FBI: Cuban Intelligence Aggressively Recruiting Leftist American Academics as Spies, Influence Agents

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Photo Credit: APCuba’s communist-led intelligence services are aggressively recruiting leftist American academics and university professors as spies and influence agents, according to an internal FBI report published this week.

Cuban intelligence services “have perfected the work of placing agents, that includes aggressively targeting U.S. universities under the assumption that a percentage of students will eventually move on to positions within the U.S. government that can provide access to information of use to the [Cuban intelligence service],” the five-page unclassified FBI report says. It notes that the Cubans “devote a significant amount of resources to targeting and exploiting U.S. academia.”

“Academia has been and remains a key target of foreign intelligence services, including the [Cuban intelligence service],” the report concludes.

One recruitment method used by the Cubans is to appeal to American leftists’ ideology. “For instance, someone who is allied with communist or leftist ideology may assist the [Cuban intelligence service] because of his/her personal beliefs,” the FBI report, dated Sept. 2, said.

Others are offered lucrative business deals in Cuba in a future post-U.S. embargo environment, and are treated to extravagant, all-expense paid visits to the island.

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California Drought: El Niño Chances Fall Again

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Photo Credit: Brian MurphyHopes of an almighty El Niño bringing rain to a drought-stricken California – with its fallow fields, depleted streams and parched lawns – were further dashed Thursday. The National Weather Service, in its monthly El Niño report, again downgraded the chances of the influential weather pattern occurring in the fall or winter.

The odds were 80 percent in May, but were placed between 60 and 65 percent this week.

Meanwhile, the agency also announced that the much-needed weather event is likely to be weak instead of moderate in strength – another retreat from the more robust projections made earlier this year that fueled speculation that California’s three-year dry spell might be snapped.

El Niños, defined by warming Pacific Ocean waters that release enough energy to shape worldwide weather, have been associated with wet winters in the Golden State. The strong 1997-98 event correlated with San Francisco’s biggest recorded rain year: a whopping 47.2 inches of rain.

But the correlation doesn’t always hold up. While El Niños carry the potential to bring quenching showers, this week’s climate report doesn’t necessarily doom the state to another year of drought.

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An Ugly Word That Hurts Thousands of Children is Called Out by Beautiful Little Girl Who Has a Name

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Photo Credit: IJ Review In this photo, a little girl named Isabella wants people to know that she is a person, with a name, like anyone else. She is not defined by any word, especially not one that tries to belittle or degrade others.

Please don’t use the word retarded. I am a beautiful person. I am Isabella!

The website R-word.org, whose aim is to end the use of the term ‘retarded,’ explains how the word “retardation” went from a clinical description to a word of derision.

“When they were originally introduced, the terms ‘mental retardation’ or ‘mentally retarded’ were medical terms with a specifically clinical connotation, however, the pejorative forms… have been used widely in today’s society to degrade and insult people with intellectual disabilities…

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Alaska Leads Nation with Welfare Recipients

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Photo Credit: blmiers2 / Creative CommonsBy Associated Press.

Alaska has the highest number of families on public assistance in the nation, and the state’s rate is more than twice the national average of 2.9 percent, according to new figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

A state-by-state tally of public assistance rates shows nearly 7 percent of Alaska families receive government help, the Alaska Dispatch News reported (https://is.gd/K6hRAZ). The figures are from 2012, the most recent data available.

Health department spokesman Clay Butcher said seasonal tourism and fishing jobs play a role, as do 140 villages in the state that are exempt from public assistance time limits because of few job opportunities. Most people are limited to receiving public assistance for 60 months.

“We also have a lot of transient types, people who come up in tourism jobs or oil jobs,” Butcher said.

Besides Alaska, 17 states saw an increase in the number of residents who receive public assistance. However, none have a higher percentage of recipients than Alaska, a trend that has held steady since at least 2000, the newspaper reported.

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Photo Credit: iStockAlaska, West Coast lead U.S. in receiving welfare

By Joseph Lawler.

Alaska has the highest rate of residents receiving welfare of any state.

The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that almost 7 percent of people in the Frontier State receive public assistance from the federal or state government, more than a percentage point more than the state with the next highest rate.

West Coast states lead the rest of the country in the share of residents receiving welfare. More than half a million people got public benefits in California in 2012, the most recent year for which welfare data from the Census’ American Community Survey is available.

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City Mandates Free Medical Marijuana for Low-Income Residents

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Photo Credit: My Fox NYWeed welfare?

That’s what the Berkeley City Council in California has unanimously approved, ordering medical marijuana dispensaries to donate 2 percent of their stash to patients making less than $32,000 a year.

The new welfare program in the liberal-leaning city is set to launch in August 2015.

The ordinance, which passed in August and is the first of its kind in the country, comes at a time when several states are debating how to handle a growing movement to legalize marijuana for both medical and recreational use.

But Berkeley’s decision to effectively order weed redistribution is prompting a vocal backlash.

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Top CIA Officer in Benghazi Delayed Response to Terrorist Attack, US Security Team Members Claim

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsA U.S. security team in Benghazi was held back from immediately responding to the attack on the American diplomatic mission on orders of the top CIA officer there, three of those involved told Fox News’ Bret Baier.

Their account gives a dramatic new turn to what the Obama administration and its allies would like to dismiss as an “old story” – the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Speaking out publicly for the first time, the three were security operators at the secret CIA annex in Benghazi – in effect, the first-responders to any attack on the diplomatic compound. Their first-hand account will be told in a Fox News special, airing Friday night at 10 p.m. (EDT).

Based on the new book “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi” by Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team, the special sets aside the political spin that has freighted the Benghazi issue for the last two years, presenting a vivid, compelling narrative of events from the perspective of the men who wore the “boots on the ground.”

