Wait, You Can Have Ebola and Still Board a Plane?

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Photo Credit: Luc Gnago / ReutersA man who flew from Liberia to Dallas has become the first Ebola case to be diagnosed within the U.S., the CDC reported Tuesday, and he is currently in isolation at Dallas’s Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Americans have been warned not to travel to Liberia, Guinea, or Sierra Leone, but they obviously can—and do.

So how are countries keeping suspected Ebola patients (well, most of them, anyway) contained within their borders?

Thermometers, mostly.

People are screened for elevated temperatures before they’re allowed to board planes departing from the countries where Ebola is raging. Fever is one of the earliest symptoms of Ebola, but people can be infected for between two and 21 days without showing signs of illness.

Read more from this story HERE.

'Khorasan Group' is New Name Coined by Obama for Old Foe

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Photo Credit: FrontPageMagThe Obama administration is being accused of coining a new name for an old nemesis by dubbing an Al Qaeda offshoot “The Khorasan Group.”

From Rush Limbaugh to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, critics are dubious of the corporate-sounding name rooted in an old term that describes an area on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and are charging that it may have been introduced last month as a way to avoid invoking the name Al Qaeda, the terror group President Obama once claimed had been “decimated.”

Middle East experts were long familiar with the term “Khorasan,” but its use as part of a terrorist organization’s formal name does not appear in recent online searches prior to Sept. 13, when The Associated Press characterized the militants as a “cadre of veteran Al Qaeda fighters” from Afghanistan and Pakistan who traveled to Syria to connect with the Al Qaeda affiliate there, the Nusra Front.

Ten days later, in a Sept. 23 article, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Aron Lund also questioned the term’s legitimacy, saying the term “gained currency only” within the past two weeks.

“The sudden flurry of revelations about the ‘Khorasan Group’ in the past two weeks smacks of strategic leaks and political spin,” Lund wrote. “Even if the information provided is entirely correct, which it may well be, the timing can hardly be coincidental — within two weeks of the first press reports, attacks had started against [Khorasan Group leader Muhsin] Fadhli and his allies in Syria.”

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Teacher: We're Overwhelmed by Illegal Kids

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The headline of the story: “Schools Scramble to Help Teenagers Who Crossed the Border,” and I must warn you: The AP is not even calling them “undocumented migrants” anymore.

Now they are just “unaccompanied minors.” It’s from Frankford, Delaware. “American schools are scrambling to provide services to the large number of children and teenagers who crossed the border alone in recent months. Unaccompanied minors…” As I say, they’re no longer “undocumented migrants,” no longer “illegal immigrant children.” Nope. These are “unaccompanied minors who made up the summer spike at the border have moved to communities of all sizes, in nearly every state, Federal data indicates, to live with a relative and await immigration decisions.”

To live with relatives.

That’s the key to this. At least they want us to think it’s the key.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that schools have an obligation to educate all students regardless of their immigration status, so schools have become a safe haven for many of the tens of thousands of these young people mostly from central America living in limbo.” They’re not in limbo. They’re home free! That’s what’s happened here. They’re not in limbo. What is this limbo business? They’re home free. The taxpayers are gonna be paying through the nose for it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Stands Aloof from America's Four Foreign Policy Traditions

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Photo Credit: LifeNews President Obama’s speech at the United Nations last week was “an important turning point in American foreign policy — and in his presidency.” That’s the verdict of Brookings Institution scholar and former Clinton White House aide William Galston, a Democrat who has not been an unqualified admirer of this Democratic president’s foreign policy.

Whether Obama’s decision to launch air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Khorasan terrorists is a turning point, it was at least a move in the direction of a tradition in American foreign policy that has been conspicuously lacking in his administration.

That tradition was christened by Walter Russell Mead in his 2001 book Special Providence as the Jacksonian Impulse, one of four that have together shaped American foreign policy since the founding of the republic. The others, named after American leaders, are the Hamiltonian, Wilsonian and Jeffersonian traditions.

