Bill Maher: “There Is A Gay Mafia — If You Cross Them, You Do Get Whacked”

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Real Clear Politics.

In the online-only “Overtime” portion of his HBO show Real Time, host Bill Maher weighed in on the Mozilla controversy, and did not react in a way that you would think. Maher seemed to disagree with gay rights activists for targeting Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich because of a 2008 donation to support a ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage in California.

“Well, and he gave it when President Obama was still against gay marriage. So, I don’t think it’s very fair,” guest panelist fmr. Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) said.

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Photo Credit: Sammy James Dodds / Flickr

Photo Credit: Sammy James Dodds / Flickr

It’s Complicated: When A CEO’s Personal Position Becomes Public

By Elise Hu.

The Mozilla controversy that played out over the past two weeks bursts with ironies. And this one is perhaps the most prominent: The free speech that Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich spent his life’s work defending and enabling — and an open-Web revolution Eich helped lead — drove his unseating. It raises questions about how a company leader’s personal convictions should be judged.

After a public, pitched debate over whether Eich was fit to lead given his 2008 donation to California’s Proposition 8, which defined marriage as only between a man and a woman, Eich decided for himself that he wasn’t. He resigned Thursday despite many Mozillians who came to his defense, in response to other Mozillians who called for his ouster.

The Web as it is today might not exist without the brilliant technologist Eich. He invented JavaScript, was an early architect of the Web and co-founded Mozilla, the company and foundation behind the popular Internet browser Firefox. His passion for the Web and its users has always been clear. In a late 2013 interview, he described his charge as “working on the Web and working on making sure the user is king or queen of their experience.”

At Mozilla, putting users first, openness and inclusiveness are core to the organization’s beliefs — and operations. Mozilla’s technology is created in public — in stark contrast to its competitors like Microsoft and Google — and as it became clear when Eich was named CEO, its internal debates are quite public, too.

“This is an organization that is extremely transparent, where a number of employees had said, I don’t feel comfortable being led by this person,” says Anil Dash, a technology startup founder and a longtime Mozilla community member. “It’s been polarizing because this seemed in contradiction to a lot of the values of openness that the organization helped create has espoused.”

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Congressman’s Lament: $174,000 Isn’t Enough To Make Ends Meet

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

In what world does an annual salary of $174,000 meet the definition of underpaid?

That would be in the nation’s capital, where soon-to-be-retired Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., said Americans should know that their members of Congress — as the board of directors for the “largest economic entity in the world” — are underpaid.

The longtime congressman made his comments Thursday after the House voted for the sixth straight year to deny members an automatic cost-of-living raise they’re entitled to under law.

Not surprisingly, reaction to Moran’s assertion was swift and derisive.

“Tone deaf,” wrote Daniel Doherty at the conservative Town Hall website.

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Watchdog: State Department Can’t Fully Account for $6B Worth of Contracts

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The State Department has a “serious” problem accounting for how it has spent billions of dollars on contracts all over the world, according to the official watchdog that oversees the sprawling department.

The Office of Inspector General, in a March 20 “management alert” to department leaders, said the department has failed to provide all or some of the files for $6 billion worth of contracts in the last six years.

“The failure to maintain contract files adequately creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions,” the memo said.

This apparently is not a new or isolated problem. The memo said investigators and auditors have found “repeated examples of poor contract file administration” and have called this one of the department’s “major management challenges” for several years.

The alert cited one example where contracting officials could not provide dozens of files for contracts supporting the U.S. Mission in Iraq. The value of the contracts in the missing files? $2.1 billion.

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DHS Official: US Not ‘Routinely’ Notified When Sex Offenders Enter the Country (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP / Elaine Thompson

Photo Credit: AP / Elaine Thompson

A Homeland Security Department official testified Friday before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security that U.S. authorities are not “routinely” notified when foreign sex offenders enter the United States.

“We can receive information on foreign criminal records, and in fact the NCB (National Central Bureau) is the vehicle through which 190 countries can communicate, and there are … registered sex offenders, but routinely, that information actually would not come unless there’s a specific case or a specific law enforcement inquiry,” Alan Bersin, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary of International Affairs and Chief Diplomatic Officer, told the subcommittee.

The hearing was called to examine the issue of passport security in light of the recent revelation that two Iranians boarded missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 using stolen passports.

Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) asked whether INTERPOL would be alerted if a sex offender from Germany, for instance, flew into the U.S.

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9-Month Old Pakistani Boy Arrested for Attempted Murder, Threatening Police

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Photo Credit: nerissa's ring / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: nerissa’s ring / Creative Commons

A nine-month-old Pakistani boy sat on his father’s lap, sucking on a bottle during a court appearance where he and at least 30 others were charged with attempted murder.

Little Muhammad Mosa Khan was also charged with threatening police and interfering in state affairs at a Pakistan court Thursday. Khan and others in the group were booked following a police raid to catch suspected gas thieves in the city of Lahore, The Times of India reported.

Police say the suspects tried to kill security officers by throwing stones at them. But Khan’s father, Ahmed—who is also accused– says the crowd was protesting an electricity shortage.

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Inmates Getting Coverage Under ObamaCare, as States Shift Cost to Feds

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

The Obama administration often touts that people with pre-existing conditions and countless others can now get covered under ObamaCare. But there’s another group that’s starting to benefit from the law — prison inmates.

Cash-strapped state and local prisons increasingly are using the Affordable Care Act to pay for their inmates’ medical costs, taking advantage of a little-known provision that lets them shift some of those expenses to the federal government.

Ohio, Illinois and Iowa are among the states trying to offload the rising costs of health care – which include mental health programs – by enrolling inmates into a new expanded Medicaid program when they get sick.

