Four Pinocchios: WaPo Fact-Checker Shreds WH on Executive Amnesty 'Precedent'

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

If you’ve been following our coverage of President Obama’s executive action on immigration, you already know that a key pillar of the White House’s defense is that plenty of precedent exists for this type of move. Nothing to see here, except a bunch of anti-Obama overreaction from the usual suspects (if the “usual suspects” include multiple Congressional Democrats and Independents). We’ve repeatedly linked to a pair of columns that take apart the Obama administration’s dishonest justification; they point out that Obama’s move is much, much broader in scope and implication than anything executed by his predecessors — whose far narrower previous orders either applied to discrete, targeted groups of people, or were issued in an effort to enforce a duly-passed law. The White House seems to be gravitating toward one ostensible parallel in particular, stating that Obama’s decision is comparable to President George HW Bush’s 1990 action on immigration. The president himself touted this exampleduring his appearance on ABC’s This Week, which we discussed earlier:

“If you look, every president – Democrat and Republican – over decades has done the same thing as I mentioned in my remarks,” he added. “George H. W. Bush, about 40 percent of the undocumented persons at the time were provided a similar kind of relief as a consequence of executive action.” When asked about using executive action, the president said his view on the issue has not changed. “If you look – the history is that I have issued fewer executive actions than most of my predecessors, by a longshot,” Obama said. “The difference is the response of Congress, and specifically the response of some of the Republicans. But if you ask historians, take a look at the track records of the modern presidency, I’ve actually been very restrained, and I’ve been very restrained with respect to immigration. I bent over backwards and will continue to do everything I can to get Congress to work because that’s my preference.”

First off, tallying the raw number of executive orders is pure misdirection. Conservatives aren’t objecting to how many unilateral actions Obama has taken; they’re upset about the magnitude, impact and context of those decisions. Obama surely realizes this, but since he’s staked much of his legacy on the “stupidity” of the American people, this sort of answer is par for the course. As for the ‘Bush did it, too!’ excuse, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler — who last week dismantled Obama’s ‘royal flip-flop’ on the legality of this decree — again goes to work:

Bush’s action in 1990 was designed to ease family disruptions caused by the landmark 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which allowed nearly 3 million illegal immigrants to gain legal permanent residency…The 1.5 million [40 percent] figure is too fishy to be cited by either the White House or the media. As best we can tell, this is a rounded-up estimate of the number of illegal immigrants who were married (1.3 million became 1.5 million.) But that figure was already overstated because it included applications that were pending or on appeal…Indeed, the 100,000 estimate that the INS gave on the day of the announcement might have been optimistic. Fewer than 50,000 applications had been received before the policy was superseded by a new law. The numbers generated by that law — a little more than 140,000 — further indicate that the universe of potential applicants was much smaller than 1.5 million, especially given that the law eased restrictions even more. In the end, 200,000 amounts to about 6 percent of the illegal immigrant population at the time, not 40 percent. Small wonder the White House prefers the larger number.

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Abandoned Baby Found Alive in Storm Drain, Survived Five Days After Mother Left Him

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SaifaleNaiAn abandoned baby has been found alive in Sydney, Australia after his mother left him in a storm drain. Police allege the baby had been in the drain since last Tuesday, after having been born on Monday.

Now, the 30-year-old mother of a baby boy found in a drain has been charged with attempted murder. Inspector David Lagats told Daily Mail Australia that the woman is of Pacific Islander background and lives in Sydney. Police are yet to locate the father of the child and have confirmed the mother is not married.

The mother, Saifale Nai, did not appear in court to answer the attempted murder charge. Her lawyer did not enter a plea and the magistrate formally refused her bail.

He was found by cyclists near the overpass of a freeway after they heard him crying and thought it was an animal. Members of the public and police helped lift the 200kg covering of the storm drain and two officers climbed down to rescue the baby. It appears that the child was dropped from the height of a few feet into the drain.

“We actually thought it was a kitten at first, but when we went down there we could hear exactly what it was — you could definitely tell it was a baby screaming,” cyclist David Otte told The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ferguson Verdict Explodes Media's Lying Racial Narrative

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Ben Shapiro.

On Monday night, the grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri freed Officer Darren Wilson from the possibility of indictment over his shooting of 18-year-old black man Michael Brown. The prosecutor before the grand jury, Robert McCulloch, explained why the indictment had been rejected: the evidence, both physical and eyewitness, supported Wilson’s case that he had acted in self-defense.

McCulloch added pointed criticism of the media that drove the case in the first place, ripping the “insatiable appetite” of social media and “non-stop rumors” driven by it. The initial accounts pushed by social media, McCulloch said, were “filled with speculation and little, if any, solid or accurate evidence.” But he saved his harshest criticism for the media machine itself: “The most significant challenge encountered in this investigation has been the 24-hour news cycle and its insatiable appetite for something, for anything, to talk about, followed closely behind with the non-stop rumors on social media.” McCulloch finished by stating that evidence mattered, and that no one’s life should be decided based on “public outcry or for political expediency.”

The lecture was well-deserved.

Just as the media did during the George Zimmerman trial and in the aftermath of Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin, the media attempted to cram the square peg of the Wilson-Brown shooting into the round hole of white police racism. That meant portraying Brown as the latest sainted racial victim; this time, rather than the Trayvon Martin narrative of hoodies, Skittles, and iced tea, the media hit upon the notion that Brown was a “gentle giant.” The Brown family, Al Sharpton, MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, and other major media outlets ran with the story that Brown was a “gentle giant” who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Then, it turned out that Brown had robbed a convenience store minutes before his altercation with Wilson.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

MISSOURI ACLU NOT INTERESTED IN CIVIL LIBERTIES FOR DARREN WILSON

By Robert Wilde.

In a statement released Monday night, the American Civil Liberties Union affirmed their belief that police are not entitled to fair and just treatment under the law.

Despite the fact that a grand jury spent months evaluating vast amounts of evidence, listened to three coroners’ autopsy reports, and examined myriad ballistic reports and witness testimonies, the ACLU condemned the grand jury’s conclusion not to indict Darren Wilson for the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

The ACLU asserted in a statement delivered by Jeffery Mittman, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, that Brown’s death is part of an “alarming national trend of officers using excessive force against people of color, often during routine encounters.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Who Will Pay Ebola Patients' Medical Bills in the U.S.?

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Photo Credit: Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty

Photo Credit: Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty

The arrival of Ebola in the United States this year led to an unprecedented medical response involving experimental drugs, round-the-clock care, and layers upon layers of protective gear. And none of it has been cheap.

Nine people have been treated for the virus in the U.S. since August. Seven recovered. The National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, which treated one of them, estimates treatment for patients diagnosed with Ebola costs $50,000 a day. Officials at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which cared for two patients, put the daily cost at $30,000, and the total at $1.16 million for a single patient. Most patients have been hospitalized for more than two weeks.

The U.S. has shown it can beat Ebola. But who will pay for the expensive care it takes to do it?

It’s a tough question, and one that the people holding the bills seem reluctant to answer. Hospitals that have treated patients in Georgia, Nebraska, New York, and Texas did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the governors’ offices of these states. NIH was forthcoming about cost of care, but the feds pick up the tab for treatment there.

The topic of payment came up during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing earlier this month but only briefly. The Obama administration had requested $6.18 billion in emergency funding for Ebola response efforts in the U.S. Missing from the request, said Sen. Mike Johanns, was funding that would cover treatment of patients with Ebola on American soil. The federal government should cover the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s costs, he said, because it had asked the medical facility to take in patients.

Read more from this story HERE.

VA Department Fires Phoenix Hospital Director

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Photo Credit: AP / Veterans Affairs Department

Photo Credit: AP / Veterans Affairs Department

The head of the troubled Phoenix veterans’ hospital was fired Monday as the Veterans Affairs Department continued its crackdown on wrongdoing in the wake of a nationwide scandal over long wait times for veterans seeking medical care and falsified records covering up the delays.

Sharon Helman, director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System, was ousted nearly seven months after she and two high-ranking officials were placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into allegations that 40 veterans died while awaiting treatment at the hospital. Helman had led the giant Phoenix facility, which treats more than 80,000 veterans a year, since February 2012.

The Phoenix hospital was at the center of the wait-time scandal, which led to the ouster of former VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and a new, $16 billion law overhauling the labyrinthine veterans’ health care system.
VA Secretary Robert McDonald said Helman’s dismissal underscores the agency’s commitment to hold leaders accountable and ensure that veterans have access to high-quality, timely care.

An investigation by the VA’s office of inspector general found that workers at the Phoenix VA hospital falsified waiting lists while their supervisors looked the other way or even directed it, resulting in chronic delays for veterans seeking care. At least 40 patients died while awaiting appointments in Phoenix, the report said, but officials could not “conclusively assert” that delays in care caused the deaths.

About 1,700 veterans in need of care were “at risk of being lost or forgotten” after being kept off the official waiting list at the troubled Phoenix hospital, the IG’s office said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Researchers: GPS Proves Grizzly Bears Actually Stalk Hunters in the Field

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Photo Credit: USGS

Photo Credit: USGS

Eight Montana grizzly bears have been outfitted with GPS trackers in an ongoing study that could bring some unnerving news to hunters.

The study is aimed at bolstering the theory that grizzlies, which can be as stealthy as they are ferocious, stalk hunters from as close as the length of a football field in order to steal their prey. Already, data has shown at least one grizzly following oblivious elk hunters almost from the moment they left the parking lot, according to the Billings Gazette. Scientists believe the bear may have been following the humans in hopes of getting to a fallen elk before they did. . .

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, part of the U.S. Geological Survey, started the project over the summer, by tagging the grizzlies in the Grand Teton National Park. Next, the study team asked elk hunters to voluntarily carry some 100 GPS units that track their routes.

