Sarah Palin on Bowe Bergdahl: President Obama ‘Blew It’ (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Politico By Jonathan Topaz / Politico.

President Barack Obama “blew it again” on foreign policy, Sarah Palin said Monday, slamming the president for the deal that released Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

She cited National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s comments one day earlier that Bergdahl served “with honor and distinction.”

“No, Mr. President, a soldier expressing horrid anti-American beliefs — even boldly putting them in writing and unabashedly firing off his messages while in uniform, just three days before he left his unit on foot — is not ‘honorable service,’” the former Alaska governor wrote in a Facebook post. The New York Post has reported that Bergdahl once emailed his parents from Afghanistan, saying he was “ashamed to be an American.”

Read more from this story HERE.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Parents of fallen soldier: Our son died looking for Bergdahl and the military lied to us about it

By Allahpundit / Hot Air.

Their son, Second Lieutenant Darryn Andrews, was also named in Nathan Bradley Bethea’s Daily Beast piece today as one of the men from his battalion killed in action during the search.

If the accusation is true, it wouldn’t be the first time higher-ups tweaked the narrative about how an American soldier died to make it less problematic for the military.

At the time his family say they were told that his men were hunting a Taliban commander and that the truck at the front of their group ended in a hole after being hit by an Improvised Explosive Device.

As the men got out to try and move the truck, a Taliban fighter with a rocket propelled grenade emerged and fired at them.

Read more from this story HERE.

Chinese General Says U.S. Foreign Policy Has ‘Erectile Dysfunction’ Problems

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: APA Chinese general used a regional security conference this weekend to tell a global audience that U.S. rhetoric about the South China Sea risks provoking Beijing.

For the Chinese language audience, the general used language saltier — and perhaps more provocative — words to describe how he feels about U.S. power.

Maj. Gen Zhu Chenghu, a professor at the National Defense University, made the remarks in an interview with Chinese-language Phoenix TV at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore Saturday.

He suggested that if China came to blows with any of its neighbors, the U.S. might not be a reliable ally.

“As U.S. power declines, Washington needs to rely on its allies in order to reach its goal of containing China’s development,” he told the TV station.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pentagon Wrestles with Bogus Climate Warnings as Funds Shifted to Green Agenda

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: DoD photo by Glenn FawcettTen years ago, the Pentagon paid for a climate study that put forth many scary scenarios.

Consultants told the military that, by now, California would be flooded by inland seas, The Hague would be unlivable, polar ice would be mostly gone in summer, and global temperatures would rise at an accelerated rate as high as 0.5 degrees a year.

None of that has happened.

Yet the 2003 report, “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security,” is credited with kick-starting the movement that, to this day and perhaps with more vigor than ever, links climate change to national security.

The report also became gospel to climate change doomsayers, who predicted pervasive and more intense hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts.

Read more from this story HERE.

Veterans See Red as Jane Fonda Tapped to Speak to UCLA Grads

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APVietnam veterans in California are furious all over again with Jane Fonda, after the actress was chosen to speak this month at a UCLA graduation ceremony.

Fonda, who in 1972 traveled to Hanoi, Vietnam, to meet with enemy soldiers and called American soldiers “war criminals,” has been picked to be the graduation speaker at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television’s commencement ceremony on June 13.

“We hate her,” Nick Callas, 67, president of the Santa Clarita chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, told FoxNews.com. “We won’t ever see any of her movies or support anything she did. It makes me sick to see her get this kind of recognition.

It was Fonda’s journey to Vietnam, as American soldiers were dying in the jungles of Southeast Asia and the nation was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the war, that veterans like Callas will never forget — or forgive. Fonda famously posed near a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. Although she has apologized since, many veterans believe she helped lift the enemy’s spirits while demoralizing those of young Americans.

The actress told Oprah Winfrey in 2013 she made an “unforgivable mistake,” saying she was taken to a North Vietnam military site during the last day of her visit, despite her objections.

Read more from this story HERE.

Supreme Court Declines Case Of Reporter Seeking to Protect Confidential Source (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Columbia University / APThe US Supreme Court declined Monday to take up the case of a New York Times reporter who is seeking to avoid being forced to reveal a confidential source in testimony in a criminal trial.

The reporter, James Risen, was subpoenaed to testify at the trial of a former Central Intelligence Agency officer accused of disclosing secret intelligence information without authorization to Mr. Risen.

Risen had sought to block his compelled testimony at the trial.

The high court turned down Risen’s petition without comment. The action lets stand a federal appeals court’s decision requiring Risen to testify at the trial. The appeals court rejected Risen’s argument that the courts should recognize a reporter’s privilege against being forced to reveal the identity of a confidential source.

Read more from this story HERE.