The security contractors — Kris (“Tanto”) Paronto, Mark (“Oz”) Geist, and John (“Tig”) Tiegen — spoke exclusively, and at length, to Fox News about what they saw and did that night. Baier, Fox News’ Chief Political Anchor, asked them about one of the most controversial questions arising from the events in Benghazi: Was help delayed?

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Hacker Breached HealthCare.gov Insurance Site

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By Danny Yadron.

A hacker broke into part of the HealthCare.gov insurance enrollment website in July and uploaded malicious software, according to federal officials.

Investigators found no evidence that consumers’ personal data was taken in the breach, federal officials said. The hacker appears only to have accessed a server used to test code for HealthCare.gov. The Department of Health and Human Services discovered the attack last week.

An HHS official said the attack appears to mark the first successful intrusion into the website, where millions of Americans bought insurance starting last year under the Affordable Care Act. It raised concerns among federal officials because of how easily the intruder gained access and how much damage could have occurred.

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Photo Credit: TownHallTrainwreck, Continued: Eight New Pieces of Bad Obamacare News

By Guy Benson.

Who’s up for the latest batch of bad Obamacare-related news?

(1) Consumers brace for the second full year of Obamacare implementation, as the average individual market premium hike clocks in at eight percent — with some rates spiking by as much as 30 percent.

(2) “Wide swings in prices,” with some experiencing “double digit increases.”(Remember what we were promised):

Insurance executives and managers of the online marketplaces are already girding for the coming open enrollment period, saying they fear it could be even more difficult than the last. One challenge facing consumers will be wide swings in prices. Some insurers are seeking double-digit price increases…

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Army Can't Track Spending on $4.3b System to Track Spending, IG Finds

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Photo Credit: iStockMore than $725 million was spent by the Army on a high-tech network for tracking supplies and expenses that failed to comply with federal financial reporting rules meant to allow auditors to track spending, according to an inspector general’s report issued Wednesday.

The Global Combat Support System-Army, a logistical support system meant to track supplies, spare parts and other equipment, was launched in 1997. In 2003, the program switched from custom software to a web-based commercial software system.

About $95 million was spent before the switch was made, according to the report from the Department of Defense IG.

As of this February, the Army had spent $725.7 million on the system, which is ultimately expected to cost about $4.3 billion.

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Keystone Showdown: Battle Over Pipeline Lands Before Nebraska High Court

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Photo Credit: ReutersThe national debate on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline will concentrate on Lincoln, Nebraska Friday as that state’s Supreme Court hears arguments in a case examining whether lawmakers short-circuited the regular approval process in an attempt to expedite the pipeline’s construction.

The court’s ruling – not expected for several months — could force President Obama’s hand in making a final decision whether to green light the oft-stalled project.

Protests and political outrage have accompanied the proposed pipeline for years, but quieted down in recent months because of the Nebraska litigation and the Obama administration’s decision to wait for a ruling in the case before moving forward.

“The issue never goes away if you’re dealing with the pipeline on a local level,” anti-pipeline activist Jane Kleeb told Fox News. “While it may not be on the front page of newspapers nationwide, we’re dealing with it on a daily basis.”

Friday’s case before the seven-member court does not examine whether the pipeline should be built in Nebraska – or anywhere else — but rather if the state’s unicameral legislature improperly passed a law giving the governor authority to approve the project rather than the state’s Public Service Commission. It will take a supermajority of five justices to invalidate the law.

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Global Crisis: Calls Intensify for International Military Response to Ebola

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As the Ebola epidemic threatens to overwhelm response efforts in West Africa, calls for international military assistance are picking up. The medical charity Doctors Without Borders called on world leaders to send military units with expertise in biohazard containment to combat the worst outbreak of the virus on record. The European Commission’s humanitarian arm (ECHO) is also calling for military medical intervention to combat the epidemic, including U.S. Army and Navy Seal protection teams. But ECHO health adviser Jorge Castilla-Echenique warned of the high financial costs involved in a “M.A.S.H. like operation” in an interview with Thomson Reuters Foundation. U.S. Army mobile surgical hospitals have the capacity to serve as fully functional health facilities, but they do not come cheap, he said…

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Grim Ebola prediction: outbreak is ‘unstoppable’ for now, says U.S. virologist

A doctor who just returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa predicts the current Ebola outbreak will go on for more than a year, and will continue to spread unless a vaccine or other drugs that prevent or treat the disease are developed. Dr. Daniel Lucey, an expert on viral outbreaks and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Medical Center, recently spent three weeks in Sierra Leone, one of the countries affected by the Ebola outbreak. While there, Lucey evaluated and treated Ebola patients, and trained other doctors and nurses on how to use protective equipment. The current Ebola outbreak, which is mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, has so far killed at least 1,552 of the more than 3,000 people infected, making it the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. It is also the first outbreak to spread from rural areas to cities. Strategies that have worked in the past to stop Ebola outbreaks in rural areas may not, by themselves, be enough to halt this outbreak, Lucey said. “I don’t believe that our traditional methods of being able to control and stop outbreaks in rural areas … is going to be effective in most of the cities,” Lucey said yesterday (Sept. 3) in a discussion held at Georgetown University Law Center that was streamed online.

While the World Health Organization has released a plan to stop Ebola transmission within six to nine months, “I think that this outbreak is going to go on even longer than a year,” Lucey said. In addition, without vaccines or drugs for Ebola, “I’m not confident we will be able to stop it,” Lucey said. There are a few studies of Ebola treatments and prevention methods under way, but more research is needed to show whether they are safe and effective against the disease. One strategy that could help with the current outbreak is to implement public health “command centers” whose job it is to make sure that tools and equipment sent to the affected regions are properly distributed to places that need them, Lucey said…

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