disability laws. And the new guidance for the nation’s schools could subject more of those schools to federal discrimination lawsuits. In fact, the crackdown already is happening, as CNSNews.com previously reported.

While the guidance is “voluntary,” it encourages schools to set up a “recordkeeping system” that tracks demographic information on misbehaving students, including their “race, sex, disability, age and English-learner status” along with the infraction, the discipline imposed, who imposed it, etc.

“Schools should establish procedures for regular and frequent review and analysis of the data to detect patterns that bear further investigation,” the guidance says.

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Begich Spokeswoman Takes Blame For Misstating His Whereabouts During Key Vote to Extend Unemployment Benefits; Murkowski Votes with Dems

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Mark Begich said Thursday that she misspoke when she said he missed a vote in Washington because he was traveling to the capital when, in fact, he was in Hawaii.

The Associated Press asked spokeswoman Heather Handyside by email Tuesday why the Alaska Democrat hadn’t voted on whether to proceed to debate on a renewal of benefits for the long-term unemployed. Handyside responded by email that he “wasn’t there. Is on his way back to D.C.”

The vote was close, with six Republicans, including Alaska’s senior senator, Lisa Murkowski, voting with Democrats to advance to debate. Begich was one of three members, and the only Democrat, shown as not voting.

The Hill reported Thursday that Begich missed the vote to deliver a speech Wednesday at a conference in Hawaii hosted by the American Association of Airport Executives.

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Senator From Colorado Asked State to Mislead the Public About Insurance Cancellations

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Rick Moran.

Desperate people do desperate things. In this case, Senator Mark Udall asked the state’s insurance commission to downplay the number of policy cancellations by changing the definition of “cancelled.”

Breitbart:

CompleteColorado.com reports that emails show U.S. Senator Mark Udall’s (D-CO) office pressured the Colorado Division of Insurance to downplay the number of insurance cancellations caused by the rollout of ObamaCare. A full 249,199 Colorado citizens were victimized by ObamaCare’s cancellations. According to the emails, Udall’s office hoped to change the definition of a “cancellation” as a way to lower the number. All of this occurred late last year as the storm around cancellations was engulfing Democrats and the president.

From an email inside the Colorado Division of Insurance (DOI), Director of External Affairs Jo Donlin bluntly stated to her colleagues:

Sen. Udall says our numbers were wrong. They are not wrong. Cancellation notices affected 249,199 people. They want to trash our numbers. I’m holding strong while we get more details. Many have already done early renewals. Regardless, they received cancellation notices.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: breitbart

Photo Credit: breitbart

13,000 Obamacare applicants have no records with health insurers

By Tom Murphy and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, AP.

Record-keeping snags could complicate the start of insurance coverage this month as people begin using policies they purchased under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

Insurance companies are still trying to sort out cases of so-called health insurance orphans, customers for whom the government has a record that they enrolled, but the insurer does not.

Government officials say the problem is real but under control, with orphan records being among the roughly 13,000 problem cases they are trying to resolve with insurers. But insurance companies are worried the process will grow more cumbersome as they deal with the flood of new customers who signed up in December as enrollment deadlines neared.

More than 1 million people have signed up through the federal insurance market that serves 36 states. Officials contend the error rate for new signups is close to zero.

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ObamaCare Is a Losing Bet

By Anthony J.Ciani.

“Aim for the heart, Ramon,” the Man With No Name taunted. In the movie For a Few Dollars More, Clint Eastwood’s character covered his heart with an iron plate hidden beneath his poncho, knowing that Ramon would stubbornly aim for his heart and run out of ammunition. Making your opponent waste energy and resources is a classic tactic. At the monthly meeting of the Palatine Township Republican Organization, Congressman Roskam made one thing abundantly clear: the Republican strategy for 2014 is ObamaCare, just as the strategy in 2012 was the economy, and just as Ramon’s strategy was aiming for the heart. If Republicans aim only at ObamaCare, they will find an iron plate.

In September of 2012, Mitt Romney looked fairly well poised to beat President Obama. The lead was not astronomical, but most voters saw the economy as the major issue, and increasingly saw Republicans as better suited to fixing it. Then came the smoke and mirrors. The power of the President was abused to alter economic figures, creating a false and drastic dip in September unemployment. This was not a last ditch effort, but a careful manipulation of census data over two years. Back in 2010, Democratic strategists realized that the highly partisan, Democratic “Porkulus” would fail and the economy would be an albatross about their necks, and so planned the massive deception for 2012; a hidden iron plate to cover their hearts.

The second phase of ObamaCare had a disastrous rollout, and the sticker shock is still stinging, but the general election is 10 months away, and the iron plate is plainly visible. Most of the phase-ins and deadlines of the Affordable Care Act begin just after or well before the Federal elections. For those parts that were planned poorly, Obama has issued imperial decrees to move them post-election. In 2013, the Democrats branded a few million Americans with the mark of ObamaCare. So many people complained, that Obama put the brand back into the fire and promised not to take it out again until after the 2014 elections, when it will be red hot and ready to brand all Americans. All praise the benevolence of our Glorious Leader.

