NYT: Russia Withheld Information on Boston Bomber

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Photo Credit: Ninian Reid

Photo Credit: Ninian Reid

Russia withheld critical information from the FBI on one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects’ ties to radical Islam two years before the attacks that killed three Americans and injured more than 260 others — and those disclosures most likely would have triggered more investigation by authorities, The New York Times reports.

Russian officials told the FBI in 2011 that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police after the attacks, “was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer,” the Times says, citing a new report on how U.S. agencies could have stopped the bombings.

Moscow also told the agency that Tsarnaev “had changed drastically” as he met up with “unspecified underground groups,” during travels to the Dagestan region of Russia, according to the report.

But Moscow refused to provide any further information to the FBI despite the agency making “several” requests for more data, the Times reports.

“They found that the Russians did not provide all the information that they had on him back then, and based on everything that was available, the FBI did all that it could,” a top U.S. official briefed on the report told the Times.

Read more from this story HERE.

Miami Police Officer Charged with Helping Caribbean Drug Ring

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Photo Credit: Andy Rain / EPA

Photo Credit: Andy Rain / EPA

A high-ranking police officer was due to appear in a federal court in Miami on Wednesday to face allegations that he led a double life as a fixer for a violent Caribbean drugs gang.

Ralph Mata, a lieutenant in the internal affairs division of the Miami-Dade police department, smoothed the passage for large quantities of cocaine to be smuggled into the US from the Dominican Republic in pallets of bananas, according to the indictment against him.

Mata, nicknamed the Milk Man by FBI investigators, provided weapons and sensitive law enforcement information to his paymasters, the complaint alleges, and received a $10,000 Rolex watch and many thousands more dollars in cash for regularly transporting drugs proceeds to and from the Caribbean.

He also came up with a plot to murder a rival gang’s leaders using hired assassins dressed in police uniforms, it is claimed, although the plan was never carried out.

Mata was due to appear before federal magistrate judge Alicia Otazo-Reyes on Wednesday afternoon to hear felony charges of aiding and abetting a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, conspiring to distribute cocaine and engaging in transactions derived from specified unlawful activity.

Read more from this story HERE.

“I Wouldn’t Be Here if Not for Him” Woman Says Unborn Baby Saved Her From Cancer

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

We’ve reported these kinds of stories before at LifeNews. A woman becomes pregnant and, because of pregnancy, she discovered cancer or some other medical condition that may very well have gone untreated and potentially claimed her life.

Although doctors sometimes suggest an abortion when a woman battling cancer is pregnant, in the case of Amy Hansen of Fort Collins, Colorado, she firmly believes she owes her life today to her unborn child.

Collins was diagnosed with ovarian cancer just weeks after learning she was pregnant with her first son. The 29-year-old tells the local newspaper she firmly believes her pregnancy and her son saved her life and now she wants others to know they can deal with cancer and carry a baby to term at the same time.

Studies show women don’t need to have an abortion and can safely seek chemo treatment during pregnancy.

Read her story HERE.

Heartbleed: Hundreds of Thousands of Servers at Risk from Catastrophic Bug

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Photo Credit: Codenomicon

Photo Credit: Codenomicon

Hundreds of thousands of web and email servers worldwide have a software flaw that lets attackers steal the cryptographic keys used to secure online commerce and web connections, experts say.

They could also leak personal information to hackers when people carry out searches or log into email.

The bug, called “Heartbleed”, affects web servers running a package called OpenSSL.

Among the systems confirmed to be affected are Imgur, OKCupid, Eventbrite, and the FBI’s website, all of which run affected versions of OpenSSL. Attacks using the vulnerability are already in the wild: one lets a hacker look at the cookies of the last person to visit an affected server, revealing personal information. Connections to Google are not vulnerable, researchers say.

SSL is the most common technology used to secure websites. Web servers that use it securely send an encryption key to the visitor; that is then used to protect all other information coming to and from the server.

Read more from this story HERE.

The War for the GOP

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

By WND.

It’s a crazy situation: Conservative-minded Americans – people who a generation ago were part of the “Reagan Revolution,” and today might identify with the “tea party” – are caught up in not just one, but two civil wars.

The first conflict everyone knows about: America is more polarized today than at any time in the last century.

Arrayed on one side are the forces for limited government, free-market capitalism and traditional morality, people who believe less government means more freedom, and that the “American Dream” depends primarily on self-governing, moral and religious people. Members of this side self-identify predominantly as Republicans.

On the other side are those who consider the first group to be unfair, unjust, unfeeling, selfish, intolerant, racist and predatory – and maybe evil. It is this side, which looks to government to solve virtually all problems, that currently dominates American government, media, education and culture. Members of this side self-identify overwhelmingly as Democrats.

That’s War No. 1.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Famous Republicans targeted for dumpster

By WND.

A conservative giant in Washington, D.C., has written a brand-new book that certainly won’t increase his chances of getting invited to cocktail parties inside the Beltway.

