EPA To Unilaterally Push Cap And Trade On Carbon Emissions

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Photo Credit: dantekgeekDespite being soundly rejected a few years ago, cap-and-trade will get its U.S. encore but not in Congress. The Obama administration will likely use its executive power to unilaterally impose carbon dioxide emissions trading systems.

The Environmental Protection Agency will unveil regulations for existing U.S. power plants early next month. For months, onlookers have speculating about what could be included in the EPA’s rule for existing power plants.

But over the past few days it has become clear that the Obama administration will use the EPA to push cap-and-trade systems and other anti-fossil fuel policies on U.S. states. Administration insiders have told news outlets that cap-and-trade will likely be one of the options the EPA gives states to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.

The Wall Street Journal reported the EPA’s proposal will “include a cap-and-trade component where a limit is set on emissions and companies can trade allowances or credits for emissions” to meet new federal rules. The journal added that power plant “operators could trade emissions credits or use other offsets in the power sector, such as renewable energy or energy-efficiency programs, to meet the target.”

The plan is being sold as a “flexible” one. By allowing states a menu of policy options to meet federal mandates, the standards will ostensibly meet the unique needs of each individual state. But the stark reality behind the proposal is that it will be a boon for states that have already imposed cap-and-trade systems — which are overwhelmingly Democratic states.

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Family: V.A. Cops Stomped On Veteran’s Head, Killing Him

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan ErnstBy Chuck Ross.

The family of a 65 year-old veteran claims that VA police stomped on the veterans head and neck, causing him to suffer a stroke and die several weeks later, a new lawsuit alleges.

On May 25, 2011, Jonathan Montano was waiting several hours to undergo dialysis treatment at the Loma Linda VA facility when he grew frustrated, reports Courthouse News Service.

With an IV still in his arm, Montano made his way towards the hospital exit, saying that he would get treatment at the Long Beach VA facility instead.

Norma Montano, the veteran’s wife of 44 years, left the hospital to retrieve the couple’s car.

But VA police wouldn’t let Montano leave, the lawsuit alleges.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APTexas VA Run Like a ‘Crime Syndicate,’ Whistleblower Says

By Jacob Siegel.

Last week, President Obama pledged to address allegations of corruption and dangerous inefficiencies in the veterans’ health-care system. But before the president could deliver on his pledge, the scandal has spread even further. New whistleblower testimony and internal documents implicate an award-winning VA hospital in Texas in widespread wrongdoing—and what appears to be systemic fraud.

Emails and VA memos obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast provide what is among the most comprehensive accounts yet of how high-level VA hospital employees conspired to game the system. It shows not only how they manipulated hospital wait lists but why—to cover up the weeks and months veterans spent waiting for needed medical care. If those lag times had been revealed, it would have threatened the executives’ bonus pay.

What’s worse, the documents show the wrongdoing going unpunished for years, even after it was repeatedly reported to local and national VA authorities. That indicates a new troubling angle to the VA scandal: that the much touted investigations may be incapable of finding violations that are hiding in plain sight.

“For lack of a better term, you’ve got an organized crime syndicate,” a whistleblower who works in the Texas VA told The Daily Beast. “People up on top are suddenly afraid they may actually be prosecuted and they’re pressuring the little guys down below to cover it all up.”

“I see it in the executives’ eyes,” the whistleblower added. “They are worried.”

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Waves of Immigrant Minors Present Crisis for Obama, Congress

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / JOSE LUIS GONZALEZTens of thousands of children unaccompanied by parents or relatives are flooding across the southern U.S. border illegally, forcing the Obama administration and Congress to grapple with both a humanitarian crisis and a budget dilemma.

An estimated 60,000 such children will pour into the United States this year, according to the administration, up from about 6,000 in 2011. Now, Washington is trying to figure out how to pay for their food, housing and transportation once they are taken into custody.

The flow is expected to grow. The number of unaccompanied, undocumented immigrants who are under 18 will likely double in 2015 to nearly 130,000 and cost U.S. taxpayers $2 billion, up from $868 million this year, according to administration estimates.

The shortage of housing for these children, some as young as 3, has already become so acute that an emergency shelter at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, has been opened and can accommodate 1,000 of them, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in an interview with Reuters.

