Army Begins Bowe Bergdahl Investigation

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Photo Credit: Fox News The U.S. Army has begun to investigate the circumstances surrounding the disappearance and capture of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from his post in Afghanistan in 2009, the Pentagon said in a statement Monday.

The Army appointed Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl, an officer with Afghanistan combat experience, to lead the probe but did not provide a timeline for its completion.

The Pentagon said Dahl would not interview Bergdahl until the reintegration team clears him for this type of questioning so there was no way to determine when it could conclude.

“The primary function of this investigation, as in any other investigation, is to ascertain facts and report them to the appointing authority,” the Pentagon said in statement. “These types of investigations are not uncommon and serve to establish the facts on the ground following an incident.”

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Furious Veteran Montel Williams DONE Dealing With VA: ‘We Need To Shut This Organization Down’

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Photo credit: APTwnty-two-year military veteran and talk show host Montel Williams escalated his crusade against the Veterans Administration on Monday, calling for many employees to be fired and declaring, “We need to shut this organization down.”

Williams appeared on Neil Cavuto’s Fox News program in the latest in a series of appearances since his fiery debut onto the VA scandal scene over two weeks ago.

Back then, Williams was upset with the president (not to mention The Daily Caller’s headline). But on Monday, he took specific aim at VA employees, many of whom he feels are deliberately ignoring important fixes that would get veterans the appointments and care that they need.

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President Obama vs. George Washington on Prisoner Exchange (Part 2)

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Photo Credit: TownHall Last week, I spoke about how President Barack Obama justified his prisoner swap of five senior Taliban leaders for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl by saying former military leaders and presidents, including George Washington, have engaged in prisoner of war exchange, too.

Obama’s exact words were: “This is what happens at the end of wars. That was true for George Washington; that was true for Abraham Lincoln; that was true for FDR; that’s been true of every combat situation — that at some point, you make sure that you try to get your folks back. And that’s the right thing to do.”

From that statement alone, I revealed how Obama’s made grievous errors in judgment by concluding that 1) the war is over and 2) he was engaging in a prisoner exchange like George Washington — to take just a single example among his list of stellar leaders.

What Obama didn’t tell you regarding Washington and prisoner exchange during the Revolutionary War is that both countries — England and the U.S. — exchanged prisoners of war because both had “few facilities to accommodate large numbers of prisoners,” according to the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, whose mission it is “to preserve, restore, and manage the estate of George Washington to the highest standards and to educate visitors and people throughout the world about the life and legacies of George Washington.”

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Border Agent Laments Gang Members Entering U.S.: ‘Why Are We Letting Him in Here?’

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Photo Credit: Luis RomeroBorder Patrol officials are swamped by the number of minors crossing illegally into the United States and frustrated that they can’t turn away known Mexican gang members.

Chris Cabrera, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 3307 in the Rio Grande Valley, said that confirmed gang members in Mexico — including those from Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) — are coming into the country to be reunited with their families, National Review reported Friday.

“If he’s a confirmed gang member in his own country, why are we letting him in here? … I’ve heard people come in and say, ‘You’re going to let me go, just like you let my mother go, just like you let my sister go. You’re going to let me go as well, and the government’s going to take care of us,’” Mr. Cabrera told the magazine.

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Unions Push State Legislatures for Labor History Courses

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Photo Credit: Fox News Unions and their allies are trying to flex their muscle in state legislatures, pushing for labor history to be included in social studies curriculum and hoping a new generation of high school students will one day be well-educated union members.

But the results are instead shaping up as a reminder of the tough political landscape faced by organized labor. In six states, opponents have pushed back against demands that teachers offer lessons about the first craft unions in the 19th century, the large-scale organizing drives that powered the growth of industrial unions in the 1930s, the rise of organized labor as a political machine and other highlights of America’s union movement.

California and Delaware are the only states with laws that encourage schools to teach labor history.

Kevin Dayton, a policy consultant to non-union construction companies in California, said the legislation was pushed by unions to boost their ranks.

“They believe that one of the reasons young people are not organizing in unions is because they’re not taught in schools the benefits of being in a collective workforce,” he said.

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Iran Supreme Leader: The Shiite Islamic Messiah Is Coming To Free The World (+video)

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / www.khamenei.irIran’s supreme leader is promising a world free of infidels and nonbelievers with the coming of the Islamic messiah, Mahdi, a 9th-century descendant of the prophet Mohammad whom the Shiites refer to as the 12th Imam.

“The coming of Imam Zaman (Mahdi) is the definite promise by Allah,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech Wednesday on the anniversary of Mahdi’s birthday at an exhibition of research and historical documents on the 12th Imam.

