City Mandates Free Medical Marijuana for Low-Income Residents

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Photo Credit: My Fox NYWeed welfare?

That’s what the Berkeley City Council in California has unanimously approved, ordering medical marijuana dispensaries to donate 2 percent of their stash to patients making less than $32,000 a year.

The new welfare program in the liberal-leaning city is set to launch in August 2015.

The ordinance, which passed in August and is the first of its kind in the country, comes at a time when several states are debating how to handle a growing movement to legalize marijuana for both medical and recreational use.

But Berkeley’s decision to effectively order weed redistribution is prompting a vocal backlash.

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Top CIA Officer in Benghazi Delayed Response to Terrorist Attack, US Security Team Members Claim

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsA U.S. security team in Benghazi was held back from immediately responding to the attack on the American diplomatic mission on orders of the top CIA officer there, three of those involved told Fox News’ Bret Baier.

Their account gives a dramatic new turn to what the Obama administration and its allies would like to dismiss as an “old story” – the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Speaking out publicly for the first time, the three were security operators at the secret CIA annex in Benghazi – in effect, the first-responders to any attack on the diplomatic compound. Their first-hand account will be told in a Fox News special, airing Friday night at 10 p.m. (EDT).

Based on the new book “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi” by Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team, the special sets aside the political spin that has freighted the Benghazi issue for the last two years, presenting a vivid, compelling narrative of events from the perspective of the men who wore the “boots on the ground.”

The security contractors — Kris (“Tanto”) Paronto, Mark (“Oz”) Geist, and John (“Tig”) Tiegen — spoke exclusively, and at length, to Fox News about what they saw and did that night. Baier, Fox News’ Chief Political Anchor, asked them about one of the most controversial questions arising from the events in Benghazi: Was help delayed?

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Hacker Breached HealthCare.gov Insurance Site

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By Danny Yadron.

A hacker broke into part of the HealthCare.gov insurance enrollment website in July and uploaded malicious software, according to federal officials.

Investigators found no evidence that consumers’ personal data was taken in the breach, federal officials said. The hacker appears only to have accessed a server used to test code for HealthCare.gov. The Department of Health and Human Services discovered the attack last week.

An HHS official said the attack appears to mark the first successful intrusion into the website, where millions of Americans bought insurance starting last year under the Affordable Care Act. It raised concerns among federal officials because of how easily the intruder gained access and how much damage could have occurred.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: TownHallTrainwreck, Continued: Eight New Pieces of Bad Obamacare News

By Guy Benson.

Who’s up for the latest batch of bad Obamacare-related news?

(1) Consumers brace for the second full year of Obamacare implementation, as the average individual market premium hike clocks in at eight percent — with some rates spiking by as much as 30 percent.

(2) “Wide swings in prices,” with some experiencing “double digit increases.”(Remember what we were promised):

Insurance executives and managers of the online marketplaces are already girding for the coming open enrollment period, saying they fear it could be even more difficult than the last. One challenge facing consumers will be wide swings in prices. Some insurers are seeking double-digit price increases…

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Army Can't Track Spending on $4.3b System to Track Spending, IG Finds

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Photo Credit: iStockMore than $725 million was spent by the Army on a high-tech network for tracking supplies and expenses that failed to comply with federal financial reporting rules meant to allow auditors to track spending, according to an inspector general’s report issued Wednesday.

The Global Combat Support System-Army, a logistical support system meant to track supplies, spare parts and other equipment, was launched in 1997. In 2003, the program switched from custom software to a web-based commercial software system.

About $95 million was spent before the switch was made, according to the report from the Department of Defense IG.

As of this February, the Army had spent $725.7 million on the system, which is ultimately expected to cost about $4.3 billion.

Read more from this story HERE.

Keystone Showdown: Battle Over Pipeline Lands Before Nebraska High Court

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Photo Credit: ReutersThe national debate on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline will concentrate on Lincoln, Nebraska Friday as that state’s Supreme Court hears arguments in a case examining whether lawmakers short-circuited the regular approval process in an attempt to expedite the pipeline’s construction.

The court’s ruling – not expected for several months — could force President Obama’s hand in making a final decision whether to green light the oft-stalled project.

Protests and political outrage have accompanied the proposed pipeline for years, but quieted down in recent months because of the Nebraska litigation and the Obama administration’s decision to wait for a ruling in the case before moving forward.

“The issue never goes away if you’re dealing with the pipeline on a local level,” anti-pipeline activist Jane Kleeb told Fox News. “While it may not be on the front page of newspapers nationwide, we’re dealing with it on a daily basis.”

Friday’s case before the seven-member court does not examine whether the pipeline should be built in Nebraska – or anywhere else — but rather if the state’s unicameral legislature improperly passed a law giving the governor authority to approve the project rather than the state’s Public Service Commission. It will take a supermajority of five justices to invalidate the law.

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Global Crisis: Calls Intensify for International Military Response to Ebola

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As the Ebola epidemic threatens to overwhelm response efforts in West Africa, calls for international military assistance are picking up. The medical charity Doctors Without Borders called on world leaders to send military units with expertise in biohazard containment to combat the worst outbreak of the virus on record. The European Commission’s humanitarian arm (ECHO) is also calling for military medical intervention to combat the epidemic, including U.S. Army and Navy Seal protection teams. But ECHO health adviser Jorge Castilla-Echenique warned of the high financial costs involved in a “M.A.S.H. like operation” in an interview with Thomson Reuters Foundation. U.S. Army mobile surgical hospitals have the capacity to serve as fully functional health facilities, but they do not come cheap, he said…

Read more from this story HERE.

