House Committee Has Voted Unanimously to Rein in the NSA

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Photo Credit: Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post

Photo Credit: Bill O’Leary / The Washington Post

A key House committee has approved a package of NSA reforms that would end the spy agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, nearly a year after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden disclosed the program’s existence.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 32-0 Wednesday to rein in the NSA with the USA FREEDOM Act, a measure that places new requirements on the government when it comes to gathering, targeting and searching telephone metadata for intelligence purposes.

In addition to prohibiting the NSA from engaging in what the bill’s sponsors have called “dragnet surveillance,” the bill would also require authorities to get permission from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on a case-by-case basis. It would establish a panel of privacy experts and other officials to serve as a public advocate at the court. And it would also give businesses more latitude to tell the public about requests it receives from the government for user data.

The bill represents “the best chance in a decade” to correct an imbalance between national security and privacy, said co-sponsor Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). It is the first surveillance reform bill to proceed to the House floor.

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The Obama Lie That Was So Bad the Washington Post Said, ‘On Just About Every Level, This Claim is Ridiculous’

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Photo Credit: AP / Susan Walsh

Photo Credit: AP / Susan Walsh

President Barack Obama earned “four Pinocchios” from the Washington Post Fact Checker, the highest ranking for a political lie, for asserting that Republicans filibustered 500 pieces of legislation, an exaggeration of nearly five times the reality.

Obama spoke at a fundraising event for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Los Angeles Wednesday, and made the charge against Republican lawmakers.

“Here’s what’s more disconcerting; their willingness to say no to everything — the fact that since 2007, they have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class just gives you a sense of how opposed they are to any progress — has actually led to an increase in cynicism and discouragement among the people who were counting on us to fight for them,” Obama said.

The Post unsparingly said of the president’s assertion, “On just about every level, this claim is ridiculous.”

“We realize that Senate rules are complex and difficult to understand, but the president did serve in the Senate and should be familiar with its terms and procedures. Looking at the numbers, he might have been able to make a case that Republicans have blocked about 50 bills that he had wanted passed, such as an increase in the minimum wage,” the Post said. “But instead he inflated the numbers to such an extent that he even included votes in which he, as senator, supported a filibuster.”

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Miller Blasts Begich for Climate Change Deception

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Joe Miller today blasted Democrat Mark Begich for his full-on embrace this week of Barack Obama’s newly released Climate Change Assessment. Begich is calling for an end to scientific debate and for immediate action. 

“Mark Begich wants to have it both ways,” Miller said. “On the one hand, he uncritically accepts this administration’s alarmist conclusions and demands action. But on the other hand, he’s trying to distance himself from Obama’s proposed agenda, even to the point of disavowing ‘solutions’ he advocated for when it wasn’t election season.”

Mark Begich signed a 2010 letter to Harry Reid urging decisive action on climate change, stating, “We believe the scale of this challenge dictates the need for a comprehensive solution that includes making polluters pay through a price on greenhouse gas emissions.”

Apparently, our junior senator is unaware that there are good reasons to doubt the alarmists’ conclusions. For instance: 

•    A recent study conducted by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks concluded that the average temperature in Alaska declined by 2.34 degrees between 2000-2010.

•    A Fox News story last fall cited a National Snow and Ice Data Center report of a 60% increase in Arctic sea ice just between 2012-2013.

•    In a CNSNews article this spring, a Canadian evolutionary biologist warned that Arctic polar bears could be threatened by too much sea ice.

President Obama and Mark Begich’s pronouncements of an end to the scientific debate regarding climate change are based not on any new or conclusive findings of the scientific community, but on a willingness of ideologically driven politicians to exercise raw power to move their agenda forward.

Miller concluded, “What’s important is not what Mark Begich says this year, it’s what we know he will do next year if we give him another term in the United States Senate. We have watched him carry the water for Barack Obama and Harry Reid for five years now. Last year alone, he voted with the President 97% of the time. If Mark Begich is not in agreement with Barack Obama’s policies, why has he not put up a fight against this administration’s enactment of its anti-development climate change agenda through unlawful executive actions and bureaucratic fiat?”

Policing for Profit? Lawmakers, Advocates Raise Alarm at Growing Gov’t Power to Seize Property

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Motel owner Russell Caswell wasn’t expecting to find himself at the center of a national controversy when FBI agents came knocking on his door.