Khamenei said one of Allah’s promises was that an Islamic revolution would come to Iran. “Who would have thought that in this sensitive region and in this important country, with a regime (run by Shah Pahlavi) and supported by the international powers, a revolution based on religion and Sharia (law) would take place?” Khamenei asked.

The Shiite clerical establishment ruling Iran believes that Iran’s 1979 revolution was a precursor to the coming of Mahdi, during which all infidels will be killed and the flag of Islam will be raised in all four corners of the world.

“The caravan of humanity from the day of creation has been moving through the windings of the hard maze (of life) … to reach an open path, (and) this open path is that of the time of the coming of Imam Mahdi,” he said. “The awaiting for the coming is a hopeful and powerful wait, providing the biggest opening for the Islamic society.”

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Ruthless: ISIS Tweets Photo of Severed Head for World Cup

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Photo Credit: TownHall The World Cup kicked off this week and to show their “support,” ISIS savagely tweeted a photo of a Sunni police chief’s severed head and joked about it being a soccer ball.

“This is our ball,” the Iraqi jihadists said in the tweet showing the picture. “It is made of skin #WorldCup #WorldCup2014.”

Via the New York Post (click if you want to see the blurred-out image):

Increasingly violent rebel forces have been documenting their savagery with a steady stream of graphic photographs and videos as they rampage toward Baghdad.

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More Socialized Healthcare: UK Grandmother Having Heart Attack Denied Help From Medical Staff

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Phil NobleA grandmother of three who was suffering a heart attack in front of a medical center in England was forced to call for an ambulance herself after receptionists at the facility refused to help.

That’s the claim made by 58 year-old Hannah Barnes and her family, according to the Shields Gazette, a British newspaper.

Barnes was out shopping when she recognized symptoms similar to those she had experienced in January, when she suffered her first heart attack.

Feeling ill, Barnes headed to Palmer Community Hospital, located in a town called Jarrow, where she asked receptionists there to call emergency services.

Barnes’ family says she was told that she would have to make the call herself, forcing Barnes to search for her cellphone to place the call while suffering a heart attack.

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This IT Worker Had to Train an H-1B Replacement

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Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk (Creative Commons)This is the story of an IT worker who was replaced by a worker on an H-1B visa, one of a number of visa holders, mostly from India, who took jobs at this U.S. company. Computerworld is not going to use the worker’s name or identify the companies involved to protect the former employee from retaliation. For purposes of this story, the worker has been given initials — A.B. (They’re not the person’s real initials.)

At A.B.’s company, about 220 IT jobs have been lost to offshore outsourcing over the last year. A.B. is telling the story because, initially, there was little knowledge among fellow employees about H-1B visa holders and how they are used. They didn’t know that offshore outsourcing firms are the largest users of H-1B visas, or exactly how this visa facilitates IT job losses in the U.S.

“I think once we learned about it, we became angrier toward the U.S. government than we were with the people that were over here from India,” A.B. said, “because the government is allowing this.”

The IT workers at this firm first learned of the offshore outsourcing threat through rumors. Later, the IT staff was called into an auditorium and heard directly from the CIO about the plan to replace them. It would take months for the transition to be completed, in part because of some new system installations.

Many younger IT workers found jobs and left. Mainframe workers were apparently in demand and also able to find new jobs. But older workers with skills in open systems, storage and SAN faced a harder time. About half the IT staffers, mostly the older ones, would stay to the end.

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Obama Urges College Grads to Reject Climate-Change Skepticism

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Photo Credit: Luke Sharrett / BloombergPresident Barack Obama called on Americans coming of age to demand that politicians respond more aggressively to climate change, comparing those skeptical about man-caused alterations to the environment to a belief that the moon is “made of cheese.”

In a commencement address yesterday to graduates of the University of California at Irvine, Obama delivered one of his feistiest critiques of lawmakers who, in objecting to environmental regulations he’s pushing to reduce carbon emissions, question the need for such action.

Obama said rising temperatures and sea levels and intensifying storm patterns define “one of the most significant long-term challenges that our country and our planet face.”

He also used his speech at Angel Stadium of Anaheim to announce a new program in which states, communities and Native American tribes hit by natural disasters can seek money for projects to combat or prepare for climate change-related challenges.

Almost $1 billion will be set aside for the National Disaster Resilience Competition, according to the White House. Some of the money will be available to communities in any state with a presidentially declared major disaster from 2011-2013, while $180 million is reserved for states affected by 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.

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