Former Secret Service Agent Slams D.C. Insider Culture With A Message That Goes Beyond Politics

Photo Credit: IJ ReviewFormer Secret Service Agent Daniel Bongino, who is running for U.S. Senate, recently slammed D.C. insider culture with a message that goes beyond politics.

Over the weekend, Bongino was at a press conference on Capitol Hill for the family of one of the victims of the Benghazi terror attacks. And what he witnessed helped him realize how out of touch the Beltway is to Main Street America.

Bongino posted to his Facebook page:

Over the past few weeks I’ve read a number of articles about DC insiders, from both the elected and bureaucratic-classes, being “surprised” by American public opinion on a range of topics.

Whether it be the “surprise” backlash against the proposed presidential amnesty plan, or the “surprise” at the shift in public opinion on ISIS, the DC elites seem to be consistently caught flat-footed.

They may be surprised, but I’m not. While on Capitol Hill this week, and speaking at a press conference with the family of one of the victims of the Benghazi terror attacks, I watched a number of Capitol Hill staffers and members walk by with that smug, smart-ass look, that only an insulated career in Washington DC can impart upon their out-of-touch faces.

You see, to them this is all a game. A grieving family’s request for simple answers about the death of their son is nothing more than a smug look and a “phony-scandal” sound bite to them.

Read more from this story HERE.

Minnesota’s Biggest (And Cheapest) Obamacare Insurer Drops Out Over Overwhelming Costs

Photo Credit: Reuters The largest insurer with the lowest premium rates on Minnesota’s Obamacare exchange is dropping out because the government health-exchange is unsustainable, the company announced Tuesday.

PreferredOne Health Insurance told MNsure, the state-run exchange, Tuesday morning that it would not continue to offer its popular insurance plans on the marketplace in 2015. It’s “purely a business decision,” spokesman Steve Peterson told KSTP-TV. The company is losing money on administrative costs for plans offered on the bureaucratic and glitchy government exchange.

Part of the problem, according to PreferredOne, is that MNsure hasn’t even been able to verify its customers’ information. PreferredOne said that some of its customers have turned out not to even live in Minnesota.

Read more from this story HERE.

Parents Release Photo of Daughter Born at 24 Weeks to Stop Late-Term Abortions

Parents in England have released a beautiful photo of their daughter, born prematurely at 24 weeks, with the hopes that it will demonstrate the humanity of unborn babies who can be legally killed in abortions in the U.K.

Emily Caines, 35, has released photograph of birth of daughter Adelaide, born at 24 weeks but who was too small to survive even though that is within the 22-24 week time period that is the earliest for premature babies to survive. Caines hopes the photo will raise awareness of neonatal death and she hopes it will prompt lawmakers in Parliament to re-open debate around the 24 week legal abortion limit.

The mother also previously lost daughter Isabelle, born at 23 weeks and she is now pregnant again with a baby she hope will live.

The London Daily Mail reports the story:

The current law allows babies to be terminated up to 24 weeks gestation – the point at which Adelaide was born.

Read more from this story HERE.

Benghazi Bombshell: Hillary Clinton's Team Committed Obstruction of Justice?

Photo Credit: Ron Sachs / NewscomAs the House Select Committee on Benghazi prepares for its first hearing this week, a former State Department diplomat is coming forward with a startling allegation: Hillary Clinton confidants were part of an operation to “separate” damaging documents before they were turned over to the Accountability Review Board investigating security lapses surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

According to former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell, the after-hours session took place over a weekend in a basement operations-type center at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. This is the first time Maxwell has publicly come forward with the story.

At the time, Maxwell was a leader in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, which was charged with collecting emails and documents relevant to the Benghazi probe.

“I was not invited to that after-hours endeavor, but I heard about it and decided to check it out on a Sunday afternoon,” Maxwell says.

He didn’t know it then, but Maxwell would ultimately become one of four State Department officials singled out for discipline—he says scapegoated—then later cleared for devastating security lapses leading up to the attacks. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were murdered during the Benghazi attacks.

Read more from this story HERE.

