EPA Proposes Limits on Alaska Mine Project

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Photo Credit: AP / Al Grillo

Photo Credit: AP / Al Grillo

The Environmental Protection Agency Friday proposed restrictions on a large copper-and-gold mine slated for a watershed in southwest Alaska that has pitted environmental groups against business regarding the EPA’s authority to veto such projects.

At issue for the Pebble Mine near Bristol Bay’s watershed is whether the EPA can veto a needed Clean Water Act permit. The proposal comes with a comment period that ends Sept. 19. If finalized, it could invite legal action from the mine’s backers on an issue that has attracted the attention of congressional Republicans.

Republicans and industry say the EPA can’t veto the project because the developer, Pebble LP, has not filed a formal blueprint. The House has held hearings on the project, and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee has subpoenaed the EPA for documents. Some Democrats, commercial fishermen, native tribes and environmental groups say it can because the EPA has an outline of the mine’s parameters based on Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

“This is not a pre-emptive veto,” Dennis McLerran, regional administrator for EPA Region 10, said in a media call in response to criticisms from industry and Republicans that the EPA was planning to reject the Clean Water Act permit even though Pebble LP hadn’t yet submitted an application.

McLerran, speaking of the years-long delay by developers to file an application, said, “the amount of uncertainly that has hung over the Bristol Bay watershed is a consideration” in the step the agency outlined Friday.

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Tea Party Groups' Suit Against IRS Moves Forward

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tea_party_gunsA federal judge has allowed a lawsuit by 10 tea party groups to move forward against the Internal Revenue Service, rejecting a request by the federal government to dismiss all the allegations that the agency subjected conservative groups to additional, often burdensome scrutiny.

In her ruling Thursday, Judge Susan Dlott allowed two of the tea party groups’ claims — including that the IRS discriminated and retaliated against them based on their views in violation of their free speech rights — to survive to trial.

The Cincinnati-based Dlott did dismiss a third claim, ruling the tea party groups could not pursue allegations of privacy violations on behalf of their individual members. The individuals themselves have to do that, she said.

Edward Greim, the lead attorney for the tea party groups, said Friday he is pleased the case will move forward.

“If the government is right in this case, it means that from now on, no matter who the president is, the IRS can pick out a group of people that disagrees with the president and pull those people out, delay them, harass them, target them, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it,” Greim said. “And our position is very simple: That cannot be true and that’s not the republic that we live in.”

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Obama Tries to Connect with Ordinary Americans – Through Junk Food

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Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn Martin

Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn Martin

By Katie Zezima.

Has food – especially junk food – played as large a role in the messaging of any other presidential administration as it has in that of President Obama?

Obama has long complained about feeling hemmed in by the presidency, and has made a habit lately of escaping the White House by walking down the street, skipping town and meeting with regular Americans who have written him letters or have some connection to an issue he plans to discuss. The common thread in almost all of these excursions? Food or drink. And nothing fancy.

The latest adventure came Thursday, when Obama had a burger and fries at the Charcoal Pit in Wilmington, Del., with Tanei Benjamin, who wrote Obama last year about her struggles as a single mother. Why the Charcoal Pit?

“Biden told me the burgers are pretty good,” Obama said. Biden is, of course, from Delaware.

Obama has said his excursions out of Washington are meant to connect him with regular Americans and their struggles. The cuisine and restaurants chosen by Obama and the White House is yet another reflection that Obama is attempting to bolster his populist bona fides out on the road.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: EAG News

Photo Credit: EAG News

With nation’s school lunches fundamentally transformed, Michelle O eyes ‘talking shopping carts’

By Ben Velderman.

First, Michelle Obama seized control of your child’s school lunch and made it “healthy.” Now, the First Lady wants to change the way you buy groceries.

A new 80-page report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture explains that federal bureaucrats hope to use a variety of tools to modify the way Americans select food items at the supermarket.

The goal is to steer consumers toward fruits and vegetables – and away from sugar- and fat-laden items. The plan is in line with “Michelle Obama’s stated second term agenda to ‘impact the nature of food in grocery stores,’” reports FreeBeacon.com.

While the feds’ plan deals mostly with the 47 million Americans who participate in the government’s food stamp program, it would indirectly affect all consumers.

According to FreeBeacon.com, the federal busybodies want to provide food-stamp shoppers with “incentives” for making healthy food choices – such as discounts or free movie tickets – and even talking shopping carts that will notify them when they’ve selected enough healthy items.

Read more from this story HERE.

NYT Story Prompted Clinton to Question CIA's Info On bin Laden, According to Newly Released Memo

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

When a New York Times article cast doubt on the accusation Usama bin Laden had a hand in the 1998 bombings of African embassies, President Clinton questioned his own CIA, according to a note he scrawled to his national security adviser.

