Immigration Fuels Cruz-Rubio Republican Clash

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More than any other issue, immigration is driving the rivalry between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, presidential rivals focusing on the divisive topic in their closing messages to Republican voters before the sprint to the Iowa caucuses.

Cruz, a Texas senator and tea party firebrand, sees Rubio’s support for a more forgiving immigration policy as his greatest vulnerability among conservatives who overwhelmingly oppose a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. Rubio, a Florida senator, sees Cruz’s shifting rhetoric on immigration as a prime example of a larger pattern of political pandering.

Indeed, among the Republican Party’s two Hispanic presidential hopefuls, few issues offer a clearer contrast in tone, if not policy. Their competing strategies played out in early voting states on Thursday as the freshman senators pushed to separate themselves from the crowded GOP field six weeks before the first primary votes are cast.

“He’s going to have a hard time because he’s not told the truth about his position in the past on legalization,” Rubio said of Cruz while campaigning in Iowa. “It’s not an attack. It’s a fact.”

“That is utter nonsense,” Cruz said of Rubio’s charge while talking to reporters in Las Vegas. He declined to say what he would do with the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, but accused Rubio of joining with Democrats to support “amnesty.” (Read more from “Immigration Fuels Cruz-Rubio Republican Clash” HERE)

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Ryan and Pelosi Corral Votes as $1.1T Funding Bill Speeds to Floor

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The House is poised to pass a bipartisan $1.1 trillion bill to fund the government, with GOP and Democratic whip teams going into overdrive to boost their numbers before the Friday morning vote.

Democratic leaders have voiced numerous objections to the package, particularly the inclusion of an end to a ban on crude oil exports and the failure to address Puerto Rico’s debt crisis. But with the White House urging support — and dozens of conservatives expected to buck GOP leaders and vote no — the Democrats are also scrambling to convince wary rank-and-file members that the current package is the best they can get.

Senior Obama administration officials and Cabinet secretaries began reaching out to congressional Democrats, urging them to back the spending deal, a source said.

And Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who both endorsed the massive omnibus bill, were personally pressing undecided members and “working it,” according to a whip team member.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his top lieutenants appeared much more relaxed than their Democratic counterparts. Still, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and other leaders were making calls, sending text messages and button-holing colleagues on the floor to drive up their vote total, lawmakers and aides said. (Read more from “Ryan and Pelosi Corral Votes as $1.1T Funding Bill Speeds to Floor” HERE)

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U.S. Has Lost Track of Tens of Thousands of Foreign Students

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The federal government has lost track of tens of thousands of foreign students who came to the U.S. to study and then took jobs, often in violation of the terms of their visas, according to a new internal audit.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn’t even consistently collect information or have the tools to monitor all of the foreign students who take part in the optional practical training (OPT) program, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report released late Friday.

“The problems with OPT are extensive and serious. The report not only calls into question the department’s oversight of the program, but also whether such lack of oversight is a serious national security risk,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who released the report, said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

Officials who run the Student and Exchange Visitor Program have deemed OPT to be a low-risk program, but the new findings suggest that may be wrong.

Immigration agents told investigators they view the program as a gateway to illegal immigration, since students who are approved are allowed to work not just during their time in school, but also for up to 29 months after they complete their studies.

(Read more from “U.S. Has Lost Track of Tens of Thousands of Foreign Students” HERE)

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‘I Started the Arab Spring. Now Death Is Everywhere, and Extremism Blooming’

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It is hardly surprising that when Faida Hamdy wonders whether she is responsible for everything that happened after her moment of fame she is overwhelmed.

Mrs Hamdy was the council inspector who, five years ago today confiscated the vegetable stall of a street vendor in her dusty town in central Tunisia.

In despair, that young man set himself on fire in a protest outside the council offices. Within weeks, he was dead, dozens of young Arab men had copied him, riots had overthrown his president, and the Arab Spring was under way.

As the world marks the anniversary, Syria and Iraq are in flames, Libya has broken down, and the twin evils of militant terror and repression stalk the region . . .

Hers is a voice that has been rarely heard: the family of the young man, Mohammed Bouazizi, became unwilling celebrities in the weeks after his lingering death, but a nervous regime arrested Mrs Hamdy when the protests began. (Read more from “‘I Started the Arab Spring. Now Death Is Everywhere, and Extremism Blooming'” HERE)

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NOAA Relies on ‘Compromised’ Thermometers That Inflate US Warming Trend

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s reliance on poorly-sited weather stations to calculate surface temperatures is inflating the warming trend of the U.S. and maybe even the rest of the world, according to a landmark study looking at three decades of data.

“The majority of weather stations used by NOAA to detect climate change temperature signal have been compromised by encroachment of artificial surfaces like concrete, asphalt, and heat sources like air conditioner exhausts,” Anthony Watts, a seasoned meteorologist and lead author of the study, said in a statement Thursday.

These “compromised” weather stations run hotter than stations that are well-sited, and are used by NOAA as a benchmark to make upward adjustments for other weather stations that are part of the agency’s official temperature record.

Watts and his fellow researchers found only 410 “unperturbed” weather stations out of the 1,218 stations used by NOAA to determine U.S. climate trends. These “unperturbed” stations don’t need to be adjusted by NOAA because they had not been moved, had any equipment changes, or change in the time temperatures were observed.

Watts found well-sited stations show significantly less warming than poorly-sited stations from 1979 to 2008 — the time period was chosen in order to respond to NOAA papers from 2009 and 2010 justifying its weather station adjustments. Now, Watts has years of evidence showing NOAA is relying on shoddy weather stations to make its temperature adjustments. (Read more from “NOAA Relies on ‘Compromised’ Thermometers That Inflate US Warming Trend” HERE)

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Secret Hashtags Help Teens Share Dangerous Habits

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Rule-breaking may be just as irresistible to teenagers today as it was in their parents’ day, but a new study of secret social media hashtags like #selfharmmm suggests that new technology is helping kids share dangerous behaviors more easily than ever before.