Watch: Doctors Wanted to Harvest This Comatose Patient’s Organs, But Then He Woke Up

In 2006, Paul Janssen was in a tragic car accident and almost died. The accident left him in a coma and doctors told his family he probably wouldn’t survive. They even asked if was an organ donor and if they wanted to keep him on life support. His parents decided that they weren’t going to give up on him and decided to pray for Paul. Miraculously, Paul woke up from the coma six weeks after the accident.

After hearing stories of how he almost died, Paul started thinking about his life and realized he wasn’t living right before the accident. He even said he believed he deserved to die.

Paul shares about the days leading up to his accident with CBN:

“One day I came home from work and there was a note on the table that said my wife had gone to live with her mother,” Paul said. “I just remember feeling so scared and so angry at the same time. I just started crying out to God. I just asked God, ‘Please bring her back to me.’ After a couple months went by and God didn’t bring her back, that desperation turned into anger. And I just started hating God

Read more from this story HERE.

Cheerleaders Defy School's Ban, Lead Crowd in Lord's Prayer

Photo Credit: Fox NewsOn “Fox and Friends” this morning we heard from two Tennessee high school cheerleaders who defied a ban on prayer before football games.

Oneida High School stopped prayers before athletic events due to the possibility of legal action from the ACLU or atheist organizations.

According to WBTW-TV, the school district received a letter from the ACLU last year, cautioning that school-sanctioned prayer is unconstitutional.

Read more from this story HERE.

In One State, More Children Homeschool Than Attend Private Schools. Why That Shouldn’t Shock You.

Photo Credit: Ken Harper / Creative CommonsIn North Carolina, the number of homeschoolers has now surpassed the number of students attending private schools.

That statistic may seem shocking if you’ve been a stranger to the growth of the homeschooling movement, which has rapidly increased in recent decades.

In 1973, there were approximately 13,000 children, ages 5 to 17, being homeschooled in the United States. But according to the National Center for Education Statistics, as of the 2011-2012 school year, that number has grown to almost 1.8 million or approximately 3.4 percent of the school age population. Other sources report numbers well over 2 million.

In the Tar Heel state alone, homeschooling has increased by 27 percent over the past two years.

Those are pretty impressive numbers for a movement considered “fringe” not that long ago and that has only been legal in all 50 states since 1996.

Read more from this story HERE.

ISIS Urging "Lone Wolves" To Target US Soldiers

Photo Credit: TownHallBy Daniel Doherty.

My visceral reaction to reading this story was intense anger. And yet, why am I bewildered that a terrorist organization that kills innocents has reportedly stepped up its efforts in urging rogue extremists in the U.S. to target American soldiers?

On second thought, I’m not surprised at all. But that doesn’t mean I don’t find their their latest tactic to kill Americans somewhat strange. Is this not the same army of barbarians whose chief spokesman (since killed in a drone strike) arrogantly prodded the president to “send [us] your soldiers, the ones we humiliated in Iraq?” If ISIS is so confident and proud of their own military capabilities, why must they RESORT to such cowardly and desperate acts?

Fox News has the exclusive…

Read more from this story HERE.

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Law enforcement bulletin warned of ISIS urging jihad attacks on US soil

By Jana Winter.

A law ENFORCEMENT bulletin obtained by FoxNews.com warned that Islamic State fighters have increased calls for “lone wolves” to attack U.S. soldiers in America in recent months, citing one tweet that called for jihadists to find service members’ addresses online and then “SHOW up and slaughter them.”

There will be “a continued call – by Western fighters in Syria and terrorist organizations – for lone offender attacks against U.S. military facilities and personnel,” warned a July law enforcement intelligence bulletin from the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange, a state-run agency that gathers, assesses and shares threat information and works with the Department of Homeland Security. “These threats will most likely increase should the U.S. or its allies attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) in Syria or Iraq.”

In one example cited in the bulletin, a British jihadist encouraged radicals still living in the West to use Facebook and LinkedIn to find and target soldiers.

“You could literally search for soldiers, find their town, photos of them, look for address in Yellowbook or something,” the tweet read. “Then SHOW up and slaughter them.”

