Obama Administration Hands Oil Industry a Big Win

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Obama administration announced Friday that it would allow exploration for oil and gas off some portions of the Atlantic Coast using sonic testing devices that environmentalists say harm marine life.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management gave the OK for seismic airgun testing, which are boat-towed cannons that shoot sonar blasts off the ocean floor to scan for oil-and-gas deposits, in the mid- and south-Atlantic areas that stretch from the Delaware Bay to just south of Cape Canaveral, Fla. The approval is a prelude to potential offshore drilling there, though that is blocked through 2017 under President Obama’s five-year offshore drilling plan.

“The bureau has identified a path forward that addresses the need to update the nearly four-decade-old data in the region while protecting marine life and cultural sites,” said Acting BOEM Director Walter D. Cruickshank, who noted the agency has several permits on hand to conduct the seismic tests. “The bureau’s decision reflects a carefully analyzed and balanced approach that will allow us to increase our understanding of potential offshore resources while protecting the human, marine and coastal environments.”

It’s a big victory for the oil-and-gas industry, which is nearing its first chance to drill in the Atlantic Ocean in more than 30 years. It comes as BOEM recently raised its estimates for technically recoverable oil in the region to 4.72 billion barrels of oil and 37.51 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — 43 percent and 20 percent higher, respectively, than agency estimates in 2011.

Read more from this story HERE.

SHOCK: Malaysian Airlines Jet Shot Down By Missile Near Ukraine-Russia Border (+video)

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Dominique Faget / AFP / Getty

Photo Credit: Dominique Faget / AFP / Getty

By CBS Seattle/AP.

A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday as it flew over the country, and both the government and the pro-Russia separatists fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the plane.

As plumes of black smoke rose up near a rebel-held village of Grabovo in eastern Ukraine, an Associated Press journalist counted at least 22 bodies at the crash site 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border.

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet). He also said it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, which can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet).

A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday.

Malaysia Airlines confirmed that it received notification from Ukrainian aviation authorities that it had lost contact with flight MH17 at 1415 GMT some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Tamak waypoint, approximately 50 km (30 miles) from the Russia-Ukraine border.

Read more from this story HERE.

_________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: SkyNews

Photo Credit: SkyNews

Plane ‘Shot Down’: Britons Among 298 Killed

By Sky News.

A plane which crashed in eastern Ukraine with 298 people, including nine Britons, on board was reportedly shot down as it flew near airspace deemed unsafe for passenger jets.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was travelling at an altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 metres) when contact was lost.

An adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry told the Interfax news agency the Boeing 777 was brought down by a Buk ground-to-air missile, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members.

As well as the nine Britons, the victims included 154 Dutch, 45 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one Canadian.

Three infants are among the dead, and the nationalities of 41 passengers have yet to be verified. These are thought to include a number of Americans.

Read more from this story HERE.

_________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: AP / Dmitry Lovetsky

Photo Credit: AP / Dmitry Lovetsky

Ukraine Rebels Say They Have The Most Plane Recorders

By Yuras Karmanau and Dmitry Lovetsky.

Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners – dressed in overalls and covered in soot – searched through wreckage and bodies scattered across sunflower fields and Ukrainian villages Friday after a Malaysian jetliner flying high above the country’s battlefield was shot down, killing 298 people.

Separatist rebels who control the area where the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was brought down said they had recovered most of its black boxes and were considering what to do with them. Their statement had profound implications for the integrity of the plane crash investigation.

U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile downed the plane, but could not say who fired it.

Ukraine, whose investigators have no access to the area, has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and insisted it was not its military.

Read more from this story HERE.

_________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Malaysia jet crashes in east Ukraine conflict zone

By BBC News.

A Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 295 people has crashed in east Ukraine on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

There are no signs of survivors at the scene of the crash near the village of Grabovo, in rebel-held territory close to the border with Russia.

Both sides in Ukraine’s civil conflict accused each other of shooting down the plane with a missile. It is still not clear why the plane came down.

It is the second disaster suffered by Malaysia Airlines this year.

Flight MH370 disappeared en route from Malaysia to China in March and still has not been found.

Read more from this story HERE.

