MO Legislature Overrides Governor's Veto, Ratifies Statute Mandating 72-Hour Waiting Period for All Abortions

Photo Credit: TownHallThe Missouri state legislature passed a statute earlier this year requiring all women seeking abortions to wait 72 hours before obtaining one. However, because there were no exemptions enumerated in the bill itself — and thus deemed too “extreme” — Gov. Jay Nixon (D-MO) vetoed it. That’s why Republicans were forced to cobble together a two-thirds, veto-proof majority coalition to override him and get it on the books — which they barely did.

The law will go into effect sometime next month:

Missouri women seeking abortions will face one of the nation’s longest waiting periods, after state lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto to enact a 72-hour delay that includes no exception for cases of rape or incest. The new requirement will take effect 30 days after Wednesday’s vote by the Republican-led Legislature, overruling the veto of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. He had denounced the measure as “extreme and disrespectful” toward women.

The abortion bill was one of the most prominent Republican victories in a record-setting September session, during which Missouri lawmakers also overrode 47 line-item budget vetoes and nine other bills, including one creating a training program for teachers to carry guns in schools. Earlier this year, the Republican-led Legislature overrode Nixon’s veto to enact the state’s first income tax rate reduction in nearly a century.

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September 11 Anniversary to be Marked in Much-Changed Lower Manhattan

Photo Credit: AP / Mark Lennihan,A solemn reading of the names. Moments of silence to mark the precise times of tragedy. Stifled sobs of those still mourning.

As the nation pauses Thursday to mark the thirteenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack, little about the annual ceremony at ground zero has changed. But so much around it has.

For the first time, the National September 11 Museum — which includes gut-wrenching artifacts and graphic photos of the attacks — will be open on the anniversary. Fences around the memorial plaza have come down, integrating the sacred site more fully with the streets of Manhattan while completely opening it up to the public and camera-wielding tourists.

A new mayor is in office, Bill de Blasio, one far less linked to the attacks and their aftermath than his immediate predecessors. And finally, a nearly completed One World Trade Center has risen 1,776 feet above ground zero and will be filled with office workers by this date in 2015, another sign that a page in the city’s history may be turning.

For some who lost loved ones in the attacks, the increasing feel of a return to normalcy in the area threatens to obscure the tragedy that took place there and interfere with their grief.

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Obama: ISIS 'Is Not Islamic'

Photo Credit: WNDBy Chelsea Schilling.

In his prime-time speech to the nation on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, President Obama vowed to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq and Syria with airstrikes and 475 U.S. boots on the ground – but he also made a particular point of declaring that the Islamic State terrorists “are not Islamic.”

“Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic,” Obama said, speaking from the state floor of the White House residence. “No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.”

He added, “And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al-Qaida’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.”

Obama said the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, poses a threat to Iraq, Syria and the broader Middle East – including American citizens, personnel and facilities.

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Digital jihad: ISIS, Al Qaeda seek a cyber caliphate to launch attacks on US

By Jamie Dettmer.

Jihadists in the Middle East are ramping up efforts to mount a massive cyber attack on the U.S., with leaders from both Islamic State and Al Qaeda – including a hacker who once broke into former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Gmail account – recruiting web savvy radicals, FoxNews.com has learned.

Islamic militants brag online that it is only a matter of time before they manage to pull off a highly disruptive attack on America’s infrastructure or financial system. In addition, Islamic State, the terror group that claims to have established a caliphate across Syria and Iraq, boast openly of plans to establish a “cyber caliphate,” protected by jihadist developed encryption software from behind which they hope to mount catastrophic hacking and virus attacks on America and the West.

“The jihadists are investing a lot in encryption technologies and they have developed their own software to protect their communications and when western agencies work out how to crack them they adapt quickly,” said Steve Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington-DC-based non-profit that tracks jihadist Internet activity. “They are forward-thinking and are experimenting with hacking. In the future, the jihadist cyber army’s activities will become a daily reality.”

The terror groups are trying to add to their numbers to boost their capabilities, using social media to reach a larger pool of potential recruits and calling on militant-minded specialists to join them. The targets are the websites of U.S. government agencies, banks, energy companies and transport systems.