They said they wanted his Tewksbury, Mass., business – and the land it was on – because they suspected it was a hotbed for drug-dealing and prostitution. The agents, who were working with state and local authorities, told a disbelieving Caswell they had the right to take the property, valued at as much as $1.5 million, through a legal process known as civil forfeiture.

Caswell, 70, fought back, and the case turned into one of the nation’s most contentious civil forfeiture fights ever – and one that legal experts say sheds light on a little-known practice that, when abused, is tantamount to policing for profit.

Civil forfeiture is when police and prosecutors seize property, cars or cash from someone they suspect of wrongdoing. It differs from criminal forfeiture cases, where prosecutors typically must prove a person is guilty or reach a settlement before freezing funds or selling property. In civil forfeiture, authorities don’t have to prove guilt, file charges or obtain a conviction before seizing private property. Critics say it is a process ripe for abuse, and one which leaves citizens little means of fighting back.

“You breed a culture of ‘take first, ask questions later,’” Larry Salzman, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, told FoxNews.com. “It’s thuggish behavior.”

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Rangel: ‘I Don’t Think People…Are Going to Lose Sleep Over Benghazi’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Thursday, speaking of the special House committee that will investigate the terrorist attack in Benghazi, said he did not think Americans were “going to lose sleep” over it.

“I think it’s tragic that the Republican Party would destroy itself in 2016 by not having one issue that the American people believe should be a priority,” Rangel told Fox News’s Neil Cavuto.

“I don’t think people, Americans, Democratic or Republicans, are going to lose sleep over Benghazi. And I really think that they’re concerned about the economy and jobs and immigration. What I’m talking about is, is that if the Democrats are the only ones standing on their feet in 2016, America has lost.”

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The Devil Wears Obama

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has named its collection of used clothes—a sort of consignment shop one must pay to enter and where nothing is for sale—after Anna Wintour. A trustee of the Met since 1999, the editor of Vogue, artistic director of Condé Nast, and inspiration for The Devil Wears Prada has over the years raised some $125 million for the museum. Earlier this week, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Anna Wintour Costume Center, Michelle Obama delivered a speech. Never have I read one quite like it.

The first lady’s presence at the occasion was no surprise. Some of Anna Wintour’s favorite charities, after all, are the Democratic Party and the career of Michelle Obama’s husband. Since 2004, every cent of Wintour’s political contributions—$114,750 in total—has gone to Democratic candidates and to Democratic groups, including to the DNC, to Hillary Clinton, and to Barack Obama.

As a bundler for Obama, Wintour has raised a total of $5,448,371 over the course of two presidential campaigns. In 2012 she co-hosted, with the actress Sarah Jessica Parker, a New York City fundraiser for the president to which some lucky commoners were also invited. Dinner cost $40,000 a plate. Start saving now, and you may be able to attend the next dinner. It is likely to take place in the summer of 2016, for Wintour has said that she wants to see President Hillary Clinton on the cover of Vogue.

We are not betraying any industry secrets when we say that politicians have a tendency to flatter and to woo the donors on whom their livelihood depends. Even by political standards, though, Michelle Obama’s tribute to Anna Wintour was cloying, fulsome, and unctuous. It was also untrue. “I know that Anna hates being the center of attention,” Obama said, which is ridiculous, considering Wintour has been the basis for one movie, starred in another (nonfiction) one, appeared on the Late Show with Seth Myers a few days after the Met gala, and has visited the sets of Charlie Rose, the Colbert Report, 60 Minutes, the Late Show with David Letterman, and Entertainment Tonight. She is also in the habit of being photographed constantly. Camera shy Anna Wintour is not.

“Fashion isn’t an exclusive club for the few who can attend a runway show or shop at certain stores,” Michelle Obama went on, in what must have come as a shock to the exclusive club to which Obama was speaking, the club that meets seasonally in Manhattan, London, Paris, and Milan, that affects a knowing attitude towards the garishly attired models striding goofily down the runway, that shops not at Target and Wal-Mart, not at Macy’s or Bloomingdales, but at Versace and Valentino, at Dolce & Gabbana and Donna Karan.

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‘Gaming the System’: Email Reveals How Wyo. VA Workers Were Taught to Manipulate Records

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

An email obtained by Fox News Friday revealed that an employee at a Wyoming VA hospital instructed his workers to manipulate records to make it seem like patients were being seen within the agency’s required 14-day window, which he described as “gaming the system.”