DOJ: We Heard About IRS Missing Emails On The News

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Gary Cameron

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Gary Cameron

James Cole, deputy attorney general in the Department of Justice, testified Thursday that the DOJ heard about the destruction of IRS officials’ emails in the news, even though DOJ has formally been investigating the IRS for more than a year.

“I think we learned about it after that, from press accounts,” Cole told House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan at a hearing Thursday on the DOJ’s response to the wave of computer crashes at the IRS that wiped out seven different employees’ hard drives. (RELATED: Meet The Seven IRS Employees Whose Computer Crashed). DOJ has allegedly been conducting a widely-mocked investigation into the IRS conservative targeting scandal for more than a year, and recently announced that a new investigation is underway into the IRS missing emails.

Read more from this story HERE.

The U.S. Constitution: Beautifully Conceived

/3 Comments/in , /by

constitution_quill_pen-300x197Teaching in high schools in New York City for twenty-one years, it was disturbing to see that U.S. history textbooks often distance themselves from open praise and delight at the system of government our country enjoys. No sense of resounding gratitude is expressed for our Constitution. Federalism and checks and balances are dryly presented in a detached manner as mere mechanisms. There is no sense of honor accorded to the incredible vision of a government “conceived in liberty,” with the centers of power placed under wonderful constraints against tyranny.

Further, students will typically find politically correct statements in their books or hear them from their teachers to the effect that in the beginning women could not vote, the slaves had no rights, and “liberties still had to be won.” These disclaimers are intended to dilute the students’ patriotism; our founding was just another event on the world stage. It had plusses and minuses like all of history, and nothing exceptional occurred. One is reminded of President Obama’s repeated rejections of American exceptionalism, and how our freedoms are defined too negatively by the Constitution, with too many “freedom from” provisions, instead of affirming governmental “freedom to” control, direct, and provide for the so-called general welfare (via redistribution of wealth).

Textbooks must return to glorifying our Constitution so that dissatisfactions and rejection will fade into oblivion. What great truths, then, are enshrined in the Constitution?

Non-monarchical. Our system of government was the first non-monarchical system in the modern world except for a couple of cities in Switzerland. Here we do not have to bow before any man, but can live in the dignity of our personhood with others. William Penn, as part of his Quaker beliefs, disdained even the removal of his hat before the King of England as unworthy obeisance. (Fortunately for him, the King was well-disposed toward William!)

Read more from this story HERE.

“Pro-life” Senator Votes to Overturn Hobby Lobby Ruling

/9 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (D) has some explaining to do. Although the senator has proclaimed to be pro-life, his recent support of a Democratic bill to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling on Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, suggests otherwise. This failed legislation would have reversed a decision that protects the Christian company’s religious freedom and avoid providing employees abortion-inducing drugs.

Manchin explained his support for the bill as such:

“Today, I voted in support of overturning the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision that ruled for-profit companies can opt out of providing contraceptives to their employees because of religious beliefs,” Manchin said. “As Governor and U.S. Senator, I have always fought to protect the sincerely-held religious views of non-profit organizations, like soup kitchens, colleges, hospitals and similar non-profit organizations…

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Just Exempted US Territories From Obamacare (+video message from Joe Miller)

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AFP / Saul LOEB

Photo Credit: AFP / Saul LOEB

The Obama administration issued yet another waiver to get out of Obamacare — for all the U.S. territories.

The exemption, posted Thursday on a Department of Health and Human Services website, frees U.S. territories from a host of Obamacare regulations on health insurance markets. The territories already weren’t subject to much of the health care law — the individual mandate doesn’t apply to the territories and premium subsidies aren’t available.

What did apply were a host of regulations on the health insurance markets operating in the territories. Obamacare’s rules for insurance companies — providing mandated health benefits to all customers, limits on insurer profits, and guaranteed coverage for those with pre-existing conditions — all force insurers to take a hit, but in the territories, the sweeteners that make Obamacare a great deal for insurance companies in the states don’t apply.

The individual mandate and premium subsidies were supposed to bring healthy and young customers into the insurance market. Even in the states, that’s not working nearly as well as the Obama administration had hoped. But without either provisions, the insurance markets in the territories were tanking due to the influx of sick patients and the new benefits insurers were required to provide.

Read more from this story HERE.

