Reporter 'Creeped Out' by Obama Aide

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Photo Credit: TownHallBy Ky Sisson.

The White House was recently accused of changing press pool reports and pressuring journalists to modify their stories. And now, another journalist has been told what to do by an Obama aide.

Read more on the White House’s paranoid control over the press.

Meg Kissinger, a reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for 35 years, was covering Michelle Obama’s campaign visit for Wisconsin gubernatorial Democratic candidate, Mary Burke. She was told by aides for the first lady that she could not talk to people in the crowd.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Daily Signal Reporter Forbidden to Speak to Crowd at Michelle Obama Event

By Kate Scanlon.

Meg Kissinger, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, covered first lady Michelle Obama’s Milwaukee campaign stop Monday for Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke. But, Kissinger says, she was barred from speaking to members of the crowd.

Kissinger, a veteran of covering political events, said of the request that she’s “never seen anything like it in 35 years as a reporter.”

At the event, Kissinger noticed that members of the media were “cordoned off” from the crowd at the event.

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

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Photo Credit: Politico U.S. law enforcement officials are urging Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG) to give authorities access to smartphone data that the companies have decided to block, and are weighing whether to appeal to executives or seek congressional legislation.

The new privacy features, announced two weeks ago by the California-based companies, will stymie investigations into crimes ranging from drug dealing to terrorism, law enforcement officials said.

“This is a very bad idea,” said Cathy Lanier, chief of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, in an interview. Smartphone communication is “going to be the preferred method of the pedophile and the criminal. We are going to lose a lot of investigative opportunities.”

The dispute is the latest flare-up that pits the federal government against the nation’s leading technology companies since National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden disclosed last year the extent of U.S. snooping on phone and Internet communications — and how companies cooperated.

U.S. Justice Department and FBI officials are trying to understand how the new Apple and Google Android systems work and how the companies could change the encryption to make it accessible when court ordered. Their requests to the companies may include letters, personal appeals or congressional legislation, said a federal law official who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

Read more from this story HERE.

Why America Won't Have Enough Money to Battle ISIS

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Photo Credit: AP / U.S. Air Force, Staff Sgt. Shawn NickelPresident Obama says that it may take the U.S. and its allies three years to defeat Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants, with heavy dependence on stepped up U.S. airstrikes. And some defense experts say it could cost the government an additional $15 billion to $20 billion a year to pursue this hazardous mission.

The fight against ISIS is already expensive. As of late August, the United States had spent $560 million fighting the group, and continues to spend $7.5 million daily on operations in Iraq. Last week Congress authorized the administration to spend an estimated $500 million to equip and train so-called moderate Syrian rebels to help counter the fast growing threat of ISIS.

But what if the mission mushrooms into a much bigger, more intensive and considerably longer operation than Obama has outlined — one that eventually forces the U.S. to send in combat troops into Iraq again? Will there be enough money in the defense budget to achieve Obama’s goal of “degrading and destroying” ISIS while preserving a strong armed forces?

Probably not, short of a major downsizing of the military and its gold-plated retirement and health care programs or a massive increase in deficit spending, according to economist Eugene Steuerle, a budget expert with the Urban Institute.

Steuerle, author of Dead Men Ruling: How to Restore Fiscal Freedom and Rescue Our Future, argues that years of accumulated tax cuts, discretionary budget policy, and entitlement programs have set so much of federal spending in concrete that lawmakers and the administration have little flexibility to respond to major crises or problems such as natural disasters or the upheaval in the Middle East.

Read more from this story HERE.

New Jersey Man Accused Of Shooting Down Neighbor’s Remote Control Drone

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Photo Credit: ThinkstockA New Jersey man was arrested after police say he shot down a neighbor’s remote control drone.

According to investigators, officers with the Lower Township Police Department were called to a home in the 1000 block of Seashore Road on September 26th to investigate the report by a resident that his remote control helicopter (drone) was shot down.

Investigators say the resident was taking aerial photographs of his friend’s home, which is under construction.

While doing so, the resident told police he heard several gunshots as he simultaneously lost control of the drone.

Read more from this story HERE.

Huckabee: It's an Urgent Time to Stand with Israel (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreOn Sunday, October 5, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee joins Concerned Women for America for a rally in support of Israel in Washington, D.C.