The issue is an added source of tension between Democrats and Republicans, who disagree on how to rewrite immigration laws. With comprehensive legislation stalled, President Barack Obama is looking at small, administrative steps he could take, which might be announced this summer. No details have been outlined but immigration groups are pressing him to take steps to keep families with children together.

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Letter Campaign Urges Oklahoma’s Mary Fallin to Repeal Common Core

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Photo Credit: APIn the wake of the Oklahoma state legislature’s overwhelming approval of a bill to repeal and replace the Common Core standards, Restore Oklahoma Public Education (R.O.P.E.) has begun a letter-writing campaign to urge Fallin to sign the bill.

Gov. Mary Fallin (R) of Oklahoma could become the first governor in the nation to fully repeal the Common Core standards. Fallin has until June 2 to sign HB3399; if she chooses not to, the bill will die by pocket veto.

“We must begin IMMEDIATELY to ask our Governor to sign this bill into law,” R.O.P.E. president Jenni White writes on the group’s website. “Toward that end, we have written two separate letters. One is for Oklahomans to use and the other may be used by anyone outside the state who would like to participate.”

R.O.P.E. urges:

* Copy and paste the letter of your choice (you can modify them or write your own as well) into an email. Sample letters for both Oklahomans and Americans from other states are available on the R.O.P.E. website.

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Furious Veteran Montel Williams UNLOADS On Obama Over VA Scandal

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An absolutely livid Montel Williams, who served 22 years in the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy, savaged the government, the Obama administration and the American people over the unfolding Veterans Administration scandal, accusing us all of violating our promise to care for those who swore to protect us.

The well-known talk show host and (less well-known) veterans’ advocate appeared on Fox News with Neil Cavuto on Wednesday to vent his anger over recent revelations surrounding the treatment of America’s sick veterans by the VA.

An inspector general report released Wednesday confirmed that at a Phoenix-area VA office, thousands of veterans waited months for much-needed appointments with specialists.

More egregiously (and criminally), 1,700 veterans were kept off the appointment wait-list in order to meet federal criteria for referrals. And many VA whistleblowers are alleging the problems are not confined to Phoenix alone.

Williams was incensed. “I am angry, my friend,” he told Cavuto. “I’m angry because, you know, we made a promise. When I stood with my hand up proudly, I said, ‘I do solemnly swear and affirm to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and I will bear true faith –.’ I went through my oath.”

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American Said To Have Carried Out Suicide Bombing In Syria (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeAbu Hurayra Al-Amriki Performed a martydom operation in Idlib, Jabal Al-Arba’een. May Allah accept him pic.twitter.com/MeewywKqDD

— أبو سليمان المهاجر (@abusulayman321) May 27, 2014

U.S. officials are investigating claims circulated on social media sites that an American fighting with Syria’s rebels helped carry out a suicide truck bombing in the war-torn country over the weekend.

Al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida-linked rebel group, announced via Twitter the “martyrdom” of Abu Hurayra al-Amriki (Abu Hurayra the American), releasing what it said was a photo of the bomber as well as a video of the attack.

If true, it would be the first time in Syria’s civil war that an American recruit participated in a suicide attack, according to Laith Alkhouri, a senior analyst with Flashpoint Global Partners, which monitors militant websites for government and private clients, who is quoted by Haaretz.

In the video, bearded men can be seen loading artillery shells onto a large truck. Later, what is described as a government-controlled building is suddenly consumed in a massive explosion. A voice on the video is heard yelling “Allahu Akbar!”

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Libyan Warplanes Strike Islamist Militias in Benghazi

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / ESAM OMRAN AL-FETORIBy Reuters.

Libyan warplanes bombed militia bases in Benghazi on Wednesday as part of a renegade former general’s campaign to purge the chaotic North African state of Islamist militants, witnesses and officials said.

Two jets attacked a base belonging to the February 17 brigade, one of the Islamist-leaning armed groups operating in Benghazi, and an Ansar al-Sharia militant base in the west of the city, a Reuters witness and an air force official said.

The attacks are part of a campaign by irregular forces loyal to former Libyan army general Khalifa Haftar who earlier this month launched operations against Islamist militants he says the weak central government has failed to control.