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Obama lays out plan to ‘eradicate cancer’ of Islamic State fighters

By Amie Parnes.

President Obama vowed to “destroy” Islamic State in Iraq and Syria terrorists in a prime-time address Wednesday that sought to restore eroding public confidence in his leadership and ability to safeguard national security.

The president announced a “systematic campaign of airstrikes” against fighters with the ISIS “wherever they exist,” signaling U.S. targets will expand from Iraq to Syria. [READ FULL TEXT OF OBAMA’S SPEECH.]

“I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country wherever they are,” Obama said during the 15-minute address from the White House. “That means I will not hesitate to take action against [ISIS] in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”

Obama also said he will send 475 additional U.S. armed services personnel to Iraq to reinforce that country’s military and ask Congress to approve a program allowing the Pentagon to train and equip moderate rebels inside Syria battling both ISIS and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.

“America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” Obama declared. “Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, [ISIS] through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.”

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Action against Islamic State is a ‘legacy issue’ for President Obama

By David Nakamura.

Nearly six years into a presidency devoted to ending U.S. wars in the Muslim world, President Obama faced the nation Wednesday night to explain why he has decided to engage in a new one.

Obama did not describe his authorization of direct military action to defeat the Islamic State terror group as a conventional war. To the contrary, in a prime-time address from the White House, he sharply contrasted his use of targeted but limited ­American force with the large-scale air-and-ground invasions launched by his predecessor, George W. Bush.

“This effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, casting the strategy as a “counterterrorism campaign” similar to U.S. intervention in Somalia and Yemen. “It is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible.”

But make no mistake: Obama’s escalation of airstrikes and the use of U.S. personnel to help “degrade and destroy” the extremist Sunni group represents a major setback for a commander in chief whose early international appeal was built on a pledge to remove the United States from “permanent war footing.”

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Trump To Obama: Resign And I’ll Give You Free Golf For The Rest Of Your Life

Photo Credit: Daily CallerNews broke today that President Obama was rebuffed in his attempt to golf at several exclusive country clubs over the Labor Day weekend while he waited around for the wedding of an MSNBC host and his personal chef. (Must be nice to have that kind of downtime.)

The rejection wasn’t personal, it’s just that no one was willing to take the huge financial hit of clearing their tee time schedule of dues paying members to accommodate the president’s foursome. (The whole course has to be cleared for the president to play, for understandable security reasons.)

Since Labor Day weekend is a huge weekend for golf, no one was willing to anger people who give them money for a man who wants to take an ever-growing chunk of it.

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Stabbing with Syringe Raises Fears of Ebola as Weapon

Photo Credit: ReutersBy Andrew Pollack.

A federal air marshal was stabbed with a syringe at the airport in Lagos, Nigeria, on Sunday, an incident that is raising concerns about whether the deadly Ebola virus could be harvested from the widespread outbreak in West Africa and used as a bioweapon.

Initial tests on the substance in the syringe, conducted at a special biodefense forensics laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, did not detect the virus or any other threatening agent, an FBI spokesman, Christos Sinos, said Wednesday. The marshal, who arrived in Houston on Monday, was examined there and has been released from the hospital with no sign of illness, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman.

Experts say it would be extremely hard for a group to grow large amounts of the virus and turn it into a weapon that could be dispersed over a wide area, infecting and killing many people.
“The bad guys are more likely to kill themselves trying to develop it,” said Dr. Philip K. Russell, a retired major general who was the commander of the Army Medical Research and Development Command.

But it is harder to totally discount the possibility of a smaller attack, perhaps like the one at the airport in Lagos. Another possibility would be suicide infectors, people who deliberately infected themselves and carried the virus out of the epidemic zone to sicken others.

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CNN: PILOTS FLYING EBOLA PATIENTS TO US SAY MORE EXPOSED BROUGHT TO US THAN REPORTED

By BREITBART TV.

On Wednesday, CNN reported, “There may be a lot more ebola victims being evacuated to the United States than we are been told about.”

