McCain: GOP Senate Will ‘Absolutely’ Look into Bergdahl Swap

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says a Senate Armed Services Committee under his leadership would try to uncover more details about President Obama’s decision to exchange Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s for five Taliban prisoners.

“Oh yeah, we’re going to find out about that,” McCain told reporters on Thursday.

“Absolutely. Absolutely. You can count on that one,” he added.

Bergdahl’s release became a flash point earlier this year, after the White House went around Congress to secure his release by swapping five Taliban detainees from Guantánamo Bay.

The trade for Bergdahl angered Capitol Hill Democrats and Republicans, as the administration kept the prisoner exchange secret until after it was completed, ignoring a law requiring 30 days advance notice to members of Congress before any detainee release from Guantánamo.

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University Installs Prescription Drug Vending Machine On Campus

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Photo Credit: AFP / Getty

Photo Credit: AFP / Getty

An InstyMeds vending machine has been installed on Arizona State University’s campus, allowing any student or university employee to pick up prescription drugs from the dispenser.

Any ASU student or university employee who receives a prescription from ASU health services will be able to simply walk to the school’s Health Services Building and use a voucher with identification to receive their meds, KPNX-TV reports. The prescription drug vending machine fills the service left unavailable after the school’s pharmacy closed in September.

“This is a great solution for students who want to access their medications right after their appointment,” said Christiana Moore, a health services spokeswoman.

“Serving the health-care needs of our students is still our highest priority. We believe the measures we have taken will help our students with their prescription needs,” said Allan Markus, director of ASU Health Services, in a statement at the time the school’s pharmacy closed.

Read more from this story HERE.

China and the United States Are Preparing for War

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Photo Credit: FP

Photo Credit: FP

At a Nov. 12 news conference in Beijing, General Secretary of the Communist Party Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed to notify the other side before major military activities, and to develop a set of rules of behavior for sea and air encounters, in order to avoid military confrontations in Asia. “It’s incredibly important that we avoid inadvertent escalation,” Ben Rhodes, a U.S. deputy national security advisor, was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying. An “accidental circumstance,” he said, could “lead into something that could precipitate conflict.”

Should we really be worried about war between the United States and China? Yes. Over the last four decades of studying China, I have spoken with hundreds of members of China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and read countless Chinese military journals and strategy articles. Chinese military and political leaders believe that their country is at the center of American war planning. In other words, Beijing believes that the United States is readying itself for the possibility of a conflict with China — and that it must prepare for that eventuality.

Tensions are high not just because of Beijing’s rapidly expanding military budget, or because the United States continues to commit an increasingly high percentage of its military assets to the Pacific as part of its “rebalance” strategy. Rather, the biggest problem is Chinese opacity. While it’s heartening to hear Xi agree to instruct the PLA to be more open with regard to the United States, it is doubtful this will lead to any real changes.

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Son of Ebola Doctor to Be Treated in U.S. Praises His Sacrifice

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Italy EbolaThe doctor who will be treated for Ebola at a Nebraska hospital knew the risks of working in West Africa but was committed to doing his part, his son told NBC News.

Martin Salia, a general surgeon, contracted the virus in his native Sierra Leone and will be flown to Omaha on Saturday, which would make him the 10th Ebola patient on American soil. His wife and two children live in the D.C. suburb of New Carrollton, Maryland, and Salia is a legal U.S. resident.

“He’s a really good guy. Somebody who doesn’t take himself like a high person,” said Salia’s 20-year-old son, Maada. “He loves helping whoever in need … and he always sacrifice(s) just to make sure someone else feels happy.”

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Dengue Fever Researchers in Military Weigh Infecting Volunteers

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Photo Credit: Associated Press

Photo Credit: Associated Press

Scientists at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are considering resurrecting a research program that would infect healthy people with dengue fever, the potentially deadly mosquito-borne disease that has no specific drug treatment.