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Al Qaeda Controls More Territory Than Ever in Middle East

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

From around Aleppo in western Syria to small areas of Falluja in central Iraq, al Qaeda now controls territory that stretches more than 400 miles across the heart of the Middle East, according to English and Arab language news accounts as well as accounts on jihadist websites.

Indeed, al Qaeda appears to control more territory in the Arab world than it has done at any time in its history.

The focus of al Qaeda’s leaders has always been regime change in the Arab world in order to install Taliban-style regimes. Al Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri acknowledged as much in his 2001 autobiography, “Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet,” when he explained that the most important strategic goal of al Qaeda was to seize control of a state, or part of a state, somewhere in the Muslim world, explaining that, “without achieving this goal our actions will mean nothing.”

Now al-Zawahiri is closer to his goal than he has ever been. On Friday al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq seized control of parts of the city of Falluja and parts of the city of Ramadi, both of which are located in Iraq’s restive Anbar Province.

Anbar is home to predominantly Sunni Muslims, who feel that that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki treats the Sunnis as second-class citizens.

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Afghanistan Releasing 72 Prisoners Considered Security Threat by US

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the country is going to release all but 16 of 88 prisoners considered a security threat by the United States.

In a statement Thursday, Karzai says that a review of the prisoners’ cases by Afghan intelligence and judicial officials turned up no evidence of wrongdoing for 45 of the detainees. Karzai says there was insufficient evidence on another 27 and that they must be released.

The U.S. is strongly opposed to their release because it says the prisoners have been involved in the wounding or killing of U.S. and coalition troops, Reuters reported.

The issue has been a sticking point in Afghan-U.S. relations as the two sides struggle to agree on a framework for the withdrawal of American and allied forces by the end of next year and the aftermath. Last week, a group of U.S. senators met Karzai in Kabul to warn him that release of the 88 detainees from the Parwan Detention Facility “would be a major step backward” for U.S.-Afghan relations.

A review of the prisoners’ cases by Afghan intelligence and judicial officials turned up no evidence of wrongdoing for 45 of the detainees, and there was insufficient evidence on another 27, so they must be released, Karzai said in a statement. He gave no details on when the release will take place.

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North Korea Tops Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan as Worst Place to Be Christian

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon

On the day former NBA star Dennis Rodman sang “happy birthday” to Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, a religious freedom advocacy group named North Korea the world’s worst country to be a Christian for the 12th consecutive year.

Islamic states dominated Open Doors’ 2014 world watch list, accounting for nine of the ten countries with the worst records. Of the full 50-country list released Wednesday, 36 are countries where Islamic extremism is “the main engine driving persecution of Christians,” stretching from North Africa to Brunei.

The top ten countries for persecuting Christians over the last year were: North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Pakistan, Iran and Yemen.

“In no other country in the world are Christians so fiercely persecuted because of their faith than in North Korea,” said Open Doors. “Like others in that country, Christians have to survive under one of the most oppressive regimes in contemporary times. They have to deal with corrupt officials, bad policies, natural disasters, diseases and hunger.

“On top of that, they must hide their decision to follow Christ. Being caught with a Bible is grounds for execution or a life-long political prison sentence. An estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Christians live in concentration camps, prisons and prison-like circumstances under the regime of leader Kim Jong-un.”

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74% of U.S. Afghan Casualties Came After Obama Ordered Troops Increased

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Seventy-four percent of the U.S. military personnel who have given their lives serving in the Afghan War died after Feb. 17, 2009, when President Barack Obama announced his first increase in the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan, according to CNSNews.com’s database of U.S. casualties in the war.

In the more than twelve years that have passed since U.S. troops first entered Afghanistan with the aim of removing al Qaeda from its sanctuary there, 2,162 U.S. service personnel have given their lives in and around Afghanistan in support of U.S. military activities in that country.

1,593 of those 2,162 U.S. casualties—or 73.7 percent—have occurred since Feb. 17, 2009, when Obama announced the first of his multiple increases in U.S. military personnel deployed to Afghanistan.

“To meet urgent security needs, I approved a request from Secretary Gates to deploy a Marine Expeditionary Brigade later this spring and an Army Stryker Brigade and the enabling forces necessary to support them later this summer,” Obama said on Feb. 17, 2009.

MONTH-BY-MONTH CASUALTIES IN AFGHANISTAN

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Congress Is Now Mostly A Millionaires’ Club

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Photo Credit: Larry Downing / Reuters

Photo Credit: Larry Downing / Reuters

Congress is loaded, if you weren’t already aware.

The Center for Responsive Politics analyzed the personal financial disclosure data from 2012 of the 534 current members of Congress and found that, for the first time, more than half had an average net worth of $1 million or more: 268 to be exact, up from 257 the year earlier. The median for congressional Democrats was $1.04 million and, for Republicans, $1 million even.

To calculate the net worth of lawmakers, the Center added together members’ significant assets, such as corporate bonds and stocks, then subtracted major liabilities such as loans, credit card debt and property mortgages.

Here’s the breakdown: the median net worth for all House members was $896,000 (Democrats averaged $929,000 to Republicans’ $884,000) and, for Senators, $2.5 million…

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