Tea Party-Backed Candidate Sasse Wins GOP Senate Primary in Nebraska

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Tea Party favorite Ben Sasse won the Republican nomination for an open Senate seat in Nebraska Tuesday night, after a heated and costly primary battle that drew heavy national attention.

Sasse, a university president, was able to hold off former state treasurer Shane Osborn, and dark horse candidate Sid Dinsdale who had begun to surge in recent weeks. Sasse grabbed 48 percent of the vote with Dinsdale finishing second and Osborn finishing third, according to preliminary returns.

“We were never doing this because we need another job,” said Sasse. “We were only going to do this if we were going to talk about big bold conservative ideas.”

The win makes Sasse a huge favorite in November’s general election, where he’ll face Democrat Dave Domina, an Omaha attorney. The winner will replace Republican Mike Johanns, who didn’t seek a second term.

Sasse, the president of Midland University, had steadily gained the backing of some of the most influential conservative groups and figures. His victory is a huge win for the Tea Party as the movement has struggled to gain traction this year in the primaries.

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Over 200 Dead, Many Trapped in Turkish Coal Mine

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

An explosion and fire in a coal mine in western Turkey killed at least 201 workers and left some 200 more trapped deep inside, officials said Tuesday.

A massive rescue operation was underway at the mine in Soma, Turkey, about 150 miles south of Istanbul.

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz updated the death toll and number of missing after earlier saying 787 people were inside the coal mine at the time of the accident and 363 of of them had been rescued.

He said 80 mine workers were injured, at least four of them in serious condition.

He said most of the deaths were from carbon monoxide poisoning, and those trapped were nearly 500 yards underground..

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Arlington National Cemetery Marks 150 Years

Photo Credit: Mark Wilson, Getty

Photo Credit: Mark Wilson, Getty

ANC 150, the five-week commemoration of 150 years of Arlington National Cemetery, kicked off Tuesday with an Army wreath-laying ceremony at the grave site of Army Pvt. William Christman, the first military burial at Arlington.

Christman enlisted in the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry on March 25, 1864, at the age of 20. He was hospitalized for measles five weeks later and died. Christman was buried at Arlington on May 13 of that year.

After the wreath ceremony, members of the Christman family will spend time at his grave. Rick Bodenschatz, representing the Tobyhanna Township Historical Association, will also place a stone of remembrance from the original Christman home. The family home, located in Pocono Lake, Pa., was built from funds received from Christman’s Army service.

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Jihadists Execute Seven in Syria, Two by Crucifixion

Photo Credit: The Daily Star

Photo Credit: The Daily Star

The jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant announced it had executed seven prisoners in its bastion in northeastern Syria on Tuesday, two of them by crucifixion.

ISIL, which has been disavowed even by Al-Qaeda, said it held the seven responsible for a grenade attack on one of its fighters earlier this month in the Euphrates Valley city of Raqa, which it rules with an iron fist.

“Ten days ago, attackers on a motorbike threw a grenade at an ISIL fighter at the Naim roundabout. A Muslim civilian had his leg blown off and a child was killed,” the group said on Twitter.

“Our fighters immediately set up a roadblock and succeeded in capturing them. They were then able to detain other members of the cell.”

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights posted a photograph of the two prisoners being crucified at the roundabout with passer-by walking past apparently unfazed.

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Benghazi Hearings Are a Truth Hunt, Not a Witch Hunt

Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

By Charlie Daniels.

In the early days of the inquiry into the Benghazi debacle, it became obvious that the Obama administration was going to stonewall efforts to find out what happened when they tried to feed the American public the lie about the whole thing being caused by some obscure piece of film that insulted Mohammed and was played on television in the Muslim world.

They even stood at the coffins of the four murdered Americans, President Obama and Hillary Clinton still maintaining to the parents of the four men who had given their lives in service to this nation and let them believe that their sons and loved ones had been slaughtered by a random group of Muslim fanatics who just happened to be in the area and decided to kill some Americans.