“Our forces are bombing the February 17 battalion base and Ansar al-Sharia base in Quarsha,” Mohamed Hejazi, a spokesman for Haftar, told Reuters.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APAmericans Urged to Leave Libya After Group Linked to Benghazi Attack Threatens U.S.

By Patrick Goodenough.

The State Department on Tuesday warned American citizens not to travel to Libya and urged those there to leave immediately.

The embassy in Tripoli has not been evacuated, although the administration began positioning military assets in Sicily last week to carry out a potential emergency extraction if deemed necessary. The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan moved into the Mediterranean Sea.

“This is a portion of a special purpose Marine Air-Guard task force crisis response that’s moved to a naval air station in Sicily,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a briefing. “This positioning was done in the event these resources are needed in the future.”

“We continue to review the situation and address embassy security needs,” Psaki said.

The travel warning said the staffing at the embassy has been limited, “due to security concerns,” and that the mission could offer only “very limited emergency services to U.S. citizens.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Will Nigeria’s Kidnapped Girls Eventually Lead To Obama Losing Control Of The Narrative On Islam?

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Photo Credit: Western Journalism The very best ambush is always the one that traps its victim even before he recognizes he has been trapped. For instance, anacondas squeeze the life out of their victims before they know what the deadly snake is doing.

In the past few weeks, the “snake” of recognition has moved closer to Barack Obama. It may wrap itself around his boney body and compel him to make a decision about recognizing the danger of Islam, something he doesn’t want to do.

The first coil of the snake ironically came from Hollywood’s gay community, the members of which are reliable Obama cheerleaders. Recently, homosexuals rallied in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel to protest the fact that its owner, the Sultan of Brunei, had instituted Sharia Law in his country. They did not intend to damage their leader, but that is how their actions might play out.

It seems Hollywood’s gays have discovered that Sharia Law requires the execution of homosexuals, and this was quite a shock to these “fabulous” people. Some are rethinking this “Religion of Peace” thingy.

Read more from this story HERE.

Oldest Lawmaker Kicked Out

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas), the oldest member in House history, has lost his primary to a conservative challenger.

The Associated Press has called the race for former U.S. Attorney John Ratcliffe (R), who led Hall by 52 percent to 48 percent with 68 percent of precincts reporting.

Hall is the first incumbent to lose a reelection campaign this year. Originally elected as a Democrat in 1980, he’d switched to the GOP in 2004 and hadn’t faced a serious challenge since.

Hall, 91, was caught off guard by Ratcliffe, who jumped into the race right before the filing deadline and loaned himself more than $600,000 for the race. The longtime congressman took a while to kick his campaign into gear, raising and spending very little for the first round of voting in March, when Ratcliffe and other challengers held him to 45 percent of the vote.

Ratcliffe ran a disciplined campaign focused on generational change. He also sought to position himself to Hall’s right — and received a boost on that front as the runoff began, when he received endorsements from the conservative Club for Growth, Madison Project and Senate Conservatives Fund.

Read more from this story HERE.

Harper: Is It the Bilderberg Conference – Or Conspiracy?

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Photo Credit: independent.co.ukConspiracy theorists may chuckle when they learn a debate entitled “Does Privacy Exist?” is to feature at this year’s Bilderberg conference, the notoriously secretive gathering of the world’s most powerful bankers, politicians and business people.

There may be a further shaking of heads when they discover one of the participants at the heavily fortified, five-star Marriott Hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark, will be Keith Alexander, the former director of the National Security Agency (NSA), which was embarrassed by the mass-surveillance revelations leaked by Edward Snowden. In fairness to the Bilderberg, the organisers of this year’s conference – which starts on Thursday – have made efforts to be more transparent by publishing a list of all the prime ministers, chief executives and military chiefs in attendance, as well as the topics up for discussion.

Chancellor George Osborne and his Labour counterpart, Ed Balls, are among the hand-picked group of British politicians who will visit Copenhagen to hob-nob with the global elite behind closed doors.

Other guests from the political sphere include the former “Third Man” of New Labour, Lord Mandelson, the current International Development Secretary, Justine Greening, and the veteran American foreign policy expert, Henry Kissinger.

Billionaire captains of industry who landed invitations include the heads of Shell, BP, Airbus, HSBC, Saab, AXA, Google, and Linkedin. They will sit alongside key global powerbrokers such as Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and senior officials from the European Central Bank.

Read more from this story HERE.