Known as the “funding father of conservatism,” Richard Viguerie’s “Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It” takes sides in what he describes as a century-old war for the soul of the Republican Party.

Released nationwide today, it offers a blueprint for how liberty-loving, small government conservatives can win the battle against big-government Republicans…

Target No. 1 is Karl Rove

Viguerie writes that Karl Rove “has grown wealthy by promoting the idea that content-free campaigns, rather than conservative principles, are the path to victory for the Republican Party.”

“His record of 22 losses to 9 wins in 2012 shows the folly of the Republican establishment in following Rove’s advice.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Pelosi: We’re Keeping the Employer Mandate No Matter What Gibbs’ Clients Want (+video)

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Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey / Creative Commons

Last week, former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs suggested that the employer mandate in ObamaCare would not survive, and he certainly has reason to think so. The White House keeps unilaterally changing the enforcement date and the parameters of the mandate, clearly hoping to escape political accountability for it when it finally takes effect. Yesterday, Candy Crowley asked Nancy Pelosi if Gibbs was right, but the House Minority Leader dismissed Gibbs’ prediction as just Gibbs speaking on behalf of his corporate clients:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Sunday that former top Obama aide Robert Gibbs’s comment that the employer mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act won’t survive might be related to Gibbs’s business interests.

“I don’t know who his clients are or what his perspective is,” Pelosi told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But we are celebrating the fact that we have over seven million who have signed up.” …

Asked again about Gibbs on Sunday, Pelosi expressed exasperation that his comments would be given such prominence. “I don’t know why we’re focusing on that,” she told CNN. “One person says one thing. Seven million people signed up.”

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Survey: Employers Beat Obamacare in Covering Uninsured

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Yuri Gripas

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Yuri Gripas

Employer-sponsored coverage has accounted for the bulk of a recent drop in the uninsured population, according to a RAND Corporation study released Tuesday, not Obamacare.

When it comes to the previously uninsured, 7.2 million gained employer-sponsored coverage, 3.6 million gained Medicaid and just 1.4 million signed up through Obamacare exchanges through the survey’s conclusion on March 28.

With employer-based coverage providing most of the bump in coverage, it will be difficult to attribute the gains to the health care law, given the two-year delay of the employer mandate.

The in-depth survey’s finding was previewed by the Los Angeles Times, which reported last week that just one-third of exchange sign ups were previously uninsured. The full results of the study are now public and through mid-March, 3.9 million people were enrolled in marketplace plans. Just 1.4 million of those did not have prior health coverage.

The authors collected data through March 28 and acknowledged that the survey didn’t include the surge of so-called enrollments in the final days of the month, which brought the Obama administration’s total to 7.1 million, or the ongoing enrollment that’s available through April 15. But the bulk of the uninsured that highly anticipated purchasing subsidized health insurance on the exchanges would have been more likely to purchase coverage right away. The study did not determine how many enrollees had paid for their health plans.

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WATCH: Charles Krauthammer Hits Jeb Bush Comments

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Photo Credit: John Shinkle / POLITICO

Photo Credit: John Shinkle / POLITICO

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer says comments from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush about immigration being an act of love were “bizarre,” predicting that when the Republican enters the presidential race, those words will come back to haunt him.

“If he was feeling any optimism before that interview, I think it’s gone away after the interview,” Krauthammer said on Fox News’s “Special Report” Monday night of comments Bush made to Fox News Channel over the weekend.

Bush had told the network in the interview that illegal immigration should not be a felony, but is “an act of love. It’s an act of commitment to your family.”

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John Boehner Cries at Taco Bell Event

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Photo Credit: US News

Photo Credit: US News

On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, started to sob at a Taco Bell event, but it wasn’t because the salsa was too spicy.

Boehner made a brief cameo at a gathering sponsored by the Taco Bell Foundation for Teens and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, as the former gave the latter $30 million to help teens graduate from high school. (Taco Bell employs many teens, so that’s the connection.)

“Some of you know how I am about these things,” Boehner said, choking back tears while praising the work of the Boys & Girls Clubs. “We need to do a better job at educating more American kids. We live in America, for goodness’ sake.”

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House Committee: Possible Crimes by IRS Official

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee says investigators have uncovered evidence that a former Internal Revenue Service official may have committed crimes as part of the agency’s tea party controversy.

Rep. Dave Camp set a committee vote for Wednesday on whether to refer Lois Lerner, who used to head the agency’s tax-exempt division, to the Justice Department “for possible criminal prosecution.”

Camp, R-Mich., did not specify which laws Lerner may have broken.

Lerner’s lawyer, William W. Taylor III, has said she broke no laws. On Monday, Taylor emailed this response to Camp’s announcement: “One word: Ridiculous.”

Camp’s committee has been investigating the IRS for nearly a year. Unlike other House committees, Ways and Means has access to confidential taxpayer information as part of its investigation.

Read more from this story HERE.