Senior Republicans Criticize Ebola 'Czar' Choice for Lack of Medical Background

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Photo Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta, APBy Fox News.

Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill Friday criticized Ron Klain, President Obama’s choice to be “Ebola czar,” as a figurehead with no health background.

“Given the mounting failings in the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak, it is right that the president has sought to task a single individual to coordinate its response, “said Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “But I have to ask why the president didn’t pick an individual with a noteworthy infectious disease or public health background?”

Klain, a longtime political hand, served as chief of staff to Al Gore and Vice President Joe Biden but has no apparent medical or health care background.

A White House official said Friday that Klain comes to the job with “strong management credentials, extensive federal government experience overseeing complex operations and good working relationships with leading members of Congress, as well as senior Obama administration officials, including the president.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called him an “excellent choice.”

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Photo Credit: TownHallGood News: Obama Appoints Ebola Czar

By Daniel Doherty.

Katie noted earlier today that the president has been toying with the idea of appointing an “Ebola Czar” to deal with this crisis – presumably because the CDC Director and others have failed to do so. Now he has.

According to CNN, the president has tapped Ron Klain for the job, a White House insider who was the point person on the stimulus act and has a reputation in Washington for managerial competence…

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Photo Credit: Associated PressObama Names Democratic Operative to Coordinate Ebola Response

By SABRINA TAVERNISE and MITCH SMITH.

President Obama named a trusted political adviser on Friday to take over the government’s response to the deadly Ebola virus, as health officials in two states worked to track a growing list of people who may have been exposed because of missteps in quarantine and containment.

The appointment of Ron Klain, a seasoned Democratic operative and White House veteran, spoke of the seriousness of the situation for the administration, which was eager to put the management of the crisis back on track in the midst of a tough election season. The response has been criticized as sloppy, with two intensive care nurses in a Dallas hospital falling ill after treating a Liberian, Thomas Eric Duncan, who eventually died from the virus. One of the nurses had been allowed to take a commercial flight despite telling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that she had a slight fever.

The appointment came a day after members of Congress lashed out at federal health officials and just hours after the disclosure by the State Department that yet another employee of the Dallas hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian, who had handled Ebola specimens in a lab, had traveled, boarding a Caribbean cruise ship. The government of Belize said the ship was in that country’s waters, but the authorities there have refused to allow American officials to evacuate the passenger. Mexico would not even allow the ship to dock, and it was headed back to Galveston, Tex., with the lab worker held in isolation. Officials said the risk of infection was very low, but the revelation deepened the impression that the administration was struggling to stay ahead of the virus and the public anxiety.

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How an Obama Administration Policy is Destroying Lives

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Photo Credit: AIMIn late August and early September, hospitals across the nation began reporting an explosion of severe respiratory illnesses among children. Children’s Hospital Colorado treated about 3,600 children between August 18 and September 24, and at least 692 since. On September 5th, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital saw a one day record of 540 kids. The emergency room was filled to capacity. Mobile, Alabama’s USA Children’s and Women’s Hospital reported 340 cases by September 12th. Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri had seen 450 patients as of September 7th, 60 of whom required intensive care. At least six Chicago area hospitals were so overwhelmed that they stopped admitting patients under 18 “until further notice.” Many infected children across the country are experiencing some form of paralysis. Six children and at least two adults have died.

Government health officials haven’t offered any explanation for the unusual outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control has pointedly refused to disclose the states where children have died or even specific locations of outbreaks. State and local officials are similarly closed mouthed. Except for suggesting routine precautions, public officials largely refuse to offer any details whatsoever, and in some cases have spread misinformation. And the media seem incapable of penetrating the wall of silence, simply repeating the official narrative. But there is significant, almost irrefutable evidence that this outbreak is the direct result of this year’s illegal alien invasion from Central America.

Frequently called the “mystery” illness, no healthcare professional has offered an explanation for how it got here or why it is hitting children now. The worst cases have been identified as stemming from Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68). Enteroviruses are among the most common pathogens, responsible for a wide variety of illnesses, including polio, but usually infections are mild. There are over 100 Enterovirus variants and about 10 to 15 million cases in the U.S. each year. The CDC explains away the outbreak by citing this figure, and noting that many more children die each year from influenza.