The lie was soon exposed, but there were others like myself who never believed it to start with. I told my Twitter partners in 2012 that I was going to bring up Benghazi every day until the truth was known and I have, every day since.

People question me as to why I continue to post the Benghazi reminders daily because it’s old news, or they claim that the situation has been adequately explained, all the questions answered and it’s time to move on.

I vehemently disagree with those positions. To me, Benghazi is a symbol of a government that is poorly-led and out-of-control, an example of the indifference of a president who calmly went to bed and flew off to Las Vegas the next morning for a fundraiser.

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Photo Credit: NEWSCOM

Photo Credit: NEWSCOM

Who’s Crazy?

By Stephen F. Hayes.

Benghazi, crazy. That’s the association the White House and its allies want to encourage as a House Select Committee begins what should be the most thorough investigation of the Benghazi attacks to date. The White House wants to delegitimize the process before it begins and preemptively discredit the findings. So last week senior White House adviser David Plouffe claimed that “a very loud, delusional minority” is driving the Republicans on Benghazi, and former representative Jane Harman compared questions about Benghazi to conspiracy theories about Vince Foster and aliens.

At first blush, it might seem an odd strategy. A Fox News poll taken in mid-April found that 60 percent of voters want Congress to continue investigating the Benghazi attacks—a total that included 77 percent of Republicans, 61 percent of independents, and 42 percent of Democrats. The same poll found that 61 percent of Americans believe the Obama administration is “trying to cover up” the real Benghazi story—87 percent of Republicans, 66 percent of independents, and 33 percent of Democrats. Just 26 percent think the administration has been “open and transparent.” Notably, this poll was taken before the court-ordered release last month of previously withheld White House emails and talking points, a revelation that provided fresh evidence of White House stonewalling.

But the Obama administration’s strategy isn’t intended for the country at large so much as it is for the Washington press corps. The goal is to convince reporters that by investigating Benghazi they are doing the bidding of crackpots and political hacks. The White House is betting that journalists are more cynical about House Republicans and their motives than they are about the Obama administration’s mendacity on Benghazi. There’s some evidence that’s right.

Most of the reporting after John Boehner’s announcement of a select committee hinted at political motives. The New York Times, in a story that typified the coverage of the latest developments, led this way: “House Republicans on Friday escalated their battle with the White House over the continuing investigations into the 2012 attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, ensuring that the issue will not recede in the midst of a fierce partisan fight for control of Congress.”

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Senate Republicans Block Energy Bill, Forfeit Keystone Vote

Photo Credit: shannonpatrick17

Photo Credit: shannonpatrick17

U.S. Senate Republicans on Monday blocked an energy-efficiency bill backed by manufacturers and environmentalists, forfeiting a chance to vote on the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline.

On a nearly party-line vote of 55-36, President Barack Obama’s Democrats fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bipartisan energy bill supported by the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, had offered a vote on a separate bill to take the final decision on Keystone out of Obama’s hands and give it to Congress if Republicans allowed passage of the energy bill.

But Republicans refused. They complained that Reid barred them from offering amendments to the bill, including one that would have reined in emissions-cutting regulations on coal-fired power plants, a top strategy in Obama’s fight against climate change.

The blocked energy-efficiency bill would cut electricity use by imposing tough building codes and requiring federal data centers to find ways to consolidate and become more efficient.

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Rep. David Schweikert: VA Scandal Likely ‘Nationwide’

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Veterans Administration controversy that already has been linked to the deaths of some 40 veterans appears to be spilling over to other VA offices nationwide, with members of Congress bracing for repercussions in states around the country as more details emerge regarding extremely long waiting periods for veterans seeking medical care.

What began as a scandal over duplicitous document keeping at the VA office in Phoenix – a scheme apparently intended to conceal the fact that veterans were being left to languish in some cases over a year on waiting lists before getting access to a doctor — has already blown up into an Inspector General probe involving offices in Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Arizona, and possibly other states as well.