In the most clearly detailed example, a group of hunters turned on their GPS devices moments after leaving a parking area at around 6 a.m. When scientists analyzed their movements later and contrasted them with those of a nearby grizzly, it became clear the bear was tailing them.

The bruin stayed downwind of the hunters, at one point coming within 100 yards of them as they moved around a lake. At around noon, the bear bedded down for a nap, but easily picked up the hunters’ trail again when it awoke, according to the report. . . So attuned to the movements of hunters are the bears that scientists believe they may even listen for the sound of gunshots, knowing that they signal a meal to be scavenged. Grizzlies are known scavengers, and officials noted there have been cases of the mighty bruins attacking hunters as they dressed elk in the field.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pentagon Chief Hagel Stepping Down Under Pressure

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Photo Credit: AP / Susan Walsh

Photo Credit: AP / Susan Walsh

Under pressure from President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel submitted his resignation Monday amid White House concerns about his effectiveness and broader criticism from outside about the administration’s Middle East crisis management.

The president said he and Hagel had determined it was an “appropriate time for him to complete his service.”

Hagel, a former Republican senator, never broke through the White House’s notably insular national security team. Officials privately griped about his ability to publicly communicate administration policy and more recently questioned whether he had the capacity to oversee new military campaigns against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Hagel is the first high-level member of Obama’s national security team to step down in the wake of both a disastrous midterm election for the president’s party and persistent criticism about the administration’s policies in the Middle East and elsewhere. It’s unclear whether Hagel’s forced resignation signals the start of a broader shake-up of the president’s team; White House officials said it was possible there could be more departures.

Among the leading contenders to replace Hagel is Michele Flournoy, who served as the Pentagon’s policy chief for the first three years of Obama’s presidency. Flournoy, who would be the first woman to head the Pentagon, is now chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, a think tank that she co-founded.

Read more from this story HERE.

Watch Pres. Obama Fumble Easy Question on Precedent

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2014-11-04T180254Z_1_LYNXMPEAA30RU_RTROPTP_4_USA-OBAMA-e1415383590145President Obama completely fumbles when George Stephanopolous asks him how he’d respond if a future president takes the same action on taxes that Obama has taken on immigration. Incredibly, Obama responds as if he’d never heard or thought of this argument before, stumbling blindly along immigration talking points without answering the actual question.

Stephanopolous asked: “How do you respond to the argument, a future president comes in and wants lower taxes. Doesn’t happen. Congress won’t do it; so he says ‘I’m not going to prosecute those who don’t pay capital gains tax.’”

“The truth of the matter is George,” said the President, haltingly, “The reason that we, have to do.. uhm prosecutorial discretion in immigration, is that we know, that we – are not even close to being able to deal with the folks who have been here a long time…” Obama then pivoted to immigration talking points, without addressing the original question.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mysterious Malware Performs 'Stealthy Surveillance'

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

A highly sophisticated piece of malware began quietly spying on governments and businesses in 2008, according to security specialist Symantec, which warns that the complex code was likely the handiwork of a nation state.

In a note released on Sunday, Symantec Security Response described the Regin malware as a “top-tier espionage tool,” which enables “stealthy surveillance.”

Regin is what is known as a backdoor Trojan, which lets an attacker gain access, or send commands to, a compromised computer. Like the mysterious Stuxnetworm which crippled Iran’s nuclear production in 2010, Regin loads onto a targeted computer in stages – it can also be customized to specific targets.

“Its capabilities and the level of resources behind Regin indicate that it is one of the main cyberespionage tools used by a nation state,” explained Symantec. The malware, it added “has been used in systematic data collection or intelligence gathering campaigns.”

While fear of a cyber attack on critical U.S. infrastructure is high at the moment, Regin appears to be a bigger worry for foreign powers. The Russian Federation accounts for 28% of Regin “infections,” according to Symantec, closely followed by Saudi Arabia. Other countries experiencing Regin infections include Mexico, Ireland, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Belgium, Austria and Pakistan.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama: American People Want 'New Car Smell'

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

President Barack Obama says voters want a “new car smell” in the 2016 White House race and that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be “a great president.”

But would Clinton pass that particular smell test?

In a nationally televised interview broadcast Sunday, Obama seemed to suggest that any Democrat other than him would provide the turn of the page that he says voters are interested in. He acknowledged the “dings” to his own political standing during nearly six years of sometimes bruising battles with Congress and said Americans will want something new.

“They want to drive something off the lot that doesn’t have as much mileage as me,” Obama said in the interview with ABC’s “This Week,” which was taped Friday in Las Vegas following a public appearance there by the president.

He said a number of possible Democratic candidates would make “terrific presidents,” but Hillary Clinton is the only one he mentioned by name. He said she would be a “formidable candidate” and make “a great president” if she decides to run a second time.

Read more from this story HERE.