But this outbreak is different. Before this year, the D68 strand was almost unheard of. Between 1970 and 2005, only 26 cases of EV-D68 were reported in the U.S. Yet this year, in less than two months, the CDC has reported 780 cases in 46 states, and there are likely many more undiagnosed. Half the specimens tested by the CDC are EV-D68, but since August there have been thousands—perhaps even tens of thousands—of severe respiratory cases treated around the country that the CDC has not tested. D68 also seems to be associated with the paralysis occurring among many of the infected, but doctors are unsure how. In early 2014, a polio-like virus crippled 25 children in California. Enterovirus was suspected, and the symptoms were similar to those seen among children in Asia and Australia.

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FBI Quest for Smartphone Data Will Fuel Privacy Battle

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In the battle over how much access law enforcement should have to your smartphone, don’t expect the government to be outsmarted without a fight.

FBI Director James Comey said as much Thursday in a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington, suggesting the agency might ask congress to force companies to provide what amounts to a “back door” to law enforcement to obtain password-protected data on targeted personal mobile devices.

“We’re hoping to start a dialogue with congress” on updating laws that require tech companies to comply, he told the audience.

But he might find more than the usual resistance on Capitol Hill these days, and not just from known privacy critics and libertarians. A White House advisory panel convened in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks about widespread government surveillance of Americans formally recommended that laws should “not in any way subvert, undermine, weaken or make vulnerable generally available commercial software.”

Moreover, typical law-and-order Republicans who might normally side with the FBI said they feel burned by government spying and want more assurances that Americans’ Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizures is protected.

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Houston to Pastors: Forget Your Sermons, Now We Want Your Speeches

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsFive Christian pastors will no longer have to turn their sermons over to attorneys for the city of Houston. Instead, they will be forced to turn over their speeches related to the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO).

I don’t mean to point out the obvious here – but what do those attorneys think a sermon is? It’s a speech.

According to an amended motion filed Friday in Harris County, Texas court, the city’s attorneys will no longer demand sermons related to homosexuals, gender identity, or Mayor Annise Parker – Houston’s first openly lesbian mayor.

The amended subpoenas do require the pastors to turn over “all speeches or presentations related to HERO” – along with 17 different categories of information.

The Alliance Defending Freedom is a religious liberty law firm that is representing the pastors. Attorney Erik Stanley tells me the amended subpoenas don’t solve anything.

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'Dragon's Egg': Marines Who Guarded Saddam's Mysterious Bunker Fear Weapons Unleashed

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsThe U.S. Marines who guarded the sprawling complex in northwest Iraq where Saddam Hussein’s 1980s war machine churned out some of the most deadly chemical and biological weapons known to man had a name for one especially mysterious bunker: The Dragon’s Egg.

Although the Americans assigned to the Al Muthanna facility until 2008 were forbidden by superiors from peering inside the bunker, they knew the larger complex’s history. From 1983 to 1990, the brutal dictator’s scientists worked there, developing mustard, sarin, VX and Tabun gases for use on Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds. And although it was under the control of U.S. and Iraqi military forces for most of the last decade, the entire facility – and whatever it held – is now firmly in the grasp of the Islamic State, the terrorist army that has claimed a vast swath of Iraq and Syria and allegedly used chemical weapons against Kurds this summer.

The X-shaped bunker, encased in cement and shrouded in mystery, was one of two that were handled differently from the many other bunkers that made up the facility, according to Lt. Joshua Hartley, who was stationed there in 2008. It was off-limits.

“We were made aware of a particular bunker on the north side [of Al Muthanna] which we were informed was sealed and remotely monitored,” Hartley, who served in the weapons company of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, told FoxNews.com. “We were not to approach, and definitely not to attempt to enter.”

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Ted Cruz Tells Brody File: "Real Risk" Of Pastors Being Jailed For Preaching Against Homosexuality (+video)

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In an exclusive interview with The Brody File, Senator Ted Cruz says pastors being hauled off to jail by the government for preaching against homosexuality is a “real risk” in the future. ““I think that is a real risk,” Cruz tells me. “Some in the media ridicule that threat saying there is no danger of the government coming after pastors. That is the usual response.” But he adds: “The specter of government trying to determine if what pastors preach from the pulpit meets with the policy views or political correctness of the governing authorities, that prospect is real and happening now.”