“I have been to Israel nearly 30 times over the past 41 years and have never seen the nation under such threat,” Huckabee said. “Israel is our closest ally and friend in the Middle East, and they are suffering due to the weak policies of the Obama administration.”

“God has protected this tiny but increasingly powerful nation, and it’s time for the United States to do the same,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Feds Place Illegals in Every State

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Photo Credit: AP / Emily VariscoSchools scramble to help teens who crossed border

By Kimberly Hefling.

American schools are scrambling to provide services to the large number of children and teenagers who crossed the border alone in recent months.

Unaccompanied minors who made up the summer spike at the border have moved to communities of all sizes, in nearly every state, Federal data indicates, to live with a relative and await immigration decisions. The Supreme Court has ruled that schools have an obligation to educate all students regardless of their immigration status, so schools have become a safe haven for many of the tens of thousands of these young people mostly from central America living in limbo.

Delaware’s rural Sussex County has long attracted immigrants, partly because of work in chicken factories, and soybean and corn fields. The district’s population is more than one-quarter Hispanic, and for years has offered an early learning program for non-English speakers.

Still, officials were caught off guard by about 70 new students mostly from Guatemala – part of the wave crossing the border – enrolling last year, mostly at Sussex Central High School. The Indian River School District over the summer break quickly put together special classes for those needing extra English help.

On a recent school day, a group of these mostly Spanish-speaking teenage boys with styled spiky hair and high-top sneakers enthusiastically pecked away on hand-held tablets at the G.W. Carver Education Center, pausing to alert the teacher when stumped.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsMexican Consulate brings ID services to Wisconsin

By The Associated Press.

Wisconsin officials are working to better serve the rapidly growing Hispanic community in the state, with a little help from the Mexican Consulate in Chicago.

A mobile version of the Chicago-based office issued passports and consular identification cards to hundreds of Mexican nationals at an Appleton church last week, Post-Crescent Media reported. About 800 people took advantage of the services at First English Lutheran Church from last Wednesday to Saturday, according to Alfredo Gomez Sepulveda, a coordinator of the consulate’s mobile program.

About once a month, the mobile office visits a Wisconsin city to renew Mexican passports and consular identification cards, saving thousands of people from having to take a trip to Chicago. The consulate has served more than 9,900 Mexican nationals so far in 2014 by offering services in Appleton, Beloit, Green Bay, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Racine and Waukesha, according to Sepulveda.

“It’s more than a three-hour trip to Chicago and the passport is the primary form of ID. So it’s a service that the Chicago consulate provides … to attend to Mexican nationals over here,” Sepulveda said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Obama will ‘make good’ on immigration reform promise, aide says

By Justin Sink.

President Obama will “make good” on his promise to implement executive actions on immigration by the end of the year, press secretary Josh Earnest said Sunday.

The president had initially pledged to take unilateral action on immigration by the end of the summer, but the White House announced earlier this month that he would hold off until after the midterm elections.

White House officials have said Obama was concerned that moving before the midterm elections would make reform a partisan issue and polarize support against it, although the move was widely seen as a concession to Senate Democrats who were locked in tough reelection battles and begged Obama to hold off.

The delay has bred new concerns among immigration activists that the president will not ever take the executive action, but Earnest insisted that was not the case.

Read more from this story HERE.

Corrupt Veterans Affairs Executive Lied Under Oath, Engaged In Fraud

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerA report released by the inspector general for the Veteran Affairs Department (VA) has discovered incredible levels of fraud and abuse, detailing extensive retaliation against whistleblowers, Federal News Radio reports.

Along with whistleblower harassment come findings of lying to investigators and procurement fraud, with the main culprit being Susan Taylor, the deputy chief procurement officer in the Veterans Health Administration’s Procurement and Logistics Office (VHA).

The 82-page report shows that Taylor used her office for private gain in awarding a contract to FedBid, a reverse auction service, whose executives also interfered in the process by preventing the VA from operating in an honest and impartial manner.

According to a shocking revelation from the inspector general, FedBid, in its own words, planned to “‘storm the castle,’ use a ‘heavy-handed- puncher,’ to ‘rally the troops up on the Hill,’ have ‘enough top cover to overwhelm,’ to ‘unleash the hounds,’ to ‘assassinate [Mr. Frye’s] character and discredit him,’ and to keep ‘close hold’ of nonpublic information.’”