Jacksonians, like their namesake Andrew Jackson, are generally not much interested in foreign policy. But when Americans are attacked, the respond with righteous fury and a determination to utterly destroy the enemy.

Franklin Roosevelt invoked that tradition when in his Pearl Harbor speech he said, in a line that drew not just applause but whoops and hollers, “The American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.”

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Walrus Invasion: 35,000 Come Ashore in Alaska

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Photo Credit: APPacific walrus that can’t find sea ice for resting in Arctic waters are coming ashore in record numbers on a beach in northwest Alaska.

An estimated 35,000 walrus were photographed about 8km north of Point Lay, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Point Lay is an Inupiat Eskimo village 482 km southwest of Barrow and 1,126 km northwest of Anchorage.

The enormous gathering was spotted during NOAA’s annual arctic marine mammal aerial survey, spokeswoman Julie Speegle said by email.

The survey is conducted with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that oversees offshore lease sales.

Read more from this story HERE.

Facebook Apologizes to Drag Queens for Name Policy

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Photo Credit: AP / Eric RisbergFacebook is apologizing to drag queens and the transgender community for deleting accounts that used drag names like Lil Miss Hot Mess rather than legal names such as Bob Smith.

The world’s biggest online social network caught heat recently when it deleted several hundred accounts belonging to self-described drag queens, other performers and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Facebook has long required its users to go by their “real names” on the site for security purposes, to stand out from other social networks and so it can better target advertising to people. Now, the company says the spirit of its policy doesn’t mean a person’s legal name but “the authentic name they use in real life.”

“For Sister Roma, that’s Sister Roma. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that’s Lil Miss Hot Mess,” Chris Cox, Facebook’s vice president of product wrote in a blog post Wednesday.

Though the real names policy isn’t changing, the way Facebook enforces it might.

Read more from this story HERE.

Grand Jury Considering the Ferguson Shooting is Being Investigated for Misconduct

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The St. Louis County prosecutor’s office is investigating an accusation of misconduct on the grand jury that is hearing the case against the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Ed Magee, the spokesman for county prosecutor Robert McCulloch, said they received the information from a “Twitter user” Wednesday morning.

“We are looking into the matter,” he said.

An account of possible jury misconduct surfaced Wednesday morning on Twitter, when several users sent messages about one juror who may have discussed evidence in the case with a friend.

In one of those messages, a person tweeted that they are friends with a member of the jury who doesn’t believe there is enough evidence to warrant an arrest of the officer, Darren Wilson.

The same person who tweeted about being friends with a member of the jury has also tweeted messages of support for Wilson…

Read more from this story HERE.

Missing Girl Found in Mexico 12 Years Later

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Photo Credit: ABC NewsAfter 12 years of clinging to hope that his missing daughter would be found safe, a Texas father is now waiting to reunite with the little girl who was taken from him.

Sabrina Allen, who was 4 when she went missing, was located in a small town southeast of Mexico City on Tuesday, authorities said.

Now 17, Allen was taken into custody, along with her non-custodial mother, Dara Llorens, and was flown back to Houston late Tuesday, authorities said.

“I’m going to ask her if I can give her a hug,” the girl’s father, Greg Allen, said through tears at an emotional news conference today. “She’s in pretty bad shape as far as my understanding … She was not living a regular life. She has not been going to school.”

On April 19, 2002, Llorens allegedly took her daughter for a scheduled weekend visit as part of a court-ordered child custody agreement.

Read more from this story HERE.

First Amendment Now Allows Boobies Bracelets But Not American Flag Shirts In Public Schools

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Rest easy, America, because all is right with the First Amendment thanks to the wisdom of our federal judges: American public schools can ban American flag T-shirts in high schools but must allow “I (heart) Boobies!” bracelets in middle schools.

Photo Credit: YouTube

Makes total sense, right?