As many as 40 veterans are said to have died while awaiting medical care.

On Monday, GOP Rep. David Schweikert of Arizona told “America’s Forum” that the revelations so far may be just the tip of the iceberg.

“Be prepared,” Schweikert ominously advised “America’s Forum” hosts John Bachmann and J.D. Hayworth on Monday on Newsmax TV. “There’s going to be more and more of this as the investigation gets deeper and deeper.”

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Steyn: #BringBackOurBalls

Photo Credit: Steyn Online

Photo Credit: Steyn Online

It is hard not to have total contempt for a political culture that thinks the picture at right is a useful contribution to rescuing 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by jihadist savages in Nigeria. Yet some pajama boy at the White House evidently felt getting the First Lady to pose with this week’s Hashtag of Western Impotence would reflect well upon the Administration. The horrible thing is they may be right: Michelle showed she cared – on social media! – and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

Just as the last floppo hashtag, #WeStandWithUkraine, didn’t actually involve standing with Ukraine, so #BringBackOurGirls doesn’t require bringing back our girls. There are only a half-dozen special forces around the planet capable of doing that without getting most or all of the hostages killed: the British, the French, the Americans, Israelis, Germans, Aussies, maybe a couple of others. So, unless something of that nature is being lined up, those schoolgirls are headed into slavery, and the wretched pleading passivity of Mrs Obama’s hashtag is just a form of moral preening.

But then what isn’t? The blogger Daniel Payne wrote this week that “modern liberalism, at its core, is an ideology of talking, not doing”. He was musing on a press release for some or other “Day of Action” that is, as usual, a day of inaction:

Diverse grassroots groups are organizing and participating in events such as walks, rallies and concerts and calling on government to reduce climate pollution, transition off fossil fuels and commit to a clean energy future.

It’s that easy! You go to a concert and someone “calls on government” to do something, and the world gets fixed.

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Boko Haram Video Showing Captured Schoolgirls Features al-Qaeda Banner (+video)

Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

A new Boko Haram propaganda video released Monday, showing some of the more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls it abducted last month wearing Islamic garb and chanting the Islamic declaration of faith, also features an al-Qaeda banner.

The banner held up behind the reciting girls by two of their number, is the black-and-white one first used by al-Qaeda in Iraq about seven years ago but since displayed by al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Libya.

Bearing the Arabic script for the Islamic declaration of faith or shahada – “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger” – it is the same flag that was hoisted at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo during an anti-U.S. protest on Sept. 11, 2012, after the American flag was destroyed.

Western security officials have long suspected that Boko Haram has links to al-Qaeda’s affiliated in North Africa and Somalia – al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al-Shabaab.

As early as June 2012, then-U.S. Africa Command commander Gen. Carter Ham was voicing concern publicly about indications that Boko Haram, AQIM and al-Shabaab were “seeking to co-ordinate and synchronize their efforts.”

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Rand Paul Threatens to Hold Federal Reserve Nominees Unless His Fed Audit Gets A Vote

Photo Credit: Darren McCollester / Getty

Photo Credit: Darren McCollester / Getty

Sen. Rand Paul threatened Monday to place a hold on three nominees to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors unless his bill to subject the Fed to an audit gets a vote in the Senate.

It’s a replay of a maneuver the libertarian Republican and Fed critic attempted last year when current Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s nomination was under consideration.

In a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, Paul wrote that “there is no more appropriate time to provide Congress with additional oversight and scrutiny of the actions and decisions of the central banks” than during the Senate’s consideration of the nominees, whom the Senate Banking Committee approved in late April. The candidates are Stanley Fischer, the former top Israeli central banker nominated to be the Fed’s vice chairman, former Obama Treasury official Lael Brainard, and Jerome Powell, a current member of the board seeking a second term.

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