On Thursday, Peter Boogaard, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, told FoxNews.com that “there is no credible intelligence at this time to suggest that there is an active plot by (ISIS) to carry out an attack in the United States.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: The FederalistWashington’s Ruling Class Is Fooling Itself About The Islamic State

By Angelo Codevilla.

The American people’s reaction to Muslim thugs of the “Islamic State” ritually knifing off the heads of people who look like you and me boils down to “let’s destroy these bastards”—which is common sense. But our ruling class, from President Obama on the Left to The Wall Street Journal on the Right, take the public’s pressure to do this as another occasion for further indulging their longtime preferences, prejudices, and proclivities for half-measures in foreign affairs—the very things that have invited people from all over the planet to join hunting season on Americans.

This indulgence so overwhelms our ruling class’s perception of reality that the recipes put forth by its several wings, little different from one another, are identical in the one essential respect: none of them involve any plans which, if carried out, would destroy the Islamic State, kill large numbers of the cut-throats, and discourage others from following in their footsteps. Hence, like the George W. Bush’s “war on terror” and for the same reasons, this exercise of our ruling class’s wisdom in foreign affairs will decrease respect for us while invigorating our enemies.

The WSJ’s recommendations, like the Obama administration’s projected activities, are all about discrete measures—some air strikes, some arming of local forces, etc. But they abstract from the fundamental reality of any and all activities: He who wills any end must will the means to achieve it…

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Feds Mum on Prosecution of Illegal Border Crossers

Photo Credit: Getty ImagesBy Astrid Galvan.

The federal government refuses to say whether prosecutors in Yuma, Arizona, have scaled back a years-old program that guarantees jail time for most immigrants caught crossing the border illegally and which law enforcement officials say is crucial to public safety.

Reports that federal prosecutors have stopped some prosecutions under Operation Streamline surfaced nearly two weeks ago when Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder seeking information on the status of the zero-tolerance program that circumvents the civil immigration system and lumps together months’ worth of criminal proceedings into one day for immigrants caught crossing the border illegally.

Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot said in a letter to the senators that he had been informed that federal prosecutors in Yuma are no longer going after first offenders.

But the government has been completely silent on the issue. Public affairs officials from the Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection have all refused to answer questions about whether the program has been scaled back.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Breitbart474 ILLEGALS FROM TERRORISM-LINKED COUNTRIES APPREHENDED IN 2014 ALONE

By Edwin Mora.

U.S. Border Patrol agents have apprehended at least 474 aliens from terrorism-linked countries attempting to sneak into the country illegally this year alone, according to a leaked document obtained by Breitbart Texas.

According to the document from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Intelligence and Investigative Liaison, of the 474 aliens, 76 are from terrorism-linked nations located in and around the jihadist Islamic State’s area of operation — Turkey (41), Saudi Arabia (13), Syria (7), Jordan (7), Iraq (4),Iran (3), and J Kuwait (1).

The Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, controls areas inside Syria and Iraq, both countries are bordered by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Jordan.

Illegals from terrorism-linked countries apprehended by Border Patrol agents are referred to as Special Interest Aliens (SIAs) in the CBP intelligence document.

SIAs are individuals whose native country is found on a list of 35 nations described in a November 2004 CBP memo as “special interest countries.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Russian Nuclear Bombers Intercepted by US Near Alaska

Photo Credit: TownHallRussian strategic nuclear bombers carried out air defense zone incursions near Alaska and across Northern Europe this week in the latest nuclear saber rattling by Moscow.

Six Russian aircraft, including two Bear H nuclear bombers, two MiG-31 fighter jets and two IL-78 refueling tankers were intercepted by F-22 fighters on Wednesday west and north of Alaska in air defense identification zones, said Navy Capt. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Two other Bears were intercepted by Canadian jets on Thursday.

“The group of Russian aircraft flew a loop south, returning westward toward Russia,” Davis told the Free Beacon.

A day later two more Bear bombers were intercepted by Canadian CF-18 jets in the western area of the Canadian air defense identification zone near the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, he said.

The Russian bombers did not enter U.S. airspace but flew within 63 miles of the Alaskan coast and 46 miles of the Canadian coastline, Davis said.

Read more from this story HERE.