Police Arrest Man Wanted in FBI Explosives Case

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP / FBIA San Francisco social media maven and former political consultant who was wanted on suspicion of possessing explosives has been taken into custody after a three-day manhunt.

Federal agents and the San Francisco police said they captured Ryan Kelly Chamberlain II, 42, on Monday afternoon shortly after announcing that they had found his car near Crissy Field, just south of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Though Chamberlain was considered armed and dangerous, FBI spokesman Peter Lee said Monday that he did not seem to pose an immediate threat to public safety.

“Anyone who has the means, methods and access to make a bomb should be considered armed and dangerous,” Lee said before the arrest.

A law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter said Chamberlain was spotted in his white car around 6:22 p.m. Monday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hillary’s Failed Benghazi Spin

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Weekly Standard Hillary Clinton is right about Benghazi—or at least she’s right about one thing.

According to a story by Maggie Haberman about the Benghazi chapter in Clinton’s forthcoming book Hard Choices, the former secretary of state contends that some of her critics have badly mischaracterized the now infamous question she asked at a January 23, 2012, congressional hearing: “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

She’s right, they have. The question, which came in the middle of a heated back-and-forth with U.S. senator Ron Johnson, was not so much a declaration of indifference as it was an attempt to redirect the questioning from its focus on the hours before the attacks to preventing similar attacks in the future.

But beginning with her bizarre analogy to explain that question, Clinton’s attempt to spin Benghazi—at least as insofar as the Politico piece represents it—is highly misleading.

Clinton writes: “My point was simple: If someone breaks into your home and takes your family hostage, how much time are you going to spend focused on how the intruder spent his day as opposed to how best to rescue your loved ones and then prevent it from happening again?”

Read more from this story HERE.

___________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: APTed Cruz: Hillary more obsessed with ‘right-wing-conspiracy’ than Benghazi terrorists

By Tony Lee.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for obsessing about the so-called “right-wing conspiracy” more than the terrorists who murdered four Americans in Benghazi in 2012.

In the Benghazi chapter of her new book, Clinton still blames the YouTube video for the terrorist attacks and dismisses Americans who want answers about what may have been her lowest moment as Secretary of State.

“She’s more focused on blaming the so-called vast right-wing conspiracy than on the terrorists,” Cruz said on ABC’s This Week. “The truth shouldn’t be partisan, and there’s a pattern in this administration.”

Read more from this story HERE.

EPA to Seek to Cut Power Plant Carbon by One-Third

/7 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP / Matthew BrownThe Obama administration on Monday will roll out a plan to cut earth-warming pollution from power plants by 30 percent by 2030, setting in motion one of the most significant actions to address global warming in U.S. history.

The rule, which is expected to be final next year, will set the first national limits on carbon dioxide, the chief gas linked to global warming from the nation’s power plants. They are the largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S., accounting for about a third of the annual emissions that make the U.S. the second largest contributor to global warming on the planet.

The regulation is a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s plans to reduce the pollution linked to global warming, a step that the administration hopes will get other countries to act when negotiations on a new international treaty resume next year.

Despite concluding in 2009 that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare, a finding that triggered their regulation under the 1970 Clean Air Act, it has taken years for the administration to take on the nation’s fleet of power plants. In December 2010, the Obama administration announced a “modest pace” for setting greenhouse gas standards for power plants, setting a May 2012 deadline.

Obama put them on the fast track last summer when he announced his climate action plan and a renewed commitment to climate change after the issue went dormant during his re-election campaign.

Read more from this story HERE.

NSA Steps Up Digital Image Harvesting

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News The National Security Agency is, through its global surveillance program, increasingly gathering electronic images for its facial-recognition program, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

The spy agency has relied more on facial-recognition technology in the past four years as a result of new software that can process the flood of digital communications such as emails, text messages and even video conferences, according to the documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

NSA officials think the new technology will revolutionize how they find intelligence targets around the world, the newspaper reports.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ted Cruz Wins Presidential Straw Poll at Republican Leadership Conference

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: CNNTed Cruz, R-Texas, has won another straw poll, boosting his national profile and elevating his name among potential 2016 presidential contenders.

The firebrand freshman senator and tea party favorite was among a handful of 2016 hopefuls speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans this week.

Cruz finished in first place in the annual conference’s presidential straw poll at 30.33%. Dr. Ben Carson, a Fox News commentator and conservative activist, finished in second with 29.38% while Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, was third with 10.43%.

Fox News host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Governor Rick Perry rounded out the top five, at 5.06% and 4.90%, respectively.

Neither Carson nor Paul spoke at the conference, but their support was a show of confidence by the traditionally more conservative crowd. The annual meeting of activists features of who’s who of big-name Republican politicians. It is an important appearance for potential presidential candidates to make.

Read more from this story HERE.