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DHS Asks Stores to Watch Customers Behavior for Terrorist Signs

Photo Credit: APHomeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said his department will be issuing new guidance to retailers this week giving them pointers on how to spot potential terrorists among their customers by looking at what they’re buying.

While saying the government cannot prohibit sales of some everyday materials, Mr. Johnson said retailers should be trained to look for anyone who buys a lot from what he described as a “long list of materials that could be used as explosive precursors.”

He said it was an extension of the “If you see something, say something” campaign launched by his predecessor, former Secretary Janet Napolitano, which tries to enlist average Americans to be aware of their immediate environment.

“We can’t and we shouldn’t prohibit the sale of a pressure cooker. We can sensitize retail businesses to be on guard for suspicious behavior by those who buy this kind of stuff,” Mr. Johnson said during a question-and-answer session after a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Judge Tosses Auditors' Lawsuit That Would've Revealed Concealed Carry Permit Holders

Photo Credit: TownHallA county audit took an odd turn in Perry County, Pennsylvania when auditors requested that the county sheriff turn over the names of its concealed carry permit holders. This issue dates back to April where auditor Kimberly McMullen requested the release of the information since concealed carry permits generate revenue for the county. She said she had no interest in names of the people who have permits, but said she was doing this to weed out financial discrepancies. “(In one case, in Beaver County, it) cost the county about $13,000 in revenue,” she said, because an employee was discounting permit costs for friends,” according to PennLive

Perry County Sheriff Carl Nace said this was a violation of PA’s Uniform Firearms Act, which says the transference of such information can only be within law enforcement. He also said he faces a $1,000 fine for each name if that information were to be released.

“They want the names of the people who have gun permits, and that’s confidential,” Nace said. “The only ones who can get information are law enforcement under official duty.”

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Inside Harry Reid’s Senate ‘Plantation’

Photo Credit: T.J. Kirkpatrick / GettySenate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats have demanded an apology from Rep. Bill Cassidy after he accused Sen. Reid of running the Senate “like a plantation,” but there is at least some truth to the accusation.

Since April of last year, Sen. Reid has allowed a vote on just 58 amendments — 30 from the GOP — according to Senate records. The Senate majority leader before him, Republican Bill Frist, by comparison, held votes on 231 amendments over a comparable time period (April, 2005 through Sept. 9, 2006), and the Senate majority leader before that, Democrat Tom Daschle, held 174 votes (April, 2001 through Sept. 9, 2002).

“Harry Reid has literally shut down the amendment process,” Brian Phillips, a spokesman for Republican Sen. Mike Lee told The Daily Caller. “Reid allows at most maybe 2 or 3 amendments, mostly no amendments.”

As majority leader, Sen. Reid has the power to decide which bills come to the floor, and when, and he also decides which amendments to those bills are debated and voted on. The minority party often relies on the amendment process to make their voice heard and force the majority to take a position on certain points.

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Now Hiring: VA Wants to Take Care of Vets Again

Photo Credit: TownHallThe desperate need to secure quality healthcare for America’s veterans is more important than ever and the VA finally has some big plans to make it happen.

Recently appointed Veteran Affairs Secretary, Bob McDonald, said at a news conference that the VA is hoping to hire around 28,000 healthcare workers “as quickly as possible”. Last June, reports were released that said the VA’s broken system could have been responsible for more than 1,000 deaths, tarnishing both the department and the Obama administration.

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Homeland Insecurity: Americans Feel Less Safe than Any Time Since 9/11, Poll Finds

Photo Credit: AP / Charles DharapakAmericans feel less safe now than any time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because of the rise of the Islamic State and its on-camera beheadings of journalists, revealed a new poll released Wednesday.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 47 percent of Americans say the country is less safe now than before the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

That’s more people feeling unsafe than even a year after al Qaeda crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, when just 20 percent felt that way. The fear level has spiked dramatically since just last year, when 28 percent of Americans said they didn’t feel safe.

The numbers underscore the challenges President Obama faced in his address to the nation Wednesday night about his strategy for confronting the terrorists.

Read more from this story HERE.