But it doesn’t stop there. The states also are working to enroll them even before they’re released from prison, so they have coverage when they get out.

Currently, 26 states and the District of Columbia are proceeding with a Medicaid expansion which allows them to extend medical coverage to single and childless adults. Jail operators in at least a half-dozen of those states are then, using that criteria, extending coverage to inmates. The shift means the federal government would pay some emergency costs that used to be entirely covered by the states and counties — plus, inmates are starting to get coverage for when they leave.

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U.S. Taps New Energy Sources, And Potential Geopolitical Clout

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Photo Credit: David McNew / Getty Images

Photo Credit: David McNew / Getty Images

The recent oil and natural gas boom in the U.S. is paying major dividends for Washington’s geopolitical clout. Thanks to hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. is awash in domestic energy, which is having a ripple effect globally.

If you want to gauge one effect of this newfound energy wealth, you don’t have to look any further than the current crisis between Russia and Ukraine, says Michael Levi, a senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He says the U.S. would be reacting very differently to what’s happening now if it was still a big natural gas importer. There’s concern Moscow could cut natural gas supplies to the Ukraine, which, in turn, would disrupt the flow to much of Europe.

Even five years ago, Levi says, Washington would have been alarmed that European nations could turn to U.S. suppliers, driving up the cost.

“We would be asking ourselves with every policy option we face: Will this disrupt markets and come back to hurt the U.S. economy? We’re not asking ourselves that question, because we’re not dependent on imports,” he says. “That’s a surprise — and a good one.”

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Japan Orders Military to Strike Any New North Korea Missile Launches

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Issei Kato

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Issei Kato

Japan has ordered a destroyer in the Sea of Japan to strike any ballistic missiles that may be launched by North Korea in the coming weeks after Pyongyang fired a Rodong medium-range missile over the sea, a government source said on Saturday.

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera issued the order on Thursday, but did not make it public in order to avoid putting a chill on renewed talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang, the first in more than a year, local media reported earlier.

“The defense minister made the order from April 3rd through to the 25th to prepare for any additional missile launches,” the source said.

Onodera, the source said, did not deploy Patriot missile batteries that would be the last line of defense against incoming warheads.

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Top Senate Republican Says Obama ‘Disarmed America’

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Photo Credit: AFP / Getty Images / Mandel Ngan

Photo Credit: AFP / Getty Images / Mandel Ngan

The ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the Obama administration has left the United States vulnerable to a growing list of enemies.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) introduced a resolution Thursday to put Moldova on the U.S.’s radar, arguing that it’s another country now vulnerable to Russian aggression. Inhofe told TheBlaze he hopes it will send a message that the former Soviet state, located between Russia, Turkey and European Union, is not up for grabs. He admitted, however, there is little the U.S. can do militarily to stop Moscow’s aggression if President Vladimir Putin chooses to move forward.

“Here’s the problem, our military leaders admit we are weakened to the point that we cannot do one longterm contingency plan,” Inhofe told TheBlaze after Thursday’s hearing on the Defense Authorization Request for fiscal year 2015. “What do you think is going through the minds of potential adversaries out there? Our enemies don’t fear us, our friends don’t trust us — this is what the Obama administration has done. We have a direct interest in that part of the world. While Obama disarmed America, [our enemies] have been expanding in every area.”

The resolution also stresses that a “stable Europe is a key priority for the United States, and this can only be achieved if the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity are respected,” Inhofe said.

Russia currently has 40,000 troops on the Ukrainian eastern border and roughly 1,200 near the Moldova border. U.S. intelligence officials access that there is a strong possibility that Putin is also preparing to move those troops toward Moldova in the near future, much like he did in last month’s annexation of Crimea.

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Why Does John Boehner Want to Keep 40 Million Americans From Buying Guns?

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Photo Credit: Yahoo

Photo Credit: Yahoo

By Philip Bump.

Reacting to the shooting at Fort Hood on Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner reiterated a popular NRA talking point: “There’s no question that those with mental health issues should be prevented from owning weapons or being able to purchase weapons.” Those suffering the same diagnosed illnesses as the shooter — depression and anxiety — might be surprised by Boehner’s willingness to take away their Second Amendment rights.

Ivan Lopez, the alleged shooter, was being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder at the base, where he was stationed and lived with his wife. According to CNN, Lopez “was undergoing a variety of treatments for conditions including depression, anxiety and sleep disturbances,” according to Army Secretary John McHugh. Lopez “was prescribed drugs that included Ambien” and “was fully examined last month by a psychiatrist.”

An estimated one-in-10 Americans suffers from depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That’s about 31 million people, skewed told older people and women. The National Institutes of Health puts those suffering from “major depressive disorder” at the lower figure of 14.8 million. As for anxiety? The NIH says that 40 million Americans suffer from that.

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Fort Hood Shooter Enraged at Army Over Mom’s Funeral

By Bob Fredericks and Post Wires.

Authorities on Thursday were still investigating why an Iraq War veteran shot and killed three people and wounded 16 others at Texas’ Fort Hood before committing suicide — and have not ruled out terrorism.

“We’re going to keep an open mind. … Possible extremist involvement is still being looked at very, very carefully,” Army Secretary John McHugh told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

Authorities said gunman Ivan Lopez, 34, enlisted in the Army in 2008 and served four months in Iraq but never saw combat and was not wounded in action, but was still being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder.

“We do not know a motive,” Lt. Gen. Mark Milley said. “We do know that this soldier had behavioral health and mental health issues, and was being treated for that.”

Lopez was a native of Puerto Rico who was married with children and had other relatives living near the Fort Hood area, where 13 people were murdered in 2009 in an attack by a soldier who had embraced radical Islam.

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