Rolling Stone 'Sorry' for Crying Rape

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Photo Credit: Bob Mical / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Bob Mical / Creative Commons

Journalists are paid to be skeptical and to distinguish facts from assertions: Don’t get too close to your sources and check what they tell you.

Rolling Stone magazine, it appears, ignored both principles in its explosive story, “A Rape on Campus.”

The 9,000-word article about Jackie, a University of Virginia freshman who alleged a frat-house gang rape, was apparently fraught from the beginning with gaps in basic reporting. The story’s writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, as well as a phalanx of editors, fact-checkers and lawyers who massaged the piece before publication, accepted Jackie’s account without locking down key details that would have confirmed, or at least plausibly substantiated, her harrowing tale.

Instead, Erdely’s story, published Nov. 19 to a thunderous and mostly positive reaction, appears to have been fatally defective. Major details, including the name of the fraternity in question, are in dispute or have been exposed as false. Jackie’s allies have distanced themselves from her and from Rolling Stone’s story.

And so, too, has Rolling Stone. The magazine backed away from the story Friday and placed the onus for its defects on Jackie. “In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced,” wrote managing editor Will Dana in “A Note to Our Readers” posted on the magazine’s Web site. (The magazine did not return calls for further comment.)

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U of California Event: “Bringing Down Israel Will Benefit Everyone in the World”

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Photo Credit: via Zombietime

Photo Credit: via Zombietime

Won’t someone please think of the murderous terrorists?

A November 12 panel discussion on the University of California’s flagship Berkeley campus was billed as an opportunity to learn about events 7,000 miles away in Israel – and about a Dec. 4 graduate student vote to join the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Instead, attendees were exhorted to bring down the Jewish State.

Hosted by UAW 2865, a union of over 13,000 student-workers across the University of California system, the union’s BDS Caucus brought in guest speakers to “discuss the role of organized labor in the Palestine solidarity movement.”

Panelist Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), dominated the conversation.

“Bringing down Israel will really benefit everyone in the world and everyone in society, particularly workers,” she said later.

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The Government Owns Over 623 Million Acres. Why Does It Need More?

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Insatiable ¬– that would seem to be the word that best describes the appetite of some in Congress and their friends in the environmental community.

Congress has added over 450 pages to the defense authorization bill to designate wilderness, create new parks, designate Wild and Scenic Rivers and fund National Heritage areas – things that have nothing to do with national defense.

special_federal_land_ownership_chart1_1467-741x1024 (1)

Yet for some, even this enormous helping of green pork is not enough. Several members of the House of Representatives are pushing for far more, seeking to gift the environmental community with a reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The LWCF was enacted in 1965 to take offshore energy development revenues and use them to buy private land and turn it into public parks.

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Hillary Clinton: We Need to “Empathize” With America’s Enemies

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Russian-President-Vladimir-Putin-and-Hillary-Clinton-283x350Americans who couldn’t get enough of six years of appeasement and pandering to our enemies can get eight more years of the same in 2016.

All they have to do is vote Hillary. Who is Ready for Hillary? Iran, North Korea and Al Qaeda.

Hillary Clinton is taking heat for saying America should “empathize” and show “respect” for its enemies.

The former secretary of State, who is considered a likely 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, made the remarks during a speech Wednesday at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Touting an approach she calls “smart power,” Clinton urged America to use “every possible tool and partner” to advance peace.

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Wells Fargo Pushed Risky Loans on Hispanics and Other Minority Borrowers

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Photo Credit: GETTY IMAGES

Photo Credit: GETTY IMAGES

The Chicago area’s Cook County has filed a lawsuit against Wells Fargo & Co., accusing the nation’s biggest mortgage lender of subjecting Hispanic and African American borrowers to discriminatory and predatory lending practices.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in damages are allegedly involved.

According to the suit, Wells Fargo purposely issued out these high-risk loans to minority borrowers because most of them did not qualify for traditional loans.

The lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Chicago, contends that Wells Fargo engaged in the practice known as “equity stripping,” which involves imposing inflated or unneeded rates and fees, plus penalties to refinance. That practice, alleged to have taken place for much of the past decade, may involve up to 26,000 loans and compensatory damages that could top $300 million, according to the lawsuit.