The memo, part of a 1,000-page release of documents Friday afternoon by the National Archives, was written after the president apparently read an article in the self-professed “paper of record” casting doubt on the U.S. Justice Department’s case that the Al Qaeda mastermind was involved in the Aug. 7, 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Some 224 people were killed in the twin attacks, including 12 Americans.

Two months later, a federal grand jury in New York indicted bin Laden and 20 others for participating in a terrorist plot to kill Americans. But the Times article, entitled “U.S. Hard Put to Find Proof bin Laden Directed Attacks,” and written the following April, raised doubts about bin Laden’s involvement, at least with Clinton.

“Sandy, if this article is right, the CIA sure overstated its case to me — What are the facts?” Clinton wrote in pen.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Administration Hands Oil Industry a Big Win

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Obama administration announced Friday that it would allow exploration for oil and gas off some portions of the Atlantic Coast using sonic testing devices that environmentalists say harm marine life.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management gave the OK for seismic airgun testing, which are boat-towed cannons that shoot sonar blasts off the ocean floor to scan for oil-and-gas deposits, in the mid- and south-Atlantic areas that stretch from the Delaware Bay to just south of Cape Canaveral, Fla. The approval is a prelude to potential offshore drilling there, though that is blocked through 2017 under President Obama’s five-year offshore drilling plan.

“The bureau has identified a path forward that addresses the need to update the nearly four-decade-old data in the region while protecting marine life and cultural sites,” said Acting BOEM Director Walter D. Cruickshank, who noted the agency has several permits on hand to conduct the seismic tests. “The bureau’s decision reflects a carefully analyzed and balanced approach that will allow us to increase our understanding of potential offshore resources while protecting the human, marine and coastal environments.”

It’s a big victory for the oil-and-gas industry, which is nearing its first chance to drill in the Atlantic Ocean in more than 30 years. It comes as BOEM recently raised its estimates for technically recoverable oil in the region to 4.72 billion barrels of oil and 37.51 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — 43 percent and 20 percent higher, respectively, than agency estimates in 2011.

Read more from this story HERE.

SHOCK: Malaysian Airlines Jet Shot Down By Missile Near Ukraine-Russia Border (+video)

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Photo Credit: Dominique Faget / AFP / Getty

Photo Credit: Dominique Faget / AFP / Getty

By CBS Seattle/AP.

A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday as it flew over the country, and both the government and the pro-Russia separatists fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the plane.

As plumes of black smoke rose up near a rebel-held village of Grabovo in eastern Ukraine, an Associated Press journalist counted at least 22 bodies at the crash site 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border.

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet). He also said it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, which can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet).

A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday.

Malaysia Airlines confirmed that it received notification from Ukrainian aviation authorities that it had lost contact with flight MH17 at 1415 GMT some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Tamak waypoint, approximately 50 km (30 miles) from the Russia-Ukraine border.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: SkyNews

Photo Credit: SkyNews

Plane ‘Shot Down’: Britons Among 298 Killed

By Sky News.

A plane which crashed in eastern Ukraine with 298 people, including nine Britons, on board was reportedly shot down as it flew near airspace deemed unsafe for passenger jets.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was travelling at an altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 metres) when contact was lost.

An adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry told the Interfax news agency the Boeing 777 was brought down by a Buk ground-to-air missile, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members.

As well as the nine Britons, the victims included 154 Dutch, 45 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one Canadian.

Three infants are among the dead, and the nationalities of 41 passengers have yet to be verified. These are thought to include a number of Americans.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP / Dmitry Lovetsky

Photo Credit: AP / Dmitry Lovetsky

Ukraine Rebels Say They Have The Most Plane Recorders

By Yuras Karmanau and Dmitry Lovetsky.

Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners – dressed in overalls and covered in soot – searched through wreckage and bodies scattered across sunflower fields and Ukrainian villages Friday after a Malaysian jetliner flying high above the country’s battlefield was shot down, killing 298 people.

Separatist rebels who control the area where the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was brought down said they had recovered most of its black boxes and were considering what to do with them. Their statement had profound implications for the integrity of the plane crash investigation.

U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile downed the plane, but could not say who fired it.

Ukraine, whose investigators have no access to the area, has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and insisted it was not its military.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Malaysia jet crashes in east Ukraine conflict zone

By BBC News.

A Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 295 people has crashed in east Ukraine on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

There are no signs of survivors at the scene of the crash near the village of Grabovo, in rebel-held territory close to the border with Russia.