When it comes to what’s known as non-suicidal self-injury – cutting, burning and scratching done with damage rather than death in mind – teens can be quite crafty at deploying hashtags that mask their activities, evade content safeguards and advisory warnings, and make it much harder for parents to monitor their virtual lives.

“The online communities that develop around these hashtags can draw in adolescents and provide them a strong sense of belonging and support that is centered on these unhealthy behaviors,” said lead study author Dr. Megan Moreno, a specialist in adolescent medicine at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Research Institute . . .

Moreno and colleagues used the search term #selfharmmm to identify public posts on the social media platform Instagram, a photo-sharing service popular with teens, that related to destructive habits like cutting and burning.

Then, they used the search results to identify a list of ambiguous hashtags such as #blithe, #MySecretFamily and #SecretSociety123 that were tied to the same dangerous behaviors. (Read more from “Secret Hashtags Help Teens Share Dangerous Habits” HERE)

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Neighborhood Finds Chilling Letter About Islam in Mailboxes, What the Notes Said Had Police Come Running

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Sweden welcomed Syrian Refugees with open arms. Sweden’s government and people rolled out the welcome mat for refugees by bringing in over 200,000 Syrians, many of whom settled in Stockholm. The humanitarian act of generosity and virtue has now been met with messages of hate and intolerance, and if true, those very refugees are threatening to kill Swedish citizens if they refuse to convert to Islam.

According to the Daily Mail, tensions started in October within the Swedish community who reported to authorities that they were being harassed and threatened with beheading if they didn’t convert to Islam. Walls of their businesses were subjected to threatening graffiti which read, “Convert or Die,” and, “The Caliphate is Here” . . .

Now, the most serious threat to public safety has emerged. Flyers with ISIS flags have been deposited into citizens’ mailboxes. The flyers read:

In the name of Allah, the merciful, full of grace. You who are not believers will be decapitated in three days in your own house. We will bomb your rotten corpses afterwards. You must choose between these three choices: 1. Convert to Islam. 2. Pay the jizya [religious tax] for protection. 3. Or else, you will be decapitated. The police will not prevent or save you from you being murdered. (Death comes to all of you).

Police and intelligence officials are taking the threat of forced conversion very seriously and are investigating the matter. The letters have been distributed into mailboxes across the entire country of Sweden, not just in Stockholm. (Read more from “Neighborhood Finds Chilling Letter About Islam in Mailboxes, What the Notes Said Had Police Come Running” HERE)

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GOPe on Attack: Did Cruz Reveal Classified Info?

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Sen. Ted Cruz’s CNN debate performance in Las Vegas Tuesday night won him no support with the chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., told reporters Wednesday that Cruz may have inadvertently discussed classified information while butting heads with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on surveillance programs.

“The old program covered 20 percent to 30 percent of phone numbers to search for terrorists. The new program covers nearly 100 percent. That gives us greater ability to stop acts of terrorism, and [Rubio] knows that that’s the case,” the Texas senator said while discussing the National Security Agency.

Rubio countered, “I don’t think national television in front of 15 million people is the place to discuss classified information” . . .

“In 2006, a senior U.S. official said, the NSA was collecting ‘closer to 100′ percent of Americans’ phone records from a number of U.S. companies under a then-classified program, but as of last summer that share had plummeted to less than 30 percent,” the newspaper reported at the time. (Read more from “GOP on Attack: Did Cruz Reveal Classified Info?” HERE)

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Hillary Just Made This Horrible Claim About the Relatives of Benghazi Heroes

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Our news media are so overwhelmingly obsequious to the Democrats that Hillary Clinton can imply the relatives of the Americans killed in Benghazi are liars on national TV, and no one in the press blinks an eye or finds it newsworthy.

ABC is about to host another one of those hide-and-seek Saturday night Democrat debates. There is something very ironic here: It was on this network where she made that outrageous statement.

Clinton lied to her former employee (and donor) George Stephanopoulos on his ABC program “This Week” on Dec. 6. In his toughest question of the day, George told his pal, “Some GOP rivals and family members of the Benghazi victims are saying you lied to them in the hearing. They point to emails that you sent the night of Benghazi attack, one to your daughter, Chelsea Clinton, saying… ‘Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al-Qaida-like group.'” He added that she had told the Egyptian prime minister on a phone call on Sept. 12, 2012, “We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film.”

Clinton denied ever telling the Benghazi relatives that it could be blamed on an anti-Muhammad video: “No. … I understand the continuing grief at the loss that parents experienced with the loss of these four brave Americans. And I did testify, as you know, for 11 hours. And I answered all of these questions. Now, I can’t — I can’t help it that people think there has to be something else there.” (Read more from “Hillary Just Made This Horrible Claim About the Relatives of Benghazi Heroes” HERE)

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Yale Fail: Ivy Leaguers Sign ‘Petition’ to Repeal First Amendment [+video]

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Trigger warning! This story and video may be unsuitable viewing for the “safe space” crowd.

Looking to understand just how controversial the debate over free speech on our college campuses really is, filmmaker and satirist Ami Horowitz recently traveled to Yale University, one of our nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, to speak directly to students.

“I decided to take this campus free speech debate to its logical conclusion,” said Horowitz, who asked students if they’d sign a petition calling for an outright repeal of the First Amendment. “The result was this unbelievable display of total stupidity.”

(Read more from “Yale Fail: Ivy Leaguers Sign ‘Petition’ to Repeal First Amendment” HERE)

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