“Equity stripping is an abusive form of ‘asset-based lending’ that maximizes lender profits based on the value of the underlying asset and onerous loan terms, while in disregard for a borrower’s ability to repay,” the lawsuit alleges.

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Mark Levin Wows State Legislators: 'Take Your Power Back' (+video)

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

Conservative talkradio host Mark Levin made news Thursday when he addressed the annual conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a “non-partisan membership association of state lawmakers,” and it wasn’t just because he reiterated his call for an Article V “Convention of the States” to propose new amendments to the Constitution.

Levin’s call for an Article V Convention of the States has been well known since the publication of his best-selling book, The Liberty Amendments, more than a year ago.

On Thursday, Levin framed the Article V Convention of the States as the beginning of the process in which state legislators can reassert their constitutional power and become, in effect, the kind of check on the out-of-control federal government the framers expected the three branches of federal government they created in the Constitution would be on each other.

“Take your power back,” Levin told the enthusiastic crowd of state legislators from around the country.

Critics who claim an Article V Convention could become a “Runaway Constitutional Convention” miss the point entirely, Levin said. Critics think such a convention would have no impact, as the federal government is ignoring the Constitution already and would have little reason to observe any amendments, subsequently ratified by the states, that emerged from the Convention of the States.

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WATCH: Eric Garner’s Death Wasn’t An Issue Of Race, Says His Daughter

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Erica Garner is black, so the following can’t be racist. She’s the man’s daughter, so you can hardly accuse her of not caring. But I’m sure her opinion is invalid for some other reason. It’s simply not what she’s supposed to think.

Here she is talking to CNN’s Don Lemon, who’s clearly taken aback by her resistance to groupthink:

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Anchorage PD/Morning Man Jimmy O'Brien Arrested On Child Porn Charges

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JamesLaPlanteUSETHISONEJAMES LAPLANTE, also known as JIMMY O’BRIEN, who works as the PD and morning man at iHEARTMEDIA Country KASH-F (COUNTRY 107.5)/ANCHORAGE, was arrested by local police last evening for posessesion and distribution of child pornographY, as well as online enticement of a minor, according to the ALASKA DISPATCH NEWS.

LAPLATE has been program director at the station since SEPTEMBER 2000.

LAPLANTE was arrested after investigators with the ANCHORAGE POLICE DEPARTMENT’s CYBER CRIMES UNIT and TECHNICAL CRIMES UNIT of the ALASKA BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION served search warrants on his home and office.

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Premature Baby Survives Being Buried Alive After Parents Thought She Was Stillborn

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yeluIn China, a newborn girl miraculously survived being buried alive after her parents thought she was stillborn. Lu Xiaoyun was having severe stomach pains at home when she called her husband, Mr. Ye, to tell him something was wrong.

He rushed home to find his wife in pool of blood waiting for assistance. Tragically, once the ambulance arrived Mr. Ye mistakenly thought his daughter was dead and told emergency workers there was no point in taking their baby in to be examined. However, the couple did go to the hospital so that Ms. Lu could be checked out.

Upon arrival, doctors questioned the couple and encouraged them to have their baby properly examined to make sure she was dead. But while they were at the hospital, Ms. Lu’s mother buried the baby under a tree in their yard.

The couple was shocked but rushed into the yard to dig up their baby. Amazingly, they discovered she was still breathing and immediately left their farm and went to the hospital.

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Jordan’s King Abdullah: Battling ISIS Is ‘Our Third World War’ (+video)

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0 (8)Jordan’s King Abdullah believes battling the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and other terrorist groups is “our third world war.”

Speaking to “CBS This Morning,” Abdullah stated that ISIS is a Muslim problem that they need to take ownership of.

“We need to stand up and say what is right and what is wrong. This is no reflection of our religion. This is evil and all of us have got to make that decision,” Abdullah, who is in Washington to meet with President Barack Obama, said. “We have to stand up and say this is the line that is drawn in the sand and those that believe in right should stand on this side and those that don’t have to make a decision should stand on the other. It’s clearly a fight between good and evil. I think it’s a generational fight. As I said to President Putin, I think this is our third world war by other means.”

The United States, along with allies, have been bombing ISIS targets in both Syria and Iraq. The terror group has released several videos showing the beheadings of Americans and British journalists and aid workers.

Abdullah is calling for a “strategic holistic approach” to deal with ISIS.

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