Read more from this story HERE.

This Federal Program Lets Cops Seize Cash, Evade State Laws And Keep Over A Billion Dollars

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Photo Credit: ForbesJohn Yoder and Brad Cates, who headed the Asset Forfeiture Office at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1983 to 1989, slammed civil forfeiture as a “complete corruption” and “fundamentally at odds with our judicial system and notions of fairness,” in an op-ed for The Washington Post. Thanks to civil forfeiture laws, police and prosecutors don’t need to charge someone with a crime to seize and keep their property. Yoder and Cates “were heavily involved in the creation of the asset forfeiture initiative at the Justice Department,” they write, but after seeing civil forfeiture become a “gross perversion of the status of government amid a free citizenry,” the two now believe it should be “abolished.”

Their criticisms come on the heels of an extensive, three-part investigation by The Washington Post into highway interdiction. Since 9/11, without warrants and despite a lack of criminal charges, law enforcement nationwide has taken in $2.5 billion from 61,998 cash seizures under equitable sharing. This federal civil forfeiture program lets local and state law enforcement literally make a federal case out of a seizure, if they collaborate with a federal agency. Not only can they then bypass state forfeiture laws, they can pocket up to 80 percent of the proceeds. So of that $2.5 billion seized through equitable sharing, local and state authorities kept $1.7 billion for their own uses.

In order to seize cash, police typically pulled drivers over for minor traffic infractions. During the stop, police would look for “indicators” of suspicious, criminal activity. Tinted windows, air fresheners, trash in the car, “a profusion of energy drinks,” “a driver who is too talkative or too quiet” and signs of nervousness have all been considered indicators. For one Florida sheriff, “cars obeying the speed limit were suspect—their desire to avoid being stopped made them stand out.”

On the grounds that a driver is sufficiently suspicious, police then have the authority to search the car with a drug dog. If the dog alerts (and there are significant concerns about their accuracy), police then have probable cause to seize property owned by the driver. After police seized cash, the government usually wins: The Washington Post found that out of nearly 62,000 cash seizures since 9/11, in only 4,455 cases—seven percent—did the government agree to return at least a portion of the money taken.

Read more from this story HERE.

WATCH: Obama 'The Country Is Better Off, People Just Don’t Feel It'

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Photo Credit: White HousePresident Obama firmly believes the United States is better off now than when he took office, even though the American people cannot “feel” it.

During an interview with 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft, Obama said, “the country is definitely better off than when I came into office.”

“When I came into office, our economy was in crisis,” Obama said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mrs. Abedini: I Believe My Husband Has Been 'Abandoned' by the Obama Administration

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Photo Credit: TownHallFor the past two years, Pastor Saeed Abedini has been suffering in one of the world’s cruelest prisons, Iran’s Evin Prison, simply for practicing his Christian faith. Pastor Saeed’s wife, Naghmeh, attended and spoke at this year’s Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC. I asked her about her family’s struggles, the president’s inaction and, most importantly, her and her family’s unwavering faith.

Is there a certain Bible verse you’ve gone to for comfort during this trial?

“The one that has spoken to me the most has been 2 Corinthians 12: 8-10, where Paul is talking about a thorn in his side and he wants it removed. I felt with Saeed’s imprisonment, it was painful, was something in our life I wanted removed. And I felt God telling me that His grace is sufficient for me and His strength is made perfect in my weakness. And then the following verse where God says, ‘Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities and distress and persecution and need’ and all of that. I just have learned to really – even when I feel things are distressed or hard – to really learn to embrace, as Paul said, because it just helps me discover God in a deeper way, it breaks me in a way and takes me to more dependency on Him and prayer and more intimacy. Knowing this is being used for the gospel, it makes it really comforting.”

Pastor Saeed has refused to deny his faith and has even converted some of his fellow prisoners. Can you talk more about that?

“He’s not denied his faith and under intense persecution and torture, especially early on in his imprisonment, and he’s who he is. No matter where he’s at, loving people means sharing about how God has changed his life. So that’s been who he is. It’s not because he’s being confined. He’s just sharing about hope and life that he’s found in Christ – wherever he’s gone.”

Read more from this story HERE.