The tests raise ethical issues, but advocates say they are offset by the need to halt the dramatic growth in the disease. As many as 50 million people a year are infected with dengue, a 30-fold increase in the last 50 years. The disease causes 22,000 deaths each year, mainly among children, the World Health Organization says.

“Here you’re way out on the end of the risk-benefit spectrum,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. “It’s ethical to do it, but you have to go in with your eyes wide, wide open.”

The purpose of such a study, known as the “human infection” or “human challenge” model, is to see which viral strains cause mild dengue illness in people. The strains that make people sick are used to test potential vaccines and drugs, possibly leading to prevention and treatment of the disease.

The human-infection model is commonly used by researchers and drug and vaccine makers to study other diseases, like malaria, flu and infectious diarrhea. But the stakes are higher with dengue because there is no antiviral medication available to treat it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska One of Eight States Facing Double-Digit Premium Hikes In 2015

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Federal and state officials have kept fairly quiet about Obamacare premiums in the days before the health law’s next open enrollment period, but one thing’s for sure: rates are going up this year.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers report on all individual market premiums — on and off Obamacare exchanges — found a large range of rate changes, from a drastic 35 percent hike in Colorado to a 22 percent cut, also in Colorado (the state’s Obamacare exchange changed the geographic rating areas this year to cut costs for ski resort towns). Overall, the average rate hike nationwide is 5.6 percent, according to PWC.

First, all that information isn’t set in stone. Most states haven’t compiled final premium information for the Obamacare exchange. Just seven states — Colorado, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon and Vermont — and Washington, D.C. have made final rate announcements. Of course, the states that did publish final rates had more reason to want the data out there — they had a lower average hike of 3.5 percent.

But the number of big losers is far outweighing the winners. Eight states are facing double-digit rate hikes, while just four states have reported decreases.

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Amnesty is Irreversible

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Photo Credit: U.S. Embassy Jakarta, Indonesia

Photo Credit: U.S. Embassy Jakarta, Indonesia

Obama plans to protect up to 5 million from deportation

By Michael D. Shear, Julia Preston and Ashley Parker.

President Barack Obama is expected to ignore angry protests from Republicans and announce as soon as next week a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration enforcement system that will protect up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation and provide many of them with work permits, according to administration officials who have direct knowledge of the plan.

Asserting his authority as president to enforce the nation’s laws with discretion, Obama intends to order changes that will significantly refocus the activities of the government’s 12,000 immigration agents. One key piece of the order, officials said, will allow many parents of children who are U.S. citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents and no longer worry about being discovered, separated from their families and sent away.

That part of Obama’s plan alone could affect as many as 3.3 million people who have been living in the United States illegally for at least five years, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration research organization in Washington. But the White House is also considering a stricter policy that would limit the benefits to people who have lived in the country for at least 10 years, or about 2.5 million people.

Extending protections to more undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, and to their parents, could affect an additional 1 million or more if they are included in the final plan that the president announces.

Obama’s actions will also expand opportunities for immigrants who have high-tech skills, shift extra security resources to the nation’s southern border, revamp a controversial immigration enforcement program called Secure Communities, and provide clearer guidance to the agencies that enforce immigration laws about who should be a low priority for deportation, especially those with strong family ties and no serious criminal history.

Read more from this story HERE.

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ObamaImmigrationVoteTodayWeMarchAmnesty is Irreversible

By Rush Limbaugh.

CALLER: Look, what Obama’s trying to do with amnesty by granting legalization and amnesty to five million illegals, while it sounds terrible, I think it really is a great opportunity for this nation, especially conservatives. What we can do is this. As soon as he announces it, let’s say, “Go ahead and do it,” and we’ll make sure that all of these illegals know that in two years and two months, we will reverse this amnesty, and they will become illegals again.

RUSH: No, that’s never gonna happen.

CALLER: We’ll have their name and address.

(crosstalk)

RUSH: He can’t hear me ’cause of our phone system. I’m not being rude, and I don’t want to be rude. But there’s no reversing this. This is not like a piece of legislation that you might think you could repeal or vote out or whatever. You can’t reverse this. We’ve never, ever reversed an amnesty. And, by the way, we’ve never repealed an entitlement, either. Well, that’s not entirely true.