____________________________________

Alaska U.S. Senate Candidate Joe Miller has a blast telling you how he REALLY feels about Obamacare. WATCH and SHARE:

Snowden: NSA Employees Passing Around Nude Photos

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Alan Rusbridger for the Guardian

Photo Credit: Alan Rusbridger for the Guardian

The NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has urged lawyers, journalists, doctors, accountants, priests and others with a duty to protect confidentiality to upgrade security in the wake of the spy surveillance revelations.

Snowden said professionals were failing in their obligations to their clients, sources, patients and parishioners in what he described as a new and challenging world.

“What last year’s revelations showed us was irrefutable evidence that unencrypted communications on the internet are no longer safe. Any communications should be encrypted by default,” he said.

The response of professional bodies has so far been patchy.

A minister at the Home Office in London, James Brokenshire, said during a Commons debate about a new surveillance bill on Tuesday that a code of practice to protect legal professional privilege and others requiring professional secrecy was under review.

Read more from this story HERE.

Barack Obama Turning Over Control Of U.S. Oceans To The United Nations

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Bing

Photo Credit: Bing

It seems there is just too much on the plate of our current president, Barack Obama. With so many duties to fulfill, it appears he’s having trouble keeping up. Just to take care of one task, he neglects another and it is starting to split the American people even more. Just here on The Inquisitr, we reported how Obama is somewhat avoiding the situation at the Texas border. This includes two trips in which the first he avoided the border completely and the second, he “talked” about the border’s problem of illegal immigration. In the end, it looks like all he wanted to do was kick back, shoot pool, and drink beer in Denver.

Now reports are coming in that Barack Obama is renewing his efforts for the U.S. to join the Law of the Sea Treaty which was enforced by the United Nations. Summarized, Obama is turning over control of U.S. oceans to the U.N.

According to an article by Truth and Action, the United States is no stranger when it comes to this treaty by the United Nations. For the last 30 years, the U.S. has refused to be a part of this, but with Barack Obama at the presidential seat, it looks like we might surrender our U.S. sovereignty of our oceans. This can actually be very bad for the United States in general, especially for business. On the outside, it looks as if handing over the U.S. ocean’s control to the U.N. means that they have control of the world’s seas but this will also allow the U.N. to tax American citizens and companies just for using the seas.

Read more from this story HERE.

Released Alien from Border Crisis Arrested for Alleged Murder, Kidnapping in Texas (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

An illegal immigrant who was released by U.S. authorities with a Notice to Appear has been arrested for the alleged murder of a woman and kidnapping of children on U.S. soil. The alleged crimes occurred after the man was released.

The man, Pedro Alberto Monterroso-Navas, entered the U.S. illegally with children and turned himself in to U.S. Border Patrol agents. He was processed and released, as are all illegal immigrants who come as unaccompanied minors or incomplete family units from Central America. The alien is from Honduras.

The arrest was first reported by the Associated Press (AP), but Breitbart Texas has exclusively confirmed that the man was part of the Obama Administration’s catch and release policy for family groups from Central America.

Read more from this story HERE.

Tea Party Candidate Calls Out GOP Opponents In This Fiery Debate Read (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

joemillergiU.S. Senate candidate and Tea Party favorite Joe Miller made a name for himself as a hopeful in 2010. This year, he is facing fierce Republican competition by making sure voters recognize the differences between the candidates vying to take over Democrat Mark Begich’s seat.

A recent debate gave the Alaskan an opportunity to showcase his beliefs in contrast to those of his rivals.

He started with the hot-button issue of the day: amnesty.

Miller asserted that one of his opponents, Mead Treadwell, has a documented history of supporting a path toward citizenship for illegal aliens. He also noted that his other primary rival, Dan Sullivan, has received significant funding – hundreds of thousands of dollars – from organizations that support amnesty.

He also touched on global warming, explaining he is the only candidate with a proven track record of disputing the left’s assertion that man is to blame for changes in the climate.

“I am the only one standing on this stage that, at least consistently, stated that manmade global warming, the science on it, is inconclusive,” he said. “Both of my opponents have made statements that they support the belief in manmade global warming.”

Read more from this story HERE.

See more from B. Christopher Agee here at WesternJournalism.com