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Grim Ebola prediction: outbreak is ‘unstoppable’ for now, says U.S. virologist

A doctor who just returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa predicts the current Ebola outbreak will go on for more than a year, and will continue to spread unless a vaccine or other drugs that prevent or treat the disease are developed. Dr. Daniel Lucey, an expert on viral outbreaks and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Medical Center, recently spent three weeks in Sierra Leone, one of the countries affected by the Ebola outbreak. While there, Lucey evaluated and treated Ebola patients, and trained other doctors and nurses on how to use protective equipment. The current Ebola outbreak, which is mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, has so far killed at least 1,552 of the more than 3,000 people infected, making it the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. It is also the first outbreak to spread from rural areas to cities. Strategies that have worked in the past to stop Ebola outbreaks in rural areas may not, by themselves, be enough to halt this outbreak, Lucey said. “I don’t believe that our traditional methods of being able to control and stop outbreaks in rural areas … is going to be effective in most of the cities,” Lucey said yesterday (Sept. 3) in a discussion held at Georgetown University Law Center that was streamed online.

While the World Health Organization has released a plan to stop Ebola transmission within six to nine months, “I think that this outbreak is going to go on even longer than a year,” Lucey said. In addition, without vaccines or drugs for Ebola, “I’m not confident we will be able to stop it,” Lucey said. There are a few studies of Ebola treatments and prevention methods under way, but more research is needed to show whether they are safe and effective against the disease. One strategy that could help with the current outbreak is to implement public health “command centers” whose job it is to make sure that tools and equipment sent to the affected regions are properly distributed to places that need them, Lucey said…

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Maine Mom Fights State to Keep Baby Daughter Alive after She Emerges from Coma

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsA teenage mother from Maine has the governor on her side in a legal battle to keep her ailing baby alive, even though the state now has custody and previously sought to enforce a “Do Not Resuscitate” order.

One-year-old Aleah Peaslee, who was left in a coma last December after allegedly being shaken by her 21-year-old father, miraculously emerged from the state not long after being placed in the arms of her mother, Virginia Trask, according to court papers. But by then, Trask, told by doctors the baby’s brain damage was severe, had signed off on a DNR order and the baby had been taken into custody by the state due to the alleged abuse at the hands of Kevin Peaslee.

What has ensued is a legal battle over who has the right to rescind the order, the state or the parent. And although a state court ruled in favor of the Maine Department of Health and Human Development, Gov. Paul LePage made clear to FoxNews.com on Thursday that he will not allow state bureaucrats to usurp a parent’s rights regardless of how the appellate court, which has the case on its docket Sept. 23, comes down.

“This case is disturbing and is not reflective of my Administration’s position that a parent who is the legal guardian of their child should have final say in medical decisions about life-sustaining treatment,” said LePage. “The existing law violates the sanctity of parental rights, and I cannot support it. Unless a parent is deemed unfit and parental rights are severed, the state should not override a parent’s right to make medical decisions for their own child.”

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Obama’s Approval Rating Drops To All-Time Low … Again

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Obama-worried-1109President Obama’s approval rating returned to his record low Thursday, following his admission last week that the White House “has no strategy” to deal with the growing threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Just 38 percent of Americans approve of the job the president is doing, according to Gallup’s Daily Tracking Poll. His rating has declined steadily since December of last year, when the 50 percent of Americans approved of his work, and the newest number ties his all-time low.

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Sudanese Woman Who Faced Death Sentence Rather Than Renounce Christ to be Honored in D.C.

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Photo Credit: AP / Al Fajer

Photo Credit: AP / Al Fajer

Meriam Ibrahim–the Sudanese woman married to a naturalized U.S. citizen who refused to renounce her Christian faith even while facing a death sentence for it–will be honored later this month in Washington, D.C., at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit.

“Meriam’s bold stand for Jesus Christ as she faced death has touched the hearts of people in every nation,” said FRC President Tony Perkins. “Her incredible example of courage should inspire Christians in America to be bold and courageous in their faith as we witness growing religious hostility here in our country.”

Meriam, who was raised in Sudan as a Christian by her Christian mother after her Muslim father abandoned her family, married Daniel Wani in Khartoum in December 2011. Wani had moved to the United States from Sudan in 1998 and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2005.

In November 2012, eleven months after they were married, Daniel and Meriam had their first child, Martin, in Sudan.

In May of this year, a Sudanese court convicted Ibrahim of “apostasy,” because her father had been a Muslim and she professed Christianity. The court also convicted her of “adultery” because it refused to recognize her marriage to a Christian as legitimate. The court sentenced her to die for her alleged “apostasy” and to be whipped for her purported “adultery.”

Read more from this story HERE.

'We're a Movement Now': Fast Food Workers Strike in 150 Cities

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Photo Credit: SETH FREED WESSLER / NBC NEWS

Photo Credit: SETH FREED WESSLER / NBC NEWS

Fast food workers walked off the job nationwide on Thursday, as police arrested dozens who engaged in civil disobedience.

Organizers said workers in an estimated 150 cities were expected to take part in the strike, which they said marked an intensification of their two-year campaign to raise hourly pay in the industry to $15 and to win workers’ right to form a union. Organizers said dozens of workers had been arrested in cities including Kansas City, Detroit, and New York.

In Kansas City, workers were expected to walk out of 60 restaurants, and more than 50 workers were arrested. Ten minutes after they sat down and linked arms in an intersection in front of a McDonald’s, police arrived with vans and plastic cuffs and arrested the protesters one by one. They were joined by more than 100 other fast food workers, clergy members and other allies who stood on the sidewalk across the street and chanted “15 and a union,” and sang spirituals.

Latoya Caldwell, a Wendy’s worker, sat near the edge of the group in the street wearing a t-shirt that read “Stand Up KC” and beside a woman holding a sign bearing the face of Rosa Parks. Caldwell was arrested and loaded into a van.

Read more from this story HERE.