This is a senior citizens Medicare one. Dan “Rosty” Rostenkowski did that. But that happened within days, not years. But there’s no upside to this. A, it’s lawless. We don’t want to applaud lawlessness. There is no political advantage in letting Obama be lawless. We already won an election. We don’t need any more evidence to win an election. “Yeah, let him do this, and it will guarantee us 2016!”

I respectfully have to shut down that kind of thinking. This is ballgame here. Obamacare and this are ballgame, in terms of the transformation of this country. Now, you might think, “Well, Rush, but we’re gonna know who they are!” They’re gonna play games with this, by the way. They’re not gonna say it’s amnesty. They’re gonna say we’re just not gonna deport ’em.

Read more from this story HERE.

Angry Mom Finds School Worksheet Portraying Muslims as More Faithful Than Christians

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A mother in Union County, North Carolina, told WJZY-TV that her son, a freshman at Porter Ridge High School, brought home a worksheet on Islam containing some questionable answers. She was upset enough over the assignment that she contacted the school and her local news station after reviewing the material.

The sentence that bothered the mom the most stated, “Most Muslims’ faith is stronger than the average Christian.”

Read some of the other answers from the world history assignment below:

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You can read both pages of the assignment here and here.

Read more from this story HERE.

Car-makers Unite Around Privacy Protections

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Nineteen automakers accounting for most of the passenger cars and trucks sold in the U.S. have signed onto a set of principles they say will protect motorists’ privacy in an era when computerized cars pass along more information about their drivers than many motorists realize.

The principles were delivered in a letter Wednesday to the Federal Trade Commission, which has the authority to force corporations to live up to their promises to consumers. Industry officials say they want to assure their customers that the information that their cars stream back to automakers or that is downloaded from the vehicle’s computers won’t be handed over to authorities without a court order, sold to insurance companies or used to bombard them with ads for pizza parlors, gas stations or other businesses they drive past, without their permission.
The principles also commit automakers to “implement reasonable measures” to protect personal information from unauthorized access.

Many recent-model cars and light trucks have GPS and mobile communications technology integrated into the vehicle’s computers and navigation systems. Information on where drivers have been and where they’re going is continually sent to manufacturers when the systems are in use. Consumers benefit from alerts sent by automakers about traffic conditions and concierge services that are able to unlock car doors and route drivers around the path of a storm.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is also working with automakers on regulations that will clear the way for vehicle-to-vehicle communications. The technology uses a radio signal to continually transmit a vehicle’s position, heading, speed and other information. Similarly equipped cars and trucks would receive the same information, and their computers would alert drivers to an impending collision.

“As modern cars not only share the road but will in the not too distant future communicate with one another, vigilance over the privacy of our customers and the security of vehicle systems is an imperative,” said John Bozzella, president of Global Automakers, an industry trade association.

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ISISALQAIDA Make it Official

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Militant leaders from the Islamic State group and al-Qaida gathered at a farm house in northern Syria last week and agreed on a plan to stop fighting each other and work together against their opponents, a high-level Syrian opposition official and a rebel commander have told The Associated Press.

Such an accord could present new difficulties for Washington’s strategy against the IS group. While warplanes from a U.S.-led coalition strike militants from the air, the Obama administration has counted on arming “moderate” rebel factions to push them back on the ground. Those rebels, already considered relatively weak and disorganized, would face far stronger opposition if the two heavy-hitting militant groups now are working together.

IS – the group that has seized nearly a third of Syria and Iraq with a campaign of brutality and beheadings this year – and al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, known as the Nusra Front, have fought each other bitterly for more than a year to dominate the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Associated Press reported late last month on signs that the two groups appear to have curtailed their feud with informal local truces. Their new agreement, according to the sources in rebel groups opposed to both IS and Nusra Front, would involve a promise to stop fighting and team up in attacks in some areas of northern Syria.

Read more from this story HERE.