Both sides in Ukraine’s civil conflict accused each other of shooting down the plane with a missile. It is still not clear why the plane came down.

It is the second disaster suffered by Malaysia Airlines this year.

Flight MH370 disappeared en route from Malaysia to China in March and still has not been found.

Read more from this story HERE.

DOJ: We Heard About IRS Missing Emails On The News

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Gary Cameron

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Gary Cameron

James Cole, deputy attorney general in the Department of Justice, testified Thursday that the DOJ heard about the destruction of IRS officials’ emails in the news, even though DOJ has formally been investigating the IRS for more than a year.

“I think we learned about it after that, from press accounts,” Cole told House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan at a hearing Thursday on the DOJ’s response to the wave of computer crashes at the IRS that wiped out seven different employees’ hard drives. (RELATED: Meet The Seven IRS Employees Whose Computer Crashed). DOJ has allegedly been conducting a widely-mocked investigation into the IRS conservative targeting scandal for more than a year, and recently announced that a new investigation is underway into the IRS missing emails.

Read more from this story HERE.

The U.S. Constitution: Beautifully Conceived

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constitution_quill_pen-300x197Teaching in high schools in New York City for twenty-one years, it was disturbing to see that U.S. history textbooks often distance themselves from open praise and delight at the system of government our country enjoys. No sense of resounding gratitude is expressed for our Constitution. Federalism and checks and balances are dryly presented in a detached manner as mere mechanisms. There is no sense of honor accorded to the incredible vision of a government “conceived in liberty,” with the centers of power placed under wonderful constraints against tyranny.

Further, students will typically find politically correct statements in their books or hear them from their teachers to the effect that in the beginning women could not vote, the slaves had no rights, and “liberties still had to be won.” These disclaimers are intended to dilute the students’ patriotism; our founding was just another event on the world stage. It had plusses and minuses like all of history, and nothing exceptional occurred. One is reminded of President Obama’s repeated rejections of American exceptionalism, and how our freedoms are defined too negatively by the Constitution, with too many “freedom from” provisions, instead of affirming governmental “freedom to” control, direct, and provide for the so-called general welfare (via redistribution of wealth).

Textbooks must return to glorifying our Constitution so that dissatisfactions and rejection will fade into oblivion. What great truths, then, are enshrined in the Constitution?

Non-monarchical. Our system of government was the first non-monarchical system in the modern world except for a couple of cities in Switzerland. Here we do not have to bow before any man, but can live in the dignity of our personhood with others. William Penn, as part of his Quaker beliefs, disdained even the removal of his hat before the King of England as unworthy obeisance. (Fortunately for him, the King was well-disposed toward William!)

Read more from this story HERE.

“Pro-life” Senator Votes to Overturn Hobby Lobby Ruling

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (D) has some explaining to do. Although the senator has proclaimed to be pro-life, his recent support of a Democratic bill to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling on Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, suggests otherwise. This failed legislation would have reversed a decision that protects the Christian company’s religious freedom and avoid providing employees abortion-inducing drugs.

Manchin explained his support for the bill as such:

“Today, I voted in support of overturning the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision that ruled for-profit companies can opt out of providing contraceptives to their employees because of religious beliefs,” Manchin said. “As Governor and U.S. Senator, I have always fought to protect the sincerely-held religious views of non-profit organizations, like soup kitchens, colleges, hospitals and similar non-profit organizations…

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Just Exempted US Territories From Obamacare (+video message from Joe Miller)

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Photo Credit: AFP / Saul LOEB

Photo Credit: AFP / Saul LOEB

The Obama administration issued yet another waiver to get out of Obamacare — for all the U.S. territories.

The exemption, posted Thursday on a Department of Health and Human Services website, frees U.S. territories from a host of Obamacare regulations on health insurance markets. The territories already weren’t subject to much of the health care law — the individual mandate doesn’t apply to the territories and premium subsidies aren’t available.

What did apply were a host of regulations on the health insurance markets operating in the territories. Obamacare’s rules for insurance companies — providing mandated health benefits to all customers, limits on insurer profits, and guaranteed coverage for those with pre-existing conditions — all force insurers to take a hit, but in the territories, the sweeteners that make Obamacare a great deal for insurance companies in the states don’t apply.

The individual mandate and premium subsidies were supposed to bring healthy and young customers into the insurance market. Even in the states, that’s not working nearly as well as the Obama administration had hoped. But without either provisions, the insurance markets in the territories were tanking due to the influx of sick patients and the new benefits insurers were required to provide.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Alaska U.S. Senate Candidate Joe Miller has a blast telling you how he REALLY feels about Obamacare. WATCH and SHARE: