Obama Failing Again, this Time In a City Where ISIS Is Threatening A Fourth Beheading

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Photo Credit: TwitterPresident Obama is scared to intervene in the Syria region where three Westerners have now been beheaded on video by the terrorist organization ISIS — and a fourth, British aid worker Alan Henning, is being threatened.

It is unclear when the videos were produced, or whether Henning is currently alive. But sources close to the Syrian situation confirm the videos’ setting as the mountainous area outside of Raqqa — the capital city of ISIS’ planned “Islamic Caliphate.”

Obama’s only intervention in the region came in the early summer of 2014, with a failed secret Department of Defense rescue mission for James Foley and the other ISIS captives. Approximately 24 Delta Force commandos retreated after gunfire with ISIS. The Obama administration only disclosed this information after the videotaped beheadings started. Defense Department officials were angry that they released the information at all.

When did ISIS take over Raqqa by driving a car bomb into one of their rivals’ hideouts? In mid-August 2013, just as Obama — then with a more than 50 percent approval rating — vacationed at Martha’s Vineyard with a small foreign policy team led by Susan Rice. There the president oversaw about a dozen drone strikes on al-Qaida in Yemen and also closed down U.S. embassies for a week amid terrorist chatter. House investigators also began requesting Benghazi documents from the administration in August 2013.

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Obama to Detail Plans on Ebola Offensive on Tuesday

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / KEVIN LAMARQUEU.S. President Barack Obama is expected to detail on Tuesday a plan to boost his country’s involvement in mitigating the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The plan would involve a greater involvement of the U.S. military in tackling the worst recorded outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the proposal.

The outbreak has now killed upwards of 2,400 people, mostly in Liberia, neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone as poorly resourced West African healthcare systems have been overrun.

The U.S. government has already committed around $100 million to tackle the outbreak by providing protective equipment for healthcare workers, food, water, medical and hygiene equipment.

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46,496,145: Food Stamp Recipients Can Fill Yankee Stadium 925 Times

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Photo Credit: APIn June 2014, there were 46,496,145 recipients of the food stamp program, which is enough to fill the Yankee Stadium 925 times, according to data from the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The Yankee Stadium is equipped to hold 50,291 persons, meaning that the 46,496,145 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients in June 2014 could fill the stadium 925 times. The number of recipients was up 270,999 since the previous month in May 2014 when there were 46,225,146 individuals participating in the program.

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Children of Arizona Gun Instructor Killed by Uzi Offer Prayers for 9-Year-Old Accidental Shooter

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Photo Credit: APThe 9-year-old girl who accidentally killed a gun instructor in Arizona last month when she lost control of an Uzi is being urged to put the incident behind her by her victim’s four young children, Fox 10 Phoenix reported.

The children of Charles Vacca released an emotional video Friday in which they take turns offering the child words of comfort. Vacca was shot once in the head as he was helping the 9-year-old learn how to fire the powerful weapon.

The name of the girl who was from New Jersey, has not been released.

‘Our dad would want you to know that you should move forward with your life, You should not let this define you’

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Politico Magazine Lead Story: Star Spangled Banner is Racist

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Photo Credit: IJ ReviewTo many Americans, the rise of the terrorist Islamic State is among the major threats facing the country. Or the continued flow of illegal aliens across our southern border. Or the economy and the fact that a record number of us – some 92 million – are no longer in the labor force.

But Saturday night, in its lead story, Politico Magazine published this burning question: “Is it time to ditch the Star-Spangled Banner?” According to author Tim Widmer, its lyrics are racist:

One line taunts the British for their failure, and specifically calls out “the hireling and slave” who joined the British forces. That line calls attention to a fact that considerably weakens the song’s claim to celebrate “the land of the free” – the presence of significant numbers of African-Americans, fighting with the British in hopes of finding a personal freedom they had no chance of securing in the United States. Among the invading army were at least 200 “colonial marines”—escaped slaves from Virginia and Maryland, eager to fight against their former masters.

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N. Korea Jails US Citizen Matthew Miller to Six Years' Hard Labor

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Photo Credit: AFPNorth Korea’s Supreme Court on Sunday sentenced US citizen Matthew Miller to six years’ hard labour for “hostile” acts, two weeks after he and two other detained Americans had pleaded for help from Washington.

Miller becomes the second American serving a hard labour prison term in the North amid accusations that Pyongyang is using them to extract political concessions from Washington.

The 24-year-old was arrested in April after he allegedly ripped up his visa at immigration and demanded asylum.

“He committed acts hostile to the (North) while entering the territory of the (North) under the guise of a tourist last April,” the state-run KCNA news agency said in announcing Sunday’s court ruling.

Pictures published by KCNA showed a sombre-looking Miller, dressed in a black polo neck and black trousers, sitting and standing in the courtroom dock, flanked by two uniformed guards.

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Anti-Gun Groups No Longer Fighting For Assault Weapons Bans

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Photo Credit: TownHallAlas, gun control groups seem to have moved away from so-called assault weapons bans for reasons pro-Second Amendment groups have espoused for months; they’re ineffective and represent a very small fraction of firearm-related homicides. Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America now calls such policy initiatives “nonstarters.” Nonetheless, that does not mean that these people have abandoned their support for such bans on certain types of firearms (via ProPublica):

Nearly two years later, Watts works full-time as the head of the group, now named Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, is a significant player in a coalition financed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But while polls suggest a majority of Americans still support an assault weapons ban, it is no longer one of Watts’ top priorities.

“We’ve very much changed our strategy to focus on public safety measures that will save the most lives,” she told ProPublica.

It’s not just that the ban proved to be what Watts calls a “nonstarter” politically, gaining fewer votes in the Senate post-Sandy Hook than background check legislation. It was also that as Watts spoke to experts and learned more about gun violence in the United States, she realized that pushing for a ban isn’t the best way to prevent gun deaths.

A 2004 Justice Department-funded evaluation found no clear evidence that the decade-long ban saved any lives. The guns categorized as “assault weapons” had only been used in about 2 percent of gun crimes before the ban. “Should it be renewed,” the report concluded, “the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

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$2.66T: Tax Revenues for FY14 Hit Record Through August; Gov’t Still Runs $589B Deficit

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Photo Credit: APInflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $2,663,426,000,000 for the first 11 months of the fiscal year this August, but the federal government still ran a $589,185,000,000 deficit during that time, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement.

Each month, the Treasury publishes the government’s “total receipts,” including all revenue from individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, social insurance and retirement taxes (including Social Security and Medicare taxes), unemployment insurance taxes, excise taxes, estate and gift taxes, customs duties, and “miscellaneous receipts.”

The largest share of the tax revenue so far this year has come from individual income taxes, which totaled $1,233,274,000,000 in the first 11 months of fiscal 2014.

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Hillary Clinton in Iowa Stirs 2016 Speculation

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsHillary Clinton returned to Iowa on Sunday for the first time since her 2008 Democratic presidential primary loss in the state, telling the crowd at the 37th annual Harkin Steak Fry — “I’m back.”

Clinton, the clear Democratic frontrunner should she make a 2016 White House bid, was greeted with loud cheers at the fundraising event. The event was held in honor of Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who is retiring from Congress this year.

The former secretary of state told the crowd of several hundred that her immediate focus is helping fellow Democrats in the midterm elections but that she also thinks about “that other thing,” hinting at a 2016 run.

“It’s true, I’ve been thinking about it,” she said. “People get excited about presidential campaigns, look I get excited about presidential campaigns, too.”

Missing in her speech were remarks on President Obama’s recent efforts to destroy the Islamic State militant group and on other pressing foreign policy issues.

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Shifting His Views, Rand Paul Seeks Broader Appeal — but May Risk His Outsider Image

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsSen. Rand Paul wanted to eliminate aid to Israel. Now he doesn’t. He wanted to scrap the Medicare system. Now he’s not sure.

He didn’t like the idea of a border fence — it was expensive, and it reminded him of the Berlin Wall. Now he wants two fences, one behind the other.

And what about same-sex marriage? Paul’s position — such marriages are morally wrong, but Republicans should stop obsessing about them — seems so muddled that an Iowa pastor recently confronted him in frustration.

“With all due respect, that sounds very retreatist of you,” minister Michael Demastus said he told Paul (R-Ky.) after the senator explained his position during a stop in Des Moines.

Paul has built a reputation as a libertarian ideologue, a Washington outsider guided by a rigid devotion to principle.

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