Sniper Takes out ISIS Executioner From a Mile Away

A sharpshooter killed a top ISIS executioner and three other jihadists with a single bullet from nearly a mile away — just seconds before the fiend was set to burn 12 hostages alive with a flamethrower, according to a new report.

The British Special Air Service marksman turned one of the most hated terrorists in Syria into a fireball by using a Barett .50-caliber rifle to strike a fuel tank affixed to the jihadi’s back, the UK’s Daily Star reported Sunday.

The pack exploded, killing the sadistic terrorist and three of his flunkies, who were supposed to film the execution, last month, the paper said.

The ISIS butcher — who reportedly delighted in burning hostages alive — had been on a US “kill list” for several months, sources told the paper, which did not identify the sniper or the executioner. (Read more from “Sniper Takes out ISIS Executioner From a Mile Away” HERE)

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FORMER JUDGE: James Comey Was Determined “To Exonerate Hillary Clinton” and Shred the Rule of Law

Former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can’t remember certain details on her emails and on many issues she remains evasive. On the other hand, for some observers, FBI director James Comey has clarified recent actions in regard to the Democrats’ presidential candidate.

Comey released documents concerning Hillary Clinton’s emails on September 2, the afternoon before the Labor Day weekend, as Paul Ryan observed, the time when they were least likely to command attention. Comey defended the action and told reporters the FBI released the documents when they were ready. Those suggesting the FBI was being “political” or part of “some fix,” he wrote in a memo, “either don’t know us, or they are full of baloney (and maybe some of both).”

The FBI director also said that the decision not to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton was “not a cliff-hanger” and “there really wasn’t a prosecutable case.” Comey referred disparagingly to “all the chest-beating by people no longer in government.” That may be a reference to former Superior Court judge Andrew Napolitano, who described the FBI interview with Clinton as “very troubling.”

Napolitano counted five times in the report where the FBI lamented that it did not have the material it needed. “This is the FBI’s own fault,” Napolitano wrote. “This tepid FBI behavior is novel in modern federal law enforcement. It is inimical to public safety and the rule of law. It is close to misconduct in office by high-ranking FBI officials. Someone restrained the FBI.”

Further, “the FBI did not ask Clinton aggressive follow-up questions. Her interrogators just blithely accepted her answers. They failed to present her with documents she had signed that would have contradicted what she was telling them – particularly, an oath she signed on her first day in office promising to recognize state secrets when she came upon them and to keep them in secure venues. And agents violated Department of Justice policy by not recording her interrogation when her lawyers told them she would not answer questions if her answers were recorded.”

For the judge, “it is apparent that some in FBI management blindly followed what they were told to do – exonerate Hillary Clinton. There is no other explanation for the FBI’s failure from the outset to use ordinary law enforcement tools available to it.”

The FBI’s release of the document on the Friday before Labor Day did not escape media coverage. On the other hand, the old-line establishment media has been slow to recognize James Comey’s history with the Clintons.

As Christopher Andersen noted in American Evita: Hillary Clinton’s Path to Power, after Bill Clinton left the White House, the goal was to get Hillary back in. The road led through New York, where Hillary took aim at the Senate seat vacated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Hillary was not from New York and had never spent more than a few days there, so she needed creative ways to attract votes.

New Square, a Hasidic enclave 30 miles northwest of Manhattan, had voted as a bloc in previous elections and campaign workers urged Hillary urged to stop there. In New Square, four members of the Skver sect had been convicted in 1999 of bilking government aid programs for some $30 million. During her visit, Hillary denied that she discussed any pardon.

The day before the election, in a letter to New Square’s main synagogue, president Bill Clinton said he looked forward to visiting the village. As Andersen noted, New Square delivered Hillary’s biggest victory margin of any community in New York state, 1,359 votes to only 10 for her opponent Rick Lazio.

During the final days of his presidency, Bill Clinton opted to reduce the prison terms of the New Square offenders, and after 9/11 that sparked an investigation. As Anderson noted, “Hillary received an unexpected gift in late June when, without explanation, U.S. Attorney James B. Comey closed the New Square clemency case.” Clinton’s pardon of fugitive Marc Rich also drew an investigation and Andersen found it odd that the Bush administration would “help the Clinton’s out” by refusing to release documents related to the pardons. And “in accordance with his boss’s wishes, U.S Attorney James Comey gave Bill and Hillary a pass.”

Hillary’s cleanup hitter is stepping up to the plate again, according to Andrew Napolitano. By his count, Hillary Clinton told the FBI she couldn’t remember a full thirty-nine times. She claimed she used a single electronic device but she actually used thirteen. When Congress began requesting information, her staffers smashed the devices with a hammer and a critical laptop was supposedly lost in the mail.

For Napolitano, destruction of the thirteen Blackberries was “obstruction of justice,” but nobody was charged. The only explanation, as the judge sees it, is that FBI bosses “blindly followed what they were told to do – exonerate Hillary Clinton.” (For more from the author of “FORMER JUDGE: James Comey Was Determined “To Exonerate Hillary Clinton” and Shred the Rule of Law” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Parting Gift to Planned Parenthood

What do you give to a cash-flush abortion business and political ally that has everything? More taxpayer dollars, of course.

In his remaining few months in the Oval Office, President Barack Obama has found a new way to direct more taxpayer money to his friends at Planned Parenthood.

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced a new regulation that would force states to give federal family planning funds to Planned Parenthood and other abortionists. The move could mean millions more in taxpayer dollars for the nation’s abortion market leader at the expense of women’s health.

Title X is a federal program designed to fund “family planning” for low-income individuals. Created in 1970, it was only authorized through 1985. But Congress just keeps appropriating hundreds of millions of dollars anyway, and a large share of that goes to Planned Parenthood every year.

The Office of Population Affairs, which runs Title X, grants funds for “family planning services” (like contraceptives and sterilizations) and “education and information” for low-income individuals. While the common understanding is that Title X-paid counselors must inform a woman of all her options, the Clinton-era regulations actually make adoption counseling optional, perhaps explaining Planned Parenthood’s sometimes over 300-1 ratio of abortions over adoptions.

Grants are available to both public entities (like state health departments) and private networks. Where a state health department chooses not to apply, private entities often receive and distribute Title X funds. Among states that receive Title X funds, some have wisely chosen to prioritize the funds to more comprehensive health care providers than Planned Parenthood, thereby avoiding state entanglement with abortion. That’s why the Obama administration is upset.

Consider Kansas.

Recognizing that it made little public health sense to have women go to one location for birth control pills and another for other health needs, Kansas chose to prioritize the Title X funds it received to public health departments and clinics, nonpublic hospitals, and federally qualified health centers.

This would mean that any woman receiving Title X services would also be connected to a provider that could meet the primary care needs for her and her family, including preventive services, immunizations, diagnostic and radiological services (often including mammograms), and pediatric care.

She would have one primary care provider who knows her medical needs and history and wouldn’t need to travel to multiple sites for services that can be provided at one location more cost-effectively. Planned Parenthood is simply not equipped to provide these primary care services.

Kansas’ desire to consolidate public health funding to encourage primary care and preventive services rather than discrete “family planning” boutiques that detach patients from the broader health care system is shared by other states like Texas, Utah, Arizona, Wisconsin, Indiana, and others that have passed similar laws.

The Obama administration itself recognizes that “primary care providers are critical for ensuring better coordinated care and better health outcomes for all Americans.” So there should be common ground here on directing Title X funds to places where these primary care providers can be found, better coordinating an individual’s health care.

Alas, Planned Parenthood sued Kansas. Kansas won. But rather than allowing Kansas to meet women’s health care needs better through other providers, the Obama administration cut Title X funds to Kansas, hurting women in retaliation for the perceived slight to its ally.

A similar pattern has played out in Tennessee, New Hampshire, and other states where the Obama administration has directly granted money to Planned Parenthood, ignoring the judgment of states that Title X services should be provided where patients can connect to providers able to meet their comprehensive health care needs.

In New Hampshire, the administration even refused to disclose information about its direct Planned Parenthood grant, claiming disclosure would harm the nonprofit’s “competitive position.” But in just a few months, Obama won’t be around to help his friends at Planned Parenthood anymore, so the administration is trying to make it official before Obama is gone.

In the three decades since Title X’s authorization lapsed, many other government programs have served the purpose it was once intended to serve.

Federally qualified health centers serve at least eight times as many patients than Planned Parenthood. Medicaid has expanded, and many states employ federally approved Medicaid waiver programs to provide the same services covered under Title X to many more people. And, of course, Obamacare now mandates coverage of contraceptives on virtually every health plan.

In 2016 there would seem to be little need for a program that was supposed to end in 1985. Certainly, there is no need for that program’s more recent use to direct patients away from preventive services and primary care providers—unless, of course, the aim is actually to reward an industry that has been one of the president’s chief supporters, even at the expense of public health.

It’s difficult to read the president’s new regulation as anything other than a parting taxpayer-funded gift to a loyal crony. “For more from the author of “Obama’s Parting Gift to Planned Parenthood” please click HERE)

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Katie Couric Sued for $12 Million for Defamation in Anti-Gun Documentary

Film producer Katie Couric and her director Stephanie Soechtig edited their anti-gun documentary Under the Gun in order to make a gun rights group in Virginia look as if they couldn’t answer a simple question.

They’re now facing a $12 million defamation lawsuit, according to documents provided to Bearing Arms.

Second Amendment rights advocacy organization the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), along with two of its members, today filed a $12 million defamation lawsuit against Katie Couric, director Stephanie Soechtig, Atlas Films, and Studio 3 Partners LLC d/b/a Epix for false and defamatory footage featured in the 2016 documentary film Under the Gun. The film portrays a fictional exchange in which members of the VCDL appear silent, stumped, and avoiding eye contact for nearly nine seconds after Katie Couric asks a question about background checks. An unedited audio recording of the interview reveals that—contrary to the portrayal in the film—the VCDL members had immediately begun responding to Couric’s question.

In the filing, the VCDL, Daniel L. Hawes, Esq., and Patricia Webb allege that the filmmakers knowingly and maliciously manufactured the fictional exchange by splicing in footage that the filmmakers took surreptitiously after telling the interviewees to be silent for ten seconds so that recording equipment could be calibrated. The filing also contains side-by-side screenshots of the film’s footage of the VCDL members and anti-gun advocates, alleging that the filmmakers manipulated lighting to cast shadows on the VCDL members and to make them appear sinister and untrustworthy. “We were horrified to see how Couric and her team manipulated us and the video footage to make us look like fools who didn’t stand up for the Second Amendment,” said Mr. Philip Van Cleave, President of the VCDL. “We want to set the record straight and hold them accountable for what they’ve done. You shouldn’t intentionally misrepresent someone’s views just because you disagree with them.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court (United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia– Richmond Division), seeks $12 million in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages. The VCDL, Mr. Hawes, and Ms. Webb are represented by Tom Clare, Libby Locke, and Megan Meier of Clare Locke LLP, a boutique law firm specializing in defamation litigation.

(Read more from “Katie Couric Sued for $12 Million for Defamation in Anti-Gun Documentary” HERE)

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Alaska Republican Party Chairman Calls For “Honorable” Conduct, Implies Senator Lisa Murkowski Dishonorable and Selfish

Late last week, Alaska Republican Party Chairman Tuckerman Babcock sent out a memo to members of the State Central Committee urging those who intend to support Joe Miller for US Senate to resign.

At issue is the following party rule: “No appointed or elected Republican party officers shall promote or be engaged in any activity that promotes the candidacy of any person for partisan political office other than a Republican running on a Republican ticket.”

Babcock made his point no less than four times, stating in clear and unambiguous terms, “the honorable course is to resign your party office.”

At first glance, it all seems straightforward, but when one looks at the facts of the case it becomes more difficult.

Lisa Murkowski lost the 2010 Republican primary to Joe Miller, then proceeded to run against Republican nominee Joe Miller, all the while maintaining her seat on the Republican State Central Committee. She was never disciplined, never censured, and never vacated her seat.

Chairman Babcock went on to suggest that those who don’t voluntarily step down are not only dishonorable, but also selfish.

If this is the case, then apparently the party Chairman is suggesting Lisa Murkowski is both dishonorable and selfish, and to top it all off her record in the United States Senate stands in stark contrast to the Alaska Republican Party platform whose stated mission is “to elect and appoint to public office Alaskans with integrity committed to enacting solutions consistent with these [Republican Party] principles.”

In essence, the Chairman is advocating that an obscure party rule be used to subvert the party’s stated mission in the promotion of a candidate who has systematically disregard party rules and undermined party principles.

So are we to conclude that the Alaska Republican Party Chairman would have party officers exhibit honor by supporting dishonor?

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How Ted Cruz’s Internet Offensive Could Change Spending Strategy in the House

Sen. Ted Cruz’s latest showdown with the Obama administration over the White House plan to give up control of the internet could help bring wayward conservatives back to Republican leadership’s heel on a stopgap spending measure.

Arguments about internet freedom and federal spending have become intertwined on Capitol Hill, affecting how some House conservatives say they’ll vote on a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government after the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

On Oct. 1, the Obama administration plans to relinquish control of ICANN—the global, nonprofit organization that functions as the phonebook of the internet by curating website domain names.

That’s the same day that the federal government’s spending authority ends.

Multiple members of the House Freedom Caucus told The Daily Signal that a policy rider stopping the internet handoff could sweeten a short-term continuing resolution that, so far, they’ve been loath to swallow.

Conservatives have sparred with members of the House Appropriations Committee for weeks over the length of a stopgap spending measure.

Appropriators want a three-month continuing resolution that would put government spending on autopilot until December. Conservatives balk at that option because it allows outgoing lawmakers to legislate during the lame-duck session, the period after the election but before the next Congress convenes.

Members of the Freedom Caucus have pushed for a longer, six-month continuing resolution. But if they secure policy guarantees from leadership, that could change.

A founding Freedom Caucus member, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said conservatives are open to supporting a short continuing resolution if two provisions are added: one pausing immigration from Syria and another “stopping the transfer of ICANN to an international entity.”

Cruz is spearheading the effort to craft the policy rider on internet control in the Senate’s version of the short-term budget measure.

The Texas senator has launched a website blasting President Barack Obama for “giving away the internet.” And he has scheduled a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Wednesday to push Republicans to make good on their promise not to allow the Obama administration to surrender control of ICANN.

“In 22 short days, if Congress fails to act, the Obama administration intends to give away the internet to an international body akin to the United Nations,” Cruz said during a Sept. 8 floor speech. “I rise today to discuss the significant, irreparable damage this proposed internet giveaway could wreak, not only on our nation but on free speech across the world.”

Support for a policy rider to halt the transfer has been building among Senate leadership. Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told Politico that he’d back the effort to add an internet policy rider to a short-term measure to fund the government.

Opposition to the transfer has been widespread in the past. In April 2014, 34 Senate Republicans, including then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, called on the White House to keep ICANN out of the hands of the United Nations or any other international agency.

When asked if McConnell, now majority leader, would support Cruz’s proposal, an aide to the Kentucky Republican declined to comment.

In the House, Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., is quarterbacking a coordinating effort. A GOP aide told The Daily Signal that the Cruz counterpart “has been in talks with the speaker’s office and is optimistic.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office declined to comment on ongoing negotiations. But members of the Freedom Caucus already were warming to that idea Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s popular with the American people to maintain sovereignty over our own country and some control over the internet,” said Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, who supports adding the measure to a three-month continuing resolution.

The Freedom Caucus has not taken a formal position, although several members are interested. Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told The Daily Signal that adding a policy rider on internet control “would be most helpful” in persuading conservatives to rethink their opposition to a short-term budget measure.

For Freedom Caucus members who have been fighting with GOP leadership over spending levels all year. Stopping the transfer of ICANN could be a good consolation prize, Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., told The Daily Signal.

“If you’re locked into a bad [budget] package,” Brat said, “we will try to get what we can out of it.”

At least one key member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee is already on board.

Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees internet issues, told The Daily Signal he will use “every legislative tool available” to make sure the internet remains under U.S control.

“I’ll push for language in the [continuing resolution] that would prevent the Obama administration from moving forward with this irresponsible internet giveaway,” Culberson said.

But this isn’t the first time Republicans have tried this strategy to block Obama from making the transfer.

“There has been a longstanding appropriation rider to prevent funds from being used to hand over the internet that the administration is ignoring,” a Cruz aide told The Daily Signal.

“The senator thinks that language should be strengthened. He is hopeful that before the Sept. 30 deadline Congress will show leadership and protect freedom on the internet.”

Asked about Cruz’s latest effort, White House press secretary Josh Earnest projected confidence Monday that the president’s ICANN transition would go as planned.

The administration sees the handoff as “the right thing for the long-term security and well being of the internet,” Earnest told reporters.

“So that’s the approach that we’re intending to pursue,” he said. “We’ll see what kind of tricks Sen. Cruz has up his sleeve.” (For more from the author of “How Ted Cruz’s Internet Offensive Could Change Spending Strategy in the House” please click HERE)

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Why This Female Veteran Is Against Women in the Draft

Although the United States has not issued a draft since the Vietnam War in 1973, Congress is in the final negotiating stages for a measure that could require women over the age of 18 to register for the draft. While some members say requiring women to register in the Selective Service is another step toward removing gender-based barriers against women in the military, others, such as Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., view it as an “unnecessary and divisive culture war.”

Jude Eden, a Marine Corps veteran who served from 2004 to 2008 and overseas in Iraq, shared her personal take about why she believes forcing women into the draft poses a danger for the country’s national defense. Watch the video to find out more.

(For more from the author of “Why This Female Veteran Is Against Women in the Draft” please click HERE)

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The Clinton Diagnosis — Chronic Secrecy and Dishonesty

With the Clintons, mistrust always pays.

A couple of weeks ago, Hillary was yukking it up with Jimmy Kimmel over the absurdity of rumors that she was hiding something about her health. Look, she can open a pickle jar! That feels so long ago now that her campaign has admitted that she was indeed hiding something about her health — a pneumonia diagnosis late last week.

Some of the diagnoses from afar of Hillary’s purported illnesses have been elaborate fantasies, and she might have really been fit as a fiddle when she opened the famous pickle jar. But through her secretive handling of her pneumonia, she has, once again, shown how it never pays to trust a Clinton.

Bill and Hillary have a way of treating the credibility of their allies as a disposable commodity, in this case including the credibility of a protective media.

The press had worked itself into a lather in recent weeks about the illegitimacy of inquiries into Hillary’s health. They were repaid by Clinton leaving reporters behind without notice at the Sept. 11 memorial; nearly collapsing when she was out of their view (the incident was captured on video by a bystander); giving them a wave and a misleading “feeling great” outside of Chelsea Clinton’s apartment, where she had gone to recover; and leaving them behind yet again to go to her home in Chappaqua and see a doctor. (Read more from “The Clinton Diagnosis — Chronic Secrecy and Dishonesty” HERE)

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Two Cheers for PolitiFact Exposing Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Lie

Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV) is in a tight race for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s seat, and the Super PAC for America’s largest abortion company, Planned Parenthood Votes (PPV), wants Nevada voters to believe that he voted to send women to jail for having abortions.

He hasn’t, and even left-leaning Politifact called them on it.

Heck holds a slight lead over former Nevada Attorney General Cortez Masto, a liberal and pro-abortion Democrat. While Heck’s overall record is centrist, he has voted for pro-life legislation such as a ban on abortions performed after 20 weeks’ gestation and a bill to defund Planned Parenthood.

In its ad (below), PPV claimed that “Joe Heck voted to criminalize abortion for rape victims.” Complete with a woman’s voice and the faces of several women, the ad strongly insinuates that Heck wants to throw women in jail for having abortions.

Thanks to PolitiFact, however, we know this isn’t true. Once again, Planned Parenthood is parsing words in order to fool the public. The 2012 bill referenced by PPV — and quoted by PolitiFact — literally says women cannot be prosecuted for getting an illegal abortion.

Bar To Prosecution.—A woman upon whom an abortion in violation of subsection (a) is performed or attempted may not be prosecuted under, or for a conspiracy to violate, subsection (a), or for an offense under section 2, 3, or 4 based on such a violation.

As PolitiFact noted, “[T]he Planned Parenthood ad fuzzes the difference between prosecuting the abortion provider and prosecuting the woman receiving the abortion.” Politifact analyzed PPV’s careful blending of ambiguous wording and misleading pictures:

The use of “for” in the sentence “Joe Heck voted to criminalize abortion for rape victims” could be interpreted to mean that rape victims would bear the legal consequences, even though the law makes clear that they would not.

In fact, the ad visually reinforces the notion that women would be left open to criminal penalties by featuring a succession of young women, none of whom wear the tools of the medical profession, such as a lab coat or a stethoscope.

PPV, which did not respond to my request for comment, defended its dishonest ad to PolitiFact:

“Joe Heck voted to criminalize abortion,” said Erica Sackin, communications director for Planned Parenthood Votes. “Whether the law sends women to jail or doctors to jail, the end result is the same: Women would have been left with nowhere to turn to for safe, legal abortion.”

I’ve long been a critic of PolitiFact’s left-leaning bias, including its own parsing of words on the issue of abortion. And while its “Half-True” ranking of the ad is too kind to PPV, PolitiFact deserves two cheers for effectively shredding the ad’s multiple levels of dishonesty, even if the final ranking leaves much to be desired. (For more from the author of “Two Cheers for PolitiFact Exposing Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Lie” please click HERE)

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$9 Million. That’s How Much John Kerry’s State Department Gave His Daughter’s Nonprofit

Here we go again, folks. It looks like Hillary Clinton was not the only secretary of state in the Obama administration to use the State Department for personal gain or special favors.

According to an exclusive report from the Daily Caller, “more than $9 million of Department of State money has been funneled through the Peace Corps to a nonprofit foundation started and run by Secretary of State John Kerry’s daughter.”

Specifically, a Peace Corps program called the Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP) received the funds from the Department of State. The program, which “sends volunteer physicians and nurses to medical and nursing schools in Malawi, Tanzania” was created by Dr. Vanessa Kerry. The Peace Corps then “awarded the money without competition to a nonprofit Kerry created for the program”:

Initially, the Peace Corps awarded Kerry’s group — now called Seed Global Health — with a three-year contract worth $2 million of State Department money on Sept. 10, 2012, documents show. Her father was then the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which oversees both the Department of State and the Peace Corps.

Seed secured a four-year extension in September 2015, again without competition. This time, the Peace Corps gave the nonprofit $6.4 million provided by the Department of State while John Kerry was secretary of state.

Seed also received almost $1 million from a modification to the first award, as well as from Department of State funds the group secured outside the Peace Corps.

Memos obtained by the Daily Caller indicate that Dr. Kerry worked with government officials to ensure these funds would be “fast tracked and non-completed” to her organization without competition.

Peace corps officials, State Department officials, and a spokesman for Dr. Kerry’s organization all denied any conflicts of interest or other untoward behavior. So John Kerry’s State Department helped secure $9 million for his daughter’s non-profit, and that was just coincidence?

Does anyone really believe that? (For more from the author of “$9 Million. That’s How Much John Kerry’s State Department Gave His Daughter’s Nonprofit” please click HERE)

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