Fox News has learned that the VA was informed of dubious scheduling practices at the Cheyenne VA Medical Center and at a community-based outpatient clinic in Fort Collins, Colorado, which is part of the Wyoming center, through an internal investigation in December 2013. The problems at and the investigation into the Fort Collins clinic were reported earlier this week.

However, the VA took no formal disciplinary action and did not order an independent probe into the matter until Friday, when Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said he learned of the email.

Now Rep. Jeff Miller, the chairman, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, is questioning why if the VA learned there were problems in December, the agency is only taking action now. He said Shinseki’s actions are “faux outrage at its finest.”

The June email signed by an employee named David Newman, a Telehealth coordinator at the Cheyenne center, describes to the workers methods they can use to manipulate records in the patient appointment system to comply with a VA policy that requires patients be seen within 14 days of their desired date of appointment.

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High School Suspends Texas Teenager for Refusing to Stand for The Pledge of Allegiance

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US FlagMason Michalec has said the Pledge of Allegiance since he was a young boy. The Needville High School student now says he doesn’t agree with the way the U.S. government is behaving and is now taking a stand – by not standing for the Pledge.

The high school sophomore spoke with KHOU.com that he loves his country, but doesn’t approve of how the U.S. government is acting.

“I’m really tired of our government taking advantage of us,” Michalec said. “I don’t agree with the NSA spying on us. And I don’t agree with any of those Internet laws.”

Read more from this story HERE.

American Officials in Nigeria to Help Find Kidnapped Girls as Report Says Government Had Warning of Attack

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

By Fox News.

American and British security experts are in northeastern Nigeria to help search for at least 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamic militants more than three weeks ago, as a new report suggests the Nigerian government did not respond to warnings of the impending attack.

At the same time, senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the search told Fox News the U.S. believes the schoolgirls have been broken up into smaller groups and may — or may not — still be in Nigeria.

A senior U.S. official also said there was some discussion about whether to send drones to help in the search, although they would need to be requested by the Nigerian government.

The kidnapping of more than 300 schoolgirls on April 15 in the town of Chibok has sparked accusations that the Nigerian government is not doing enough to stop the militants. While at least 53 of the girls—ranging in age from 16 to 18—escaped, the Nigerian government says 276 are still being held captive by the terrorists.

The American team was joined by six additional military officers and more are expected soon, said Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby. The U.S. officers will do a “gap analysis,” an assessment to identify what the Nigerian military needs that the U.S. could provide in the search for the girls, he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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MILLION WOMAN MARCH IN ABUJA, NIGERIAReport: US Unwilling to List Boko Haram as a Terror Group

By Drew MacKenzie.

The Obama administration was afraid to label Boko Haram a terrorist organization in 2012 because of concerns that it would result in the Islamic extremists becoming more powerful and more dangerous, U.S. officials told The Washington Times.

Sources told the newspaper that the government was reluctant to add the Nigerian-based group to its terror list over fears that it would enhance its reputation internationally, and therefore be able to recruit more members and carry out even more inhumane acts.

Now Boko Haram has exploded onto the world stage by kidnapping more than 300 Nigerian schoolgirls — 276 are still missing — with plans to possibly sell them off as slaves in the name of Islam – and even al-Qaida appears to be horrified by the abductions.

However, in June 2012 the State Department was only willing to designate just three of the group’s leaders as “global terrorists” with “close links” to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghrab (AQIM).

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Young Children Could Face Bullying Charges in City

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Photo Credit: Working Word / Flickr

Photo Credit: Working Word / Flickr

Children as young as kindergarten-age could face misdemeanor charges for bullying under a proposed law advancing in a Southern California city.

The Carson City Council gave preliminary approval this week to an ordinance that would target anyone from kindergarten to age 25 who makes another person feel “terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed or molested” with no legitimate purpose.

A final vote is set for May 20, according to the Daily Breeze (https://bit.ly/1g3JLNT ).

First-time offenders could be ticketed for an infraction and fined $100. A second infraction would cost $200, and a third-time offense could bring a criminal misdemeanor charge.

“If a child is bullying someone, and a parent has to pay a $100 fine as a result of that, a responsible parent will realize their child needs some help,” said Councilman Mike Gipson, who introduced the ordinance and is spearheading a campaign to make Carson bully-free.

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