Watch the clip below…

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Nashville Police Chief Drops Major Allegation About Secret Service in Letter to House Oversight Committee

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Photo Credit: https://www.nashville.govNashville Police Chief Steve Anderson is blowing the whistle on alleged misconduct by the U.S. Secret Service during a January 2013 incident involving a man who reportedly made fake death threats against President Barack Obama on Facebook.

The resident refused to let officers enter his home or follow orders to come outside . He was heard shouting at officers, “show me your warrant.”

In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Anderson claimed that a Secret Service agent asked a police sergeant to “wave a piece of paper” in order to “dupe” the suspect into thinking officers had a warrant.

Officers with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department did not comply with the request, according to the police chief. Police officers ultimately determined that Secret Service agents had no legal basis to enter the resident’s home and the suspect didn’t actually threaten anyone. Fortunately, the situation was resolved without incident and law enforcement left.

In a past letter to then-Secret Service Director Julia Pierson and Assistant Director A.T. Smith, Anderson explained that the incident could have “escalated into a serious and/or embarrassing situation for both of our agencies” if MNPD officers complied with the Secret Service “directive.”

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Obama’s Credit Card Denied at Restaurant on New York City Trip

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Photo Credit: White House President Obama came perilously close to having to wash some dishes on his recent trip to New York.

Mr. Obama revealed Friday that his credit card was rejected when he went to pay for his meal at a New York restaurant during the U.N. General Assembly gathering last month.

“Turns out I guess I don’t use it enough,” so the payment wouldn’t go through, Mr. Obama explained.

“Apparently they thought there was some fraud going on,” Mr. Obama joked at a meeting Friday with employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Board, adding that “even I am affected” by the difficulties of dealing with the American financial system. The remarks were picked up by the C-SPAN feed of the event.

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What The Founding Fathers Believed About Homosexuality

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I have made no bones about the fact that the ultimate authority on the issue of homosexuality is the Bible and it is crystal clear in condemning it. If others want to cite polls and commentaries and “experts” to attempt to bolster their claim in favor of homosexuality, they are welcome to do so. However, what I find a bit disingenuous are those that will talk about rights within the context of the Constitution, which was written by men, not God as though the men who wrote it and backed it would have sided with practicing homosexuals today on the issue of marriage. I can tell you that the issue of marriage would have never been addressed as it is today, simply because the view of homosexuality was addressed first, thus making the point of same-sex “marriage” a ridiculous notion.

First, note that our founding fathers would have been outraged that homosexuals would be out in the open. They knew that such perversion would both undermine and erode the moral foundations of civilization. Under the British common law, the term sodomy was used to identify same-sex relations and was a capital crime. Understand that the founders referenced Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England extensively. He was a British attorney, jurist, law professor, author, and political philosopher.

Blackstone’s commentaries were the premiere legal source used by the Founding Fathers in America. So this should carry some weight with those who claim they know what the Founding Fathers knew and wanted concerning the issue of homosexuality, but I’m guessing they will dismiss it. In Blackstone’s Book the Fourth of Public Wrongs: Of Offences against the Persons of Individuals, Chapter Fifteen, he writes the following on pages 215-216 (emphasis added):

IV. WHAT has been here observed…, which ought to be the more clear in proportion as the crime is the more detestable, may be applied to another offence, of a still deeper malignity; the infamous crime against nature, committed either with man or beast…. But it is an offence of so dark a nature…that the accusation should be clearly made out….

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Power Out, Trees Fall as Hurricane Crosses Bermuda

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Photo Credit: AP / Alexander Gerst / ESA / NASAHurricane Gonzalo crushed trees, flattened power lines and damaged Bermuda’s main hospital during an hours-long battering that was the second pummeling of the tiny British territory by a powerful storm in less than a week.

The storm’s center crossed over Bermuda during Friday night and its winds and heavy surf were still whipping at the island early Saturday as Gonzalo moved northward over the Atlantic.

Forecasters warned of the danger of a storm surge of 10 feet (3 meters) that could cause widespread flooding, but a full assessment of damages likely wouldn’t come until daylight.

Just under half of the island’s 70,000 people were reported without power late Friday as the hurricane roared through, just days after Tropical Storm Fay damaged homes and also knocked down trees and power lines.

“To be struck twice by two different cyclones is unusual, to say the least,” said Max Mayfield, a former director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

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