The “I (heart) Boobies!” case ended this week after the school district in Easton, Pa. agreed to pay $385,000 in attorneys’ fees to the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. The district lost an appeal involving students who wore colorful breast cancer awareness bracelets bearing the “I (heart) Boobies!” slogan.

The settlement between the school district and the ACLU ended almost four years of litigation, notes The Morning Call, Easton’s main newspaper.

The case began in 2010 when a couple of middle school students defied a previously-imposed ban and wore the rubber bracelets — distributed by the Keep A Breast Foundation — on school premises.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ebola Victim was Originally SENT HOME from Hospital with Antibiotics Before the Deadly Virus was Diagnosed

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Photo Credit: APBy AP and Zoe Szathmary.

A Dallas hospital gave a man antibiotics and sent him home – only for him to be admitted two days later, it has been reported. Federal health officials later confirmed he has the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the US.

The unidentified patient has been in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital since Sunday, officials said.

‘#Dallas patient diagnosed with #Ebola was initially dismissed with prescription for antibiotics,’ CBS DFW tweeted.

Medical officials said the patient would not be given the experimental treatment ZMapp because there is none of it left.

The man recently traveled from Liberia to Dallas.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: ReutersCDC Confirms First Case of Ebola in US

By Jessica Mulvihill.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed on Tuesday that a patient being treated at a Dallas hospital has tested positive for Ebola, the first case diagnosed in the United States.

The patient left Liberia on September 19 and arrived in the United States on September 20, CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden told reporters at a press conference Tuesday. It’s the first patient to be diagnosed with this particular strain of Ebola outside of Africa.

“[The patient] had no symptoms when departing Liberia or entering this country. But four or five days later on the 24th of September, he began to develop symptoms,” said Frieden.

The patient, who was in the U.S. visiting family in Texas, initially sought care on September 26, but was sent home and was not admitted until two days later. He was placed in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, where he remains critically ill, according to Frieden.

“The next steps are basically threefold,” said Frieden. “First, to care for the patient … to provide the most effective care possible as safely as possible to keep to an absolute minimum the likelihood or possibility that anyone would become affected, and second, to maximize the chances that the patient might recover,” said Frieden.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Chris Matthews vs. Ezekiel Emanuel on Ebola: “Obama Said It Was Unlikely. It Has Happened. It’s Here”

By Ian Schwartz.

On MSNBC’s Hardball tonight, host Chris Matthews tussled with Obamacare architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel over the how serious a threat Ebola is to Americans. Matthews and Emanuel also spar over President Obama saying it was “unlikely” that an Ebola case would strike the U.S.

“Obama said it was unlikely. It has happened. It’s here,” Matthews said.

Dr. Emanuel said there is some “fear mongering” going on here, but Matthews said he was just quoting the president and stating facts. Here’s a bit of the argument that lasted nearly ten minutes:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I’m just trying to follow the logic here. Everybody’s being told, don’t worry unless they have the infectious symptoms, you can see them, that you don’t have to worry about catching them. Yet, this guy picked up the disease apparently from somebody who did not have the infectious symptoms.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: CELLOU BINANI / AFP / Getty American Ebola Survivor: Outbreak is ‘A Fire Straight From the Pit of Hell’

By Sophie Novack.

Ebola survivor Kent Brantly said it’s “time to think outside the box” for ways to combat the virus’s worst outbreak in history, which continues to ravage West Africa.

The physician was treating Ebola patients in Liberia when he tested positive for the disease on July 26. He is one of four American aid workers flown back to the United States for treatment.

In a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Tuesday, Brantly implored the international community to ramp up relief efforts, calling on the U.S. to lead the efforts. His testimony came on the same day President Obama announced a new stepped-up strategy for U.S. efforts to combat the epidemic.

Obama said Tuesday that 3,000 U.S. military personnel will be dispatched to help battle the Ebola crisis that is raging in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. The president explained his plan from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Obama and Brantly met in the Oval Office ahead of the announcement Tuesday.

Read more from this story HERE.